S22 went in with 50+ credits from AP/IB. Some he ended up not using because he needed a different version of the class (physics). Most counted for gen eds and he’s thrilled not to take English or History in college. D24 had 15 and they all count for a gen ed as well. She has so many things she is interested in, she is glad these AP/IB credits open up spots in her schedule to add other classes. For her, it was one of the key things we looked at when picking colleges. She plans to CLEP 2 classes this summer as well.
I looked and our school only has a 51% of 3+ on AP tests. Tests aren’t required either. My son has 3 AP classes and is taking just one test. Next year, he’ll probably have 3 AP and take all 3 exams. Plus 1 IB exam.
Just found out my D26 got a job for the summer at a local eco-museum, as a camp counselor. Very excited for her!
She also has an application in with Youth Conservation Corps to work at Yellowstone for a month. I know she’d prefer that if it is offered to her, but I feel like any federal stuff, esp seasonal work with the national parks, is so uncertain and unpredictable right now. I think the best move is to take the local job!
Reminder that once you file 2024 taxes, you have the official data that will be included in FAFSA and CSS Profile for entering freshmen in the Class of 26. I filed yesterday and immediately commenced running NPCs that are hosted by College Board - once entered, your data will mostly auto-fill for many other schools’ NPCs as long as you are logged into your student’s CB account (there’s a list of schools with NPC links on the CB website). Apples to apples. I completed dozens of NPCs in less than two hours, some for LACs that D26 likes but also others for various well-resourced private colleges for comparison. A few interesting results with net COA:
Family of 5 w/ no other college students in 2026 (D22 post and D29 pre), $160k AGI, $300k home equity, modest savings, no trusts/income properties/non-401k investments.
Smith - 15k (!!)
Princeton - 18k
Rice - 21k
Williams - 21k
Colby - 23k
Wesleyan - 23k
Amherst - 25k
Swarthmore - 25k
Columbia - 25k
Mt. Holyoke - 26k ()
Dartmouth - 29k
Haverford - 29k
Harvard - 29k ()
Bowdoin - 30k
Duke - 30k
Notre Dame - 32k
Penn - 34k
Bates - 34k
Wellesley - 35k
St. Olaf - 35k
Vassar - 38k
Holy Cross - 40k
Oxy - 42k
BC - 50k ()
And a few non-CB NPCs that showed unexpectedly high COA and would probably merit further investigation if they became real options:
Carleton - 40k
Vanderbilt - 46k
D26 has other matches and safeties also, but most of the aid there will be in the form of merit, so those NPCs won’t really be useful until she gets SAT and ACT scores in the next few months (and sometimes not even then).
C26 is writing school day SAT on Wednesday. I’m really hoping this is one and done. They’ve done a few practice tests and some Kahn academy (not a huge amount) and I can’t seem to get them to do much more.
Went to a RMACAC college fair this weekend. There were a boatload of colleges there from all over the country. It was pretty great. Even got some ABSN program info for D24.
Talked to the NM Tech rep. That school is awesome, but all BS majors have to take a year of Calculus-based physics + chemistry. So it’s a no go. It’s too bad because the rep said that a lot of freshman are hired on by professors as research lab assistants. Majority of graduates have job offers 6 months before graduation.
TX Tech is definitely an option…they had a rep there. The college has a free bus that does a loop around campus + makes a stop at Walmart, Target, and a grocery store. So that would be helpful since D26 won’t have a car with her for the 1st 2 years wherever she ends up at college. TX Tech rep said in the past couple of years, they’ve had a lot of AZ students apply, so that’s why they have their admissions people coming to college fairs here.
Thx for the reminder! One thing I had noticed a week or so ago was that most of the NPCs were still using both last year prices and fin aid policies (Penn still asking about home equity). Can’t wait for them to get updated so I can see what’s changed.
This is GREAT to hear! It seemed like it got broken for a little while - it wouldn’t let me log in retrieve the saved info. Glad it’s back!
From that link:
For students who wish to start exploring the application process, creating a Common App account before August 1 ensures that all their responses, including their personal essay, will be retained through account rollover.
Thank you! For some reason I didn’t see that so I appreciate your pointing it out!
It says on the Common App link provided that college-specific questions, writing supplements, names of recommenders and their emails will not rollover and to save those somewhere else. Other info will rollover on Aug 1.
Anyone has experience with doing AP Calc AB through UC Scout or BYU, or any other online place? S26 is thinking about doing it outside school next year since he can’t get the class in school. I don’t think its a good idea as Math is not his forte, and he is planning to take AP Stats next year as it is. I feel he’ll be overwhelmed, as he’ll get busy with college apps too. He is not great with time management.
