I hear this from my S26, too. I think what he (and maybe other kids) might be reacting to is the difficulty of achieving the goals they’ve set for themselves and the pressure that creates inside them. They may say they have a goal to achieve XX on the SAT/ACT or get a certain GPA or take however many honors or AP classes, but the work it takes to get there is no joke. And the possibility that all of your hard work and effort will make a marked difference in the results of your college admissions is getting smaller and smaller. We might only be pointing out the reality (you need to plan ahead to study) but the mere mention of that reality is a reminder that everything about this feels hard. Add to that all of the social media chatter about college, the gossip they hear at school, etc. Sheesh. Now I want to run away! 
Test prep has not been a big priority until recently and it shows… The common data sets for the schools she’s looking at have the 25%ile SAT/ACT so much higher than pre Covid test optional stats and she’s so discouraged, especially since some test optional schools are likely reinstating their testing requirements. 
Yeah, and the scores are likely to stay inflated until a few years of requiring tests starts to equalize them. But I have to believe that the admissions people know that kids only submit when scores help them so the data is skewed that way. I wonder if looking at the range from 2018-2019 would be reassuring?
We did just that very thing. In some cases it was very different results, in other cases it was surprisingly similar. Definitely a mixed bag for us.
We’ve had zero focus here at our house on test prep. Talked about it w/D26 recently. She said, “Honestly, with keeping up with 6 AP classes & working 15 hr a week, right now it’s a delicate balance so I don’t feel overwhelmed. And something’s gotta give, so test prep isn’t happening. Maybe this summer, but I’m not guaranteeing that.”
We’ve agreed on a “sure thing” college where we know she’ll get accepted w/o test scores AND she likes the campus AND it has majors she’s really interested in. That’s relieved a LOT of the pressure in our household about it. Even DH is on board because he really really REALLY wants her to go to the ‘sure thing’ college. Some of the other colleges being considered either strongly encourage or require test scores, but at the moment, I’m putting my own internal stress about it on my mental back burner.
Just putting this last thing out there in case it’s helpful to anyone…when D24 went through this process, the 1st college she heard back from was a rolling admissions school. And when she got the acceptance, she said, “It’s really nice to know that even if I don’t get in anywhere else, I at least have SOME place to go next year.”
C26 is doing 1 practice test a weekend (excluding Presidents’ Day weekend as we’re going away) and one tutoring session for each section of the SAT before the March test. I think that should be enough. If they get upper 1400s (seems entirely within reach given PSAT score with almost no prep) that’ll do well for I think every school they are looking at at the moment. Even lower 1400s should put them squarely in middle 50s. Our bigger concern tbh is explaining the poor freshman grades. Will definitely be encouraging them to apply early to rolling /safeties. Most of the current list is likely or target.
Definitely love a rolling admissions option. D22’s was University of Oregon and she would have been happy to go there. She submitted her app in mid October, heard back on Halloween. She also had a great EA round, with lots of good options. It helped us get thru the long slog from January to March.
Hope to do the same with S26, but haven’t found his “university of Oregon” yet. Lots of kids in CA use Oregon as their safety but he has not yet embraced that idea. We are headed up to Portland soon to see my brother and are going to see a few places—UO and OSU among them, so I hope for a breakthrough.
A lot of schools look at the trend (upwards or downwards) and there are a number of schools that don’t even look at freshman year grades (most of the California publics and Emory are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head).
Don’t know what your son is interested in, but I’ve heard lots of good things about Southern Oregon, in case a more mid-sized option might be his preference.
Our D26’s list of schools is cost constrained. We can’t afford full pay private schools; the only affordable high reach schools are our test-blind state schools (UCB, UCLA, etc). So it turns out that the 1470 she earned at her first sitting is above average for every school we can afford, and above the 75th percentile at most schools on her list. However, she’s still planning to take it again, hoping that a higher score would improve her chances at merit scholarships and honors college admission.
It’s frustrating that that’s the case but good luck for merit! One CA school that C26 is interested in is private but also test blind, which probably makes it a reach. I think other than a CSU all the other current options are test optional. As I said though more worried about needing the bump because of freshman year. Partly because of the specific course of interest + regional constraints + middling overall GPA, most of the schools currently on the list are OOS publics.
S26 is picking his senior year courses. He can’t take AP Calc AB because he didn’t end up with an A in Precalc first semester (our school policy), he is debating between taking regular Calc(which we think is better for him anyways irrespective of precalc grades) or AP Stats, or maybe doing AP Calc outside of school. I am letting him make the call. Other than that he has two other APs on his list and the rest regular classes. I want him to enjoy his senior year.
We haven’t started discussing colleges yet in our house, but he won’t be applying to any selective colleges, other than playing the UCs lottery, because why not! He’ll be focusing on CSU’s plus a few private colleges and OOS publics(Oregon, Arizona, maybe Colorado).
