We might take a tour. I am not sure. It’s a really really reachy school, to the point that I can already say it won’t make sense to apply. I do think he’d love the campus, it’s got a lot of things I imagine he’ll want, but I think we can sort out the big/little, urban/rural, campus culture type question by visiting other schools. We live in an urban area, so if we’re going to take tours to sort that out, we can do it locally.
I think for this particular kid we need to find our safeties first. Luckily, I think we’ll have some good options there.
We’ll probably take D26 on college tours in latter half of 11th grade. She’s already been on some college tours having been dragged along on college tours for her older sister (D24). She hasn’t been on official college tours though for the 2 in-state public universities which she thinks might be good options, but we’ll do that in Feb or March of next year.
We are going to see a few schools over March break. The college counselor at my D26’s school recommended visiting some schools this summer, but I’m doing it earlier because I think it would be more valuable to see the schools while there are students on campus!
At this point, we know she’s interested in engineering. From there, I’m going with “big vs small” and “city vs rural” so she can maybe get a sense of which of those she prefers.
I don’t think we will do official tours soon. My feeling is that S26 is not ready to give this serious thought. He also has to decide if he wants to pursue athletic recruiting or not. That would mean a completely different set of schools.
In the meantime he has another decision to make, our district is opening a new high school in the fall and we are zoned for it. But the current high school also allows them to stay. This decision which school to attend is stressing him out, so college is totally on the backburner right now.
D26 has already told us that she, like her sister, doesn’t want to go “anywhere cold” (we’re in AZ). There’s some schools in TX that we’ll have her check out when the time comes. And we have really good friends that live not that far from Univ of Redlands in southern CA, so some time in the next year when we’re in the area, we’ll drag D26 on a tour of that school just to get the idea of what a smaller college feels like.
We never did any formal tours with S24. He knew which colleges, generally, he wanted to apply to and said after acceptances if he still can’t decide then we can go for a visit. But he wasn’t much of a campus tour kid.
We won’t be doing any tours with D26 either at least for another year. She can only handle focusing on one thing at a time or gets overwhelmed easily. So grades and ECs are more than enough to keep her busy right now.
Hi, everyone! New to this HS Class of 2026 community, but not new to CC community. My youngest is a HS sophomore, and I can’t believe we’re starting this college journey again with our 3rd kid!
I see that some of you are starting college tours in the spring! Great time to visit since there will be students there! Fortunately for us, DS26 has seen our in-state colleges twice/three times at least already thanks to his big brothers! Lol! We are still planning to re-visit some, but add new ones to his list as well. We will start some tours this summer. DS26 is interested in majoring in Creative Writing, and he’s applying for the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop this summer.
Most of her schedule is pretty straightforward (AP Bio, advanced math track starting calc next spring, 3rd year FL, and she gets one elective which will probably be honors orchestra).
English and History are the big questions for her. She has a choice of either regular English or AP English (Language), and either regular US History or APUSH.
Her big brother S23 took APUSH and loved it, but didn’t take AP English, since he wasn’t thinking of himself as a max rigor kid at that time. He’s become more academically intense since starting college, and is recommending to her that she take AP English … because he regrets not taking it himself.
She’s worried regular English will be boring. But she’s not sure about taking 3 APs. At our HS, APs are somewhat limited in number, and each one tends to be pretty intense and go beyond the college board curriculum. She could skip APUSH… but it sounds fun to her… sometimes it is hard for D26 to make a decision. She worries.
I have to be careful not to have an opinion, because D26 is my contrary child who does not like to go along with my opinion
So is this a D26 specific issue or a middle child, second child manner?! Because we have the same scenario exactly in this house..D26 has to come to the decision on her own and I tend to do a lot of reverse psychology so she thinks she’s not doing what I suggested.
The regional mock trial event was yesterday. One team got stuck in the elevator and then all the elevators were out the rest of the day. D26’s day started at 7:30 am and they didn’t finish until 6 pm!
She’s decided that she pretty much hates mock trial because “it feels like another class at school and it’s not fun.”
She’s really enjoyed formal debates in her English class the past 2 yr and her English teacher is the faculty advisor for the speech and debate club. I’m going to maybe encourage D26 to consider that next year.
We just picked here too. S26 is running out of math classes, so that was tricky to pick. It wasn’t my first choice, but it’ll be okay. He is happy to drop his foreign language. Covid did not help that at all.
Our classes for next year are already chosen and locked in (though there is a drop/add period in the first few weeks of the semester). D26 didn’t really have many tough choices, mostly just kept marching through the levels of core classes and added in choir. The only real issue was what kind of pre-cal to take - it’s offered dual-credit through the local community college and also for OnRamps credit through UT-Austin. OnRamps gives slightly more GPA boost, but both D22 and D26 dislike the pedagogical style of those classes, so D26 went with dual-credit. She’ll have 4 APs this year and probably 6 next year (counting Gov and Econ separately).
D26 has made her class selections for next year too, and basically for senior year as well because the IB diploma program spans 2 years.
The only sort of “funky” thing for her is that she’s doing her first year of IB SL French as a sophomore, so she will take the SL French exam next year as a junior. This will actually be nice as she will have one less class senior year while working on essays, applications, etc.
She’ll be doing HL AA math, HL Global Politics, SL Lit and Lang, SL French, and then two sciences: Biology and Environmental Systems & Sciences - the school isn’t sure which of these two will be offered at HL yet, but whichever one it is, that will be her 3rd HL. Then of course she will have the TOK and CAS plus extended essay. I’m tired just thinking about all this!
Curious if there are any others on the thread with students doing the IB diploma program?
My class of 26 is not doing it but my older two did. S22 got his diploma but never took an actual IB exam lol. D24 took one SL exam last year and is prepping for the now. It’s a lot of work. Oldest says he was well prepared for college.
Our school offers IB, but D didn’t want to do it because the program severely restricts electives (we have only 6 periods in our school day), so she would not have been able to participate in honors orchestra. Our IB program also doesn’t offer HL level in sciences; STEM focused IB students typically take AP sciences and don’t do the IB diploma.
D26 got her recommended courses from her teachers. She now has to decide what she is going to take. They are allowed to override and change the recommendations if they want, with parent approval. Her current recommendations are:
AP Lang
AP Chem OR Honors Physics
Honors US History
CP1 Algebra 2
CP1 Spanish 3
PE/Health
Plus three electives she gets to pick
She is leaning towards Honors Physics and really does not want AP Lang but then her only other option is Honors English 11 and she feels like she needs the AP for rigor… we don’t care what she does.