What do you guys think about having regular Calc senior year for a kid applying as STEM major(probably Biology or related), uw gpa around 3.5. Not applying to any selective schools, open to both west and east coast.
C26 did their camp counselor interview today - this is for a day camp near us and the one where the info said you had to be available for 4 consecutive weeks - because C26’s architecture program sits right in the middle of summer, it breaks into that so they were worried about that being a dealbreaker. Anyway so - it turns out that they are fine with available weeks being non-consecutive. C26 thinks the interview went well - questions asked were not dissimilar to those found online for this type of work which they went over beforehand, and having CIT experience at this same camp presumably helps. They should hear back by the end of the week so much crossing of fingers here! Did I mention before that they are already signed up for the arch program? So we could have summer mostly sewn up by the end of this week…
Which means other than a potential short trip to check out colleges in IL and MN if timing works out, and a day or two down in SLO where the arch camp is, we’ll be mostly home for summer. (Which is ok, as we have some fun stuff in the works for thanksgiving week and winter break). My husband is an off-road biker who has way more vacation days than I do lol so he will be spending some of the summer at the touratech rally and some doing BDR, partly overlapping with the arch camp which also means that for the first time in a long time I’ll be home alone for longer than a day.
My D22 took AP Government and AP Psych through UC Scout, both over the summer. They are ok classes. but usually quite boring. My D22 was a stellar high school student with a total of 12 AP classes, a 4.4 weighted GPA and I had to drag her over the finish line with both UC Scout classes. I swore I would never let my S26 do this–he struggles with time management and gets more easily overwhelmed. It sounds like your S26 might be the same… and all I can say is… don’t.
As for not taking AP Calc AB… my D22 ended up at UCLA with a roommate majoring in environmental science who didn’t take Calculus at all in high school. I think your S26 will be great with regular Calc.
Looks like D26 might be well enough to return to school tomorrow. Glad we all got flu shots this year…looks like it’s at least reduced the severity of it a lot compared with previous times we’ve come down with it!
Meanwhile, D26 will have a bunch of make up work to do from these 3 days off. Boo. And the school counselor is scheduling 1-on-1 meetings w/all of the 11th graders to talk about college application stuff. D26’s meeting is later this month after school.
I formally notified school that D26 won’t be taking the AP Spanish exam.
If D26 decides to attend U of A and double majors, she could graduate a semester early. Or if she has just the 1 major and 1 minor, could graduate in 3 yr instead of 4.
…this is because of (a) AP credits; and (b) their auto-merit scholarships require student to take 15 credits/semester. If you drop below 15 credits/semester, no more scholarship.
We’ve already told her that if she graduates early, we could use the leftover $$ to help out a little bit with grad school tuition if she decides she wants to pursue that.
C26 said school day SAT today was hard. Well, let’s see… unsure when results are out. Google says 3/4 weeks after for schoolday SAT (vs 2 weeks for Saturday one .. I wonder why it’s longer?)
S26 is taking the SAT this week, too. Hopefully it goes better than his one and only practice test did. He didn’t use his extra time and scored significantly worse than the PSAT (he needed every minute of the extra time on that one).
Thankfully he passed his road test, which I think was far more important to him. While it feels too soon in many ways (he’s a full 9 months ahead of when D23 got her license), I’m delighted to be done with parallel parking practice forever!
I wonder if they’ve made the digital SAT harder for the most recent test dates. I say that because my D26 decided she wanted to take it last summer and be one-and-done (like her older sister did with the ACT). So she started taking the practice tests last spring. She took all of them that were offered in the Bluebook app (6 or 8 of them?). The first few felt easy to her, and the last couple were much harder.
When she took the actual test in June, she scored really well, very slightly lower than what she had been getting on the practice tests. The theory at the time was that College Board was still working out the kinks in the digital SAT, and it was maybe too easy at that point.
And further theory was that they’d make it harder by the fall. So, I wonder if they’ve overcorrected?
They did drop the easier practice tests from their website not long ago and added some new ones that also supposedly fell in the harder range and (I believe but cannot say with certainty) are supposed to represent the actual test more, but I don’t know anything about making the actual test harder. It was one of the new ones that they did best on, with sitting for the full time and using it to check (the other practice tests generally finished half an hour or more early- kid tends to be a fast tester).
I would have thought the digital has been around long enough to have any kinks ironed out by now? Anyway, we have a backup date in May if necessary.
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