<p>Thanks for all the kind words. I will take your advice!! I am on amazon right now checking out the books. Now I just have to convince my S. I will show him your posts.</p>
<p>Question. If he re-takes the SAT early senior year, does that count him out for EA or can he get the results in time to submit. We live in NC and Chapel Hill is one of his favorites right now. I think the deadline is October 15th for EA.</p>
<p>jamminj… I am OCD like you, makes my son happy because HE doesn’t have to do it! HA! He took the SAT twice and the ACT twice. He did no prep classes, but did get a book for both (that I think he may have cracked a total of 2 times the week prior to the retest on each). He improved his SAT by about 100 points on the second taking, not huge, but he was happy. On the ACT he went from a 30 to a 34 composite, which was HUGE. That 34 has put him in a much better place overall for $, honors, etc. Maybe consider having him try the ACT once if he doesn’t want to retake the SAT, some kids (especially engineering types) tend to do better on it.</p>
<p>granipc - LOL… my son too. I meet him in the kitchen and say this is what I found out today, blah blah blah – he smiles and hugs me and says “thanks mom.” Your story sounds very similar. He took the PSAT in 10th, got a 177. The GC gave him a practice book, he basically did 1/2 a test, then scored 1970. But anyway, he also took the practice ACT and scored a 33. BUT THEN, he took the ACT March 5th and we just got the score and it’s a 29. He stated that he doesn’t want to re-take the ACT. But I think I can convince him to re-take the SAT, especially if I show him all of the posts here today.</p>
<p>If you go to the college board site you can buy their SAT online course for $55.96. It will take the SAT scores your son has already achieved and give him work to improve his areas of weakness. My son used this and found it very helpful.</p>
<p>Here’s the link: </p>
<p>[SAT</a> Online Course for International Students - Study in the USA. Start with the SAT](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools)</p>
<p>wallrus75 - Did you take the SAT/ACT more than once, and if so, what was the difference in scores? What colleges are you applying to or did you already?</p>
<p>OH that’s awesome Albiongirl. Will check it out. Thanks so much!</p>
<p>Jamminj-
I believe if he takes the SAT in October he can rush the scores but I’m not sure if he will not be able to see the scores before they are sent. I would suggest buying a prep book (Princeton review did wonders for me) and a practice sat book(collegeboard blue book) and take full length practice tests over and over again, timed. My first SAT(basically cold) I got a 1990, but after doing practice SAT’s I got a superscore of 2130 after my second attempt(second try was a 2090. I made the mistake of mostly only doing practice sessions of the section that I was weakest in(I went from a 640 to a 770 in writing; although it helped my score immensely and helped get me into my top choice schools, my other sections remained in the high 600s.) So practice ALL sections.</p>
<p>I think that some of the posters on this thread that wrote that these high school kids should be responsible for creating a well balanced list thinks that CC people represent the majority of high school students. We don’t. If a kid was told and trained to have safeties and matches as well as reaches, and they decided to blatantly ignore the advice that was given to them, then it is their own fault. Many kids were not informed, or did not think to research the odds. By applying to ten or so schools, the average person would believe that they have good odds to get Into one. However, when all of those are extremely selective, they don’t realize how much the odds are stacked against them.</p>
<p>Jammij-- no need to rush October scores for EA to UNC.</p>
<p>[Applying</a> to Carolina](<a href=“http://admissions.unc.edu/Apply/First_Year_Students/Deadlines.html]Applying”>http://admissions.unc.edu/Apply/First_Year_Students/Deadlines.html)</p>
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<p>A lot of the kids I know have been at the top of their class for all of their lives thus far. They went to small high schools, got into gifted programs, and all of the adults in their lives agreed that they were the ‘best,’ so they would have no problems. A lot of grown adults truly don’t understand how difficult this process is, and I can easily see a kid getting misadvised (or not advised at all), through no fault of his or her own. I saw this a lot personally with my own administration and adults in my life. Everytime I was candid with the chances I truly had, I would get a volley of ‘don’t worry, you’ll be fine,’ and nothing I could tell them (including my counselors) would be any different.</p>
<p>wallrus75 -
Congratulations are your accomplishments. You sound very well rounded and it seems like you will do well wherever you end up. Did any of the schools offer you a substantial financial aid package/scholarships? Are you leaning towards one because of that?</p>
<p>JHU sounds like your best bet, unless Cornell comes through. Can you take out student loans if your parents can’t afford it? Sorry if I seem so nosy, I researched the schools, but haven’t gotten into the whole FA part yet. I guess what I’m asking is if the school offers you 27K, and the cost is say 50K, and your parents can’t afford the difference, can you personally apply for student loans? And would you want to, broad sense?</p>
<p>
The thing you’re forgetting is that most people in their teens…are really quite stupid. Most of those kids probably did hear about safety schools, and they probably did look for admissions tips online.</p>
