My DS did quite well on the SATs – but not as well has he’d hoped – so he’s thinking of taking them again in June. (I think he was getting near-perfect scores on practice tests and really wanted to nail the sucker.) I think taking them again would be kind of ridiculous – there is no school on the planet that would look at his SATs and say “nope” – but it’s his journey? I dunno. What if they go worse? what does one really prove with this?
In the meantime, he’s taking his fourth AP test (physics I) this morning and none of us is feeling super sanguine about it. H was giving him a bunch of last-minute pointers (“if you have a crazy problem where there’s something swinging around on the end of a stick or something, just think about what would happen if gravity were the only force and then work from there”) during breakfast and UGH. the pressure.
I think our world-view is so distorted based on where we live and the people we work around and yeah, there are a bunch of hot shots at my son’s school who live and breathe Maxwell’s equations and compose string quartets in their spare time and also run hurdles but the world runs on competence as much as brilliance, right? Right!
Yeah. C25 got an 1170. Which is really pretty dang good, considering they did no prep at all (including revising Geometry from 3 yrs ago, or Alg II from 2 yrs ago) since they were studying for AP Chem and Calc AB.
It’s just not a score I’d encourage them to put down on an application to Northwestern or RPI (the 2 reaches that are still on the list). Both of those places are test-optional, though, so we’ll see how far holistic takes them.
The geometry and algebra 2 (completed prior to sophomore year) were what got my son as well the first time around on the SAT (spring sophomore year), since he’d forgotten so much of it. This was his third stab at it and he really wanted to be done with taking it, so this time he put in a bit of effort reviewing SAT math on Khan Academy for the few weeks prior to the test. He feels good about his score, but he’s still on the fence about whether to take it again.
Most of his schools are TO, and with a bit of research, he can make a school-by-school decision to submit or not. There will be other factors that might impact how schools look at his score. So I’m leaving the decision whether to take it again up to him.
Well thank goodness that week is over!
Kiddo seems really relieved to have it behind him. We won’t talk about the looming Spanish independent study that he hasn’t started…
Prom is tomorrow night, and once again, we’ve got the pre- and post- festivities here. Small school = small, super low-key prom = in a lot of ways, less complicated! It was fun hosting last year, and it’s such a lovely group of kids that I’m more than happy to have them for dinner etc.
I am so grateful D25 made it to the end of this week. She doesn’t feel good about AP Bio, which doesn’t surprise me, bc she had to eschew studying for it to do AP Macro classwork. This is an online class (the only way her school offers it) and has no due dates until the end of the term. I’m not generally involved in the day to day of D25’s schedule, so didn’t realize she had done nothing, zero, zilch, nada in the class until late April. She did the entire semester’s work in three weeks, finishing minutes before the class ended last night. She’s awaiting the grading of half the final, but I’m shocked to say she might actually keep the A in the class.
Good news: *She could survive a Colorado College/Cornell College (1 class at a time for 16 class days). Too bad she has no interest.
*I got back into my running shoes, bc I was too antsy to stick around the house as the minutes ticked down.
*D25’s anxiety did NOT kick into gear even under the stress of this week. This is huuuuge and I am very thankful!
Bad news: If this is how she’s going to run the college application process, I think I might lose my mind.
It seems to me that the scores we see (either in a forum or on, like. Niche or Naviance, where score range is reported) are kind of slanted in a way for many schools, since only those who feel they have a strong score will be reporting that score. Ya know what I mean? I just mean that we see everyone everywhere getting 1450+… but that’s because all those kids/parents with average scores aren’t reporting them or talking about them! So don’t sweat it.
PS: I was sure my D25 kid could just ignore SATs, because the schools on her list were test-optional… until this winter! BAM! Suddenly some of her top choices added back the testing requirement. So junior-year spring?? Suddenly for the first time in her entire life she has to do standardized testing! She’s at a (highly selective) boarding school that doesn’t do APs, either, so it’s brand-new. Hello, SAT joy!
I so relate, Goldbug. S25 just got his SAT score from a couple weeks ago and he was more bummed about a SAT that is a bit north of 1500 than on the fact he didn’t place or get any award at ISEF. (He really wasn’t expecting anything at ISEF, but he too had really stellar practice tests). He isn’t doing SAT again (closest locations it is offered is an hour away) but he will try one more ACT (he had 36/36/32/29 on ACT sections, but thinks if he manages time better he can superscore a 36).
I think it is more for bragging rights than for anything logical…he knows multiple people with 36s on ACT, and even more with superscored 36s. His public school is academically competitive and he wants to be competing right there with the top students, even though test taking isn’t probably his greatest strength.
You can check what percentage of enrolled first-year students actually submitted test scores in section c9 of the common data set. If say <60% submitted scores you can assume the reported score ranges are inflated.
My S22 found that the school journalism program had photographers available to do senior pictures for relatively cheap, around school, and that suited him just fine! The school set the prices on the photo packages, and the journalism program got a cut to sustain programs for next year.
It was a regional fair - 2 projects from our regional (lower level than state) got to go directly to ISEF due to the size of the regional fair. I think part of the ISEF thing is that it is a group project with a 3 person team. He feels like while he did 1/3 of the work, he maybe was less than 1/3 the inspiration/ideas if that makes sense. It is not in his area of passion either. But, absolutely - it was an amazing accomplishment and I am so proud of him. I keep reminding him that his test scores are plenty high, but…this reassurance doesn’t seem to get through, at least not yet.
My D22 did it in October, to try and get fall color in her pictures. I am hoping to have S25’s taken in August (September-October are super busy months for him with overlapping extracurricular activities), but I haven’t booked anything yet.
Is your name Goldbug from the Richard Scarry books? Now I’m getting all sentimental about my rising senior. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go was his favorite
One of d25s classmates just committed to Harvard (was a recruited athlete with high stats). Super rare for any of the kids from our school to go to Ivies.
Yes and…it’s a derivative of my nickname for our son. We did love those Richard Scarry books. The stories were good too! (E.g. the one about the bad Pie-rats who were also pirates)
35% of the test was algebra and 35% was advanced math for the last one 15% problem solving and the other 15 geometry and apparently that’s uniform for both
I think the exam was just harder in general and more calculator friendly this time
I remember being able to plug in 90% of the problems for the May exam vs the march one
Granted the May one I feel like I had less time on the math because the few last math questions felt really hard and just out of the blue
