Oh, as for driving, DS20 has his permit as of end of July…he’s driven twice. He is SO nervous and I don’t think I help that. Plus, as of recently we had 2 cars with issues and the other is a manual and given his nerves he doesn’t need that. I’m slowly trying to make things uncomfortable for him-less convenient for us to take to work/pick up, more waiting, etc. He will be a great driver, but he’s scared, and that’s ok, but I could really use another driver around here with 3 other kids with activities-he may have admitted at one point that driving them around does not motivate him to drive, lol.
Wow, kids are starting already! Best of luck to all of the Aug starters!
DS20 starts the first week of September, though preseason starts earlier.
My son goes back in two weeks, we just received schedule, we are not over doing APs and such this year. We have our first solo college tour next week (he went on some with D2015). I hope he likes this one, right now this is one of my favorites for him. This child is very different from my first, so I am having to look at everything differently.
We had registration today, school starts in 2 weeks. 5 APs plus cross country and swim.
thursday start date for my two still at home; 5 APs and cross country too. and swim class. I’m hoping he can focus!
Another XC kid here. He will be taking 3APs and some extra lab classes. Foreign language and History will thankfully not be AP.
I am hopeful that he will be done with SATs this month or in October.
D doesn’t start until after Labor Day. HS doesn’t have APs but she has two “advanced” classes (sort of AP equivalent) - bio and studio art. Adding an online Chinese course through her school, which will join French and Latin. This kiddo loves her languages! For ECs there’s soccer, theater, mock trial and more art. Gonna be a busy year.
@Dancingmom518 That is great that she is learning all of those languages! So cool!
DD got her schedule and it includes the math teacher she wanted!!! We are finally free of the other one that both kids suffered through. Three APs, an Honors course, the 4th year of FL, and math. Busy but doable. Classes start in a week.
School starts here too so no longer need to use “rising” in front of the junior 
We toured a few colleges, Rice - moved down from the list. We went there mainly because it has an amazing music program, well the school spent so much time talking about its pre-professional blah blah, didn’t even show us their performance hall, lol. Anyone who wants to do pre-med tho, it looks like an awesome place. Smack in the middle of one of the largest (if not the largest) medical centers of the world, walking distance to lots of hospitals and Houston is a pretty “cool” city (hot in temp and the food scene is delicious).
Harvey Mudd - love. It. The core curriculum sounds intimidating but also brilliant! It really combines the best of both worlds, very small school itself with huge individual attention, most kids living on campus four years while at the same time, has other four colleges and 6000 students to branch out. The AO is also pretty open about requiring math II subject test and at least full year each of math, physics, and chemistry. Cons: no music program (but could cross register at Pomona); Claremont is nothing much in itself and going to LA is not a quick trip; and we could see all the “smogginess” from a nearby wildfires.
Reed - Portland is a very nice city, but the vibe at Reed is not for us. It is very true that people seek out Reed, and we are glad that we came since finding fits is one of the main purposes of college tours. Senior thesis is a great concept for kids who really know what he/she want to do, but spending a full year working on it in college seems to be specializing way too early.
Thanks @makemesmart for the feedback from your visits. Sounds like it was productive. DS has been too busy (had to cancel Pitt visit :(), but we plan to visit 2 colleges next week.
Good luck to all those who’ve already started on sports and classes. We’ve got a few more weeks. Finally taking our vacay next week!!! 
Schools that require a senior thesis end up with higher percentages of grads admitted to grad school, especially into PhD programs. The thesis shows that they already know how to research and write about it. The actual thesis topic is often not very important to students’ future; it might just be a subtopic of the advising professor’s interest. The value is in the production, not so much in the finished product.
Yes, Reed sends a lot of its graduates to elite PhD program and it has long since stopped playing the “ranking” game, which drastically impacted its USWNR’s ranking, there are folks who believe Reed would be in the top 10 or at least top 20 academically. Also, Reed believes in inclusiveness, which is the reason that they don’t do varsity sports/no NCAA, anyone can join sports clubs if they want to. There had been some protests about its humanity 110 course, which is a year-long course that every incoming student has to take, and the school made curriculum adjustment following some of the students’ demands, our tour guide was pretty impressed with the admin’s willingness to listen to the students.
