The difference is probably the time constraints on ACT. It can be practiced. My eldest got the last 8 wrong on the science section of the practice ACT and ended up with a 36 on that section on the real ACT after practice at home.
S20 is considering engineering or computer science as a career down the line. He made a hard choice about classes next year - dropping his foreign language. Our state flagship requires 4 yrs FL for computer science; or 2 yrs FL for engineering college.
He was slightly worried he wouldnt have CS as an option; but then he found that engineering college offers software engineering. SO - question from us tech newbies - whatās the difference between software engineering and computer science?
D20 started final exams today. Itās hard to believe itās almost over.
She knows where she wants to go to college, but my bank account is hoping some other more affordable options. 
Sheās going to study for the SAT over the summer and take the first fall test hoping to get it out of the way. Sheās the type who will be happier at a larger state school, so sheās hoping to do well enough to get some merit money (getting in wonāt be a problem ). I also figure it will help prepare for the fall PSAT. Our school gives the ACT to juniors free of charge in the spring, so sheāll take it then as a benchmark.
At this moment, sheās in her very last APWH class. Iām not sure what theyāre doing in there now that the AP test is over and done with, but I know sheāll be glad once that final bell rings!
Hello everybody! This is my first time posting.
S20 will be taking the SAT and then the PSAT in October. Heāll be studying during the summer.
Right now, heās not yet on-board with the whole college application process. We went on a college tour in and around Boston during spring break, just so he could get a feel of what he likes - big, small, rural, city etcā¦ Well, the only colleges he like are Wesleyan and Northeastern because theyāre āinterestingā. When I asked him to define āinterestingā, he said he canāt explain it. Oh, boy. I foresee more college tours in the future.
Considering having her take the SAT in the fall but we canāt schedule anything until we get the cross-country schedule. Missing a meet for the PSAT was bad enough last year.
@msmaria Welcome! I think most kids do not think about college at this stage of their HS career 
@tutumom2001 It is great she knows what she wants. My S is throwing the āitās goodā at me every time I ask him about a college.
@bgbg4us I think computer science covers more pure theory, like 'Science", software engineering is more software building, like āEngineeringā. On the curriculum side, CS probably have more theoretical/conceptual classes, where software engineering will have more engineering school curriculum. I donāt think there are much differences when job market is concerned.
thanks @whataboutcollege. Youāre right, but my planner/organizer personality canāt help but plan
Welcome @msmaria! My son is not very articulate about what he wants in a college and has little desire to tour colleges (aside from MIT and Berkeley which weāve visited). He says he just wants to go to the best college heās accepted to, but the location, size and weather is unimportant to him. Heād like to major in CS or Engineering and with the competitiveness of the major, maybe itās better he doesnāt get his heart set on any one school.
For now, I keep researching and saving, and he keeps working hard. Itās working for us.
I know some of the folks here have older children as well, so Iām posting here.
Barnes & Noble sent us a 15% coupon for total order for the weekend. So, I thought I would go ahead and get D20 some AP test books to look over during the summer where I can monitor whether or not she is actually putting forth any effort. Because if I hear āno problemā or āitās under controlā one more time, someone is likely to be the subject of a child protective services investigation. (Letās just say she grossly underestimated the amount of time and rigor needed for AP World History and has now dug herself into a hole that she will not be able to get out of this academic year.)
In short, what would you recommend for not just the AP test, but the actual class for:
APUSH (textbook is āGive Me Liberty!ā by Eric Foner if that helps)
AP Lang
AP Stat
Thank you!
That is a good coupon!
edited to add: It looks like textbooks are excluded. Oh well.
DSās school recommends Barronās AP review books.
I am a lurker. Have 2 college bound kids for 2020. They have about 3 weeks left of sophomore year.
For my S16 I was very hands on and he was very reluctant with all the college planning. He ended up in the state flagship college he always wanted to be (in spite of applying 10+ colleges on my insistence). He is happy.
