A member of my alumni club, now retired, spent most of his career as a college advisor at a top Midwest prep school. He was very glad to see standardized tests becoming optional at more and more schools lately.
Contrary to what a lot of people assume about their usefulness, in his experience they are often at best a mediocre indicator of future success. But young people, their self-esteem still a work in progress, look at a few numbers and think “That’s me.” An especially cruel twist given how after you get out in the world and see what really matters for success in most careers, test-taking acumen is way down towards the bottom of the list.
This resonated so much with me! Our high school does this (awful) thing one day in May when the seniors all wear their college swag to school. No thought goes to kids who aren’t going to college, or are still upset about their results. After school that day, the seniors gather for photos. Friend-groups are a huge thing in our very cliquey high school. D21’s friend-group had basically kicked her out during the pandemic (many complex reasons, one of which was that she was very careful about the virus due to her dad being an infectious disease doctor). Girls she had known since Kindergarten stopped talking to her, de-friended her, ignored her etc. She had made some tentative new friends, but wasn’t really part of their group yet.
She stayed for photos on college day, and no one talked to her or even looked at her. They were all absorbed in their small circles of friends, backs to the world. She called me and when I went to pick her up, my heart broke. I told her everything @sbinaz told her daughter about emotional intelligence and her unique gifts, etc., and I absolutely meant it—but I was worried.
Two years later and she has made the most lovely friends in college!! She and five girls from freshman hall are still very close. She has visited them at their homes and vice versa, and we took one friend with us on spring break. She joined a very nice (quirky) sorority and is planning to study abroad with a friend from her major. She is so happy to meet mature, like-minded, and caring women to be friends with! They are careful to keep their various circles open in case there’s someone else who needs a friend.
The transition to college was not all smooth sailing, but seeing D21 with friends who actually have her back has been the best. It really is true that knowing how to be yourself, be a friend, and be a good person, is worth infinitely more than high test scores.
It’s good to know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel!
I had a similar experience when I was a senior in HS. I kind of decided that I couldn’t WAIT to head off to college. I was SICK of all of the HS nonsense. I went to the all night grad night party that my HS had on graduation night and had a lot of fun at that…but after that, I pretty much didn’t look back. I haven’t ever been to a HS reunion and haven’t ever really been interested in reconnecting with old HS classmates.
S24 got his SAT scores yesterday and they were higher than his PSAT but barely and still not competitive. So be it. He did a 1:1 10 week tutoring program (I am pretty sure I complained on here about how he doesn’t do any of the practice in between sessions) and he got the score he got. He has three sessions left and then takes the ACT (for the second time) on 4/15. Then he is done. We will not make him take anymore tests. His high school is hosting the June SAT and if he wants to (unlikely) we will register him for that. Who knows, maybe being in his own school surrounded by friends will boost his confidence. But we won’t make him if he doesn’t want. About half the schools he likes are TO, but the catch is even the ones that are TO require test scores for merit aid so that was the point of taking the tests (and hopefully doing decently). I guess we will see what happens in April. He DID agree to sit down with me for 30 minutes a day on school nights and do ACT prep which was shocking to me. We are simply watching YouTube prep videos and then he will do a couple practice tests, nothing fancy and I am by no means a standardized test person (980 on my SAT 100 years ago ). But if he is willing to sit for 30 minutes 5 evenings a week until 4/15 I’ll take it!
D22 only started finding her group Spring of Senior year of high school. When she looked at colleges, a huge factor was “can I see myself finding my people here?”. She got to college ready to do whatever it took to find a group of friends. In no time at all, she found that group including her two amazing roommates (she was going to go random but at the last minute decided having some input would be a good idea and it was!). A month into school when she told me “mom there are so many more people here who I can see myself being friends with than in high school” I shed some tears of happiness. So when looking at schools really spend some time checking out the current student and the prospective ones too.
I would encourage your daughter not to get into the game of “I’m more X than you” whether it be a race, religion, talent, etc. The ethnic question on applications is self reporting, so if someone wants to check the box that they are black or Asian or Hispanic, they can. The only one that requires proof is Native American.
Many people self identify as black or Hispanic when they don’t appear to be minorities. Harry and Meghan’s red headed kids are 25% black, and I believe are being raised with that as part of their culture.
I’m not going to get into it anymore about the particular student I was talking about earlier other than to say that the kid is really rude, a braggart, and a show off and says some of the most racist things you’ve ever heard.
I don’t care what your ethnic make up is…saying some of the things that student has takes a lot of nerve.
Did our normal post-Sunday dinner 15-20 min thing w/D24. Stuff that she & I covered today:
went to the Casas Del Rio dorm website. It’s an on campus dorm at UNM but is run by a private (non-UNM) company. Is in same area of campus as the other dorm we toured in person 2 wk ago. The website had some helpful virtual 360 tours. D24 REALLY liked this dorm. Really liked the layout of the shared 2-person room. Suite-style bathroom where there are 4 sinks and 2 rooms share the bathroom. The layout of the actual bedroom is such that each bed does have a little privacy from the other bed in the room. Big thumbs up from D24 on this. I was glad to see her legitimately interested instead of most of her previous “meh” kind of attitude. She even said, “I really like this one.”
