My S27 was also disappointed with his SAT from March - he had a even higher verbal than the last time but actually had a slightly lower math despite feeling like it went better this time. Given that his verbal score was 50 pt higher than math this time, I think he’ll probably just stick with the ACT at this point since he wants to do STEM, and his scores were much more balanced and overall better on the ACT. I doubt he’ll do any more testing because at least the ACT is in range for the schools he is considering. I suspect that keeping on track and/or improving in his classes in the final push and staying up to date on his coach interactions are the two things that are going to keep his needle from pointing significantly downward more than anything. 5 APs with a high level sport and high level music is really hard! I would not recommend!
My kid says that a lot of the SAT math questions become somewhat trivial if you are very good at using Desmos. (lucky for her, she’d been a super heavy Desmos user for many years, so didn’t need to practice that part).
But I do find it so frustrating, that standardized tests all seem like hoops and tricks and training stuff that’s at best education-adjacent.
Her testing angst right now is studying for AP Psych and AP Calc BC tests, and is wondering whether it’s worth taking them at all. She did a bunch of science APs already, and didn’t love testing but had a pretty good experience, but these are worse. Psych because it seems like some pointless memorization and isn’t a subject she really needs to place ahead on in college, and the test itself has a lot of poorly designed free-response questions that trip up a careful scientific thinker. Calc because she knows calc really well (is looping back to take the test years after doing the class), but never in a ‘memorize formulas and tricks to go fast’ way – it’s all been untimed and proof based, so she can derive any formula she needs and answer any of the questions correctly, but not in the required time. It feels like sacrificing actual education to fit in the College Board box to keep working on them, but she probably will do it, especially since having the calc official credit eventually will be useful.
S27 is awaiting SAT and ACT scores from earlier this month. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath for some amazing result that shifts the calculus for his current (too-long) list of schools, since he did the ACT cold with zero prep and I would say he sat for the SAT with inadequate prep - as in he might just as well have gone in cold. And his answers to how it felt taking them aren’t particularly enlightening.
We visited six schools over his winter break: Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Hobart, Ithaca, Union, and Skidmore. We also walked around parts of the Cornell campus after the Ithaca tour, which was cool, but will probably not make his final list. It was good for him to see a really big school, as the vibe was very different than Hobart, for example. I’ll do write-ups later, but for the moment, the only one he officially eliminated was Clarkson. It was on there because at one point last year, he indicated a possible interest in engineering, and we were going to be in the neighborhood to see SLU. I think he’s realized that he would prefer a school with broader options than Clarkson offers. And my other favorite part of doing a loop like that: running into the same family on different campus tours… Next trip? Maine? Massachusetts and Connecticut? Pennsylvania? Not sure. He needs to whittle his list a little more first… and we need to have the “big talk” about finances before he really settles on which ones he wants to keep on there, and which ones he may need to consider adding for financial reasons.
He’s definitely ready for the summer break. It’s been a bit of a slog lately, and he’s at that point where he needs to really evaluate his schedule for next year to make sure he is adequately balancing his rigor with his interests. Take another year of honors language? Or take something else? Tough call, but we’re leaning towards letting him back off the language as long as he’s subbing in a class of equal rigor. It’s so hard to keep his foot on the gas!!
D27 has an in school SAT coming up that she hopes will be it for testing. Her December score was fine, but not where she wanted it to be so fingers crossed that testing in a more comfortable environment will be the difference maker.
Spring break tours were so much fun - ten days of east coast schools. She gained a lot of clarity about what is really important to her and, after two trips now, has a decent list. I think seven schools for sure on the list? She says she has a top tier of four schools, but there are two that were instant love matches in my observation. Her top schools all like ED and she would love the chance to be done early, so she’s going to do some research to figure out if one really stands out above the rest. She has a crazy busy spring and then a very chill (too chill - get a job, kid!) summer so plenty of time to sort out what her application strategy will be. We are done touring; she has a list she’s excited about and will fill it out with a few more likely schools that she’ll only visit after acceptances if necessary.
I feel this! My kid is exhausted.
My kid is burnt out also! AP classes have officially ended here, but there’s still the exams to prepare for. There’s only about a month left for the seniors so we have a count down going on for them to be an official senior. We’ve toured a good amount of schools and there is a clear favorite, which we’ll revisit in the fall prior to applying. Time is flying!
Look forward to hearing more about the visits and what you and your S27 thought about these schools. I’ve been strongly encouraging my S27 to consider several of these schools plus the Univ at Buffalo and/or Binghamton with idea that we could visit a few of them this summer (which I know is not an ideal time, but its what we’ve got to work with).
The only thing is the North Country to western NY…that seems like quite a haul. How many days was your trip?
FWIW - jumping in
My 25 visited (and got in) to Ithaca and visited Union (and we likely will visit Union/RPI (nearby each other) with 27 too). 25 also drove by Hobart William Smith but didn’t do official tours.
