@momsons2 I will second what @sbinaz said re: grades. My D26 is my third – and I have two older boys. Both of my boys had at least one C on their transcript (my S20 had several Cs, maybe 3-4). I think S20 was around a 3.4 UW and S22 was around a 3.6 UW GPA. Both were accepted to a ton of schools including many semi-selective schools and state flagships. They both took harder classes in their areas of interest, but didn’t load up on AP classes across the board. Admittedly they both had test scores to submit – but S22’s score wasn’t crazy high. I think a good essay really helped S22 (several AOs dropped handwritten notes on his acceptance letters re: the essay). S20 is at Tulane and S22 is at American University in DC.
I am planning SAT prep for D26 this summer. All three of my kids tend to do better on standardized tests than they perform at school. My D26 has one area with significantly lower scores on the PSAT10 (standard English conventions/grammar) which I think can be “taught” to some extent and may bump her score a little. I am opting for one-on-one prep so that D26 can focus on just those areas of weakness. If I thought she would do practice tests or Khan Academy at home, I would do that instead. But I know she won’t, so paid test prep it is.
If you’re in CA, then your kid could qualify for the WUE+ scholarships at Univ of New Mexico and NMSU. It gets you in state tuition, which between that and their cheaper room and board costs compared to CA schools, it could be cheaper to attend there than a CSU school.
For example, D24 ended up with tuition, room, and board at UNM being about $21k/yr and about $16k/yr at NMSU. And that’s even with about 4 C’s on her transcript.
We are in CA, too. My S26 has ADHD so homework is his Achilles heel. He does well on tests but struggles to turn things in. This usually lands him in the B zone with grades, though he manages a few As in classes with heavy emphasis on tests or with teachers who liberally accept late homework. His GPA is likely to net out at 3.5 or 3.6.
He will test, but it’s frustrating for us that CA publics don’t accept scores. But it is what it is and we will look at a few publics like UCSC, maybe Davis as a reach, CSUs like Chico, Sacramento, Humboldt, Long Beach. He doesn’t like heat at all so some of these might not appeal to him. For WUE, we want to check out Reno, OSU, Utah, Western Washington.
For your kid, it might be worth testing once or twice with some formal prep in advance but only bc it might help with WUEs or liberal arts schools. But if it’s not working out, it can be stopped and there are plenty of test optional places.
For those considering CSUs, you might look at this thread. Cal Maritime to be integrated with Cal Poly SLO In it, there is a link to an article that some of the less popular CSUs are at risk for having their funding cut. Sounds like those schools might want to increase the number of students they accept/enroll.
Seven campuses in particular — CSU Channel Islands, Chico State, Cal State East Bay, Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal Maritime, Sonoma State and San Francisco State — are missing their state enrollment targets by 10% or more
A lot of them have really great auto-merit scholarships. D24 will be attending Austin College in TX and the tuition+room+board ended up just a smidge more than attending an in-state public university instead.
S26 is done with his sophomore year and it’s starting to realize college is not that far away. He had a good year with some good teacher and one bad one. His English teacher has one essay that was worth 75% of his grade and didn’t grade it till the last month of school. Then didn’t bother to grade the extra credit she gave to the class and is now gone for the summer.
Good experience for S26, sometimes you just have bad teachers. I am not sure what else he could have done.
He is taking one summer course and I was late registering him for music camp so he may not get in. Told him sometimes parents procrastinate and mess up too.
So SAT in CA. Register now! his highschool in the Bay Area is full for the next 12 months. We are flying so he can take the SAT in October. It’s ridiculous, he’s going to study and take it in October, we know the second half of the year he’ll have finals and exams so taking it earlier is better IMO.
S26 underwent his annual torture earlier this week. He and I deep cleaned his room. Everything but large furniture out of the room so I could dust walls and clean the floors. Then he dusted and returned only the items he wanted to his room. He wanted nearly everything. He did give up a few games, some early chapter books (but kept the picture books), three bags of trash/recycling, and two bags of outgrown clothing. Baby steps.
S24’s room is schedule for late July. He will pack what he wants to take to college before tackling the rest of the room. He has kept far fewer ‘treasures’ than S26 has.
D26 had her In & Out interview this afternoon, will be informed later today if she got the job or not. It was her very first job interview. Based on what she told me about how it went, I think the odds might be in her favor.
