Our district has done away with summer reading/projects–not sure what I think about it honestly.
You make a lot of sense. S25 has a good academic record - Rank 2/550, 8 APs so far and 5 more in his senior year (total 13), in a decent competitive public school. SAT is decent at 1540 (800 in Math). AP Calc BC is 5 but a 4 in AP Physics Mechanic, CS A and CS Principles. He’ll be applying to a STEM major… Not sure if it’s worth submitting these AP scores to top schools from what you’re saying. I’ll let S25 decide. We don’t want to make decisions for him. Thank you all for the information. It was helpful.
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From my perspective (I have nothing to do with college admissions other than being a concerned parent) your son’s record is outstanding - not just good. It is incredibly frustrating to me that we are at a place where we are questioning the value of anything short of perfection.
Please note, this is not a reflection on you, but where admissions is today.
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True. There’s so much conflicting information on what the schools are looking for. Common Dataset isn’t very useful. It doesn’t show a pattern for most schools. We let our kids decide on what they want to include in their application and where they want to apply. But as parents, we don’t want them to make an obvious mistake 
We went through this with our D23 and we thought we learned so much in the process. Apparently not lol
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I see this over & over, but I’m wondering why “they” consider 3 a pass when the vast majority of schools will only award credit for a 4 or 5. Some schools only take a 5. Some won’t award AP credit at all.
There’s often a big difference in AP credit policies between privates that want you to pay for 4 years and publics that want you out as fast as possible. Most college students attend (public) colleges that are happy to give credit for a 3, even if some want a higher score for a class to count towards your major. Wanting a higher score for certain AP classes that are pre-requisites for a major is not really any different to setting secondary admission requirements (ie a GPA that is more than just a pass) in order to declare that major.
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I am uncertain that this claim is correct.
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Question about short answer questions on applications. They say no longer than 250 words. Do the colleges want as close to 250 as possible or is an answer that is around 80 words ok?
I am neither Mark nor Hannah from the Inside the Yale Admissions Office podcast, but feel like I can channel them at this point. I think they’d say something like “If you can write a short answer that you’re really proud of in 80 words, great! If it captures everything you want to capture, don’t hesitate to submit it! At the same time, recognize that most students need a bit more space (hence the 250 words available) to fully capture their sentiments. And keep in mind that if you’re early in the application season, there’s no harm in sitting on your answer for a week or two so you have time to approach it again with fresh eyes. The important thing is that — whatever the length — you write something that you feel answers the question, that you’re proud of, and that truly reflects who you are as a person and an applicant.”
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The UCs give credit for 3s.
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Thanks. That’s what I was thinking. I think she needs to think of it more like an essay, but I think she’s thinking more like a quick response. She sometimes has a problem with being overly vague.
Unrelated to college planning, my S25 is having his wisdom teeth removed next week. I very vaguely remember doing this with my other child, but that was back in 2019 and I apparently have some massive brain fog. I can’t remember what food I stocked up on for him. Does anyone have suggestions? Like first few days super soft, then next few days when some chewing can happen but not so much? He’s an athlete and consumes a lot of calories so I don’t want to be all “chocolate pudding and broth for four days, woo hoo!” but what else?
D22 had hers removed last week. The main thing was no seeds, small grains and no straws, so remember that for those smoothies! And no working out to not raise blood pressure.
Anyhow….
We used bone broth (instead of stock or water) in everything for extra protein.
Fairlife that first day was great to keep her full.
Lots of Greek yogurt.
Mac and Cheese
Cheesy scrambled eggs
Black bean and pasta soup (ditallini or other small shape; blend the beans with bone broth)
Ice Cream
After the first few days she was fine with things like watermelon, mini wontons in bone broth, gnocchi
You can also add protein powder to smoothies.
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This is super helpful, thank you!
Both Clemson and Miami where my kids went accepted 3’s for credit.
As noted above public universities will give college credits for AP test scores. Private universities often don’t. My D18 graduated in 3 years from Clemson because of the AP credits she received.
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For a 250 word limit (that’s roughly a page in my old-lady double-spaced frame of reference, or half-page single spaced), I would be shooting for 200-ish, maybe 150 bare minimum. 80 sounds a bit too light.
I will tell you what I tell my students when I give them papers with a word cap (I never give word count minimums, except in very limited cases) of, say, 12k words—something like:
I gave you 12k words to work with so that if you have something complicated to say, you have room to do so. I don’t anticipate that most of you will need all 12k. Heck, if you could answer everything completely in a half page (which you can’t, but still), I would love that—less effort for me, less effort for you, we all win. Basically, use what you need to build a complete response, just don’t go over 12k words—and remember that I’d rather read something that’s a little scant (as long as you cover everything) than something that blathers on because you’ve been taught that word count limits are targets rather than, well, limits.
I have to imagine that most admissions officers are able to spot students who wrote their up-to-250-words essay to 249 words because they padded it to get as close to the word count as they could—it’s a skill a lot of high achieving students learn along the way, and it makes for horrible writing.
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Writing concisely is a skill; one that can take a lot of time, thought and energy.
All three of my kids went way over the word count for all their essays on their first passes. They then edited, honed and sharpened their writing - usually getting each short essay question to somewhere between 5-15 words below the limit.
Their main common app essays were all within 2-5 words of word count limit (650, iirc).
Few writers are Hemingway - For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.
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She was diligent about icing throughout the first day. 20 minutes one side at a time and had minimal swelling.
Taking the prescribed Advil (300mg) on schedule (not waiting for the pain) for the first 2-3 days also helped. After that she only took if needed (the standard 200mg), but she was mostly fine.
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My D25’s list of colleges is feeling really short. She has 9, and given that we are merit seeking it feels dangerously insufficient. The issue is that she has very specific program desires and we visited a lot of schools in person that then got removed. She will apply EA to all those she can, so I am hoping that if she gets denials in December, she can add to her list by the Jan deadlines.
Based on published acceptance numbers she has 3 safeties, 3 targets, 3 high reaches.
I have been obsessively helping with her list since last fall, so I don’t think there are any stones left unturned in terms of good options to add to her list, but I can’t help but get nervous when I see such a short list.
Any other merit seekers here with a similar list length?