@homerdog We are in the same situation as @4kids4us . Most of S21’s list is TO. The exceptions are the PA state schools. As we are merit chasers, he needs in-state options as we already know they are within budget.
He and I talked about it today. He is keeping Pitt on his list and adding Temple. Test scores definitely matter at Pitt while Temple is TO.
If first-time testing doesn’t go well with the August SAT, he is now prepared with several TO schools, including one in-state option. He’ll still have West Chester as a true safety as the test score range is lower. And honestly, he will most likely still have a serious shot at Pitt as he’s looking at an English/writing major. It’s the math part of the SAT that’s the issue. Just as it was for me and his older brother (who is currently an English/writing major at Penn State University Park and had a less-than-stellar math SAT score).
Or, he tests fine in August and is good to go all around. We do have him registered for the September SAT as well.
Turns out, neither of my kids registered for the June test date, though I told them to. S says he must have registered to the subject tests in May, and D said covid happened so…
D won’t take the subject tests, so she’s done. S wants to take the physics subject test, as he’s fairly certain he didn’t do well on the mech AP. Given where we live, we feel positive about him getting an August seat, but I guess we’ll see!
On a different note, I started looking at the price of the private colleges we’d been thinking about and, sheesh! The cost by the time our kids will go looks like it will be close to 80k a year!!? I’m questioning if any undergrad is worth that much. Maybe HYPSM? (Which neither of our kids would ever get into!) Maybe a few others if a kid wants to go into investment banking? I’m really shocked. We went through this process just 3 yrs ago with our older S (and looked for merit aid), and I can’t believe how much full pay is now.
@havenoidea My kid also said the Mech Physics C was hard. Maybe your son’s score may be better than he thinks? Harder tests tend to be more forgiving of errors or incompletion. Here’s hoping for a good AP result in July!
And yes, prices are insane! Although I have found when you remove the student health insurance and whatever padding is added for books and incidentals, it can often knock often 5K off the total COA. Small comfort when that number is still in the neighborhood of 70-75K. Let’s just say we’ll be on the merit hunt.
Fingers crossed that the economy doesn’t reduce the availability of merit scholarships too much for the class of 2021. I will be watching what FL does this coming year with Benaquisto scholarships as well as other places that offered substantial scholarships for National Merit pre COVID.
Yes, I don’t know how I was so lucky. Maybe the good luck was needed to balance out the fact that I discovered that I was a victim of identity theft from someone who used my SSN to access our state’s unemployment coffers. I think that I must have been on there almost as soon as it opened because I was able to get sites that were reasonably close as well. All three tests are at different sites, but the furthest one is about 30 miles away.
How many subject tests are required by UC’s for the Computer Science engineering major? If the student is not taking ACT then do they need to take one science test? My son has taken only Math2 but I am not sure about science. Please advise.
I think we would just go TO if my daughter’s high school were better-known or more competitive and/or her EC’s stood out more. She has great grades/rigor/rank (for what her school offers) and EC’s are normal-kid fine, but solid scores would be a corroborating data point to show that she can do well. If she decides, in the end, to attend one of the lower-ranked schools on her list, then good scores might also push up her chances for a little merit.
DS21 is now considering a career as a rocket scientist. He was enthralled with the SpaceX launch today. Personally, I had to wait to watch it after the fact because, as a Gen X-er, I couldn’t bear watching it live.
He finished junior year with a third year of perfect grades as well as Student of the Year awards in his AP Physics BC and AP Calc classes. So if anybody could realistically have a goal to become a rocket scientist, I guess it would be him. (He gets this from his dad, not from me!!!).
He’s headed to the beach right now, to hang out with his buddies. I am not nervous about Covid because I’m certain he had it in March (although without any testing available to us, there’s no data to back up that certainty). I am a little nervous about him getting caught up in the civil unrest spreading throughout our troubled country, and I sternly warned him to keep his eyes open and stay away from trouble.
His summer looks very promising, although he won’t be able to fly East to visit his dad or attend MIT football camp as planned. He’ll ramp up the hours for his engineering internship at a local radiation oncology medical device company (working entirely remotely), continue to creatively work out to keep up his fitness level, and hopefully be able to continue to hang out with his buddies. Crossing my fingers that he is able to enjoy some semblance of a football season next fall. He’s one of four co-captains and he, like all these other hard-working, respectful, talented young kids, deserves to enjoy his senior year in high school.
Please, wear those masks and stay vigilant so that the second wave does not destroy our country. And for goodness sake, be kind to EVERYONE, even if they don’t deserve it!
