It IS awful for an exam score to be held as tantamount to their capacity, value, potential. In the application process the exam scores have come to be the compass rose on our kids’ road maps.
It feels awful to see them disappointed, and for them to turn that disappointment into statements of self-worth which have them devaluing themselves.
I’m with socaldad2002 in thinking that throwing a little bit of headshake into the existence of our superbrights is a good thing. They are bright, brave and forward moving, and they will rebound.
@typiCAmom : Don’t hold out too much …guilt? concern? … for the kid your kid displaces (bah, humbug!) at places like Stanford. The superbrights have lots of options.
The Stanfords of the world have to take someone to fill out their enrollment, and why not your kid? Don’t you tell her that she is brilliant? Doesn’t she tell herself she is that special?
I hope so, because if/when she gets there she will need to hold on to that during the moments when she interacts with the supernovas.
Are there any California schools without impacted majors anymore? We have a friend from here in the Midwest whose daughter went to Berkeley (full pay) over so many better financial options. Smart girl, for sure. Her parents tell us she is having a tough time getting classes she needs. She will probably not graduate in 4 years as this point. Not sure if she was getting really poor advising, or what happened.
Also, D says the ACT was tough today. She says she prefers the SAT format…but we will have to compare scores to figure out a path forward. We are following the money, so there is no drama about admissions, just merit.
Yes there are non impacted majors at most schools. If you are a STEM major, you need to start planning early in order to fit a year of calc, chem, physics and bio in your first couple of years.
Each UC does class registration differently. At UCSB (and I believe Cal as well) you sign up for the lab separate from the lecture so it is possible to get into a lab but not get into the lecture. At Davis, you choose the lab and lecture (and discussion section) as a package. When we toured UCSD the guide said that their first pass is limited to 11.5 units so that everyone has a chance to get classes. Not sure if it works as efficiently as it sounds.
@Waiting2exhale, yes, I think my daughter is pretty smart, a beautiful writer, and just a wonderful girl, but she is more of a scholar than an innovator. She likes working within the rules, not breaking them, that’s why she likes Mock Trial and would probably make an excellent attorney if she ends up going to law school. Yes, she could get a lot from Stanford, but she won’t get as much out of the place plus Silicon Valley as an entrepreneurial kid. UCLA on the other hand has a program that is tailored so well to my daughter’s aspirations, she could truly thrive and become a star there. I think deep down she understands it, too, but she also recognizes UCLA’s limitations, namely, difficulty getting desired courses, much less flexibility in changing majors, much less handholding and support (she skipped a grade, and while she’s pretty mature for her age, sometimes just the idea of being younger than everyone else scares her).
Again, the more I read these acceptance threads, the more I’m convinced I have an average excellent kid, not an exceptional one (doesn’t mean I am any less proud of her). I hope it doesn’t make me a bad mom to admit that at the moment D is extra-special only for her family and friends. I see a happy, successful career in front of her, but nothing world-shattering. She still has a shot at Stanford because of her interest in a somewhat unpopular major, but I calculate her chances of being admitted as high as getting NMF, and I’m not losing any sleep waiting for PSAT results. And I can’t predict where she’d be happier, at Stanford or UCLA. I just know she’d most likely be miserable at Harvard or Yale during winter, and she knows it, too - she feels better when the sun is shining. Anyway, it will all work out in the end
We will wait on both PSAT results (we won’t be able to get them till CB release on12/12) and ACT results the following week. Given reported curve, I don’t hold out any illusions about S20 making NMSF cutoff here but it will be good to get results for feedback purposes. ACT - who knows but he really wants to be one and done with official testing. I have decided to not discuss anything remotely concerning testing/college until results are in. I feel like mid-junior year is already too much for these kids.
D20 finds out PSAT results on 12/12, too. She’s stressed now with preparing for finals and trying hard to bring up a B+ grade to an A in AP Calc, so I haven’t brought up the subject of the PSAT at all with her. She’ll probably get a good, but not outstanding score - our state has a very high cutoff. Standardized testing has never been her thing. NMF would be great, since many of the universities she likes give NMFs full rides, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Its remarkable that some universities give a complete education in exchange for just one test result. Some of the correlating gpa requirements for NMF at these unis aren’t even that high (like Alabama’s at 3.5), and don’t even specify what kind of rigor the student had to have taken in high school. If my D24 eventually wants to go to schools with NMF full rides, I will help her more with test prep and won’t worry too much about whether she has a perfect gpa or rigor. I bet she will be less stressed than her sister, as a result.
