I can’t believe this thread has 119 posts! I would have hired a tutor 119 posts ago! OP, just get a tutor for your son and move on. He will catch up fast. You don’t want to be a pariah in the guidance office.
Plus, learning 30-40% more material doesn’t necessarily mean he will translate that in the ACT. Just MHO
He’s predicted to have no college admissions chances. Doubling up on math is a Hail Mary approach, certainly. Perhaps he can write about how humbling it was to sit with young students while he attacked his math deficiencies.
Oh please…stop with the drama. There is a college for every student somewhere amongst the 3000 or so colleges in this country.
If you are serious about doubling up on math being a “Hail Mary” you have bigger issues than a low math score on the SAT.
@thumper1 Nearly 60% of students drop out of college, with 90% of the dropouts coming from his predicted cohort. Hail Mary indeed.
^PREACH! @thumper1
Thinkwell is self-grading and turns sections green as completed. You would be able to tell not only if he was completing assignments, but how well he was doing. But it sounds like the only situation that is going to satisfy you is the one you wanted originally.
Gee, after this thread 120+ posts, I can’t IMAGINE why the school might “push back” against the OP.
OP, you might be amazed at how your son does on the real ACT. Through a series of unfortunate decisions, I missed out on a large chunk of geometry and completely missed out on trig. What happened? It led to me doing miserably in calc (and yet I was in the mid-30s on the ACT math section). So, I got a tutor. It wasn’t the end of the world. I was a multi sport athlete and ran clubs, but you know what? I still managed to eek out time for a tutor.
(Oh, and despite the “D” on my transcript from Calc, I managed to make it into a great undergrad and tippy top grad school. And at tippy top grad school, I am running a large data project where I use fairly advanced math every day. Yup, it happens.)
Your son’s life is not over, even if he does poorly on the math section of the ACT. This drama is going to cause significant strain in both of your lives though because I can guarantee that this is not the only time this type of issue has or will come up.
“Isn’t the school the issue here”
no.
the issue is your son , who, for what ever reason, does not know Geometry well enough to do well on an all important test. And needs individual tutoring for a few weeks to catch up .
You have 2 choices- go forward and help your child by getting him a tutor.
Or go backwards, continue to stay mad, and keep on fighting the school until it is too late to help your DS
As I mentioned before-
Arguing with the school for something that makes NO SENSE to anyone who understands what colleges want and more importantly, do NOT want to see on a transcript, will sabotage his GPA and may result in a lousy letter of recommendation from the HS counselor- all because you wanted what was easy for you- not what was good for your child.
so whos the one who is being immature here?
“'Perhaps he can write about how humbling it was to sit with young students while he attacked his math
deficiencies.”
wow… just wow…
he’s your son? really??
I feel sorry for anyone to have such a mean spirited parent…
@menloparkmom I think a lot of you live in this hyper-gunner CC world where mature students can self-study for everything. He is not that student. Looking at his test scores and projections, he’s a student most people would predict isn’t “college material.” So the whole how this will look, as if he’s aiming for Berkeley or USC, is completely disconnected from reality. The tier of colleges he’d be reaching for are not obsessing over such a thing, especially if it results in ascent.
OP- I sympathize. We were a two parent working family who did not have the luxury of being able to chauffeur the kids hither and yon during the middle and high school years, when it seemed as though the only way a kid could get into college was to have a full time driver, personal cook, appointment maker, and of course- ATM machine which dispensed twenty dollar bills on demand.
But we made it work with the time and resources we had- and I know you can too.
We learned the hard way that trying to get an uncooperative teacher, administrator, coach, whatever to see things our way only ended in frustration. Lots of folks who end up working in high schools get worn down and end up preserving order and administrative neatness at the expense of student learning.
So I get it, believe me.
But some situations require swallowing hard and just doing what it takes to get the job done. Which in this case- is likely 4 sessions with a tutor- can be a HS senior who loves math and explains things well- to get your son over the hump.
That’s it. Pay the kid the $10 an hour, or a Starbucks gift card as a thank you and move on.
I sense so many other issues you are going to have with this son- that the sooner you put the geometry debacle of 2014 behind you, the better you can focus on what seems to be the bigger picture, i.e. your belief that he lacks maturity, focus, the ability to stay on task without nagging and being supervised, etc.
So you have a lot to sort through before he packs his duffle bag and heads of to college. So get cracking- get him the four hours he’ll need to learn the missing geometry concepts, and move on. If you start to make every single issue about his schooling WW3 you are NOT going to enjoy senior year- which is stressful enough, as you well know.
Dial it back. And if you’re unhappy with the way the HS deals with things like this, bake a tray of cookies next time you have a meeting with the guidance counselor and try starting again.
You think your kid has no chance to get into any college, but the other posters here are in a crazy CC universe? OK.
