My D18 was a part of a similar ceremony last year for her sport. Seniors were introduced with where they hope to attend college, as well as their intended major.
If it were my kid, I’d be nervous about him/her publicly announcing the dream school, especially a huge reach.
Wow, that is really odd.
I think it’s horrible. It just adds to the stress level these kids are already under. Way too many are fixated on the dream school to begin with, why emphasize it even more by announcing it to the entire school?
Our juniors are initiated in to the NHS at end of year and the outgoing seniors have already committed so they do announce where they are going.
I agree, horrible. Hopkins has a 13% admit rate. MIT and Princeton are 8% and 7%. It’s a lottery, even for the best students.
@VickiSoCal - our HS is the same. Ceremony takes place after 5/1 so everyone can safely announce. Since I also have an S19, I know given how we feel right now, I would be feeling like announcing a top choice would “jinx” it. Silly I am sure but this process is beyond stressful and tensions are high enough already. I am taking notes to see what can be done at all differently next year for S20 to limit any unnecessary stress.
@Nicki20 That is strange as most schools have not sent acceptances yet. Just rolling admission schools. Early Action/Decision application deadline is typically November 1. The more selective schools will announce early (decision and action) mid-December then regular decision in March. Some schools have a second round of ED with decisions in February but it’s a small number of schools.
This is my take on all this. 15 seniors were admitted with the 40 juniors. My feeling is that there maybe another ceremony. Of the 40-45 who already were in 7 or 8 mentioned the dream schools. I be willing to bet 3-4 will get in. I also think most people by May will forget what schools everyone said.
Same type of thing happened here. Our star senior quarterback announced during a ceremony that he is going to West Point. Poor kid doesn’t even know the complicated process to apply there! I think he thinks it’s just as easy as signing up.
@hgtvaddict The service academies may be recruiting athletes already. We have a family friend who plays two sports and has announced plans to go to Annapolis. Keep in mind that there are multiple pathways to service academies other than Congressional nominations. It is possible that recruited athletes are already getting LOAs, which is pretty much an acceptance.
@tutumom2001 thanks for the information, I wasn’t aware of that:)
@hgtvaddict They aren’t as common. Really the only reason I know about them is because my father went to WP and I had a recruiter contact me in high school. (Not being military material, I chose a different school.) The student still has to have the qualities to be admitted, and a LOA (letter of assurance) doesn’t really mean that student will be admitted. And, from what I’ve heard, many of these kids also ask for Congressional nominations to increase their chances.
http://www.west-point.org/academy/malo-wa/educators/noms.html
Just got into the schoology and clicked on the NHS site since daughter didn’t have access till yesterday. The sponsorr entered this on there on October 17th for the kids already in NHS. They were supposed to put this on the google sign up. “Please list your planned major and collegeof choice to be read at induction. Feel free to go with best case scenerio but keep it vaguely realistic”.
Attended DS20’s college kickoff event For juniors and parents, my reading and learning on CC is preparing me well, at least theoreticallly. Lol.
My take home two-cents form the kick off are about essay writing, the AO from a local college thinks the purposes of essay are mainly two folds: 1) to tell the school something new about you that hasn’t been reflected (a lot) in the other part of the application; 2) show the school of your (excellent) communication skills.
Hope SATs went well for anyone who took them. S20 thought it went well. He had an experimental math section - half of his room had math with calculator and half without for that section. He was able to switch from essay to no essay this morning (we missed the online deadline to switch).
I see that some students have accepted their NHS invitations to join. What exactly is NHS about?
@MA2012 , glad your S thought it went well! My S2 (as in my second son, who is class of '20!) had an experimental grammar/writing section on Saturday. Overall he felt it went reasonably well.
As I think somebody already posted, NHS is really not “national,” despite the name. What’s true at one school doesn’t necessarily hold at another. And then there are all the Independent and other schools that don’t have NHS at all. They often have Cum Laude instead, but even Cum Laude chapters can call their own shots as to criteria. And then there are, apparently, some schools that seem to have both.
MOST schools with some form of honor society, whatever they call it and whatever its individual rules are, “tap” or admit students in two waves, one in junior year and one in senior year. But guess what, there are exceptions even to that.
NHS varies a ton by school.
At our school you join at end of junior year. There is a nice ceremony celebrating the outgoing seniors and welcoming the next class. Officers for the following year are selected by the adviser. They get candles passed by the outgoing class.
During senior year you have to sign up for a mandatory number of after school tutoring hours. The adviser sets this up and has slots. The officers do NOTHING. IF you miss tutoring hours you get booted.
Lather, rinse, repeat for new class.
S20 got his license last week and is officially driving himself to places. I felt I just calmed down from checking D’s location every time she drove away. It is all over again.
First marking period ends tomorrow. Even though he is not doing exceptionally well academically, he seems to be pretty relaxed by Junior year standard.