DS finished submitting all yesterday and we are waiting on grades to be input. So far A’s in everything but waiting for two more that should be an A but you never know for certain. Especially since with online lessons, the teachers have not been putting in grades regularly. It looks like his weighted GPA should be 4.9+ with excellent rigor.
He has a good shot at a leadership spot in his sport if it happens?? He will be a TA for Phys C next year so all in all he should have a strong college application. (A big light on community service but very strong on the other aspects.)
Summer is a big question though, he was all set for a great summer research program that will now be shortened and online and we have discussed that he probably needs to do a bit more with the summer. His physics teacher signed him up for an online program to learn how to use some sort of physics program so he is busy this week. Probably take next week off and then hopefully get going on something…He has expressed interest in trying use a waterwheel to generate electricity to give us power at some remote land we have, first he was going to do it with a bicycle and then scale it up. Could be a great essay and very interesting, but it is hard to get him from the idea to the application stage…
@flyawayx2 Congratulations to your son. My daughter also got an award this year. The school did a really nice job putting together a video with the teachers and staff presenting the awards virtually. Not the same as in person but you could see the care that went into it. I hope his experience is similar.
D21 got Helen Keller and said she would have loved the Obama/Kennedy one. Oh, well. I guess we find out scores in July, right?
Her summer job as a lifeguard was on track and she even had to get in the pool this week to recertify, which was a bit sketchy when you have to sign a CoVid waiver. However yesterday they pumped the brakes indefinitely on community pools opening. This summer is a big fat TBD.
I was just reading a state news piece on directions being given to school districts about next school year, and it made me realize that a key reason so many places are truncating the end of THIS school year is prolly b/c they are very busy figuring out what to do for the next school year – which will be here b4 we know it!
For example, our state dept. of education has issued a requirement that all districts must have plans in place to serve students with disabilities through remote learning next year. They’re not saying remote learning is happening, mind you, but just that if it does at some point again, those students can’t be left behind like I’m sure they were this year.
Everyone knows this year’s switch to online was hurried and not ideal so I can see why they wanted to ‘quit while behind,’ so to speak, and move on to next school year. There’s so much work to be done to figure out how to re-structure school days and facilities to make them safer during COVID, plus better plans for remote learning if it has to happen again at some point.
And of course all this planning is happening while all staff are at home with kids, pets, etc. Not easy!
Anywho, just my small epiphany of the day. . .
AP Lang went ok- wish she would have had an of the prompts that everyone else had- at least she would have known who they were. She got a senator speaking to vote on civil rights- no political affiliation, which might have helped. At least it’s over!
@AlmostThere2018 Our state really didn’t help themselves by saying we have to start early- even less time to prepare! I love the part where they required 5 days of remote learning, but put in that the remote learning can’t be in the first 5 days. We have over 2000 kids in our school, I doubt we will be able to have all of them in the building at one time by August unless there is some significant change with Covid-19.
@jeneric – I agree DPI is frequently a hot mess! I’ll avoid making a political comment here about its leader…
Our HSs are still 7 classes for the full year (for the most part) and I’m hoping they switch to block classes. I think it’d be better for reducing exposure. – fewer interactions and fewer passings in hallways, etc. Selfishly, I think it’d also be better for my S21 – he does well with more focused learning.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they also went to A days / B days to reduce density – at least for junior and seniors. It’d be an early introduction to college as they’d be responsible for more outside of class learning. I can see for some students, however, this would be a big struggle, and they may just fall behind.
Just learned from my S21 that his AP Lang prompt yesterday was on Richard Feynman. He is a math and science kid, and he and I have talked about Feynman many times in the past, so I feel like someone up there was smiling on him 
He’s really done everything he could throughout high school in terms of grades, rigor (14 AP tests and 5 full years of post-AP math and science) and scores, so we are hoping college admissions won’t be too much of a hassle… Keeping our fingers crossed.
Well shoot. One of the three big things D21 has been counting on for summer is now on hold…it was on, but now it’s a maybe. It is outside work and mostly just with one other person, but since the organization at large consists mainly of folks over 60, everything the organization does is on hold…even though D21’s specific part is separate. Ack.