It is just not a good fit for my DS.
Just catching up after a busy few weeks.
School doesn’t start here until after Labor Day. D20 doesn’t even get her class schedule until the end this week. She has her permit, but probably won’t test for her license until spring. Parking is limited at our HS. Only seniors are allowed parking permits, and they have to sign up with another senior to share a spot and carpool.
@Octagon Just curious as to why you called out CS as a “not as good” major at McGill? McGill is a prospect for D20, and we’re in the US, so we were looking at the CS program out of the faculty of arts because it can be made a nearly identical program to the faculty of science CS program at a much lower cost for international students.
Now on to our second child, DS who is HS class 2020.
Eldest DD HS 2018 just starts this week at USC doing CS games on a nearly full ride.
Meanwhile, DS is too pig headed to be a good student, with a GPA 2.95 while SAT of 1470. I blame his having read Harry Potter back in 2nd grade, as he has been at war with the adult academic world ever since. We now have one and half years to find an affordable college which will accept our problematic DS. Looking at WashStateUniv, UnivMiss, UTD, or the fall back of the small local college where I teach.
I know this thread, from following DD HS 2018, is stacked towards HYPSM kids, but there are still those 3.0 gpa families in this process also.
I don’t recall my previous post but I don’t mean to imply that McGill does not have a great CS program - only that some other programs are ranked a bit higher by both reputation and ranking systems (such as U of Waterloo). McGill’s CS program is ranked fourth for Canada for according to one rating system that I found. McGill as a whole has a great reputation in both Canada and America and is a great value for Americans. Plus Montreal is such a cool place to live for a few years.
@sekere62 I agree that CC can be a bit surreal, where it feels like everyone is good-looking and above average.
My experience on the parents of 2017 thread (several of which are here also) was that it was extremely supportive and helpful across the board, and not everyone went to HYPSM (including my D17, who is at Temple), and I expect this thread to be the same!
@Octagon thanks for the clarification. We’re probably going to go to McGill for their open house in October. We’re in NY, so it’s not that long of a drive. DD20 loved the UToronto campus (we were in Toronto to see Wicked a few weeks ago so we did a walk-through), but UToronto international tuition is just too expensive for this family!
@sekere62 I rarely click on this thread even though I constantly get notifications bc I made the mistake of posting in it last yr. Our dd20 is our 6th child, an extreme introvert, a homebody, and totally type B. She won’t even talk about going away to college. She insists she is going to commute to the local directional U. She is a great student, but she is not driven toward a career. She just wants to work locally after pursuing a CS degree.
Some of my older kids were just naturally academically competitive and fit the CC student profile even if they were not bound for CC target schools. (My kids chase merit.) But, this Dd is adamant that she is not going through the college app process or college yrs in any way, shape or form similar to her older siblings.
No biggie from my perspective. I am sure she will have the life she wants for herself. Only on CC is high-powered, high paying, high profile careers the sole goal.
DS20 is not an Ivy candidate. He has the smarts, but had depression issues that impacted his school attendance and grades last year. He finished the year very meh, but he’s still alive and has made an incredible comeback. He got a 5 on his first AP test (Gov’t and Pol) and has been social and fun to be around this summer. I am hopeful he can bring the grades back up this year. He currently has a 2.93 uw and a 3.4ish w. I hope he can bring it up to a 3.3/3.4 uw this year and then he may be one who waits until his first quarter senior grades are in to continue to show an upward trend. Anyway, all that to say, I’m glad we have a wide variety of kids and posters in this group! We will also be impacted by finances because he is the first of 4 and we will be full-pay.
My D20 is likely headed to a less selective university, and it’s her choice. Earlier in our college search, we attended an info session and tour at MIT. The tension in the MIT presentation room was palpable, with parents literally raising their child’s own hand for them when the presenter asked simple questions. The MIT student tour guides were outgoing and friendly, but the potential students looked unhappy and didn’t talk at all. I’m sure it was just a bad day for that info session/tour, but that experience at MIT turned my D off of highly selective schools. She now wants to go to a big public university with lots of school spirit, a marching band, and an honors college - she has a preference for universities with really nice dorms, too, lol. Fortunately she has good grades and can possibly get accepted to a more selective university next year if she changes her mind.