Ok, collected D26 from school. She said the AP Psych exam was “easy” & is thrilled to now be totally done with all of her final exams for this school year. We are going to hold off on the ceremonial burning of the physics & calculus notebooks until after report cards come out, but as for the spanish & psych notebooks? Those are gonna BURN, baby! 
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I think it was a couple of weeks ago that some of you were talking about how your kiddos received a letter in the mail from College Board about a National Recognition Program and you were wondering if this was spam mail or the real deal.
D26 received such a letter in the mail today. I’ve done some Internet spelunking and here’s what I’ve learned:
- GONE are the national recognition awards for African American, Hispanic, or Native American/Indigenous students
- there’s an FAQ about it at National Recognition Programs FAQ – BigFuture | College Board.
- there’s a new School Recognition Award. To qualify for it, you must have achieved 1 of the following: (a) top 10% of your high school’s test takers on the PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT 10 and/or; (b) earn a 3+ on 2 or more AP exams by 10th grade.
- you must also have earned a cumulative GPA of B+ (at least 3.3 or 87-89%) by the time of submission
- there’s also a 1st generation college student national recognition award. Same test & GPA requirements as above.
- AND there’s rural/small town student national recognition award. Same test & GPA requirements as above.
- students cannot nominate themselves for the School Recognition Award
- students CAN nominate themselves for the 1st gen or rural/small town award
- for the 2025 awards, it considers exams taken by fall 2024 + your current cumulative GPA
- to be considered for this award, the student MUST verify their eligibility on the BigFuture.org website (involves, apparently, submitting your GPA). Deadline to do this is Fri 6/27.
D26 will be waiting until she has her end of year report card before filling out whatever the eligibility form is. Based on what her PSAT score was in 10th and 11th grade, I’m pretty sure that her receipt of this letter in the mail is because of her AP scores in 9th and 10th grade.
Anyway, just wanted to share the info in case it’s helpful to anybody else.
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Spring Concert was tonight - last concert before end of school year. Senior year feels like it’s approaching fast…
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Thanks for this. I looked and my son is qualified for the school recognition award, so we submitted for it. I’m sure his is from his PSAT score last fall.
The rural/suburban designation bugs me every year. Our town is pretty fringe to rural. Smallish and not a lot of services - one grocery store, no shopping centers, etc. We drive to most things. The town over has the shopping centers, multiple grocery stores, etc. We are considered suburban and they are rural. Literally if our schools moved across the street from where they are, the designations would reverse. It’s weird.
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S26 qualifies for the award, because he had 2 APs with 3+ by 10th grade (did not take PSAT). He might also be rural/small town. But his school is in the first year of existence and I don’t think it has a designation yet. The new school sits between two other district high schools, one is rural, the other suburban. So we will see. Some of the Southern publics might actually give a small scholarship for this, so I will have him submit for it for sure.
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I am asking D26 to fill out the form for the National Recognition Program.
I am not sure how it will impact anything for her- but I also assume that it can’t hurt (can it?) anything.
According to the website- they do not announce the recipients until September. D26 is hoping to have her top college applications finished and submitted before then.
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That is really frustrating. I will say that her school does make sure students schedule their 1 on 1 , regardless of what their post graduation plans are. If they see that they still have not met with their student they will pull them out of class- they are all required to met before the end of the year (June 25).
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This is interesting because I saw all over another college forum that Blue Book crashed nationally for AP psych and many kids now have to retake it next Friday. D26 was already scheduled for the makeup exam day so it doesn’t apply to her. Did you hear anything about that?
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Junior Prom was last night. All the kids looked so happy and amazing all dressed up. Thankfully no one made bad choices and it was a safe night for all. D26 got home at 3:30 am, woke up at 9 and is now back asleep for an afternoon nap. I am way too old to be staying up until 3:30 am- it will take me a week to recover from this 
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My D26’s PA high school did not have any issues with the AP psych exam. Started and finished on time. She was finished with the multiple choice section so early that she was able to go over it twice and still had tons of time left. This was her fourth AP exam this year - so happy that’s over. Prom is tonight!
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Yes, D26 said that they were all initially told that there had been Blue Book problems earlier in the day and they weren’t sure if AP Psych would happen at 12:00 pm local time. But it ended up all working out and there wasn’t a need to reschedule it to next week.
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So we have not done any college counseling or Test Prep, but I am wondering if looking into a College Essay Coach would be beneficial!?
