This has been true about Princeton for as long as I can remember. They were one of the first schools to stop issuing student loans (too late for me or my brother, unfortunately). Their financial aid award to me was about what in-state tuition at UNC would have cost, and they gave me extra aid to buy a computer and join an eating club (and their offer for freshman year was $2K/year better than the offer I got from Yale. This may have changed; at the time Yale’s endowment was in worse shape.)
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I wish it was 2K/year for D23 
Quite pricey now, but still the most generous grant.
This is what we did. Ran Princeton and Williams. Since neither gave us anything we decided not to waste time dealing with all the paperwork.
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Hmmmm well all of the colleges c25 are looking at only take 4+ including state flagship. My kid isn’t looking at T50 places.
Good news here on the C25 front: There’s one week left in C25’s online PE class (you have to have 1½ credits of PE to graduate from the school district here, this class is the last ½ credit of that requirement), and the teacher preemptively entered a zero for all the remaining assignments so that the students know what their floor is if they don’t do anything else—and C25’s floor, it turns out, is an A. So that’s good—fully online classes are tough in many ways, and fully online PE classes even more so (and fully online foreign language classes still more, but that’s not at issue here).
This class has taken more time and effort than expected, but since it’s finishing it’ll be possible for the child to turn fully to essay writing now.
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My D25 is also in online gym and has the same credit requirement to graduate. She definitely has to make an effort to get her exercise in every day and remember to log and submit everything. I think the class has 3 weeks left maybe.
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Well today was the day that we had to apply for parking. The school will be under construction this year taking up half of the parking lot. So they opened registration up for seniors today. Problem is it didn’t work correctly. I did the registration and got a confirmation, but it didn’t charge me. Woke up really early to get this done. Let them know it didn’t work. They got the IT involved and now 3 hours later had to redo the registration. The payment part worked but not I didn’t get a confirmation. So frustrating.
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S25 just sent me his common app essay that he finished this morning with the writing coach. Writing is not is strong suit, and the essay ended up being a wonderful reflection of him. Really thrilled that he has this behind him! Now he needs to reach out to his teacher and counselor (who is brand spanking new) so that they can get going on the letters they agreed to write for him. Feeling a little less stressed that he’s moving a few things forward before the school year starts.
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D25 is off to dance camp. Her last one. And its at a different college this year which she is happy about. Not sure if it will be better or worse but she’s excited to stay at a different dorm. And she gets to see a friend from another team all week.
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That’s excellent! Excited for your son.
I’m not sure D25 will share her essay with us, but last night she briefly talked about her topic, but I’m less sure now of what it is about than when I knew nothing.
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Same here, and while it wasn’t the chaos that yours sounds like (what with having to get IT involved and all), it didn’t feel particularly successful either. Guess I shouldn’t squawk, since S25 got a parking spot at the auxiliary parking lot. I’m going to be very curious, though, to see who got spots at the lot at the front of the school. Ten bucks sez the kids whose families have been going to this high school for generations are the most likely recipients. So much for first come, first served when you aren’t members of the country club.
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Future note to others - some (all?) colleges have required health insurance, that you can get out of with proof of existing coverage for your student.
I bring this up today only because they’ve posted the fall bill in my S22’s financial portal (which I have access to for just this very purpose). Sure enough, it’s got the $2200 insurance fee. I’ve gotten it waived the last two years, so I know how to do it. I went to go into the system last night to upload copies of the insurance card and it’s got a few different levels of multifactor authentication - one of which is that it sends an email to my S22’s school email address, with the code I need to enter to proceed. Ok. EXCEPT. He lost his phone a few weeks ago. He’s got a new one, but only the old phone had the authenticator app from the school that he needs to be able to log in to school email or any of the school systems. And it’s not something he can download, he needs someone in the school IT shop to send him a personalized link. Which is something we talked about when he was setting up the new phone, but he hasn’t done yet, because you have to call IT and they are only open while he’s at work, on a construction site (he’s the field engineer) in the middle of nowhere and it’s loud and crappy reception.
Sigh. I reminded him last night that this needs to get done. Now I just need to set a reminder for both of us to get this taken off the bill before we get charged. Either one of us can do it, but it’s like a subscription, if you miss the deadline, you’re stuck paying.
Anyhoo, point for class of 25 people being, pay attention to those bills when they come, because sometimes you can get some of it removed if you jump through whatever hoops.
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That’s awesome! I don’t think my D25 will let me read it but I’m fine with that as long as someone does. She hasn’t worked on it since completing her first draft though.
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I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this, and found that (nearly) nobody appears to have done the legwork necessary to find out what the actual truth of the matter is—and those who have haven’t bothered to document their work.
The one source I found that gave numbers was a blog post on Campus Explorer, which I wouldn’t call incredibly reliable, but not thoroughly unreliable either. They claimed that 58% of public colleges give credit for AP scores of 3, but only 33% of private colleges do. (Insert an appropriate caveat here—which Campus Explorer only kindasorta did—that not all colleges award credit for all AP exams, and not all colleges that award AP credit do so at the same score thresholds for all exams.)
Potentially complicating this, Compass Prep (more reliable, IMO) says that in their search of colleges’ stated criteria, only about 60% of colleges mentioned the use of AP scores for credit and/or placement at all. So that means that it’s tough to figure out what exactly is going on with them—but even so, if Campus Explorer is right, then given how vastly many more students attend public colleges than private ones (nearly three times as many!), if 58% of public institutions accept at least some 3s, it is not the case that for most students, a 3 will get them nothing.
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I think part of why it’s so difficult to get stats on “does a 3 on AP test get college credit” is precisely because of the “well, which college, which major, what kind of credit” question.
My S22 got a 3 on AB Calc. Which was enough at the public university he attends to get credit for “1 college level math course” since he is not planning on majoring in anything STEM-like. However, if he were in a STEM major, it would get him “1 general ed course” worth of credit, but he’d have to take Calculus again.
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To add to this, some may give different credit depending on the score. I saw today on the CU website that they only give credit for 4 or 5 for some APs (actually, for comp sci principles only for a 5), for others you get different credit depending whether you got a 3 vs a 4 or 5. So you really have to do your homework per school.
Edit: I see nothappyabout made the same point.
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Yep! That sort of thing affected my C23, who’s required to take 4 semesters of a foreign language because her program is in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the U of North Texas. They give 2 semesters credit there for a 3 on one of the foreign language AP exams, 3 semesters for a score of 4, and 4 semesters for a 5. C23 got a 4 on her AP German exam, and so needed to take 4th-semester German (ETA: which was entirely review for her!) this past spring to complete the requirement.
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As a PSA for Bay Area parents (or others) who had no in-California options for the Aug. 24th SAT test date, some seats are now available in San Francisco. The change fee is $29, but that’s cheaper than having to travel out-of-state.
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Looks like some are added in So Cal as well. Mostly hotels and convention centers.
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D25 is staying in college dorms for a dance camp. I asked her how it is going (she has never been to this college before).
“They don’t have ice cream. It’s awful.”
Adding “Must have soft serve machine” in our college wants list.
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