The other two things SHOULD be on with a confirmation final green light happening in two weeks. Both are outside and totally doable with the strictest of social distancing measures.
Still waiting for that AP Calc BC grade. D21 blew the final (according to her) so she is anxious about that grade. The teacher is taking forever to submit final grades for everyone (the class ended three weeks ago).
Great, I hope other schools follow.
It’s interesting to me that there seems to have been a broader range of topics for APLang than APush. Perhaps coincidence that this board had more overlap on last week’s test? My D’s prompt yesterday was about Senator Robert La Follete’s 1917 speech before congress on WWI.
@OriginalSmother well, the range of topics for AP Lang would be wider. AP Lang topics can be almost anything and APUSH has to be American History. D21’s prompt for AP Lang had a speech from a UW professor about science.
@OriginalSmother I asked my daughter and hers was also the La Follette promt. According to her (according to Reddit) there were at least 15 different prompts. That’s a lot of different prompts for one test.
Today was the last day of finals, so aside from the AP Spanish Language test tomorrow, it’s summer for my HS kids my daughter is a Senior! My youngest still has a couple more weeks - it’s going to be tough for him to keep on doing work when his big brother and sister are done.
My daughter had a successful interview at Panera today and was offered the job. It came with a small raise compared to her last job, too. She’s excited to start next week. The hardest part was resigning from her old job. It was the first time she ever had do that. She said it was a little uncomfortable because her manager seemed really disappointed, but she did it.
Not gone yet. TO for a couple of years, while they apparently work on developing a new test. Didn’t they also contribute to developing the current SAT with essay? Should be interesting to see what evolves this time. The essay portion was a disaster.
@amsunshine You are correct! TO for 2 years and then test blind for 2 more years and by 2025, they may come up with their own standardized testing or again test blind. But for the class of 2021 (us), they strictly said no need of SAT with Essay or ACT with Essay. Just SAT/ACT without Essay is accepted. Phew, that’s a relief…
Elimination of writing test: The University will eliminate altogether the SAT Essay/ACT Writing Test as a requirement for UC undergraduate admissions, and these scores will not be used at all effective for fall 2021 admissions.
Source:
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-board-regents-approves-changes-standardized-testing-requirement
So disgusted with CB AP testing. S’s Spanish app didn’t work. Kept hitting start - nothing. D’s worked fine. Now they both a have makeup (hers math). What if this happens again? Guess no AP score then. Really stinks. They were both so ready, and ready to be done!!
D21 got AP Calc grade changed to P from incomplete (all classes were changed to P/Incomplete for this quarter). It was a bit ambiguous whether she turned in everything on time. I’m guessing in normal circumstances the teacher would let it slide, and I would have been really surprised if considering all the COVID disruptions she dug in. Still I feel better and it’s one less thing to worry about.
Our state guidelines would allow ACT to happen, as long as 6 foot distancing and 50% stated capacity were followed. But I’m 0/2 for finding a test center that will be open. One didn’t surprise me, one did. I’m hoping to figure it out before official cancellations come out, because at that point I’m guessing any open seats will rapidly fill up. It’s kind of annoying that lots of decisions have been made, but for some reason they aren’t releasing the info to the public yet.
I wouldn’t worry about the test, but D is sitting at a 32 right now. I feel like that’s kind of at the cusp of sending. It’s not clearly helpful, but not clearly harmful either, especially since there will be lots of kids that were one and done, with the one being the dry run practice that they thought was a throwaway score. If I didn’t think she could get a 34 without much trouble I would just not worry about it. But I feel like it’s a positive she could have working in her favor so I hate to let it go.
@havenoidea – ugh, I’m so sorry – that stinks for your son!
My S just finished Spanish – his seemed to work fine. Fingers crossed b/c I’ve read for some of the language APs students get emails later saying their files are corrupted.
My S seemed to think he got harder prompts than his peers but he still felt pretty good about it. Said he felt very good about the first segment but stumbled some at the end of the second one b/c he started to run out of things to say. Said he should have talked slower! We shall see!
@havenoidea I am sorry to hear this. That does stink!