So for the twins, I decided to let them take the lead. D20 is more serious about deadlines, tests etc and S20 could not care less. They both could not apply to many paid summer internship because of their age. They have contacted some scientists to work with them in Summer and beyond. They would start taking standardized tests starting this August. They are involved with a few ECs - nothing spectacular. I will nudge them for a few college visit and see how they feel.
@bgbg4us: I am an electrical engineer/Comp Sc Masters. I work is field that develops large scale computer systems. I suggest your S20 to look at the class choices for CS and SE. They are more indicative of what he can do than the majorās name. Most of the time Computer Science provides a lot of foundation courses that are used for Software Engineering. In general, a student pursuing Software Engineering cannot pursue jobs in Hardware Engineering, but a student pursuing CS can easily get into SE jobs. Software Engineering in that sense is a vocational degree. This of course depends a bit on the college as to how those majors are structured. Ask him to check if Computer Engineering is offered as a major in your flagship college. However, if he is interested to work as Software Engineer, there is nothing to worry.
@tutumom2001 My T20 (twins2020) had APUSH and AP Stat this year. They used Barrons AP Stat and AMSCO APUSH books. They found both of those sufficient. They also used crash course videos closer to the test.
I just wanted to share my experience and takeaways from an initial meeting last night with a private college consultant. Some background, the cc was a former Harvard admissionās officer for 3 years and has a B.A. UCLA, M.A. Ed. Harvard, and J.D. U Penn. She and her equally impressive business partner have been consulting for the past 5 years or so.
What I learned from the meeting:
- My D20, probably a business/marketing type major, is lacking in EC's especially in leaderships positions. She encouraged her to volunteer at both non-profit and for-profit businesses; continue to be active in some social activism (i.e. continue her annual trips to D.C. for research and advocacy of issues) as some schools like UCLA/UCB like applicants with this background; and take on a leadership position in either student body or club;
- While D is taking a fairly rigorous course load junior and senior years, she encouraged D to make sure to take a 4th year of foreign language, AP Physics, and AP Calc BC in senior year;
- Make sure to monitor grades and if they slip from say A's to a couple of B's, she recommends dropping down a class to maintain the A (e.g. an AP class down to an Honors class). Her point was you don't want the GPA declining downward during junior year.
- "Packaging" is a real thing and important for all applicants. You want to tell and show a compelling story and have an interesting "resume" to work with come essay and application time. Top grades and test scores are not enough for the more selective colleges.
- For some colleges, like USC (CA), they monitor touch points that show demonstrated interest (it's important to open emails, visit the campus, complete pre-application forms, etc). Show lots and lots of interest to these colleges.
- Take both practice exams of the ACT/SAT and focus on preparing for the test that is a better fit for you. Plan on taking the test twice unless you score extremely high on the first try.
- Having a third-party (and not us parents) make suggestions and give advice about possible courses and ECs was very well received by D. I feel D gets it now that for her "dream" schools she needs to take some rigorous courses she may not love.
Overall, we thought it was very helpful to ask questions and listen to advice from a professional college counselor who works with 100ās of college applicants and was a former admission officer to get some valuable insight into the process.
I know there are some long time posters that are against paid college consultants but I think we will use her services, on an hourly basis as needed, over the next 1.5 years. I feel itās going to be money well spent and a great complement to the information on this site.
As I get more information I will try to share it with everyone on this thread.
Hi all,
Just found this thread. I was semi-active on CC about 3 years ago when my oldest was a senior, and have been spending time on here again for the last couple of months now that my middle kid is finishing up sophomore year. Youngest is finishing 8th grade. Middle has one more week of school and Iām hoping the B+ can get up to an A- and the 2 Bs can get up to B+ā¦ we shall see. Weāve got a tentative top 25-ish list at this point which will get refined over the next year once we have more data on GPA (likely to be good but not perfect), test scores (likely to be very goodā¦ 10th grade PSAT was 99th %without any studying), and thoughts after a couple more campus tours. I might post the current list at some point to see if there are any other places we should be looking (in its own thread).
