I have been waiting for a long time to start this thread! Finally kiddo has made it to high school starting this Fall. Let’s go Class of 2029!
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I’ll admit that I’m not ready for this! Still have a D26, so in the middle of the whole “process”. But twin S29s will be up soon enough!
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Wow! I guess it’s about that time. Also focused on D26 for now, but D29 is on the way.
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Can’t believe it is that time already! My daughter will be entering high school in just a few weeks. School here starts incredibly early! I don’t think any of us are ready in my household!
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Just dropped off S25 last week; now time to start thinking about D29. They are so very different. My son didn’t really think about college until Jr year spring break when I made him tour some schools with me. The girl already has a list and is trying to build a resume to get into top schools. S25 is crazy smart to the point he doesn’t have to try hard to get good grades, which led to some poor study habits. D29 is plenty smart, but has to work harder for As and has much better study and organizational skills. S25 won’t speak unless someone else starts up the discussion; D29 is a little social butterfly.
I find the differences interesting in how they approach problems and goals. D29 wanted to be in Spanish 3, and the school placed her in Spanish 2. D25 would have just accepted it or I would have had to fight to make a change. D29 would be embarrassed if I did anything and went to advocate for herself, which resulted in getting moved to Spanish 3. I suspect she will have very different ideas on which colleges to apply to.
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Just dropping in here to say hi. I’m not ready to think about college for S29, but I have a D27 so he’ll get a front-row seat to her process, anyway.
S29 threw us for a loop by going out for a winter sport (my elder two kids are theater/art/music focused. I’m really psyched for him, but there’s a steep learning curve. I thought I had high school on lock, but it turns out that sports are this whole, extensive subculture that I had no idea really existed. It’s going to be a fun few months (and I mean that non-sarcastically, I think).
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Hi parents of class of 2029!
So, my S29s are getting ready for the holiday break here. In the past, we’ve used the time to figure out what they might want to do over the summer. Historically, it’s been things like their elementary school’s camp or a local basketball camp. Nothing sleepaway as they weren’t interested, and we weren’t prepared to push for it. But now that high school is upon them, I’m wondering what your kids are thinking about.
For my D26, we had to push her to do something. That turned out to be an interesting college-based camp that was nearby. For the S29s, I’m thinking that I might push them to get a summer job instead. My D26 wasn’t interested in that, but I think my boys will appreciate the spending money, lol! I don’t think they’re interested in much academic for the summer.
What are your children (or you!) planning for their summers?
Hi - I had a similar question. We have always done sleep away or local camps in the past. I know the “pay for play” college camps are not super helpful and it seems like many of the kids nearby are doing “teen tour” type of camps. What have parents of older teens found helpful or useful? Thanks
Just my two cents (or nowadays, my rounded-up nickel): don’t be overly stressed about summer activities. D29 is my third - D22 is a senior at Rice, and D26 will be starting at Carleton next fall. Neither of them ever did any kind of academic summer camp program at any point, mostly because they weren’t really interested (and we couldn’t afford pay-for-play situations anyway). They did some babysitting/dogsitting for the neighbors, immersed themselves in church youth group activities, and read books, which are the things they liked doing. D26 also took quite a few naps. 
If I had it to do over again, I might encourage them a little more to get a steady job at a local business - they would have benefitted from learning how to handle income, and strictly from a college perspective, I think part-time jobs are valued by admissions committees more than most people think. D29 is more business-oriented than her sisters and is already complaining that there aren’t enough good jobs for 14-yr-olds, so I think she will have that part covered.
With that said, if a kid is really excited about a particular summer program because they love robotics or poetry or finance or whatever, that’s great - it’s always a good thing for kids to have a chance to pursue things they love. But I wouldn’t recommend doing summer programs just for the sake of doing them, or because they supposedly provide an admissions advantage. My kids have done well in the admissions process by making very good grades in the most rigorous classes reasonably available to them, spending time on things they enjoy, and being respectable citizens that adults tend to think highly of. In fairness, neither D22 nor D26 was accepted for admission at the HYPSM level (D22 rejected at Yale, D26 didn’t even try), so if that’s the goal, perhaps more is required on the extracurricular front - I can’t speak to that directly. But then again, there’s no one EC that can guarantee threading that needle anyway, so buyer beware.
