My 2 cents is that is fine if both teacher recs are from 11th grade year (even if different schools). These teacher’s will have had the student a whole year, which seems preferable to from what I have gathered/learned. Also slim chance the 12th grade teachers so now, they are all fulled up with kids already. Some teachers in our LPS cap.
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Reiterating @hollylindq in that UCSB does not have a business major. The only UCs that offer undergraduate business degrees are Berkeley, Irvine and Riverside. Next year, UC Davis will begin offering an undergraduate business degree. Unfortunately none of the UC campuses offering UG business are on the coast or have the same beachy surfer vibe of UCSB.
Most of the CSU schools offer business. He might look at Cal Poly SLO or SDSU.
I’ve been offline a few days and see a lot of stuff!
My son has a list, but I’m concerned it doesn’t have enough realistic choices. Not that it’s not balanced, because I think it is, but he’s so in love with one school. And the only other school on the list that comes lose is a reach. If he gets into the first school, which past data says he should but WHO KNOWS THESE DAYS, then great. But if not, while I’m confident he’d get in to one of the others, I don’t know if it would be one where he’d be excited. So I’m trying to find schools to add so he’ll have more fallbacks that are exciting.
Re: ACT score - same boat. My son has one section that is notably lower than the other three (one of the language sections, can’t remember which). It’s not bad, and the composite is great, but the fact that it just looks different seems attention grabbing to me. He has zero interest in doing it again and I’ve decided not to fight that battle anymore.
Re: APs - yes, my kid was watching that same APUSH guy last week. He was actually worried that the test was too easy. Many of his classmates also thought it wasn’t as challenging as expected. They are, apparently, now worried that either they all whiffed something or the test will be graded on a very hard level.
Cal is today, Lang tomorrow, and Physics on Friday. At this point, I just want to get through this week.
Yes he knows that it’s economics and accounting — as I said above. He’s looking mostly at colleges without a business major. I misspoke. Any thoughts on UCSB?
re: recs - one teacher at our school (APUSH) has announced he will only do recs for students who get a 5 on the AP Exam. He’s historically been a very popular recommendation writer and thus limited what he’d accept to about 25. DS asked him early (in March) and was told no, unless a 5. So instead he’s pivoting to his Economics and Finance teacher - who also knows him well (and his Physics teacher). I mean, he might get a 5, but who knows, and if he waits until scores come in and doesn’t get a 5 then other teachers could be booked up.
The plan is for him to do some work on the brag sheets for teachers after AP exams and get them to the teachers in early June before school ends, so they can work on it over the summer if they want, or do them in the Fall if that’s better for them.
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Definitely feeling like this is a tough time for the high school juniors. S25 had the first part of his IB Psych exam on Friday afternoon, and then had the second part of the IB Psych exam this morning, followed by his AP Precalc exam in the afternoon.
He landed a summer youth crew job with the local conservation corp (first job, woo-hoo!!), and in the last week has had to finalize a bunch of onboarding documents: state and federal tax forms, direct deposit, medical, etc.
Plus last week he asked his physics and German teachers to do letters of recommendation, both of which (phew!) said yes. But the German teacher wanted a formal email asking for the letter, and S25 had enough sense to ask his professional editing mother to review it, which means he got a lot of “suggestions.” I don’t know if he’s sent the official email request yet, but it has been a bonkers week so I would be surprised if he did.
So I’m baking brownies for this afternoon, in the hopes it will let him feel a little more relaxed about what all he’s done.
I’m also trying to figure out how to ask him to do even more without overwhelming him. I would love to finalize which colleges we are visiting over the summer, but he’s kinda shut down on wanting to look at any more. I think his heart is aching to be able to go to either NC State or Virginia Tech, with UA-Huntsville as a solid safety. At the same time, I think it would help him to also look at a few more, like Pitt and Penn State and U of Rochester. I’m not sure we’ll even get to a list of 10 colleges to apply to, but who knows??
And my Boilermaker husband just got tix for a game in West Lafayette in September. So whether or not the kiddo is going to consider Purdue, he’s going to consider Purdue.
Final kvetch: after looking over all the good information and suggestions here on CC about brag sheets, I contacted his public high school counselor to see if they had a format they like to use and was basically told they don’t ask for that. I’m hoping that colleges will consider the fact that our since our public high school class is 500+, the counselors are really only there to give a sense of what the school offers and not really able to speak to individual students.
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I hear you on the summer job stuff added to everything else. DS also got his first job (he’s working as a counselor at a learn-to-ride-your-bike camp, getting 4-6 year olds off training wheels and riding around the neighborhood) and the amount of onboarding paperwork! I mean, I get it, regular job papers plus dealing with kids papers. But we were so excited for him to get the offer right before APs, we thought Phew! One less thing to worry about! … only to all of a sudden have So Many Things to do for that too.