Catching up on conversation from the last week! S25 has graduated (wooo) and all went well – and now dinners and parties and such are done, so I am bone-tired and bleary and waiting for MIL to fly home tomorrow, LOL.
Our school does offer Multivariable Calculus, but it’s a very small cohort that gets to take it. To do so, you have to decide to put your kid on the fastest math track with Algebra 1 in 7th grade. It was offered to our D22 – we decided to do it, but we had a lot of angst, because who the heck knows in 6th grade if their kid is suited for Multivariable senior year?
So, her path was Alg 1 in 7th, Alg 2 in 8th, honors Geometry in 9th, honors Pre-calc in 10th, AP Calc BC in 11th, and Multivariable Calc in 12th.
She was pretty studious and able to keep up, but by late high school it was very clear that she had zero interest in STEM – but she’d been with the same cohort of nine kids since 7th grade in math, and she wasn’t going to drop out and take grief from them, LOL. (She’s now studying linguistics and classics, and the only math class she’s taken in college is statistics, because she might pursue speech language pathology, and she needs stats for the ASHA certification.)
My D26 was offered the same track in 6th grade, so we put her on it. She’s the kind of kid that checks out if she gets bored and needs a challenge. Unfortunately she didn’t love her teachers in Alg 1 and Geometry, and she kind of zoned during honors Pre-calc, so she wasn’t recommended for AP Calc BC this year. Instead, she’s in AB. That isn’t common at her school – typically students who start on this track stick through with Multivariable. Students on the track just below end up in either AB or BC senior year. So, next year she has the option of taking BC or AP Stats, but they’re encouraging BC because it’s seen as the more rigorous class. Because of all this, you don’t usually see students at her school take AB and then BC, but that’s what she’ll end up with.
She has no interest in Multivariable Calc – especially after seeing her sister’s notes from the class, LOL.
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Have you looked at the College Essay Guy online and all his free resources? There’s a lot of stuff there – I don’t know if an essay coach is necessary unless your student particularly struggles with writing, or is trying to get into a top 20 school!
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We got the email to submit for this. But is there any reason to do so if D26 will likely get National Merit?
(She got a 1510 out of 1520 on the PSAT, only missing one math question. She was so annoyed at herself because a friend of hers got a perfect score and was called out in the school’s weekly newsletter, LOL.)
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Agree with @SpreadsheetMom that the free resources at College Essay Guy are useful (our HS recommends them too), and did you know there are also members here at CC who can help give feedback on essays? Follow These Steps to Get FREE Essay Feedback
From people I know at my HS who paid for essay coaching for their students, a lot of the value is just helping to structure the process and having a non-parent available to nag the student to write drafts. What you don’t want, though, is an essay coach who tries to turn the essay into what they think colleges want, and interferes with your student’s genuine voice. Sometimes a paid coach gives too much help that way.
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I was thinking the same as S26 has 1520 in PSAT. In the end, we decided to fill the form as it takes less than 5 minutes. He does not have many awards so this could be one item to list..
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We hired a consultant for D19 as they didn’t have a dedicated college counselor at school at that stage, it was our first experience of the US college system (and before I found CC) so we had no idea what we were doing, and D19 had a couple of reaches (for her) on her list. Both those aspects you mention came out in the process - she got D19 to do things we couldn’t get her to do, but D19 also came to me to say that the consultant didn’t like her “why NYU” essay and she wanted my opinion, exactly saying “it’s supposed to be our voice and she wants to change it”. I read it and could see from one angle why the consultant didn’t love it, BUT it was also absolutely authentically D19. I could just about hear her in my head as I read it. I told her to keep it as it was. She got in.
With C26 they now have a college counselor, they’ve started some common app essays in English, and they’re attending a common app (including essays) workshop at school in early summer. Plus, I now understand the landscape! Also, no real reaches. So no outside consultant this time. But if they still get stuck on their essay we’ll definitely look into college essay guy. I love one of their drafts but they don’t so we may do that.
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So many people in our area have hired college consultants… now I’m feeling like D26 will be at a disadvantage.
She likely needs essay help. She’s great at technical writing, research papers, lab reports, but personal essays are a challenge for her.
She’s already told me that she’s drawing a blank on the NYU “bridge builder” prompt.
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Oh, that’s a new one… D19 just had “why nyu”.
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