My daughter broke her wrist a couple weeks ago…(gymnast turned diver….no stranger to broken bones…) so we’re trying to get an accommodation for extra time for the AP Psych test since it’s obviously difficult and painful to write. Fingers crossed… at least her cast matches her Senior Ball dress? Sigh….
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We pay for APs and there is an application process for APs and “rules” for how you had to perform leading up to it. You can’t take APs freshmen year unless you are in AP of a foreign language or Calculus, so that’s a very tiny handful of kids. My son had 8 APs which would have been 10 had he not stayed with band. He didn’t take Calc AB through because they knew he’d be taking BC so they were like we test just for BC when you are in this math track. They didn’t have Pre Calc when he took it. He also didn’t have AP in a foreign language.
My son thought Chem was easy and was pretty sure he got a 5. Today is Lit and Comp Gov, he gets absolutely nothing for Lit at GT because he already got a 5 on Lang. I told him to blow it off for Comp Gov.
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D25 thought Chem went well also. She said she put what she thought she did wrong into some score calculator and it said she’d get a 5. We shall see in July.
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AP Lit today but D25 didn’t study. Not sure how to really study for that one. AP Stats tomorrow and she’s skipping her soccer game tonight to study and rest. She had senior night for soccer last night so in my mind she is done with that especially since they’re ranked last I believe. So many injuries on her team this year. It’s not worth the risk of her playing at this point. She is the goal keep and already got cleats to the face a few weeks ago.
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Knowing instructions and format in advance would help 
don’t ask me why I say this..I had an interesting ride home with my kiddo who missed a key part of the instructions for one of the essays, apparently.
They also had a crappy AP Lit teacher – super nice, easy grader but seemed not to prepare them for test much 
I don’t really like teaching to a test, but that is only if you are going to do other important learning in lieu of it. I am 100% sure kid wrote more essays and read more in 10th grade english than AP Lit …alas.
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In my experience it is best to remove people like this from the team- it changes the whole dynamic and forces a lot of really great people to leave to get away from the one bad apple
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D25 had AP Gov yesterday and AP Lit today. I reported to you all yesterday that yesterday while studying for AP Gov she saw she got off the waitlist for her dream UCLA.
I told her to stay focused and close out strong on the AP exams. She thinks she got a 3 or 4 on AP Gov, and a 5 on AP Lit (she’ll be an English major in the fall). One more to go - AP Art History tomorrow.
Edit: AP Art History next week.
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Two AP exams down (Chem and Lit) and one to go tomorrow (Statistics). So is he home studying? Nope, we are, of course, at a track meet.
I won’t lie, I was kind of hoping for a movie ending where all of a sudden all of his hard work pays off and he gets a new personal best and the coach is all I knew you could do it! Come run at districts!
Of course, that did not happen. No personal best for either his 200 or long jump. Potentially because he has gotten crap sleep all week trying to get assignments turned in and dealing with stress. He’s currently failing statistics because he hasn’t turned stuff in. The teacher said late work would be accepted through today, so he was up very very late last night getting stuff done. I’m guessing that did him no favors, either at the meet or on AP Lit. Because he did so well on AP Lang last year all he needs is to get a 3 on Lit to get credit for two English courses (and to pass out of the required English for his major). I would’ve said a 3 was no problem and a 4 was the likely score, but on so little sleep and still getting over probable-COVID? Who knows.
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I’m so impressed that so many of your kids find AP Chem easy. A very smart student that my D22 looked up to once told her, “Taking AP Chem is the biggest regret of my life.” 
So, she never took it, and she in turn warned her younger sister not to take it, LOL.
We went to an emotional theatre banquet for S25 tonight. The drama department really took him in and became his home in high school, and he is just so sad to be leaving. I haven’t posted much of his history here, but he faces a lot of challenges – and the theatre kids were so warm and welcoming and inclusive. Plus his director is one of the best humans to ever exist, and she gave my kid every opportunity she could, encouraged him, propped him up – and his growth over the past three years has been incredible. (He started in public high school as a sophomore.)
S25 just lost it when we got home – he was overwhelmed with winning an award for overall contribution to the program, getting his stole for International Thespian Society to wear at graduation, etc. He hugged me for a long time and thanked me profusely for letting him do theatre and for my being so involved in the department (I served on the booster board for the last two years, planned all the cast parties, etc). “Thanks for not giving up on me,” he said. And now I’m a blubbering mess.
But gotta pull it together – I’m hitting the road at 6am to go retrieve my D22 from college. This will involve 26 hours of driving in the next three days. Wish us luck, lol.
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D25 received a scholarship tonight from our local Rotary club. They put on a nice dinner for all of the recipients. This is the beginning of the countdown to graduation. 3 1/2 weeks!
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My son texted me apoplectic because yesterday in both compgov and lit he was doing “really well and understood all of it” and then just blanked on the last essay and “probably got a 4”. He was DISTRAUGHT.
I’m like first of all lit means nothing because you already tested out of English 1 at GT for your lang.
Second of all to get compgov credit you only need a 4 so again, who gives a care.
Honestly, this kiddo needs to scale it back in the fall. I appreciate he’s driven, but like he’s had 3 AP tests in 2 days, two back to back that was heavy writing. and NONE OF THESE TESTS MATTER.
Plus I mean if you did really well on the rest of the test one essay won’t take you from a 5 to a 4.
