gardenstategal and lonelymoonlight, wow and thank you. Insightful and specific as to the challenges of junior year, and great advice throughout.
Gardenstate, the IB Diploma perspective in terms of balance is a valuable one. I worry about the demands of the diploma (although the # of AP courses many of the posting students here are taking is absolutely no walk int he park either - my goodness!). Trying to be planful about the admissions testing around the known demands of the school year seems downright critical to me.
Agreed then on the PSAT thoughts and getting started now. I introduced that idea to my D, and I think she’ll get cracking as soon as this weekend.
After seeing her sophomore PSAT results today, it looks like she can afford to concentrate a bit more on math, as her reading/writing numbers were appreciably stronger than her math. She would have to make a very substantial math leap to go along with some reading/writing improvement to get to NMS status, but even if not in the cards or a jump that big is not feasible, no worries obviously and the prep would help on the SAT if she takes it.
Thanks also for both your replies on the subject tests. She probably should have considered US History after her sophomore year since she just finished APUSH (even if APUSH isn’t perfectly aligned with SAT II). She got a 5 on the APUSH exam int he spring; not sure why schools just can’t take that instead of a US History SAT II. In any event, as suggested we’ll back burner figuring out subject tests until we see whether the schools she is interested in require the subject tests.
Good news and thanks to you both on the instrument/music. It is important to her and will be part of her identity as an applicant no doubt, and I imagine she’ll find ways to contribute musically whether an admissions factor or not. I’m wondering if maybe her IB Diploma paper isn’t a place where she can show some depth in her academic areas of interest, b/c as you suggest lonelymoonlight the violin takes up a lot of EC oxygen for her.
As to SAT or ACT, as I read more I really do like the idea of her taking real practice tests (timed) of each so she can see if she prefers one to the other as you did lonelymoonlight (and as others have helpfully suggested as well). I’m trying to pick my spots about how much to suggest to her and how much space to give her, but I think the practice ACT/SAT and see which one fits is an idea I’ll enthusiastically highlight.
Lonelymoonlight, the sequence and strategy you followed on testing and getting it done if possible junior year has strong advantages and makes great sense. I’ll share those advantages with her for her to consider as she decides what she wants to do. She may well like that approach best. Same with superscoring - as you suggest, I think she’ll be most comfortable just kind of letting that play out without being too focused on it as a single-minded testing strategy.
All this information is so helpful, and I feel like I’ve been able to make accelerated progress through this in the last several days right through your posts gardenstate and lonelymoon because of all the help. Going to be careful to try to empower my D without being directive, and the info and advice gives me the chance to help give her the tools she needs to make good decisions.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. And as for length lonelymoon, right back at you I’m afraid! 