@OriginalSmother, D17 and I visited CoC for Accepted Students Weekend back in spring 2017. We were able to visit all but one of the freshman dorms during our visit and had the exact same impression. She wasn’t expecting anything fancy, a typical dorm room was fine for her, but the dorm buildings were all so dark and depressing with little interior light, except for the newest, most expensive one. There were other reasons she ended up choosing to go elsewhere but that was a negative that really stood out in my mind compared to every other college we have visited (and I’ve been to many campus tours with my kids over the years).
@homerdog Given that the APs are open book/open note (and therefore harder), I am trying to figure out how cheating is possible? How would there even be time? Maybe I don’t have enough imagination!
@momof3B That’s a head scratcher for sure. I could see stating the school year in the summer (when more outdoor time and air circulation from outside could minimize transmission), with room in the schedule for pauses during spikes or outbreaks. But prescheduling two-week breaks does not make much sense to me either.
Good luck to all of our kiddos taking AP exams. Mine is nervous - it feels very high stakes, even though it’s quite possible that they won’t count at colleges that interest her. She’s the kind of kid that wants to do well regardless.
I think stepping foot on campus is valuable even if no students are around - plus, it may be all that we have left at this point! We have definitely ruled some campuses out this way, and when we toured D19’s eventual first choice, she knew right away without seeing many students at all.
I do like to see how many kids are wearing college gear and whether they look up and smile, but honestly, the physical campus can have a “feel” on its own. A tour guide can also make or break a visit.
regarding the Texas calendar - if you look at the slides, the longer calendar with more breaks allows for room to make up missed weeks earlier in the year, in case they have to shut down for a local outbreak. It makes sense to me. And as I look at the calendar I think… time for more college visits while colleges are in session in October! LOL. Not sure that would happen but who knows…
@NJWrestlingmom if you are looking the Lehigh, Villanova type schools I don’t think BC is significantly harder to get into. Also I think all of those schools have similar COA and will meet all need based need… Also they give very little if any merit money.
A great read and thinker piece is today’s cover story in New York Magazine (not The New Yorker) titled The coming disruption to College. Not sure if we are allowed to link here, but easy to find including link on their public insta page. The times are a changing - maybe not as fast as this piece may suggest, but very interesting.
Suggestion to do a 10-4 schedule. Four days of class (or work) and then ten at home. Four days because that’s how long someone could have the virus but not know. Then quarantine for ten. So, kids could go in groups - some percent of the student body go one week and then different kids the next week. But what happens with teachers? They would also have to just go to school for four days. That doesn’t really work at the high school level I don’t think unless schedules can really be changed up for every student. Not sure there’s a program out there that can figure that out!
Looking at the Texas slides, it would seem that they are allowing each district to make their own best choice. But I suspect that regionally most districts would adopt similar schedules. So many thoughts running through my mind about all of this…
@4kids4us It is interesting that several here have had the same impression of the CofC dorms. I almost feel bad for saying that though because everyone I know that has had a child attend there has only good things to say.
I do think there is value in visiting college campuses even if they are quiet- particularly if your student is looking for a certain aesthetic or trying to avoid a certain type. My D21 does not want any school that reminds her of Hogwarts, so a ten minute car tour of Rhodes was all it took to remove that one from her list. However, her current favorite is there because the campus was filled with students when we toured. She walked away feeling like she could see herself there- mainly because she didn’t feel intimidated.
Anyone’s kid have an AP exam today? Wondering how that’s going.
Yay! The first 2 online APs completed for S with no glitches (other than Mech having a hard question!). Apparently, kids taking the tests got different questions. Don’t know how many versions they put out, but S’s 2 friends and he all had different questions, of varying difficulty. Wonder how they score these.
D takes her first one at 4pm! Fingers crossed!!!
D took 2 Physics tests today…no technical difficulties which was my main concern since those tests she needed to upload her work (although it sounds like there was an option to just type it out on test, but she preferred writing out and uploading.) Glad she remembered that she needed to put her name/id# or whatever info on sheets she uploaded. I stayed out of the way and anxiously reappeared to find out how things went. I’m not sure how she felt about the actual test questions…just that the technical part went well. 2 down, 4 to go!!
Trevor Packer’s twitter is not comforting.
Apparently College Board does not accept HEIC photo format, but iPhones are usually in that format. Change iPhone camera setting from HEIC to JPEG (Settings > Camera > Formats > Camera capture).
https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/faqs/indepth-for-educators/day-of-exam
@havenoidea Maybe this is one of the CB’s safeguards to minimize cheating as @homerdog was commenting about earlier today?
Like your and @1Lotus 's kid, mine also had two Physics exams today. Both were “fine” and no uploading issues. Now we wait!
D21 has been reading Trevor Packer’s Twitter. She is leaning toward not even taking the Calc AB tomorrow. Will wait and see with APUSH and AP Lang.
DS took both AP Physics C exams today and he was unable to upload either one…he is extremely frustrated. CB tweeted out that 98% were successfully done and the 2% were due to browser errors, etc. It does not make sense as he took the demo test and uploaded with no problem.
At this stage it seems he will need to take the exam again in June but his makeup ticket is not working yet. I will be so happy when we are finished dealing with CB, they are a terrible organization.
RE: the cheating especially on ACT/SAT
I have wondered what I would get if I took it as an adult. I do think between S19 on math, D21 on English, and me on Reading and Science we have to be pretty close to a 36.
That isn’t going to happen at my house, but it will at plenty of them.
I would guess that for substantially south of $1,000 you could get a perfect test taker from the local college to come to your house and take the test for your D/S21. I don’t think there is any realistic way to police that. That’s enough of a struggle with a real proctor. Are we going to rely on mom/dad to sign off on the kid not cheating? Um, sure, that should work.
For AP tests, fine I guess. TBH there isn’t really that much harm if someone else gets an undeserved 5. But I can’t see how colleges would be ok with at-home ACT/SAT scores. That has to come with a HUGE astrisk. I know College Board and ACT will try to protect the revenue stream, but I’m hoping colleges treat those scores as “Not considered even if submitted” if they are taken at home.
@kartaqueen. Is there an appeal process? I wonder if a cell phone photo of the test, which should be time and date stamped, might serve be proof of having completed the test on time?! So sorry for your son.
So D21 and I have been trying to hit some online info sessions, since our college visits have been canceled and I don’t see them getting rescheduled before her fall sport starts up and she is unable to go.
Today did Colby and Bowdoin. I realize 2 on the same day was a mistake, that was accidental. We have been trying to do 2/week or so.
We are finding they all are blending together. I asked D what she thought and she did an impression of the great clubs they have, intermural and club sports, how they are handling COVID, etc. I feel like 80% of the presentation you could substitute in Hamilton/Bowdoin/Colby/Tulane/Mt Holyoke and it doesn’t matter.
They do have their differences (especially Tulane in the above list), but it is frankly tedious to listen to the same spiel from everyone to try to catch that 15 second bit where they actually describe something unique. I guess it’s like that somewhat anyway, but online I think it is much worse.
Anyone else having better luck with this? D is at the point where she wants me to come up with 20 or so schools. Then give her a brief synopsis of each and she will pick 12-15 to apply to. She is rapidly losing interest in doing anything before we get to that point.