That is good to hear. Our school doesn’t offer AP Physics but S26 is in Honors Physics this year, and AP Chem next year. MIT has not entered his mind as a possibility–and he isn’t looking for a STEM focused school, so I think we can safely cross it off. He’s a “maybe STEM, but maybe history … or philosophy … or hey, anthropology is cool too” kind of kid. And most of his ECs are artistic pursuits. So … who knows.
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When my D26 left this afternoon to go and take her AP Physics test- she had to turn around and come back home really quick.
She forgot to change out of her PJs!!
Lets just say that at this point, I do not have any high expectations on her scoring well on this one!!! lol
She is totally checked out for this year!
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My daughter, like, met her boyfriend for coffee instead of studying for AP Physics, which started at noon. She’s taking the Physics C exam instead of Physics 1, which she’s enrolled in-- I forget why. Anyway, she was resolved on being “cooked” for this one too.
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D texted me to say someone at the HS set off the fire alarm so she has to take the AP Lang exam all over again on Thursday next week. 
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S26 thought AP Calc AB went pretty well. His school is on a 4 class block schedule and required Calc H in the fall before Calc AB in the spring. No BC or Stat offered so that’s the highest he can go with math. BUT our state’s school of science and math has some virtual classes (taught live at a set day/time) so he’s going to take Cryptography (requires AB as a pre-requisite) and he seems pretty excited about that!
He’s been taking the AP tests in stride and only has Psych left on Friday. I’m super glad his harder ones are already done as he’s a Junior Marshal and they had grad practices Tues & Wed and graduation is Thursday night. I can’t imagine trying to really study on top of all of that! Counting down the days at this point!!
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D26 is now fully in the category of burned out. We did some quick math last night as she was studying for her “AP alternative final exam” for AP Spanish (aka the non-AP exam is basically very similar to the actual AP exam). Thanks to her ~95% in the class all year, she could get a D on the final exam and end up with a B- in the class for the year.
…because the final exam is worth 40% of your overall grade for the year if you don’t take the actual AP exam. She’s the only one who opted to NOT take the AP exam for Spanish.
Therefore, if she gets a 75-80% on the final exam, she’ll end up with a B+ in the class. If she gets a 65-70% on the final exam, she’ll have a B in the class. Or if she gets a 60% on the final exam, she’ll have a B- in the class.
Do she & I think she’ll get above an 80% on the final exam? NO.
Why? Because the teacher is brand new to teaching this year, doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, and she hardly learned anything new this year AND because when she took the CLEP Spanish practice exam yesterday on Modern States, she got a 62%. Is the CLEP Spanish exam exactly the same as the AP exam? No.
D24 will be picking her up at noon from school today when the test is done. Then they’re going out to lunch together. 
Tomorrow is AP Psychology and the honors physics final. Hoping for above a 60% on the honors physics final. She has totally hated that class.
Last night during her “OMG I just want to be DONE with all of this!” moment, she asked how come I want her to take the CLEP exam in Spanish. I put the ball in her court and told her, “It’s totally up to you. You don’t HAVE to. But if you end up going to U of A, THAT college requires a year of foreign language as part of your GE credits. And the only way to get out of that is to get a passing score on the AP Spanish test, get a passing score on the CLEP Spanish test, or take an entrance exam at U of A the summer before you start there to hopefully test out of 2nd semester Spanish. AND keep in mind that their foreign language classes are M-F. So every day. And the classes are not always at the most desirable time (like 8 am).”
…so she thought about it for a minute and then said, “Ok, I’ll take the CLEP exam for it but can we do that in June and not this month?” Sure. Absolutely.
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So an interesting piece of news- remember I posted WAY back that D26 has a not so great (as in really not good at al) college counselor? Well I found out today they did not renew her contract for next year and they posted her position. I think enough people spoke up about issues they were having with her. D26 needs very little from a counselor at this point other than them sending in the school stuff when it is time. I am praying they let her just use the same one her brother had or at least find someone capable to fill the position. My main concern is that she has everything in place for classes for next year and does not drop the ball since she is upset they are not asking her back. Anyway, I guess we will see what happens.
