My kids attend a very small independent prep school. They only offer a few AP classes and only for math and science courses. Humanities and social sciences have the option of an advanced track, but use their own curriculum. All seniors regardless of tracking take a semester long composition course (and write their college essays), and then select from a few literature based theme courses for the spring. D25 will be taking a spring course on post-apocalyptic lit. I always enjoy learning about how differently things are handled in different schools.
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At our LPS the AP Lang students (50% of 11th graders) work on essays after AP exam (there are many weeks of school left) AND they review them in fall in most Sr. English classes too, I believe (!), though not a whole month (at least I hope not, that would be a LOT of class time).
(not sure what non-AP Lang kids do in 11th spring, but I think they have some time to work on essays too - pretty much everyone is college bound).
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A 2nd place at Dance Worlds for my daughter’s team. Thrilled for her!
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I feel like I get ahead of myself with college talk with D25, so I’m not going to bring up a college essay draft until it is summer. Goodness, I hope AP Lang does a draft for the class (not test) final. That would be awesome and almost worth what I pay in property taxes. Almost.
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We’re definitely not able to think about college essays until after AP exams are over.
Unfortunately, our school doesn’t incorporate the college essay into their curriculum. Sigh
You may want to hire a private college counselor, the top college counselor can boost the chances of being admitted to top schools.
We had one, but she was not helpful. My older son’s friend got into Bioengineering at UPenn, he has lower stats than my older one, his parents invested sizeable amount of money on counselling services for two years, it’s obviously paid off.
We aren’t talking about college essay quite yet here. She knows she needs to work on it over the summer but there is no time right now. AP exams are quickly approaching (which she has basically no time to study for) and then her SAT in June. So order of operations is AP exams, then SAT studying, THEN essay. We don’t even know exactly what the essay topic will be at the moment. I don’t think she’ll be doing the common app as only 1 college she’s applying to uses it.
Also, my heart hurts for these college class of 2024 kids that are getting their graduations cancelled. These are the very same kids that had their high school graduations cancelled in 2020. 
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Our senior English class does this too. My S22 found it annoying to re-do an essay, but he was overall so happy to be totally done with his applications before school started, that he got over it. I had him focus on one of the schools that had a later deadline for honors college application, and had an essay due for that.
For my current S25, I want two of his applications in as early as possible. Pitt, because rolling admission and hopefully he gets in and that can take a weight off and keep us from applying to other safety schools. And Clemson, because that’s his top choice, and if he goes there my understanding is that you get to pick your housing based on when your application was received (not when you commit, when they get the application). So the sooner that one gets in, the better. And since he’ll need that essay for both, no waiting for Senior year English.
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I think my kid did some work on college essays in AP Lang earlier in the year, but I think that since then, his writing and critical thinking skills have evolved a lot. I wouldn’t hold my breath that what he produced back then would be a great addition to any application. I’m holding out hope that perhaps they’ll work on this after the exam… For now, the priorities are maintaining his solid GPA, doing as best he can on his AP exams, and not completely forgetting to do his independent study in Spanish (haha). He took the SAT about two weeks ago, so we’ll just have to see how that went this time before planning for yet another sitting.
We’ve talked about brainstorming some essay ideas, maybe even getting down a first draft, before he leaves for camp in late June, and he for once agrees that it’s probably a good idea. Once fall arrives, things are going to get crazy at a new school with tougher academics, college apps, a new team, and a new, longer commute.
I have a kid graduating this year and I swear if graduation gets cancelled….
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Next few weeks/days are going to be rocky in the OctoberKate house. My S25 has finals in three classes this week, to get them in before AP exams begin next week. He’s also decided to forgo the final track meets of the year - his hamstring just isn’t healing up. It’s the right choice on a lot of fronts - athletically he should keep resting it, academically he needs the time to study. But he’s had such a crummy season with the early injury. It’s the thing that brings him joy, and he was holding out hope for so long, and going to practice, and going to meets (to take photos) just to stay part of it. And now he’s decided to let that go and he’s so so sad. Combine that with the stress of finals/APs and he’s really just got no joy right now.
