I love ALL of this, but this quote is EXACTLY my D26. She’s been writing a novel similarly from middle school, and it has just expanded and expanded. She’s basically on book 2, but hasn’t figured out where to end book 1 and close it up. Just keeps going and going and editing and updating, etc! At any rate, she’s happy to keep building on it and she’s pulled various short stories from it that’s made it more tangible.
And the multiple programs from both kids at Rhodes sounds great!
Is your D26 heading to a writing program or planning to major in English? Did she find a school that is good for those interests? I think that is what my kid is going to love doing but they currently say psychology would be their major.
Haha, she doesn’t know what she wants to study! At this point she’s between physics, chemistry, English, philosophy, materials science, and chemical engineering! She has a couple of engineering schools on the list, but everything else is liberal arts, so she can figure it out when she gets there. She’s enjoyed writing so far as a purely creative & fun pursuit. I’m not convinced that she’ll want to study creative writing, but it’s possible!
That’s great that your kids are pursuing summer programs. I’ve been gently nudging my D29 toward a summer program and forwarding some options to her, even ones that likely won’t matter for her resume but might help her start to figure out what she wants to study. Instead, she is pushing to take precalc CCP over the summer at the nearby small state college. I’m sure she will do fine with that, but it seems like there are better uses of the summer to me.
Good for her! Love the drive to get ahead in hard core subjects. I was like that decades ago but neither one of my kids29 seem to have that push toward advancement in core subjects. Their school is also pretty laid back on that, what with capping Honors/APs, and putting a lot of focus on theater and band in various ways and not the more “serious” subjects. I was definitely not a laid back theater or band kid (too busy maxxing out those math, language, science APs) but I guess that is what is fun to see kids do things so differently.
Kids got notified yesterday that both were approved for 4 honors/AP classes next year but no information whether C29 got Chemistry Honors or is still (mis)enrolled in APES. The first week of school there is a google form that is easy to submit to get things changed, so we will do that if needed.
In the meantime, D29 who currently is only doing 2 honors classes (C29 is doing the max allowed of 3) and wants to do 4 honors classes next year has hit a bit of a stumbling block with workload. She is just really slow at everything. Very meticulous. And does NOT work well under pressure. Because of their very unusual elementary school (tiny, private) with only 5-10 kids in a grade they never did tests. The teachers didn’t need to do those assessments, they knew how the kids were doing, and a lot of the parents us included were really looking for alternative education anyway with more “learn for learning sake not for testing sake.” We all knew this would be a huge change to a 2000+ student public Title 1 high school (their choice) and they have done incredibly well so far. They worked really hard and ended up with 4.0 first semester, even after failing all the first tests and quizzes, (again no idea how to take tests). But I think D29 ambitions and desire may be coming up against the reality of what kind of student she is. She is well aware she needs high rigor, but I think we may have to be in that, do we take regular paced English and get an A or Honors and get a B (no extra points for Honors at our school, only AP). Something to think about over the next few months.
Has your D26 settled on a school? It’s not too early I guess to start thinking of schools that might fit my creative writing kid lol…
Not settled yet! She’s narrowed down to a few now that all the acceptances and rejections are in. She HAS started to think more about where creative writing might fit in. She’s not sure if she wants to do a double major in it, just take some classes, or keep it more on the side. We start the tours next week, so we shall see!
Well, we are in the last month of freshman year, wow!
Is anyone planning college visits for this summer or next year? When is a good time to do college visits? What other college prep type things is recommended for Sophmore year?
We’re going to wait until next summer, I think. Our S29s are just getting into the swing of things with high school, so we wanted to make sure they had time to grow a bit before making it feel real with a college visit.
For my eldest (Class of ‘24), we did nothing at all about colleges until late in Junior year. This maybe wasn’t a fabulous choice, but they did end up at a good school for them.
For my middle child (Class of ‘27), we spent spring break of sophomore year visiting schools. The idea wasn’t really to consider any specific school as such, but for her to see a variety of types of schools to see what appealed to her. We visited a large state school, two liberal arts colleges and one experimental college (RIP Hampshire, which my kid adored).
As far as other college planning goes, I’d say having them think about the kinds of schools they may want and the kind of programs they’re interested in. If there’s a chance they’ll go to a private school or an out of state public, look up admission requirements/preferences in the schools’ Common Data Sets so they can make sure they’re on track to be eligible. Sign up for the ACT10/PSAT10, so they can get a rough sense of how they do on standardized tests.
We are not planning any college visits this summer, but S29 will at least see Syracuse when we move D26 in in the fall. And he went along for a few of the tours we did with her. He is interested in a completely different major though, so I’m not anticipating much overlap in where he ends up applying.
We started visiting colleges with D26 the summer before junior year to get a feel for what type of college she was interested in. If at all possible try to visit when classes are in session. The campus has a completely different vibe when students are there.
