My D is a recruited athlete, what I found worked well was to prep her with talking points and how to answer question, and schedule the first interview at a school she wasn’t all that interested in. After that first meeting she understood what was going on and was more natural.
Happy to report a draft of the Common App essay is complete! I have not read it; she told me the topic and the general progression (which is different than she originally told me; I guess whatever she first wanted to write about “didn’t work”).
Now she’s just going to let it sit for a couple of weeks, which is probably a good idea in order to get some perspective.
@3kids2dogs, that’s great. S21 doesn’t have a topic yet…still thinking on that.
Our school district just released their plans for the Fall semester (which is early August where we are). They say they’ve carefully considered hybrid approaches and determined they can’t effectively manage one with existing resources. So they’re planning to start the semester in-person but allow students to opt out and do 100% digital from home. So no student will have a hybrid experience - they either opt into (or default get assigned to if they don’t opt out of) the 100% in person experience or they do 100% remote. Families choose for each student individually, and once the choice is made, we are committing to it for the entire semester (unless it is determined that the student is not being served well in which case it can be switched at the end of the first quarter).
Of course, if the entire district or state goes remote again at some point during the semester due to significant community spread, that will apply to everyone. We have two weeks to decide.
Especially tricky is the fact that I think one approach will work better for one of my D23s and the other for my other D23…this decision doesn’t apply to S21 as he homeschools through a small hybrid, so the hybrid will make their own separate decision on what to do, and I’m expecting they’ll have an in-person component a few days a week which is what he’s used to anyway. 6 weeks until school starts here.
It is really frustrating that ACT is still not giving any guidance regarding the July 18th test. I don’t understand why they are dithering. The lack of information either is putting a damper on the test prep. My daughter decided this Monday that the ACT is not going to happen, given the rise in the number of cases in our area. She focused more on finishing the breakthrough junior challenge video and submitted it yesterday. I wish ACT would give us some information either way!
@sccaflagger74 I agree with @nichols51 as to importance of practice. D21 did a couple online interviews starting with a school lower on her list and working up. She had written a few questions to refer back to as needed. It has gotten easier, but whoever does Tulane interview, it moved very quickly as they must have lots to get through. They are with an admission counselor who does put the results in your file. I like to think that most interviewers work hard to put kids at ease…Good luck!
Is anyone struggling to get on the same page as your spouse about schools? I am all about trying to set a budget and finding schools that fall into that budget, but H keeps suggesting more expensive schools.
Thank you @nichols51 for the update on your schools for next year. I’ve been listening to my school board and it’s just a disaster. We are in NC- so our cases have been rising, masks are required as of 4pm today, statewide. The thought that we could be close to allowing full capacity on Aug. 17 (1st day of school)doesn’t seem possible- unless the government just suddenly drops all the rules.
Our biggest issue in our 160,000 kid school system is transportation. We don’t have enough buses or drivers normally- to social distance, they can’t even handle 50%. So many decisions still need to be made. I don’t envy the monumental task the school board and county have to undertake.
@Aguadecoco It must be frustrating. This is our second kid- we got real reality checks with the first one. Maybe just show him a few NPCs for those schools and say no more suggestions till you run those numbers. Do you think it’s because he just doesn’t realize how much they cost?
@Aguadecoco we’re on the same page with costs but no location. He’s pushing for her to stay close to home and I’m not as concerned with that. My brother and his wife have the money problem - they are full pay, but my brother is retired and my SIL in her early 60’s. She keeps pushing Villanova and BC (which I doubt are realistic admits anyway) and turns her nose up at the SUNYs. It’s frustrating.
@jeneric yes - cases rising here, too (GA) and they’ve said they cannot socially distance on buses. We’ll avoid the buses, but I know some people cannot. As our kids leave at 6:30AM and husband is no longer commuting to work (he used to drop them at school on his way most days), we’ll have to make a special trip at that hour daily if we send either one to school.
One of my D23s really wants to go as it’s her first year with AP classes, and she has 3 of those in addition to some other challenging courses and has an extra credit (8 credits in a 7 period day because she is taking AP Seminar), and she’s anxious about learning the material well given how things went from March to May. (She worked hard and did well, but several teachers just posted “useful links” and assignments and didn’t really teach anything).
One thing that remains to be determined here is whether a teacher will be responsible for teaching both the online and in-person students or whether the school will assign some teachers for in-person and others for online - I think that is going to be determined by each school. I need to go dig up (if I can) what the metrics are for determining that the entire county (or state) is going back to remote learning. With cases rising here, I won’t be surprised if that happens, but I’d like to know what metrics they’re using to make that decision.
More and more K-12 districts will be announcing plans in the next week or two - will be interesting to see all the variation (and whether the plans mean anything, in the end…much like watching what various colleges are announcing).
I have a spreadsheet with the NPC results and I thought we had agreed on a budget. H keeps encouraging private schools that come in well above the budget and discouraging lower ranked schools that would offer merit.