OP - I am the mother of 2 very different students. Believe me, I get it. I tutor kids who struggle in math. I see very stressful situations in homes, where parents are desperate to get their child through their 2nd try at the Math Regents exam so they can pass the course. I go to their house and I work closely with the student to get to the root of the problem. The students I work with not only don’t like math, they don’t like school. Sometimes, they are immature, not independent, not self-directed. Sometimes, the parents need to set the priority for their child because the child does not have the foresight to understand the gravity of their situation. I get it.
I understand the frustration of spending $17k, etc. What’s done is done. Move on from fretting about the injustice. And focus on what the real problem is, and solving it. Placing him in the Adv. Geo class is many hours a week of his time, for a Hail Mary, when a fraction of that time is probably all that is needed to boost his score.
You said that 100% of the kids at this school go to college, and the school offers this course, so there must be several students each year who take this class AND go to college.
My kids went to a private school like this as freshmen and every single graduate went to college. My daughter was/is not good at math and she started in regular algebra 1 but after about a week the teacher called me and said she didn’t belong in that class, so they dropped her into an Algebra 1/2 class that would take two years to complete. Yep, this fancy school had a class with 30 or so freshmen that was even lower than regular algebra and they all went to college. She then took geometry as a jr and algebra 2 as a senior. They were not classes of shame, just the right math classes for her. She did not do well on the ACT math section but she still was accepted into college. As you said, not Ivy league but a state flagship. Like your son, she had no interest in self studying, but she did go to tutoring. She either took it at school, went to a center about 2 miles from our house (sometimes walking in the rain, sometimes riding her bike, sometimes a friend dropped her off) or went to a private tutor.
You feel wronged but there is nothing anyone on this forum can do to make it better We’ve suggested tutors (free or paid), reasons why retaking the class for credit is bad, taking it at a community college, taking an ACT prep course. Why don’t you ask your son what he wants? He may be fine with going to a less prestigious school, not being an engineer, not being a teacher or scientist or accountant.
My kids also changed high schools (3 different schools) and they did get screwed in some of their placements. The world just isn’t fair. It’s ridiculous that you think since your older sons got 31+ on their ACT math that this son should too. Kids are different.
If you want him to take the geometry class, take your $17000 worth of influence and demand it.
@VMT Thoughtful response. Thank you. It’s not all about the ACT benefit. Working at “2x the pace” would be good for him, yes? Building serious depth in geometry is also good for trig, yes? Possibly setting up for advanced trig/pre-calc, yes?
Isn’t the math anxiety you speak of almost exclusively from a poor math foundation? If the anxiety isn’t snuffed out in high school isn’t it usually never stuffed out?
If he’s struggling with the material, how is putting him in a class that covers more material at twice the pace of the standard class going to be “good” for him? You could get a better foundation in geometry by having a tutor (and slowing the material down until he gets it). If he’s not gunning for elite schools, why are you pushing him so hard? I’d be concerned that putting an immature person in a class they don’t want to be in would make them less than motivated to do well. If he repeats geometry and doesn’t do well, can he even get into advanced trig?
@austinmshauri He needs to be pushed hard to have any sort of chance at the flagship U he’d like to attend, UConn. I know for certain the counselor doesn’t expect much out of him. How many students in that math cohort improve their math sub-score by 6-8 points? Further, even advanced trig is 2-3 years back from the senior math gunners at his prep. Hardly cruel and unusual.
I’m confused.
Your son took a practice ACT during a prep course over the summer and scored a 20 on the math section, correct? Did the prep course only give one practice test? It’s common here for a prep course to have you take several practice tests. At least one at the beginning, so they can see where help is needed. At least one more to see what progress was made. What did they do / suggest to help him improve?
If it was just one practice test, it doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t score better the next time.
Also, if his Reading, English, and Science were considerably better, he probably has a better than average composite, right? To put it in perspective, the national average composite is a 21. Yes, we are on CC where a 30 is often referred to as “ok” or “decent” but in reality, a 30 is at the 95th percentile. So, if your son’s composite is in the low 20’s on a practice test, it is very likely he could bring it up a little with little to no additional prep. Since he is not striving for Ivies, taking a few free online practice tests and getting him up to (for example) a 25 composite would put him at the 79th percentile. I think it’s safe to say that’s more than sufficient for admission to a lot of colleges.
I would probably be mad if my kid’s counselor wouldn’t do as I was requesting (whatever it may be), too. Especially if I was paying for a private school. However, I know my D would not want me making a fuss in the counselors office, so I would suck it up and do whatever I could outside of school to get the results we want.
UConn common data set:
http://www.oir.uconn.edu/CDS_2014_2015.pdf
Most recent data shows bulk of students scored between 24-29 on ACT math, so that’s the “match” target.
Since your s did well in his regular geometry class with an A and has not actually taken the ACT but merely a prep class how do you know he did not even bother to try in the prep class and sample tests and just did eeny, meeny, miny, moe as a form of passive aggressive push back? Maybe the GC understands the situation afterall. Humiliating a teenager, male or female never helps them to mature, but it does encourage rebellion.