The setting/town area of Hobart was lovely to all (I wasn’t on this trip, actually) and if looking for that sort of school (small LAC) seemed delightful. I have heard nothing but lovely things.
If my 25 had decided on TV/Film major, I think they would have gone to Ithaca - they liked it a lot. Wonderful comms school (Park), very hands-on with solid facilities, good alumni network, Ithaca was a great college town, etc. Liked the vibes, etc. It was a good medium size for them..
Union - I thought Schenectady was better than people give in credit for! I mean it isn’t anywhere I would go for vacation, but it isn’t so bad IMO. There are some cafes and restaurants and a theater all within walking distance from campus. The campus itself is quite nice and is unusual for having a large engineering program (and D1 hockey team) for such a small school.
I agree a drive from Union to Clarkson is a LOT though! Or Union to Buffalo… but if you have a whole week…
We did these on different trips..an overnight to Union and then the partner and kid flew and did Ithaca/Rit/Syracuse/Hobart too on that. We never visited Clarkson/Bing.
You totally didn’t ask for lodging advice, but we just did an upstate NY road trip and the best hotel we stayed at was the DoubleTree in Binghamton. This is, in part, because we somehow scored an upgrade to a king suite (which was massive and lovely), but also because the hotel restaurant was actually delicious. Given that we stayed in some not-great hotels on that trip, I thought I’d at least give one good rec.
We were on the road for 4 days, 3 nights. I tried to set it up so I didn’t have to drive more than 4 hours in a stretch. Without going too much into what stood out for him or not on each campus, here’s how the route went.
We live about 4 hours from Potsdam, so we headed there on a Sunday afternoon, checked in, and ate at a local Italian place straight out of the '70s on the main street. The weather that day was pretty miserable, but that’s why we opted to do this loop at that time of year. Potsdam, though, is just not great, and even though it’s a college town with both Clarkson and a SUNY there, my 27 was not a fan at all. We live in a place that has its fair share of rural blight, poverty, abandoned farms and homes, etc., so he’s used to that, but this area of NY really feels so forgotten and lost. The Amish have moved in, and that helps, but there’s a long way to go. Anyway, stayed in Potsdam, saw Clarkson on Monday morning and drove the 10 miles to Canton to see SLU in the afternoon. SLU is still very much on the list.
Then we headed to Geneva - about 3 hours, I think? We both really enjoyed Geneva as well. The town had great energy, lots of cute shops and restaurants etc. We had a great sushi meal and stayed right next to Hobart. I was really surprised by how pretty this part of NY is, and fine, it was sunny that day, but even without that, it’s still way better than the Potsdam area.
Hobart on Tuesday morning. He liked it enough to keep it on the list, and for more than just his dubious reason that it’s close to amazing fishing… my take is that it was a lovely campus, had less of the “lax bro” vibe I was expecting (based on its reputation from the Stone Age when I was looking at schools), and a few parents and I shared a smirk/comment about the herbaceous aromas coming from the room across the hall from the model dorm room we visited… new science center currently under construction.
Ithaca is only an hour from Hobart, so we had another lovely drive there along the lake. He really wanted Chipotle, found it, and my goodness it was the slowest one I think I’ve ever been to, so I said no way, no time. Got a boba next door and drove to Ithaca College, where low and behold the same family that was on our tour of Hobart checked in right after us…He absolutely loved Ithaca, which totally took me by surprise. More on that later.
After that tour, we wandered around Cornell for about an hour or so. He was hoping he’d run into a kid or two that he knows there - haha - not likely without reaching out first.
Then a longer drive from Ithaca to Schenectady. We stayed downtown and I didn’t think it looked that bad either? Mind you, it was nearly 9 PM when we got there, so who knows. I think my 27’s opinion of it was affected by quite possibly the worst breakfast we have ever had at a Hampton Inn ever. Union was good too, and there are definitely some things that he really liked there. I would say it has a slight edge over Hobart -especially if you remove the fishing access from the pro list for Hobart… 
Then it was a quick drive to Saratoga to check out Skidmore in the afternoon. We did not see much of downtown Saratoga Springs because we both wanted to get home at that point - which was another 4 hours or so plus another stop at a much better Chipotle… I think he liked it (both Skidmore and the Chipotle), but again, he was looking for kids he knows… long and short of it was that the campus is lovely, the science center was impressive, but I personally was not a fan of the triple model dorm room. This one may end up coming off the list once we have the big talk about finances - he will not qualify for the very few merit awards they offer and we are unlikely to qualify for need-based aid from them. Also, he’s not sure how he feels about the Capital District in general.
All in all, it was totally doable for me, even though my plan to have my 27 do some of the driving was derailed when he conveniently left his wallet and license at home. I did get lucky with the weather though. Had the conditions been worse, the drive from Ithaca to Schenectady in particular would have been longer, especially before you get to the interstate.