Same here waiting for June 3rd. Hope to get the update on when the registration starts from this group just like 2 days back I came to know from one of the members here. Thanks a bunch!
This is D21 in a nutshell. Lots of AP/honors, ranked 1/350 or so with one B and a couple B+ grades. Normal EC’s, average leadership. 32 ACT currently, from when she took it pretty much as a live conditions practice test without studying. Which isn’t bad, but doesn’t really corroborate her class standing. Her flyover state HS ends up sending maybe a couple kids to Ivy or similar schools every year, but according to Naviance virtually no applications to midsized U’s and LAC’s, which is D’s focus. So most people reading her apps will probably literally have never heard of the town we live in or the school she goes to.
Probably almost everywhere she applies will be TO, except her safety. For that one 32 is usually OK for the big scholarship but 33 is safer. So it wouldn’t hurt for her to test for that reason too.
ARGH. I hate these stupid tests, and frankly I hate myself for pushing her to spend time she could be doing anything else studying for them. IMHO they are a complete waste of everyone’s time. But I feel like for what she is trying to do they are a necessary evil.
@sherimba03 My daughter was gaga over the launch too. She wants to major in Electrical Engineering and work in Aerospace. she is currently in a NASA High School Aerospace Scholars program. She was absolutely giddy with excitement.
I read in reddit that schools that showed no spots, when students checked on the next day, had spots available as CB said they would increase spots. So, there is a hope that we may get spots for Sep, Oct, though fingers crossed…
Y’all are making me nervous. All along I felt the SAT registration priority system made sense, and I still think it does, but I am now seeing a potential fly in the ointment. (Warning, whining ahead.) If all goes well, the priority students will have a chance to take fall senior year (multiple times albeit back-to-back), whereas the non-priority students who had a fall junior year score might not get a fall senior year opportunity if seats are filled. Students tend to score higher the later they take the test (rather than how many times).
The kid I’m looking at could potentially increase 50-100 pts over last fall. I’m not sure what the availability is in our area, but now I’m a bit worried he may not get a chance to retake before the Nov deadline. And unlike a normal year, now there’s the pressure to make that choice by Wednesday when registration opens. Maybe I should sign one or both of them up just in case, if there are openings. It’s starting to feel like the run on toilet paper.
Thinking out loud, CB should be trying to offer nearly twice as many seats available at each test center for Aug/Sept/Oct to make up for March/May/June. Or at least 1.5x. All while probably trying to have fewer students per classroom for distancing purposes. Eek, it’s a tall order.
@evergreen5 I still think there’s a good chance that these fall tests will also be cancelled in many states. I don’t see a way our high school can go back to school in-person. I’ve talked to a few teachers on “back to school” committees for this fall who are trying to figure this out and it’s looking grim. If a high school is not going to class then that school will not host an SAT. I don’t even know if they will do it if the high school has some hybrid model of kids going part time.
And there’s the mask issue too. I still don’t see D21 taking that whole test in a mask. I’m not going to have her practice with a mask on. That’s just too over the top for me. If I were you, I’d sign up for fall tests and see how it goes. I know it means possibly losing some money but it’s all so unknown and I just see it has having the option if the tests actually happen.
@homerdog Can I ask, why is testing with a mask such a dealbreaker? I would balk at five hours straight in an N95 (I have huge admiration for health care workers that endure this daily). However, the woven cotton ones are not that uncomfortable and there are lots of cute ones on Etsy. It’s quite possible that she’ll have to wear one in order to go back to HS in the fall, as will be the case for many college and university campuses.
^Hopefully they’ll become more accustomed to it. Maybe it depends on the particular mask in question, but I find I have trouble seeing over the edge of my cloth mask while looking down at a desk (and I have so much trouble seeing through the bottom part of my progressive lenses, sigh, that I have to take them off). A significant portion of my near field of vision close to my body is obstructed. If it changes the tilt of the head, or requires greater head movement than normal, I could see that impacting time in a standardized test situation.
I’m not sure what things are like in other states, but I find it confusing when watching the protests/riots on the news this weekend that people don’t seem to care much about covid 19. Some were wearing masks, but people did not seem to be social distancing and reporters would stand closely to those they interviewed—Will there be a huge surge of covid 19 cases in MN within the next couple weeks?
waiting for June 3rd. Hope to get the update on when the registration starts from this group just like 2 days back I came to know from one of the members here. Thanks a bunch!