Also, FWIW, I’m highly jealous that your son loves Va Tech… we live in VA and my boy just… does not. (He, of course, only loves schools that are not state schools. BECAUSE OF COURSE.) And yet, it would be such a good fit for him for so many reasons. I’m hoping that another visit, at some point in the early Fall, might help draw a better picture for him.
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Right?? I mean, it is great to know that we finally have a handle on what summer days are going to look like, but mercy! It would be nice to not have the onslaught of tasks to get ready to start hard labor in mid-June while still slogging through the last weeks of junior year. I’m told the grades matter here in the last few weeks. 
And I feel your pain on the schools that are not state schools front, too. My fingers are crossed for you that yours warms up to VT, and that the likelihood of getting in is actually higher than it feels to me right now.
As an alum, I have lots of thoughts on UCSB. What exactly do you want to know? Is it worth the OOS cost (close to $78K/yr) for something that is not exactly what he wants to study? Personally, I don’t think so.
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How does she think it was? My D thought it was “ok”. Thinks she did well on the multiple choice but struggled with at least one of the FAQ’s.
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D25 has to fill out her recommendation requests soon I guess. I’m pretty sure she is the only one in her class that even has the sheets and knows what to do. She only knows because one of her senior friends told her. The college counselor hasn’t told the kids anything about it at all. D25 will be asking her English teacher (who already said she’d be mad if D didn’t ask her) and probably her dual enrollment, biomedical science teacher that has had her for 2 years now. She is also considering her history teacher who had her for both AP gov and APUSH.
Our school is small enough that a lot of the teachers are also in charge of several clubs D25 is in. For example, her English teacher is also in charge of student council.
One more AP test for D tomorrow, Lang. Then she just has to worry about 1 really hard final (the dual enrollment class) and 2 most likely very easy one. She should get out of her Spanish final altogether for having an A in the class.
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I have no idea if S25 has anything other than AP Physics 1 on Friday. He says he thinks he’s exempt from all of the finals because he has an A in all of his classes. (I think this is an option for juniors because of AP exams?) I’m suspect about whether this is true or not, but I guess we shall see!
Tomorrow night is the “Leadership Commissioning Ceremony” that includes awards and initiating the rising seniors with class rings and leadership medallions. I will probably ugly cry during it. It’s hitting me that I will be an empty nester soon.
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My D also just said it was ok. I asked her if it was difficult and she did say yeah and left it at that. Oh well, I am just glad it is over.
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I got the exact same response . It was “ok” and it was the FRQs at the end that were the biggest challenge. Regardless, she’s thrilled to be done!
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yes! Also, apparently there was no clock in the room so she messed up the timing for a couple of the questions. Oh well. She has an A in the class so it’s whatever. I’m pretty sure it’s her final grade because the teacher still hasn’t returned from leave.
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Surprisingly D25 thought Calc went better than her other 2 even though she really doesn’t like math. Lang tomorrow should be her favorite though.
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That is great! Hopefully a good score will be coming.
My D is all done with APs now and is just looking forward to staying in a hotel for their state track meet 
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Gosh, how is this allowed? How many juniors does each teacher have at your HS that they’re allowed to limit LOR’s to 10?
My (usually productive) kid has done nothing tonight except rot. Says BC Calc today used up every bit of focus they had in them. Let’s hope some brain recovery can happen over night tonight before Lang tomorrow!
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Well, the consensus about AB Calc today was that where he was once considering taking BC next year, he now has zero interest in going anywhere near it after today’s exam. 
He said the FRQs were really hard… and that he drew a picture of a bird instead of answering. Brings me back to when I took AP Bio some 30 years ago and crafted a response to one of the essays about why I couldn’t actually answer the question. And classmates drew pictures as well. So I guess some things don’t change?
The best/funniest highlight of his day was after the exam though. Remember that he missed those calculus review days last week? He got to start making up those assignments today, like 15 minutes after finishing up the AP exam. First missed in-class assignment was a review test that counts towards his final grade… after he’d taken the actual exam. We all had a good laugh… better late than never, I guess? Just have to see how things shake out on the actual AP.
Lang is up next, and then bio.
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Glad I found this group! Kiddos have been working hard for AP exams.
I read through all interesting comments, but nobody is concerned about college tuition? Anyone could provide the college list that offer sizable merit-based scholarships to cover most of tuition? We’re not eligible for any aid, but try to get big scholarships from one of top 50 US schools.
Thanks everyone!
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