Mine too is picking classes for senior year. He hasn’t committed to the list yet but it is shaping up like:
- AP Chem (he loves the teacher and is excited for this one)
- AP Calc BC (math is his jam)
- AP Art 2D (drawing and painting (his other jam)
- Econ and government (required by the school to graduate)
- AP English Language Comp (this was the more appealing English option given the elective choices for but not totally sure yet)
- Lab Tech (he wants to work with his favorite science teacher)
He has taken Japanese for 3 years via Language Bird (private, UC accredited curriculum). He doesn’t want to take a 4th year right now—but I kind of think he should since 4 years is often seen as an unstated “requirement” at the more competitive schools he seems to be into. As well, my very high stats D22 didn’t take a 4th year of French and it became a hassle for her later in college. I also think it may have influenced some of her rejections at highly selective schools where her stats were well within range. Won’t really ever know that but just a sense. Anyway, luckily he can decide on that much later in the year.
S26 is similar to some of the other kids mentioned. Smart kid who has managed to get through school getting good grades without putting in a lot of effort. We had a call with a counselor last week and it was good and bad.
S26 mentioned he wanted to go into environmental science because engineering was too hard. I had to do a double take because he passed AP Calc AB easily and got a 5 on the exam. But ok engineering IS hard. I started to realize S26 just might be getting lazy. He’s never really worked hard at school and at this point he might not know how.
Then the counselor said something that I should have noticed, besides APES he has no AP science nor does he have any outside activity that show an interest in the environment. No clubs no volunteering nothing really. Also he finished his first semester with 3 B+s. Not exactly an amazing junior year given some of the schools he wanted to apply to.
Now S26 did not have a lot of friends early on HS and has discovered his social circle this year. So I have been happy to let him hang out and game with his friends as much as he wanted. Every time I brought up grades he said he had it under control. That is until he needed 95+ on his finals and he nearly pulled it off. He got all As on his finals but it wasn’t enough to make up for the assignments he had done poorly on.
So I will be one of those parents for the rest of the year. We will do weekly check ins to see what happened last week and what’s the plan for next week. No more gaming except Friday night and Saturdays. It’s starting out ok but just comparing him to D30 she is putting in far more effort in middle school than he is in HS. Next year will be interesting he’s planning on making up for his lack of science by taking AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Physics and 2 other APs.
Frustrating! But at least you know this now instead of halfway through senior year.
This sounds like a recipe for disaster. This flat out wouldn’t have been allowed at my D’s HS (impossible to have that many lab science). Your child doesn’t need to have all the AP sciences on their transcript to be competitive for colleges. As long as they’ve had some level of bio, chem, and physics they can pick one to do senior year, at very most two.
IMO, he should focus on getting his grades up and developing good study habits rather than loading up on AP classes.
C26 is considering skipping AP physics 1 and going from on level physics to AP2. Teacher (teaches both classes) says she usually recommends 1 first to get used to AP but thinks C26 is capable of going straight to 2 and she usually has “1” student doing this each year. I’m a little wary, C26 is keen, I told them to look at some AP Phys1 tests to see how well they can answer those before deciding and that they’d need to work over summer a bit if they choose 2. Any opinions from the hive mind here? For context c26 is cruising on level physics at almost 100%.
With that in mind current senior courses are looking like:
English 4
AP Calc AB
AP Physics (1 or 2)
AP macro /government (only the macro is AP -school only allows one of these two to be at AP level)
Choral performance 4 honors
Digital music production
1 semester PE - required to graduate
Not sure about the other semester, maybe TA.
They also had a meeting with the school college counselor who says current choices are good and suggested a few more, some of which are nonstarters for various reasons but others they will certainly look more into.
I agree. 3 AP science classes all in the same school year sounds brutal. If the kid wants to study environmental science, have the kid take AP Bio or AP Chem. Not both plus AP Physics.
I think your student will find a great deal of repetition between his current physics course and either physics 1 or 2. Is Physics C an option?
Unfortunately not - I think C would have been a great choice if it was. According to the teacher most of the overlap is with 1, and there are some topics in 1 not covered this year (partly why i think they’d need to do some work over the summer)
Wow, yea, AP Bio, AP Chem, and AP Physics in one year would definitely stretch my junior to the breaking point! In our high school, AP Chem and AP Bio are double period classes to accommodate longer labs, so it wouldn’t even be possible to take both + AP Physics. Not enough periods in the day.
My kid is also trying to bulk up her science (interested in nursing). She has already taken or is currently enrolled in Honors Bio, High Honors Chem BC, and AP Physics 1. Next year, she is planning:
AP Bio
AP Bio Lab
Honors Anatomy/Physiology
AP Calc AB
AP Gov
Honors English 4
That leaves just one period left to fill. I am in favor of something super easy with no/minimal homework (maybe even a PE class). She has a little less than two weeks to decide. Can’t believe we are planning senior year out already!