@Aguadecoco I hear you. H often suggests that D look at reachier schools, even though she’s happy with the ones on her list. We are also full pay, so I wonder if he feels that if we’re going to pay that much she should go somewhere “better” (aka places whose reputations precede them). I have explained that she has a chance for merit at the places she prefers, but he’s not swayed. Maybe he’s just a little in awe of the idea that she could have any chance of going to one of the schools he always heard about but would never have been able to consider himself, as he lacked both money and grades! In the end she’ll apply where she wants, but he asks fairly often, and it bugs us both.
It took a while for my H to understand there were not discounts at top schools and that merit was zero or so competitive and not happening for S19. He would’ve say things like “we are paying THEM and it’s ridiculous that they get to make the choices and these top schools think we should be thrilled to pay full price”. When I explained what the options were for schools for s19 that gave merit, he agreed that he’d rather S19 shoot higher but he definitely had a short list of schools he would agree to pay top dollar for. Those were the only ones that made it onto the final list. It was a lot of work and compromise to make that list!
@Aguadecoco H and I are on the same page about budget and location (staying in state) but he’s fixated on TAMU and doesn’t want to see S21 go anywhere else. I feel like he should back off and let our son figure out his best fit himself…I also keep reminding H that S21 will
be a holistic review since he’s not in top 10% and nothing is guaranteed!
Just got the list of 10 schools I required my daughter to provide to the family by today. Again we are mostly looking for merit money. She has two - three on list that are more expensive with no merit. She had a couple of ones I have been pushing but she came up with a few of her own. 5 of the 10 she has visited some when D18 was looking.
The first 5 she has toured
Miami of Ohio
University of Delaware
University of Maryland
UVA
Clemson
These she hasn’t seen
University of Alabama
St Louis University
Virgina Tech
Wisconsin
University of Michigan
I was proud of her coming up with this nice list. This is a kid who can never decide things as simple as what restaurant we should eat at or what to have for lunch.
She also has decided on BS nursing with an eye to becoming a nurse practitioner or pre-med.
The process is now getting very real for us.
@burghdad Congrats - you are fortunate that your daughter is so organized and decisive about this process! Our kid’s current long list consists of 4 yeses and many maybes.
@burghdad So how are the nursing programs at each of her schools? Nursing is so competitive! I know SLU has an awesome program. Popular here in the midwest. I think Michigan nursing is pretty competitive.
@mamaedefamilia That’s a good list. I would say D21’s list is six maybes. Lol.
@burghdad well it looks like our D’s are on the same nursing path. They have some of the same schools on their lists. You have given me some good insight already and I look forward to hearing whatever else you could share on theses schools and the nursing path. It is very competitive for sure.
@homerdog @srwcmw UDel Clemson, St. Louis, UVA, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Miami are all direct admits into BSN 4 year nursing degrees. All are considered to be very good nursing programs and UMich is a top 10 programs.
Alabama is not a direct admit. Student needs to take prerequisites and then apply during sophomore year to admission into BSN program.
Virgina Tech and Maryland College Park do not have nursing schools. Maryland does a very good nursing school in Baltimore but D21 wants the big campus vibe.
Since she is unsure right now if she wants Nursing or premed and because it would be almost impossible to do BSN and still fulfill the science/math prerequisites for medical school she will probably apply to all of the BSN schools for nursing and then if she decides she wants premed she can change majors. At all those direct admit nursing schools are impossible to transfer into the program from another major.
Another long shot possibility is a program at SLU called the Medical Scholars Program. If you are admitted out of high school you then take prerequisites for two years you apply and are interviewed during your sophomore year by the SLU medical school which reserves a certain number of spots in the SLU medical school each year for students in this program. They will let you know at the end of sophomore year if you are accepted to medical school. If you get accepted you take the MCAT needing no minimum score. So a lot the pressure is off for those last two years
@nichols51 Our system is struggling with similar issues. We will have an online only option. With a reduced capacity plan it gets crazy with all sorts of scenarios- week on/ week off or week on/ 2 weeks off to accommodate 3 groups of kids. We have 8 year long classes with A/B days normally. We only go to 4 classes a day. I can see that getting thrown out the window and having to go to all 8.
Similar teacher questions as well- who will teach what? D21 went ahead and signed up for dual enrollment and replaced AP Psyc with Gen Psyc DE. She would love to replace all her AP classes as she is not convinced they will be taught well remotely, but the CC we work with has now gone online for Fall, so she will keep Ap Lit and Stat at school and hope for the best.
@Aguadecoco UGH- I haven’t had this problem with H, but with others. If you want/need money, you have to be top of the pile at a school, which means it needs to be a safety/match, not a reach! My kids got a big reality check with a friend’s son several years ago. He had perfect SAT and ACT, all the ECs and all As in challenging courses. Not only did he not get merit at many schools, he didn’t get in at many schools! He took a full ride at a “less” prestigious safety and took advantage. He’s very happy in his job today- with no debt!