2 of my kids committed to doing a bit of SAT prep on Kahn academy. You set your goals upfront say 20minutes M-W-F, test in four weeks. It’s was easy to stick with it because it was not a lot at a time and a concrete/finite study session. If you sign in via college board it pulls info from your previous tests and gives you very targeted practice.
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That’s awesome! I didn’t know there was a practice test on the ACT website. I will definitely encourage this the night before. Thank you for the heads up!
In theory this is great. And my kid knows about khan & prior SAT (or PSAT?) is linked. But she hasn’t prioritized making time to prep.
I think the most I can hope for is Anon’s suggestion: take an official practice test the night before. Of course it’ll be a Friday night when she’d dead from a week of school & works on Friday afternoons.
Maybe the weekend before then. I don’t think the night before buys you anything extra.
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D25 should find out her PACT score today. I’m super curious what it will be. I don’t think it will change her SAT plan but if she gets 34 or higher maybe we’ll have her take the ACT too.
Our version of this was last year more or less having to drag the family on a west coast swing. They just couldn’t see themselves in CA, didn’t vibe with the CA kids at their BS. We began the visits at UCSD. “Wow I love it here and can really see myself here!” Boom their lists grew by like 8 schools 
First semester grades came out today and next years schedule was finalized.
AP Lit
AP Latin
AP Stats
AP Bio
AP Euro
Sports Medicine
Engineering Design & Development
We are all currently home with the flu.
DD has her list of schools picked out. I am somewhat concerned that they are all ones that my wife or I suggested and none that she picked for herself. We have visited six of them and were supposed to visit the last one (Denison) on President’s Day weekend but, Governor’s School is having an orientation that day and she elected to go to that and try to get out to Denison at another time. I wish the school counselor would be more helpful in the process, but they do not see, to do anything for college applications until you are senior.
She decided to take the SAT one last time in March. She has a pretty good score already and think she is just doing it to go to Panera with her friends afterwards. Haha.
Hope everyone is doing well!
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D25 got her practice ACT score yesterday. Pretty sure she’ll be sticking with the SAT. She got a 31, her math score (28) dragged her total score down. She said the ACT math was much harder than the SAT and she was the only one in her whole class to have finished the math section.
It seems to be super specific to the kid. Our guidance counselor advises everyone to take them both, sometimes the ACT science section really seems to help some kids.
I guess we’ll see, S25 is taking it in April!
wow! Our kids school hasn’t even posted next year’s class offerings…though they will soon..)
We don’t pick until end of March and don’t find out what you are enrolled in until a few days before school starts (so late August). That said, most kids get the classes they ask for (except for maybe PE electives).
Our selections are due In December and the counselor confirms the student got the classes they requested in a one on one meeting with the student (this just happened). Don’t get actual schedule until right before school.
Our school requires kids to finalize their requests in mid-February, but they don’t start putting together schedules until at least May and kids don’t get their schedules until a week before school starts in August. Over the summer, you sometimes get phone calls that you didn’t get the class(es) you wanted and need to pick something else. I’m not clear why kids need to make their decision in February when they’ve barely started semester 2.
I know for my D25 school they might not have enough teachers for certain classes and might try and hire over the summer. Plus even though the school advertises they have 19 AP and DE classes the reality is that many get canceled because of low enrollment. AP chem was one and it really threw off some of my D friend’s schedules. Many aren’t offered every year either. AP enviro is every other year. I hope when the counseling office sends the hs profile they include the nuances of what is actually available to the students.
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My kid is doing the 100% DE thing so the calendar is different, but I know from working at the university that the first draft (first draft!!) of fall schedules there didn’t go in til today.
And the high schools here have definitely not yet released fall class lists.
Which is kind of fascinating, considering that our K–12 school year ends way earlier (mid May) than most.
D25 did her schedule last week:
AP Gov
AP Stats
AP Chinese
AP Psych
French 3
English 4
I actually think next year will be easier than this year’s schedule, which sucks. She’s gotten Bs in hard APs (Calc and Physics), but she should be able to get As in the APs above. Live and learn, but I’m going to not bother applying to tippy top UCs now.
Univ of Oregon and OSU still do not have campus visits for April posted.
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We are just getting emails about next year’s course selections. School has phased out APs in favor of honors and DE, so we will see what is available.
just want to say I love seeing kids who like languages:) AP Chinese and French 3 is cool in my book! 
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Like many of you, I am sure, I have been following decision results for 2024 at a handful of schools over the last few weeks as early admission gets rolling. I am curious when we, as parents of 2025, will begin to learn the fallout of this year’s massive application submissions, deferrals, etc. It’s hard to get a grasp on rhyme/reason in some cases. Are changes afoot at how colleges/universities will handle the huge #'s and how will it affect our 2025 kiddos? From podcasts I have listened to, I know some of this is a result of post pandemic, test optional, big wave of international kids applying, but still…something has to give. Thoughts anyone?
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I have a D23 as well as a S25. It’s a crap shoot, you just have to prepare your child and yourself for all kinds of scenarios. I’d advise more than 1 likely school, maybe as many as 3 unless your state has auto-admit.
I think that it will change, starting around class of 2027 the birth rate really tumbles and many colleges will have to readjust again. But I don’t think it will be in time for our kids
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Totally agree. My S22 was… in the sweep of all the 21 deferrals. So, it was just really awful trying to predict anything. For my C25, we’re looking at the auto-admit selection process, and trying to figure out how many “lottery ticket” apps we want out in the world. Because, C25 would like to try some other place in the country (as opposed to S22 who really wanted to stay close by), but I can’t say that C25s chances anywhere are any good. So we’re just thinking about which schools seem like a good major choice fit, and we’re hoping to get a lucky application reader somewhere.
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