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My daughter did a hodgepodge of stuff in the summer. We travelled as a family, she had sports camps (required by the team which frankly was a PIA), she did a week long local volunteer program every summer (also through school), another volunteer trip with church, she played piano, worked at a local sub shop, and hung out with her friends. The only college program she did was a competitive entry, week long, engineering program as a rising senior to get a better sense of the school to make sure that was really her #1 choice.
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S29 is going to spend a month at the summer camp he’s attended for the last several years. He loves it and it gives him a month of solid outdoor, screen-free activity time, so I’m happy to send him for at least this coming year and maybe after Sophomore year, too.
But our summer philosophy has always been to let our kids be kids. My elder two went to an art camp for three weeks every summer until they aged out at 16/17. My eldest did do a play for pay summer program (Cherubs at Northwestern), but we were never under any illusion that it would help them get in there (and it didn’t).
My middle child (Class of ‘27) has applied to our state’s Governor’s School, and I hope she gets in. Otherwise, she’ll get a job and we’ll do some college tours.
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We usually spend 3 or 4 weeks visiting family abroad each summer, though I expect we may need to cut that back to 2 weeks going forward as it really has started to feel too long as my kids have gotten older and have other things they want to do with their summer. Last summer once we returned, my daughter volunteered at our local zoo, continued with music lessons, and attended a journalism day camp at our local university. I imagine that this summer she will continue with volunteering and music lessons but beyond that she doesn’t have any firm ideas or plans yet. I normally have our summer flights to see family booked by now but I’m having trouble committing to dates this year for work reasons on my part but also have been waiting to see if my daughter has any specific dates she wants to be home for.
Well, my D29 is really far more into life and college planning than my S25 ever was. She has roughly mapped out all of the classes she will take in high school; but she really has no idea what she will study in college and I’m not sure how to advise her. She is a very strong student and generally has better than average study habits. She is very impressionable though and takes any statement from friends or teachers as gospel, and then gets mad at me if I offer a counter viewpoint.
Would love some thoughts from you all on how to advise her on class sections. She has played violin for I think seven years now and plays in the local city youth orchestra; is very good at English and writing; took 2 years of Spanish in middle school and was tested into Spanish 3 for 9th; and was an Irish Dancer but seems to be ending that for high school. So far, she has always received all “A”s in school. At various points she discussed going into math; business, economics, music, research science, architecture; health care and English (but no idea what she would do with that).
Any tips on how to help? Right now I told her to take the hardest classes that she feels she can get an A in if she worked at it, and that she will find a pathway in her own time.
What I’ve told my two S29s is that they should take each of the 5 core classes (English, foreign language, math, science, and history/social studies) every year. However, mine are starting in Spanish 1, so won’t be ahead. They don’t know what they want to study yet (they’ve not thought about it for a second!). Their school has a somewhat regimented set of classes for them to take with relatively few AP options and no honors classes so we’ve not had to overly worry about “rigor” yet, but I think it’s something that we’ll have to discuss when they’re getting their schedule ready for next year. The APs are typically by invitation here. If they’re invited, I’ll likely encourage them to take them. They’ve been pretty successful in their classes so far.
On the extracurriculars, I’ve pushed that they do something, but nothing specific. We’ll see what happens on that end.
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I have to brag a little on S29: he’s never been a great student, but he chose all honors and AP classes for this year. In AP World, he went into the last week of the semester with a low C. He’d been telling us all semester he was studying, but clearly not very effectively. We finally sat him down and went over, step-by-step, how to study.
And it worked! An A in the class was utterly out of reach, but between working hard on his final in-class project and pulling an A on the final, he did bring his grade up to a B! I’m hoping he’ll take the lesson into next semester.
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I have been reading CC for a while but with kids in 9th grade, I didn’t think I would be posting much…until today when kids (twins, class of 2029) met with their counselor to go over their 10th grade schedule. One of the twins is absolutely a creative writer/arts person, maybe psychology but hates math (does fine at at it but dislikes it so will be getting to maybe AP Stats by senior year) and dislikes science, as my kid is not detail oriented and just likes bigger ideas than what is available in honors bio and chemistry. As a result we made a concerted decision to have C29 register for AP Environmental science instead of Chemistry Honors for next year 10th grade.