Then there’s my college kid (S22). He’s had a summer job lined up since September. It’s not near our house - we live outside DC and he knew the job would be in NY, NJ, or CT. They made it sound like all the positions were basically in the NYC metro area. It’s with a civil engineering firm, and there is work on site. They pay for his housing, so a great opportunity to live someplace else for the summer.
Well, a few weeks ago they told him his location - Schenectady. aka NOT in the NYC area. At All. Ok, no problem. But on the form that they had to fill out prior to being placed, he clearly noted he doesn’t have access to a car for the summer. Schenectady is not a public transportation friendly locale. He repeatedly asked his HR people and then his newly assigned supervisor and his mentor what he should do, reminding them about the no car. They all said no worries, plenty of kids come with no car. You can carpool, it will be fine. Maybe you can bike. So then yesterday he gets a call from HR. Yesterday, which was 20 days before he’s supposed to move to start the job, to say “hey, the housing we found for you is in Albany, you’ve got a car, right?”
NO HE DOESN’T. That’s a 25 minute car ride by interstate, or a 2hour bike ride, each way. And apparently he can’t carpool. So what the heck can he do? The HR people are supposed to call back with a plan. I’m nervous for him. Hopefully the whole job doesn’t fall through. But I’m worried that they give him something and that it’s full time office work - which he did NOT want. Not that it’s easy to buy a car, but he was going to buy one next summer. We could loan him the cash to get it done now if that made the difference… Annoying. More annoying is taht I want to take care of this for him and I know I need to let him figure it out.
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How incredibly frustrating! Left hand and right hand clearly weren’t communicating.
Is it a major company that perhaps has a contract with a leasing company? If so, they may allow monthly car leases. My C20 mentioned their internship company had this as a benefit (for a fee) but thankfully they were placed in cities with public transportation so we didn’t have to go down that road.
Here’s a bright spot - my S25 finally got his ACT scores back today…and got a 35! I am SO relieved that he (we) can cross that off the list.
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Fantastic!!
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It is a pretty big company, so that would be ideal. In fact, we thought that was what they were doing because a different person (he’s spoken with five different HR or onboarding liaison people) asked for a copy of his drivers license and insurance information. He’s got to finish his last project and final tonight (it’s a take home final) as both are due in class tomorrow. Then the school year is over. So I expect once we get to Thursday he’ll be able to devote more attention to getting this resolved.
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So sorry about S25’s end to track season. Injuries can be so frustrating, especially when they don’t heal according to our kids’ schedules! That’s pretty great that he stayed engaged with the team though. Sounds like he’s a great teammate! I hope he can find some more joy once finals are done and the school year winds down.
And gosh, that is crazy frustrating about S22’s summer job! Hope he’s able to sort everything out pretty quickly.
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Anyone else coming to the end of the year and feel like the wheels are coming off the bus, grade-wise? My D25 was so stressed coming into the 4th quarter, we sat down and I showed her what Q4 grade she could get in each class and still get an A. She has worked SO hard all year, it would be her first year of straight As! I wanted her to understand she didn’t have to stress so hard. Eek, that was probably a mistake. It feels like she’s playing a game of limbo (how low can you go??). Just trying to convince her to keep the pedal to the metal for a few more weeks, but it is really coming down to the wire. 
Prom, AP exams, finals and June SATs all hitting right in a 3 week span is so tough!
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Same here. S25 was confident that he could pull off straight As this quarter and then little things started to go wrong. He was up this morning at 6 to study for a physics test and my guess from his level of confidence when he left the house (and his lack of communication since he got home) is that it didn’t go well. Which…sucks. That was a course he was very confident about until maybe six weeks ago. Lately it feels that all the coin tosses have landed on the wrong side for him. It’s so hard to keep it in perspective – it’s just one semester of one year, etc. But I think this sense that they’re supposed to be firing on all cylinders at this point – upward trends! hard courses! all the ECs! – is a $%^ ton of pressure that might just be counter-productive.
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Agreed, it is TOTALLY counter productive!
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yes, completely, though we are worried about something much lower than dropping to A- 
Also, totally annoyed by another teacher’s grading schema for a recent big paper.. sigh.. Also had a number of other things not go kids way recently which is a bummer (not any of their doing, just random life, piling on at a stressful time).
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