Son gets his semester grades tomorrow, tho he’s pretty sure it’s all B+’s. It’s a fall from where he was earlier in the semester. On the plus side, two of those classes were AP classes (Spanish and Stats) and two were difficult classes at his school (Pre-Calc and Physics). His English teacher likes him and gave him an 89 on his term paper. So there’s hope for upward movement.
We still don’t have Naviance but I’m pretty sure Son would be in much better shape (even visually) if he could nudge a few of those B+ grades into A-by the end of the year. He admits his biggest problem is focusing in class.
D24 brought home a progress report from english lit today. She has an 88% currently. Trimester 2 ends in about 2.5-3 weeks. No idea what her grades are in her other subjects at the moment.
Senior counselor @ school sent an email out to all of the 11th grade parents…there’s a 90 min meeting next month for all 11th graders & their parents. All about college apps. “An informational meeting on the college application process, senior year, and next steps.” It’s going to be on Microsoft Teams.
And apparently I’ve forgotten to purchase D24’s winter formal dance ticket for this Saturday. Oopsie. last day to buy the cheaper tickets online is tomorrow.
We’re not in senior year yet and already we’re getting weird comments from relatives. Like this one from my MIL yesterday: “But I thought D24 had really good grades. What do you mean she won’t get in everywhere?” MIL is 75, has a hard time using a computer, and is a wee bit out of touch.
Haha this sounds exactly like my mother who sent me a list of colleges via email that S24 “must apply to”. It was all the ivies plus a few other T20 schools:rofl: I told her we will be lucky if he gets in to the state schools he is interested in, not because he isn’t smart or a good student, but because the admissions process is drastically different than when we were this age. She thinks I am crazy and do not know what I am talking about
My son goes to an IB school and mainly take SL courses.
He has been doing great in his Freshman and Sophomore, but he insisted on taking French, Chem and Bio this year. Well, long story short his is not doing too well. I haven’t asked what his GPA is, but he was getting 70s in French, 80s in Bio and Chem…
Oops! So much for hoping to get into Top 20 schools! Of course, my in-laws kept saying “Oh getting into Harvard is easy. He can do it!” heh…
The good thing is that there are thousands of colleges and universities in the US, so I’m sure that he’ll find some other colleges that will be a good fit for him!
If your parents or other well meaning people are having issues with understanding admissions these days, I recommend Try Harder on Amazon Prime. My mom finally started to get it after she watched.
Hope everybody’s had a good week. Here’s the latest in our neck of the woods:
D24 looked up the bioengineering major requirements at U of A, saw that it requires 5 math classes + engineering physics classes, and said, “Heck no.”
she also looked up the BS-Medicine major requirements at U of A.
this next week, she’s going to look up a couple of majors at UNM.
she ‘forgot’ to get started on the 200-word essay questions for the Summer Scrubs Program (1-week stay-in-the-dorms camp where you get to learn all things medicine & healthcare careers sort of summer camp)
there was a school dance last night. On Fri on the way home from school, she asked if she could skip hospital volunteering on Sunday (today) because she’d be tired from the dance. We said no because: (a) it was already after 5 pm on Friday; (b) the hospital volunteer coordinator was already gone for the day; and (c) if she wanted that shift off, she should have contacted the volunteer coordinator at the beginning of the week. Lots of moaning & groaning from her, followed by me saying, “I know. It’s frustrating, but welcome to the real world.”
there’s a mandatory meeting later this week for the France trip, so she’ll miss choir practice that evening. However, 1 of the school counselors said that she only has 5 hr more of choir instruction to submit and then she’ll be done with her fine arts credit.
seniors are done with their capstone classes at the end of next week, then they’re going on senior class trip to Disneyland (it’s a long car ride from where we live). French teacher told D24’s class that the school has stopped doing trips to Knotts Berry Farm. This means that odds are high that D24’s senior trip will be to Disneyland as well. We are huge Disney parks people, so this is awesome news.
DH declared this morning that D24 isn’t ready to go off to college yet because she “doesn’t know how to go grocery shopping,” which D24 thought was pretty funny. She said, “How hard can it be? I’ve gone w/you guys all the time to the grocery store. You make a list, go to store, buy the stuff, go home.” Translation: Dad has realized that a year from now, OUR kid is going to be headed out on that senior class trip and he’s not ready for this.
Midterms just ended last Friday and I think overall S24 did well. But I also think his grades from second quarter will be a bit lower from first quarter which is frustrating since this is not the time for that
He has been going to weekly 1:1 ACT/SAT prep but I am seeing little review in between sessions. Frustrating to say the least. I keep telling myself this is his journey and he needs to accept the results of whatever prep he does (or does not do) for these tests and overall grades, etc. in terms of what options he has come next year. It is hard not to nag, but I know that will backfire majorly. We have Junior Parent’s Night on 2/9 so it will be interesting to hear what the school has to say about the process. We will only be given access to Naviance after that meeting so I have not ever seen how it works. I have also heard that it is only as good as how “updated” it is and I have a feeling our school does not keep stats super updated. It took them until October to even update the class of 2024 from sophomore to junior on the school counseling page.
This may sound weird, but it’s a bit comforting to know that my kid isn’t the only one who appears to require nagging sometimes in order to get off her butt and take action. She hates doing test prep. Her school is having all of the 11th graders take the ACT at beginning of March during the school day and she hasn’t even LOOKED at any test prep info…to the point where she doesn’t even know what the FORMAT of the ACT is.
Add us to the list of those with kids that aren’t super motivated on test prep. D24 is having 8 weeks of 1:1 SAT tutoring in preparation for taking the test March 11. She is doing the bare minimum in between weekly sessions. It is frustrating because she has the potential to do so well on this test…oh well.
She had final exams last week. She did well, but could have done better had she actually studied All in all, she had a very good semester, grade-wise. I probably should not be posting on this thread due to her actual GPA, but given her general lack of drive and motivation to do well and absolute dearth of extracurricular activities, we really are likely to target schools where the typical students are in this range. I hope it is ok that I stay.
This is us exactly- everything you said, down to ECs. This process will be a wakeup for him for sure when he really sits down to see where he should apply if he wants to actually get in.
Am considering adding a drive-by of Univ of North Texas when we go to visit Austin College in April. 2 very different schools. Not sure if we’ll have time for a campus tour of UNT though.
One setback today but also one victory. D24 forgot to go to physics student hr after school. But she did get a 95% on the AP Music Theory quiz from yesterday, which was on musical dictation…where they play a melody and you have to write down the notes.
I’ve always known that she has a good ear but holy cow.
MIL is 75, has a hard time using a computer, and is a wee bit out of touch.
I told her we will be lucky if he gets in to the state schools he is interested in, not because he isn’t smart or a good student, but because the admissions process is drastically different than when we were this age. She thinks I am crazy and do not know what I am talking about 
All in all, she had a very good semester, grade-wise. I probably should not be posting on this thread due to her actual GPA, but given her general lack of drive and motivation to do well and absolute dearth of extracurricular activities, we really are likely to target schools where the typical students are in this range. I hope it is ok that I stay.