@socaldad2002 Thank you so much for sharing the information that you received from the counselor. Weāve also considered using a paid professional. I donāt feel that we will get much help from the school Guidance Counselors given the overwhelming number of students each of them has. My DS is super motivated and focused. He also has high goals. But since itās very competitive, he needs to be prepared. His ECs are not strong (i.e., no leadership roles in clubs) as heās been focusing on grades and classes. Heās in the top music class and plays in pit orchestra and a city youth orchestra. He also helps coach little kids. But thatās it. Also only takes AP classes in topics that interest him (I support that idea actually even though it may affect his class rank). Heāll have 8 APs and 3 college classes. Is it enough for the ivies or some of the others on his list? At this point heās just doing the things he likes and says if a college doesnāt want him then itās not where heās meant to be and I think thatās a pretty healthy attitude. Iāve disabused him of the term ādream schoolā. There are so many places where he can excel that I donāt want him to put all his hopes into 1 place. Not getting in could be devastating.
So I have a question for you fellow parents. How do you define safeties? Do you base it on stats alone or also on financials (using the Net price calculators)? Are reach schools those in the single digit acceptance rates?
āSo I have a question for you fellow parents. How do you define safeties? Do you base it on stats alone or also on financials (using the Net price calculators)? Are reach schools those in the single digit acceptance rates?ā
Depends on your own finances, I think. For us the first time around, we knew we could afford in-state (CA) tuition and werenāt going to qualify for need-based FA, and that our D had high enough stats to get into the lower-tier UCs and at least one of her privates (Cal Lutheran)ā¦ so it was more a matter of hoping sheād at minimum, either like UCSC enough to go there or get enough merit aid at CalLu to put it in the same price bracket at UCSC. (In the end, she got into a higher-tier UC as well as getting into other privates with merit, but those were her safety options).
If you need a financial aid package to make things work out then yes, you have to take into account not only the likelihood of getting in but also whether that school meets 100% of need for all applicants.
I canāt remember how people here define reach but I think it goes higher than 10%. Maybe to 20%? Thatās still not that good odds of getting in.
āHow do you define safeties? Are reach schools those in the single digit acceptance rates?ā
I would think āsafetyā is a greater than 90% chance of admission based on YOUR profile.
A reach could be broken out into āhigh reachā less than a 10% chance of admission and āreachā less than 25% chance of admission. One thing to keep in mind is that the posted acceptance rates are the average for all students, if you are a better applicant based on GPA/test scores/āhooksā, etc. your chance at admission might be higher for some colleges and bump you from āreachā to āmatchā.
A true safety is a school you are guaranteed to get into, generally in the top 25% of students (not top selective schools), you/your family can afford to pay your EFC, and you will be willing to attend if that is your only choice. Very few schools meet 100% need because THEY determine your need, not you.
Run the NPCs for a few schools and see what your EFC is, but remember that owning a business or farm, having divorced parents/stepparents will skew the number. FAFSA is for federal funding and that EFC number may also be off. Some schools may require the CSS Profile to determine your financial need. If you canāt afford the EFC, itās not a safety.
Regarding safeties and reaches -
We struggled with this for my older one- I have an old thread you can find. Generally, people said for a safety the student should be above the 75% for sat and gpa but that if the overall acceptance rate was below 20% or so then it was a reach for everyone. So for a kid with super high stats it was hard to find safeties. On cc most people say to be above the 75% and the acceptance rate should be over 50%. This seemed a little too conservative but my son ended up applying to 14 schools with a wide range. Personally, if your School uses Naviance, I found that it was very accurate. Every school I expected him to be accepted to, he was. The most reachy I figured were 50/50 for him and I was correct. But it seems to get harder every year so we plan to be conservative again this time.
Also you can tell from Naviance and from college visits that some schools are really by the numbers and are therefore much more predictable.