School (and we are in CA so we follow UC requirements) only requires two years of lab science and C29 has zero interest in doing any extra science. (So Bio Honors now which they dislike and then AP ES next year) I figure the “story” we will be telling schools is more on the arts/liberal arts, amazing writer, and kid is definitely targeting semi-reach schools (Whitman, Colorado College, Lewis & Clark, with yeah sure Colby, Bates as high reaches) and I just don’t think AP Environmental science instead of Chemistry is going to hurt them that much. BUT…counselor tells C29 today “you should not take AP ES, you should take chemistry, it will hurt you with colleges if you don’t.” I can certainly see if the choice was AP Chem v AP ES, and that we were going for four years of science but we are definitely not. I felt pretty sure on our choice but now am questioning and I so I thought I would put it out here to the community for input. Kid is capped at max four AP/honors classes per year per school policy so I thought it would be a good compromise on rigor to do the AP ES. Is it reasonable to take AP ES next year, or is counselor right? Any thoughts?
My $.02 is to listen to your counselor. You will greatly reduce the odds at some schools by not having a year of bio, chem, and physics in HS.
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I feel your pain, as my kids are never excited about the prospect of a science class. But I would not use APES as a replacement for any part of the standard bio/chem/physics progression. I recall that last year, the counselor who hosts Your College Bound Kid reported that a Wm & Mary admissions officer told him that they absolutely expect to see at least one year of bio, chem, and physics, to the point that it’s difficult to be admitted otherwise. I know you didn’t mention WM specifically, but it’s on the reachier end of the same general selectivity bracket as the schools noted here, and I would guess that some of them feel the same way.
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I agree that you probably want your C29 to get a year of each core science, if you can, especially for the schools they’re thinking about. It’s my understanding that regular chem will end up being better than AP ES, even though it’s an AP. I think it’s the chem, bio, physics that they want. Ideally, it would be high rigor, but I think for an arts-focused student that even regular chem/bio/physics will be better than just AP ES.
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Thanks for the feedback everyone! I relayed the information back to kid who agreed Chemistry was better but wanted to do honors. Since it is the 4th AP/honors class it requires a special form/process to ask for permission (three max per year without special permission). So not sure where the mixup happened but apparently they accidentally asked for APES again in the form, but then put Chemistry Honors as the backup…when it was supposed to be no APES, Chemistry Honors first and regular chemistry as the backup. Too late to change now, apparently, so we are just going to see how schedules come out in August (since counselor made the recommendation maybe she will just put kid into the backup of chemistry) and then we will have another chance the first week of school to make adjustments.
On a different note, I had been looking for summer options for both kids and had found here on CC a reference to a writing program at University of the South (Sewanee) which I mentioned to C29 and they got really excited about. They have been writing novels, short stories even a play since they were 8. They struggle to finish all the projects and when she was 10 she was so upset, she said to me “I don’t know what to do, I just can’t seem to finish my novel” to which I thought if that is my kids biggest problem at age 10, I am going to call that a win.
Back to this summer, the Sewanee program is during the twins birthday and my other kid (D29) does not like writing but loves math and science, chemistry in particular, so she would not be doing a Sewanee program. So they were going to have to be apart for their birthday for the first time ever and D29 had a meltdown about that. After much negotiation and research on my part I found a summer pre-college program at Rhodes in Memphis that has both a writing course and a chemistry course for D29 so we submitted applications for that. I love the idea of the kids getting a small taste of college life. I don’t think the program is too competitive but the dates and topics are such a perfect fit for the twins which is often hard to find (such different kids!). So we applied. And this week they were both accepted to the program! We agreed next summer 2027 writing kid would apply for the Sewanee writing course and science kid would look at an astronomy or more serious chemistry course for rising juniors and be apart for their birthday. She has 18 months to get used to the idea. So that will be our activity for this summer (in addition to band camp which starts end of July and we will also try to squeeze in a two week trip with extended family).
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