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D25 thinks she got a 5 on AP list. She said they are releasing the AP Chem FAQ (or whatever the essays are called) next week and that they’ll go over them in class. She said she doesn’t want to know. Would rather go on believing she got a 5. She was very confident in her answers after the test but is, of course, now second guessing it all.
She spent last night watching AP Stats cram videos on YouTube. Then went on to study probability more. We’ll she what she thinks after the test.
Yesterday she was auditioning to be the speaker at graduation. She thought it was going to be between her and 2 other kids. The other 2 kids ended up dropping it, but then her ex decided that he was going to try for it. So it will be between him and D25. They will supposedly find out today but they are both taking the AP Stats exam so I’m hoping they won’t find out until after the test.
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I teach (and grade for College Board) AP Chemistry! I’m so sad to read that people don’t love it as much as I do. But I hope the best for everyone’s performance (and not too much stress). Over here DS is studying for AP Physics. He did a practice test and barely finished half the questions…omg he needs a lot more practice. Luckily he has another week.
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My D25 said she loved her AP Chem exam. She said it was easier than her class practice tests and is expecting a 5. Today is her last day of exams. AP World History. Overall 16 APs. I cant be more proud of her. It was very stressful and in hindsight, it was too many, but I am glad she ran with it. Northeastern is allowing 32 credits, so that should take off some of her college load.
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Last AP for my guy today - AP Stats. No telling how this goes, as he was up pretty late last night. He had what is probably his last track meet last night and, while it was fun, because he’d been up so late the night before trying to get last minute homework turned in on time, and then had the AP Lit exam all morning, I think he was pretty drained for the meet. Then when we got home after the meet he found out he could still turn in some stats homework for credit, so was doing a few more assignments that also could serve as review for the test. Which is fine and all, but he didn’t START those assignments until 10pm, and his wakeup time is 6:30. So we’ll see how this all goes. I’ll be glad to get the various tests over and done. Then he has next week to focus on his final exam grades in Chem Lab (his science fair project) and Photography (portfolio). I seriously hope none of his classes give anymore homework. It just needs to be done at this point.
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We are lucky. Tomorrow is her last day of High School. We will all heave a collective sigh of relief when she comes home tomorrow!!
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Shockingly, S25 felt better about AP Lit than AP Chem. We shall see when scores come out. One last test on Monday…Calc AB.
Last night was the final band banquet. Kiddo got a couple of small honors, which was more than I was expecting. He did get to get on stage and give a short speech and bestow the “Purple Squid Hat,” which is a silly tradition where a graduating senior passed on the purple squid hat to a rising senior who is “the biggest goofball in the band.” He did a funny speech and was very confident in his quick time on stage. While he didn’t love band this year, I’m so grateful for his four years of participating.
My family rolls in from Texas today for graduation and the inlaws arrive tomorrow just before baccalaureate mass. I’m a little anxious about all of the moving parts of this graduation weekend, but I’m going to try really hard to stay in the moment and just appreciate this huge accomplishment.
Hope everyone else hangs in there during this busy time!
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For the first time that i can remember, im seeing much more variety in oos school choices for d25 classmates. Sure theres the usual state flagship uw madison and others mostly uw lacrosse, milwaukee, and whitewater. Iowa state, u of iowa and UMN, mankato and Winona still popular. But this year seeing Harvard, Georgetown, GT, Wash U, UTK, MTSU, RPI, UK, Nazareth, GCU and a handful of others.
Happy to see kids exploring!
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Late to this party, but I’m happy to share that S25 committed to a college last week. The winner is. . . MIT! He did waffle a bit, given that Harvard had been his dream school, but he made what I believe is the best decision for him. I support his decision, as MIT appears to be doing things differently than many other colleges. For example, I really admire their policy of giving no breaks in admission to legacies, athletes, donor or faculty kids, etc., but there’s a lot more that I learned about the college in the last few months. Full disclosure: I was a finalist for a tenured faculty position at MIT a few years ago (didn’t get the job—ouch!), so I knew a good amount about the academics of the school, but I learned much more about their student life as a parent this year. I discovered that there’s a very quirky and irreverent sense to the university, which is pretty uncommon in higher education. The Pirate Certificate (if they take certain PE courses), interesting IAP classes, the Banana Lounge, etc. And of course, they are not afraid to push the kids in their academics pretty hard there, and S25 is looking forward to that. In short, I think he’ll fit in well. Now I have to come to grips with the upcoming empty-nest syndrome! Looking forward to see how others are dealing with that.
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I’m late to the discussion about required APs/cost. D25 is at a public school, AP exams are optional and the family has to pay (unless they request assistance). I had to check my receipt-- we paid $103 per test last fall.
@skkm0906 it sounds like our kids are alike- D25 has stressed over the tests even though we’ve reminded her they don’t matter! Also she perseverates when she has a problem question/blanks on something, so she often thinks she did terribly and in reality did fine. D25 has had a lot going on this spring, between the college choice and her final dance recital, so we discussed just skipping APs, but she wanted to take them.Today’s AP stats is 3rd of 4 for her, she has AP Physics next week.
In other news, the kitchen renovation that we were hoping to start last fall is finally starting next week. So our downstairs will be all torn up for graduation next month, when we are hosting out of town grandparents. Oh well.
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