D21 only has OOS schools on her list and we see no reason to change anything. They are cheaper than our state schools, and we have no concerns with her being a plane trip away. S20 is going OOS this fall (hopefully) and we are fine with it.
We live in CA and my sonâs AP env science teacherâs msg below :
Hello APES students! As most of you have gathered throughout the year I feel strongly that too much emphasis is put on âgetting gradesâ as opposed to meaningful learning. I have news that will hopefully reduce anxiety and perhaps open up the freedom to learn for much broader and long-term goals. All classes for second semester this school year will be graded on a Pass / No Mark basis. This is happening in high schools and universities around the world so there is no need at all for you Juniors to worry about this adversely affecting college admissions. You and your parents will be receiving an email from the school district with more details likely on Friday. I know missing all these spring activities is especially difficult on you seniors and if I could make this pandemic go away for you I would. The bright side is that all of you will graduate and go on to do great things in the world and one day you will have a crazy story to tell your grandkids about when the entire global economy shutdown in the spring of 2020.
I will keep reaching out with hopefully helpful ways for you all to keep growing intellectually and remember I am here to help so feel free to email me anytime.
With respect and gratitude,
Thatâs a great email, and the right move.
I hope our district announces its grading policy soon â thereâs a lot of rumors swirling among kids.
I was thinking more about this last night. I think pass/fail is the right call. We have 1:1 chromebooks and the district has distributed hotspots to kids who need them â so learning can happen. But we have families with food insecurity b/c their parents have lost jobs. Where both parents are still working, many older siblings are taking care of younger siblings⊠And we have a number of older apartment complexes in our school zone; these are small places where thereâs no quiet place for everyone to study. It seems like a real equity issue b/c not everyone has a quiet, safe place to do their work and all their basic needs met. Not to mention, everyone no matter their socio-economic status is living with generalized stress and anxiety over the whole situation.
Totally inconsequential for college, but today was junior prom day. : ( A very nice, royal blue, fully altered gown, new with tags, hangs sadly in the spare bedroom! Itâs cold and rainy here today, anyway!
@NJWrestlingmom â aw, Iâm sorry. This stinks for these kids.
@evergreen5 I think what bothers you about or at least what bothers me is that although schools go to P/F admissions still really wants to know what the grade was. Thus they will discount all the kids thinking P/F was just an out. At my kids school there are now in the second week of online teaching. Grading is regular. 3rd semester done today. D21 actually taking an honors physics test as we speak. Also as to ED that is just not an option for those of us chasing merit money. But my guess is at the top schools they will probably look to fill more spots than they already do with ED to ensure yield etc.
@NateandAllisMom we are considering lots of OOS schools that give good merit money. On the public side BAMA, FSU, Miami of Ohio, Udel. Some privates we are looking at Xavier, Saint Louis U, San Diego, TCUâŠOur in large public in state schools Pitt, PSU and Temple do not really give any merit money although the tuition is cheaper but most of the OOS schools I listed above could be cheaper for us with the merit my D21 will likely get based on stats.
Looking forward to the webinar this afternoon. Thanks to you folks for giving me the heads up. I hope there will actual Admissions folk there to answer questions.
FYI for everyoneâŠmany schools are running live admissions webinars, sometimes including student panels. They typically also take questions that viewers post in the chat box. Parents and students can both sign up for these. Many schools also post the recordings of these webinars, if you canât do them live.
Jeff Selingo a NY Times reporter has run a couple of good free webinarsâŠyou can access these recordings via his website or twitter feed. He has had two recent ones that included SAT and ACT reps, and AOs from UCLA, Davidson and a couple more. Both are well worth the hour investmentâŠand more are coming.
As others come across informative webinars and such, please post them!
Yes! So many schools have really beefed up their online admissions content. Thanks to @homerdog for mentioning them to me. If youâve checked schools as recently as a week ago - check them again - some schools that my daughter is interested in are just adding and adding and adding content. We were supposed to be visiting schools this week - that obviously hasnât happened but we have spent hours participating in admissions webinars, viewing recently added content and learning more about schools this week instead.
We are getting more information that we ever would have gotten on a tour - and while itâs hard to get a true âboots on the groundâ feel for these schools (you really canât get a feel for size online) - I think having all this information will make her decision on where to apply/attend that much easier when we do get to visit.
For those of you whose kids might be like mine and who lean (too?) heavily on the academic portion of their record when looking at prospective schools, Iâd suggest Tulaneâs virtual event this Wedesday - âYouâre the Dean,â Case Study Approach to College Decisions. When you register, your confirmation includes a .pdf containing a description of a fictional college (that sounds a lot like Tulane, but in a different location and smaller) and a description of 5 applications - you can only choose two for admission. You can participate in a poll choosing who you would admit and see the results of what others think. We havenât even experienced the actual event, but doing the exercise with my daughter has started a conversation surrounding the âbeyond the statisticsâ part of each applicantâs story. Maybe it would be anxiety inducing for some, but I thought it was very interesting and we struggled between a few different applications.
Could someone post about the webinar that is being mentioned? What is it? Time?
Colleges waiving SAT/ACT requirements:
Is it the 3pm ET webinar on how COVID-19 affecting colleges/universities?
@1Lotus yes, thatâs the webinar.
@nichols51 Thanks! I plan to watch and submitted a question 
AP exam info updated : https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/students/taking-ap-exams/ap-exam-schedule
The link includes dates, times, makeup dates and times, and specific formats and scoring details for each test.
@Suave123 That list isnât right- the UNC System isnât waiving submission of ACT/SAT- at least not yet.
Well our school board decided the official way they are grading. This will be on the students transcripts, they did not say about an asterisk but I would hope they would denote this in some way.
âFor transcript purposes, GPA calculations will cease effective the end of the fourth six weeks The second semester grade will be computed using this calculation: (first six weeks + second six weeks + third six weeks + fourth six weeks)/4 = second semester grade on the transcriptâ.
Edit: we were 3 weeks completed of our 2nd 6 weeks for the 2nd semester when online started. Online will be pass/fail
So It looks like a student trying to bring a grade up is out of luck. That is heartbreaking!!!
The best takeaway from this webinar so far? The opinion that the Class of 2020 will likely not take gap years because they will want to return to a sense of normalcy. This is my hope anyway, selfishly so that our 2021âs admissions wonât be impacted due to this.
@Meddy How did they determine that the 2020 kids arenât likely to gap? Itâs all I hear about both on CC and in my neighborhood!
@homerdog Itâs all conjecture for sure and I bet AOâs certainly do not want everyone taking a gap year. I wonder if our own kids were in this boat what they would do? I think mine would be like being shot out of a canon trying to get out of the house and off to college around kids. (if safe of course) Also wondering what gap year travel abroad opportunities would look like for them? My guess is my kids wouldnât want to take a gap year to stay domestically. Again, this is just conjecture on my part, too 
@burghdad I agree about Penn State (max merit is $500, I think) and Pitt (very competitive for merit), but Temple is actually quite generous with merit for high stats kids, even in-state. I wouldnât rule it out. And their Honors College is great.