@bigmacbeth I am too lazy to use a VPN, but I may have my daughter to check since she is in DC which gets the results on 12/10. My son isn’t too pressed for answers (even though he is putting his chances at getting the SI needed at 50/50) so we may just wait it out to 12/11 in GA.
@hgtvaddict I had the same rant that so much is decided on one test early in junior year. I have wondered how the numbers look, but I would bet the vast majority of 16K NMSFs have lots of rigor (because that rigor may help the students as standardized test takers). The rigor also helps a lot once in college to keep those scholarships with GPA requirements. So it is hard to say which way is truly best.
Many of the ‘full ride’ NMF schools usually have darn good merit for stats (GPA/ACT/SAT) as well. And, other schools that don’t have large NMF schollys can have good merit…and they are not all in the South. My D17 goes to a Big 10 school, OOS, for considerably less than our in-state flagship due to her stats. All is not lost for high-stat-non-NMF kids, as we found out.
I’m not disappointed or anything about the NMF full rides. I just realize now that I possibly could have taken a different approach with my D and she could have reached her goals just the same, less stressed overall, and debt-free. Lesson learned for the next kid.
@chb088 commended is announced in the spring - I believe in March. Last spring I found out on CC first and then Art at compass prep posted his analysis. Our principal also notified all kids that were at least commended and above around then as well.
@hgtvaddict I understand exactly where you are coming from. We have definitely made adjustments from child 1 to child 2. My kids are pretty different from one another which caused a big part of the adjustment. As far as dealing with stress, I am in the minority in that I wanted to see how my kids reacted to stress while at home (so we could help them learn how to cope if needed). I probably even “manufactured” some stress at some point because life can be pretty nice in the suburbs (But that was a mistake, because life already has enough stress). One of my big fears is sending my kids to college without the skills necessary to deal with life’s hiccups because I know that they are coming.
@ChangeTheGame I agree about dealing with life’s hiccups. H and tried to instill a good sense of responsibility in our daughters - lots of chores, financial responsibilities, instilling a good sense of values, etc. I just think the overall nature of D20’s academic “career” has been more pressure-filled than it needed to be, considering the universities she’s now looking at. I didn’t work half as hard as she does when I was in high school, and at the time, I thought I was working pretty darned hard.
Oh, i’ll be making huge adjustments with DS, not sure I am ready for them but will need to learn to control myself. With D who always strived herself to get the best grades, etc., my life was easy and hands off. Only in HS did I have to push a bit for her to get out of her shell and try new extra-curriculars. With my son, I have a feeling the reverse will be true - he’ll get involved into something fun and unique aviation/robotics/video games on his own, creating something new if he can’t join something formal. But grades will be a problem, especially English/creative writing, and I’ll just have to learn to live with it and find the right balance between pushing him, but not too much, and letting him be himself. I guess with D I was always sure that I am right for pushing her since she will be worse off growing up a bookworm. But is it really worth it stressing out your kid to get an A in English Literature over B when he can only differentiate right and wrong when it comes to numbers, or clear rules like grammar… It will be an interesting ride for sure.
@typiCAmom you wrote, “she also recognizes UCLA’s limitations, namely, difficulty getting desired courses, much less flexibility in changing majors, much less handholding and support”
At most UCs, it is not difficult to change majors within your college (ex. L&S vs Bio Sci vs Engineering). What is difficult is to change from let’s say L&S into Engineering.
My impression is that UCSB is the UC where it is easiest to change majors. Everything except for engineering is in the College of L&S so you could change from physics to philosophy if you want. We know a student who was accepted into UCLA as undeclared L&S and transferred into Engineering. He didn’t feel that he had the HS courses to make him a competitive applicant directly into Engineering but felt he could prove himself once at UCLA. He did and was able to successfully transfer.
@hgtvaddict, boy do I hear you on “trying hard to bring up a B+ grade to an A in AP Calc,” though in our house it’s B- to at least a B+. Academically he’s never struggled so much, and I’m torn between hooray let’s build some grit here, and oh crap there goes the GPA. Mostly at this point I just want to see him get his confidence back.