The current challenge in our house is keeping S29 and his little brother motivated. D26 is taking AP exams this week and graduates on May 20. Meanwhile, the boys still have three and a half weeks of school after that.
I think it depends on the kid. If a student is already thinking about college and interested in visiting campuses, I don’t think there’s any harm in a casual visit between 9th and 10th to see what a big flagship school is like, a midsize school, a liberal arts college. I did that with my D22, and it was useful, but D26 was less interested. I wouldn’t push the issue if the student isn’t really thinking about that yet - there’s plenty of time for visits going forward.
As for other things to do, select a manageable load of challenging classes and try to support the student’s interests, both inside and outside of school. Better to have one or two activities that you really enjoy than a dozen things that just came and went.
My D29 will be tagging along on some college visit trips for S27 this summer as we will be making a week long trip to look at some out of state schools. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be taking her on any visits. (So far S27 has only been on one and that was because we were on a trip and made the detour).
Having said that, she’s expressed some curiosity about college, probably because she is seeing her brother getting started on the process (whereas he would have had ZERO interest in looking at any colleges after freshman year). I’m hopeful this will keep her motivated around her grades, which aren’t “high stats” as they say. She is taking a much more rigorous coarseload than her brother (due to school curriculum changes more than anything else) and I think she has the potential to do quite well on her SAT, but as a girl seeking merit to make college affordable, she will need a bit better GPA if she wants to have a lot of choices.
Mostly though we’re just trying to help her get together a plan to stay busy over the summer. She will apply for work, but there aren’t a ton of options for a not yet 15 year old in an area with no public transportation and 2 parents who work over the summer so we’ll see.
We have been thinking about when to start this–I think next summer we will try to start for sure but I’ve also considered whether to do any over fall or spring break next year, too. My daughter’s school has everyone take the PSAT beginning in 9th grade and so the mountain of college mail has already started coming in along with what feels like 20 emails a day and she’s starting to develop a few favorites as she learns about all of the various schools she is hearing from. I’m a bit hesitant to go to her absolute favorite schools too soon though as I feel she would get more out of the visits further into the process.
Hi all. Right now focusing on D27 but D29 will not be far behind. Right now we are dragging D29 along with us when touring schools for D27. She seems to be following in her sister’s footsteps at the moment. D27 is smart but has to work hard to get there. D29 is smart but gets bored. Her school requires freshmen to take the PACT, which she did wonderful, scoring a 32. As soon as she is done taking Chemistry over the summer, we’re planning on taking a road trip to look at a few schools for D27 and hopefully D29 pays attention also.
Little late here, but … We did a few college tours this summer. My wife had a work trip to Chicago so D29 and I tagged along and went to UChicago, NW and Loyola. Three very different schools. Later we had a family reunion of sorts and on the way there we stopped at Notre Damn. D29 also tagged along on a few of S25s campus tours so she has some basis. S25 was set on going to college in Ohio; D29 really wants to go out of state which makes visiting schools harder, plus her list of schools is MUCH longer than D25. But … I’m making her go so the Ohio colleges as well. It will be hard to do too much during the school year with her class load and ECs.
What is everyone’s planning tips for ACT/SAT prep? Is there certain online programs, books, etc, that are the best go to resources? Which are the good programs where you can test to see if the SAT or ACT is better suited for you?
My current senior used an online program called Prepmedians. She liked it and it helped her raise her composite ACT score by four points (from a 30 to a 34).
S29 is my third kid. Out strategy for the first two was to have them take both the PSAT and the PACT in 10th grade, then see how the did on the PSAT and the state-mandated, school-administered ACT in 11th grade. For my first kid (Class of '24), that ended up being it – they got a 36 on the ACT in junior year and we didn’t feel the need for them to take an SAT after that.
D27 did well on the pre-tests in 10th grade, but then her scores went down on the junior year PSAT and ACT, so we had her take the Prepmedians course over the summer and she took the ACT again in July. She’s happy enough with her score that again, we don’t see the point of making her take the SAT.
For both of the older kids, they went into the PSAT, PACT and school-administered ACT with little to no prep. (this was NOT my preference, btw). I’d have liked them to study, but it just didn’t happen.
I think we’ll follow this same plan with S29, but maybe with this one I’ll convince him to at least take a practice test or two beforehand.
We will wait until next year, since my 29 won’t have completed algebra 2 before the spring, and much of the math on these tests is algebra 2 and geometry. His school does not push early testing except in a few specific circumstances (athletic recruits for certain sports). Depending on how things go for him this year in his own sport, I may have him take the June or August SAT next summer, which is earlier than his school recommends, so that is up for discussion. My 27 hates standardized testing, so taking it more than twice would have been of little use for him. My 25 started taking it at the end of sophomore year, and I think for him, that was the right call. For my 29, I may follow a similar plan - it just gets expensive to take these over and over again. As for studying, my 25 used Khan Academy and that worked well for him. My 27 and 29 will both end up using Methodize, which is offered by his school.