<p>But a common (and very human) error is thinking that the rules simply don’t apply to them. They might see a 10% acceptance rate and think “Daaaaaaamn”, but then continue to do their application not realizing that that 10% acceptance rate applies to them, too. </p>
<p>And so, they apply to a safety school so their parents and guidance counselor will stop nagging them about it, without realizing that they might just end up going there for real. In other words, these teens never got a reality check and are now being punished for it. And really, it’ll be a good lesson to learn, but their fate could’ve been prevented with better college counseling. So even though some of them sound arrogant and stuck-up, I do feel sympathy for them.</p>
<p>"But a common (and very human) error is thinking that the rules simply don’t apply to them. They might see a 10% acceptance rate and think “Daaaaaaamn”, but then continue to do their application not realizing that that 10% acceptance rate applies to them, too. "</p>
<p>That’s what I don’t get - the arrogance of believing you have any shot above the 10% (or whatever).</p>
<p>The ones I have absolutely no sympathy for are the ones that whine “I got rejected from all my top choices and only got accepted to my safety school, but I don’t like that school…”</p>
<p>GMT - I feel sorry for them too, because their safety school isn’t really a safety school if it’s not a school they like. Somebody forgot to tell them that part of the equation. A safety school needs to be one where you’re guaranteed admission, you can afford, and you like. That’s why my D didn’t apply to the same “safety school” as the rest of her classmates - because she wouldn’t be happy there (never mind that it’s less affordable than most of the schools on her list).</p>
<p>There are some whose safety school isn’t affordable after all, some who don’t like their safety school, and some whose safety school isn’t a guaranteed acceptance - my D didn’t get into one of hers, probably because she’s overqualified. Thankfully she’s happy with the Target she was accepted to EA.</p>
<p>Well this is kind of awkward.</p>
<p>I’m kind of one of those kids, in that I applied to all reach schools - except a few. It seemed like there was a chance, so hey, it’s a chance and I might as well go for it.</p>
<p>I applied to most of the UC schools (berkeley, LA, SD, etc), Stanford, MIT, USC, Udub, JHU, and UMiami. Not too surprising to say that I got rejected from every single one of them besides UMiami (Pres scholarship wooo) and UCSB. However, I’m over the 1-day long sour phase - I accept that hey, there are people that are smarter than me and whatnot. </p>
<p>My school has excellent college counselors that have warned me of my chances at said schools. I have like a 3.5 GPA and a 1980 SAT, so really, I don’t know what I was expecting. I do have a ridiculous course load though - 3 AP’s plus several honors here and there this year, as well as taking a 4th AP exam without the course (our school doesn’t recommend more than 2 AP’s because of the course load here). </p>
<p>Hopefully I can do really, really well in college (probably UCSB) and go to graduate school at Stanford or something. </p>
<p>Oh, btw - I applied for Biomedical Engineering, so…that probably had some effect on my admission - 3 -</p>
<p>EDIT: I wouldn’t say I’m outright arrogant - it was more knowing that there is “a chance,” so I might as well go for it. I feel that there is a much smaller chance…for example, 10%, in reality due to my scores and whatnot. But hey, I’m not complaining at the schools I got into :)</p>
<p>However, those crying about their safeties - well, I see what you mean there.</p>
<p>Double Edit: Oh crap this is a super old thread.
Sorry, new to CC. Did not see. Derp</p>
<p>Interesting: the moderators say they don’t do this, but someone has deleted all of one particular user’s posts from this thread. It now looks as if I was arguing with voices that only I could hear (or, more accurately, posts that only I could read).</p>
<p>ETA: that poster seems to have been removed from the boards, presumably for consistently rude and aggressive behavior. I don’t consider that to be a great loss, except for the fact that it now makes me look as if I’m hallucinating.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>I pretty much forced S to apply to an in-state safety… it was a battle, and last minute, and he thought (I’m sure) I was completely crazy, as his counselor felt like he was a match for most of his chosen schools. I asked him if his GC thought I was nuts when he told her (he had to have her expedite his transcript to said school) and he said, “I told her you flipped out because you think I won’t get in anywhere and are making me apply”… what did his GC say? “She’s your mom, that’s her job!” HA! Love her, and she’s getting a BIG gift at graduation. ;)</p>
<p>I hate it when I am talking to myself too. :)</p>
<p>Which, oldfort, I saw that you now appear to have been doing in another thread where you contended with that same user.</p>
<p>You do not know, what you do not know. You do not even know what/where to ask, sometimes. I can say there was no guidance from Ds school in terms of any suggestions for applications, and she attends a top suburban school. I only stumbled onto this site, late in the game. Not everyone is sitting around scouring the Internet for the resources so commonly known by people on CC. This site is a wealth of knowledge, that not everyone knows about. Kids are in school, both parents may be working, and some parents have never attended college, AND mostly…the college process has changed greatly since some of us attended.</p>