Well, if I Iead with THAT it will probably rocket HWS to the top of the list!
Appreciate the itinerary. If he decides on any of the NYS schools visits I may break it up and do the North country schools on a separate trip. They are just so far.
Thats unfortunate to hear about Clarkson/Potsdam. I am from NYS so am not unfamiliar with the decay and despair in some of the smaller towns and cities. Here’s to better days for Potsdam. S27 and I went a college fair in the fall and the Clarkson rep was very engaging and so enthusiastic. A fairly recent grad…he certainly sold me on the school lol. At the same time, S27 may also want a broader curriculum. He likes science but less so math/engineering type studies.
Yeah, the drive from anywhere to Ithaca from November to April runs the risk of being horrible
I was probably a little harder on Potsdam than I needed to be. SLU/Canton are only 10 miles away, and that, for whatever reason, passed muster with my 27. I think the whole issue for me, living in a rural area myself that has long suffered from inadequate investment made worse by the ongoing impact of the opioid crisis and an attainable, let alone affordable, housing crisis made worse by Covid, is less the actual visible decay than thinking about the loss of a whole way of life and the increasing disparity in access to just about everything for rural communities as compared to their more urban/suburban distant neighbors. It just made me a little angry. Obviously, the North Country has had challenges for decades, but now, that divide between rural and suburban/urban areas just feels so, so much bigger and, at times, insurmountable. It’s not the visuals of decline that bothered us so much as the sad thought of a lost way of life - and lost hope. There are certainly positives to these communities as well - I’m sure there are some very dedicated folks really wanting to make things better. And it may also be that I myself am feeling very cynical about how we have been “left behind” and sort of forgotten in our rural corner.
Clarkson itself wasn’t bad. There was a lot of energy, hustle, and bustle, and people looked happy, albeit focused. The people we met were friendly, and it looked like there was a good amount of collaboration happening instead of individuals tucked away grinding alone in front of their laptops. Some of the engineering spaces reminded me of the space I cordoned off for Lego projects when my kids were younger - lots and lots of projects underway and a kind of “thinking person’s mess” everywhere if that makes sense. While I didn’t think much of the first-year dorms, and some things felt worn out, for some kids, it would be a great fit. But ultimately I think the focus there on engineering and business is far too narrow for my kid, and that, coupled with a college town he just did not click with, took it off the list. I bet the hockey games are amazing though!
Summer job has been confirmed and they will be working at the same place as last year, which unfortunately means we are unlikely to see them for weeks at a time as the job goes from Sunday morning to Saturday afternoon and is a solid 3 hours from home, so it doesn’t make sense to come home for a few waking hours and end up driving for most of those.
The Kid has requested 8 classes for next year, even though seniors only have to take 5, so he can take all of his fun electives. He requested:
AP Lang
French 3
AP Stats
Aerospace Engineering
AP Physics C
AP Am Govt
Studio Music
Advanced Theatre Ensemble Honors
Senior activities have started and it’s started to sink in that they are almost seniors! Next year’s schedule is still being sorted out as they may switch up a class and add another AP. Trying to decide on whether to take the SATs one more time. AP exams are this week though so we will figure out all the other stuff when those are complete. Summer job is a camp counselor at an overnight camp, so no tours this summer. Application season is a mere three months away!
ACK! so true…. I am mainly concerned about the selection of the main essay topic at this point…
Mine took SATs this morning, for the first time (!) - they had a terribly hard fall semester, and robotics got in the way of March 
. They will also do August and maybe September, nothing like playing it close…
I think I have solid likely and target schools, and some super reaches…so probably OK on a list. Have a couple of trips roughly planned out and partially booked for the summer, but a bit iffy as their summer activities are still a bit up in air (long story that I am not entirely happy about but it will sort itself out I imagine ).
It may be cutting it close, but the summer will be a good time to study.
indeed! And they have been studying this winter too, so it should be fine in the end. I am actually not too worried (Especially as they really like their likely schools -which is such a great feeling), but wish it was over with anyway!)
My kid has been in the thick of final projects and AP exam prep, so hasn’t even been thinking about college stuff since a quick debrief of the spring break visit trip. This has been more stressful than she realized, since she decided to circle back to take the Calc BC test a couple years after finishing the class (didn’t work out schedule wise the first time). While she knows how to do all the problems, she had not practiced the particular tricks that help to do them fast, nor memorized the formulas that help in doing them fast (since her other math classes have had untimed tests where re-deriving formulas from scratch was fine). Trying to be encouraging and not let my own anti-standardized-test attitude seep over to her. Hoping there will be some more time in 2 weeks, to think about the college list again. Luckily she will stick with her December SAT score and isn’t planning any APs for next year, so these are hopefully her final standardized tests for high school.