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That sounds very frustrating, I hope it works out for your D!
At our HS, students are supposed to get one appointment with a college counselor in spring of junior year, but so far, my D hasn’t been able to get on their schedule at all. Since she plans to submit early, I expect she might end up submitting her applications before meeting even once with a counselor… I don’t know how they will even have enough information to send in the stuff, since the counselor normally creates a college file for the student during this first meeting.
D26 got her SAT scores today (in school day testing back in April)
She is very happy with her scores and they are more than enough to make her competitive for the top schools on her list.
Nice way to end this week after the stress of the AP tests.
Good look to all the more recent SAT testers! I think another batch of scores come out tomorrow for those who took the test earlier this month!!
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That’s awesome! WOO!!
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We get daughter’s score tomorrow. She only retook for a higher math score, but after the exam her prediction was a repeat of about the same score. We’ll see!
She did find out today she scored 100% on her IB Math final exam! 
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My daughter correctly predicted that she got the same math score on her second SAT attempt. Now we are debating whether to try again….
Her score is EXCELLENT as is. 1510 with 720 on math. I’m tempted to say just leave it.
Dad thinks she should just give it another go. She got a 790 on a practice test a week before she took the May 3 test. So his thought is maybe she just needs to get the right set of questions.
I think if she’s gonna take it again she should spend time studying, and I also think she just finished up a tough junior year, worked super hard, has a full time job this summer and needs to focus on essays. Oh, and also spend some time being a teenager and having some fun. There is only so much time in a day.
It all depends on how set she is on highly selective engineering schools. My thing is even if she puts all the work and time in to up that score on this one dumb test, there is no guarantee that will get her in.
Haven’t talked to kiddo about it yet. She’s got two final exams today so we will probably discuss once she gets through those.
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I would let her decide. Her score is tippy top and I’m sure the rest of her application supports her well. If she feels done, then it is done. You could register her for a fall test and let her decide later if she wants to think about it. You might have a cancel fee but it buys her some time.
An aside: My D22 was trying to raise her English SAT score (as a humanities major) and she couldn’t get above 720 no matter how hard she studied. In fact, on her 3rd try she did worse—this was after hiring a private tutor and her studying. She got in her head about it and the stress of it made her doubt herself. She was so done after those 3 tries.
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My daughter took BC as a senior (highest math offered in our school) and is a math major with all As, so definitely. She went straight into Multivariable Calc and Linear Algebra her first year of college with no issues. Our school is similar as students take AB or BC, but not both. Students on the BC track take Pre-Calc with Calc A junior year, but they can opt to take AB senior year instead if they’re not feeling it.
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3-4 is sufficient imo, also once you get close to 1500 you are talking about a handful of a questions making the difference. In our case S26 took it 3 times his scores were 1420,1480 and 1500 he’s done. I don’t think getting anything higher would make a difference for him he had a higher score in practice and when he took the test he realized he made some silly mistakes right after he was done with a section.
Could he get a higher score ? probably but for us it’s not worth it. Depends on the target school you can look at each schools range by searching for their common data set (CDS) report. Look for section C9. For Stanford’s report the range is 1510-1570 with 1540 being the middle 50%. If Stanford is a target then yeah you should take it again, we know one kid who takes is almost monthly. Maybe the parents figure after the 8th time he’ll have seen all the questions and will ace it. I don’t know.
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Monthly!! I can’t even fathom.
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Curious if it’s the kid driving this or the parents.
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I agree, I would let her decide. My D26 had a better sense of what she needed than I did! 
I was actually encouraging her not to bother retaking the SAT after her first try, because she wasn’t making improvement on practice tests. However, D felt she could get a better score on her second try, and she did get a better score. Then she immediately felt that she was done. So now, it’s done.
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D26 texted during her lunch break in between tests, said honors physics final exam was easier than she thought. So fingers crossed for that. We will find out what her grade is about a week after the school year ends, when report cards come out.
This afternoon is the AP Psychology exam. Kid said she was told it’s 2 hr, 40 min long. She’s eager to be all done with her tests. We’re going to do another ceremonial burning of notebooks this weekend in the firepit in the backyard.
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