Then went through virtual 360 tours of 3 dorms at NMSU on their website. Looked at Rhodes-Garrett-Hamiel Hall, Juniper Hall, and Garcia Hall. She liked Juniper best, RGH was 2nd place, Garcia was last place…did not like Garcia. The community lounge in RGH is really cool looking with a big fireplace. Rooms in Juniper and RGH are bigger than the dorm tour we went through at UNM 2 wk ago. She described the RGH suite-style bathroom as “cute.”
she’s changed her mind on summer jobs and is not just going to apply to retail jobs and is going to add In & Out Burger and Starbucks (my DH is secretly celebrating this). I think the possibility of earning $18/hr at In & Out swayed her. Next week, will have her submit applications everywhere on their websites.
Taught her about how colleges track the fact that you click on embedded links in the emails that they send to you and then can track where else on their website you go look after that…and that’s a free and easy way to ‘demonstrate interest’ without having to go in person. Also explained why that’s important for non-public universities/colleges. Got some eye rolling to that (she’s still 16, after all) and a “Ugh, seriously? They do that? Fine. I’ll do it. But only to the colleges that I’m going to apply to.” I’m cool with that.
We laughed as we tossed yet another piece of Univ of Chicago mail in the trash today. Good grief, why do they keep sending her this stuff? She’s not even in the realm of a wait list for that place. Besides, it’s in Chicago and she’s said no thanks to anything in Chicago.
She begrudgingly sent 1 email each to Austin College & Southwestern Univ asking about their test optional policy and asking how they recalculate GPA. Southwestern is also adding a Neuroscience minor starting next school year and she asked about that also.
Explained to her that she’ll probably get replies tomorrow from the specific admissions officer that’s assigned to our state…and that when she does get a reply, she needs to respond with something polite that thanks them for their time and thanks them for the info. More eye rolling from the child, followed by me explaining that your interactions with the admissions officers do actually play a factor into the admissions process. And if you’re courteous, respectful, and all that in your written communications with them, that’s a plus.
Also reminded her that anywhere you go somewhere ‘official’ like a front desk of a college, a company you’re applying to a job at, etc., ALWAYS ALWAYS be professional, courteous, and respectful to the receptionist. ALWAYS. Because when applicants/candidates are rude, snotty, dismissive, etc. to front desk receptionists, the receptionist WILL tell the chief decision maker person that you acted like a butthead.
I sort of feel like I got a minor victory out of my kid this evening, with her positive commentary about some of the UNM and NMSU dorms. I think that next week, we’ll see if we can find some virtual tours of the non-honors Univ of Arizona dorms so she can do some comparisons.
When we went on the U of A campus tour last October, the tour did go into a dorm and we got to see the inside of a sample room. But they took us through THE most popular dorm on campus…where it’s very hard for freshmen to get a spot in that dorm. So…my kid needs to see some of the older U of A dorms that regular freshmen often get placed into.
My mom gut says that her ultimate decision will be based on:
more than 1 ‘decent’ dorm option (her word, not mine, haha) on campus
whether it will seem ‘boring’ on and immediately off campus
how happy (or not) the students seem
whether there will be a place nearby on or off campus to get a smoothie and/or frapuccino-type drink
** side note** UNM has 2 ramen places off campus on Central Ave directly across the street from campus. And my kid LOVES ramen.
I think it will end up being between UNM and 1 of the LACs in TX.
Next week or the week after, am going to have her look up some virtual tour info for Centre College in KY. And will have her see if there’s virtual tour info for UAH…and show her some dorm tour info for both of those schools. She’ll probably like the UAH dorms best of all because ALL of their dorm rooms are singles.
Harvard is also known to employ that rank-boosting strategy: Send flattering “we want YOU to apply to Harvard” invitations by the thousands to a cohort from which maybe three or four will actually be admitted. Then sit back as the application numbers go up and consequently their admit rate goes down.
It’s one thing to cast a wide net for hidden talent, but something else when family money and student time is diverted toward what amounts to a scam (IMO, of course : )
I wanted to chime in about D23 having similar experiences as @sbinaz and @3sailaway. She put all her social eggs in one basket - a BFF who has lots of friends and is always doing something fun like going out to eat, attending concerts, photoshoots in some nearby downtown area, travel, etc. For whatever reason there’s been so much drama this school year - getting excluded and the like. I thought she had plenty of friends, but once the BFF left her out, she was all of sudden sitting at home every weekend.
However, D23 went on the school Spain trip last month. Beforehand she worried she wasn’t good friends with anyone going. But then she had such a good time on the trip, made new friends, formed stronger bonds with kids she already knew, that she was able to more easily blow off the old drama AND the fresh drama that keeps popping up.
Looking back, she did a language immersion program last summer where she knew nobody at first, but easily made friends and had so much fun that now I can point to 2 times where she really found her people. Hopefully she’s regained some confidence. She is back being friends with the BFF and friend group but faking it a bit.
I can really relate to what you’re both saying about your kids being good humans, having a good heart, and having resilience, and our hearts breaking when their friends hurt them. It’s a tough time right now as the college decisions roll in. It’s so hard as it is but she’s been rejected to schools the BFF has been accepted to. She has to suck it up and be happy for everyone else because she’d rather keep the status quo and because she actually is happy for other people. As a parent I’m the resentful one, and I’m trying to convince myself, as much as this feels like a competition, in the end what more can I ask for than a good kid who’s kind and happy? She’s responsible and likes to follow rules too! College prestige is not what matters!
While the drama showed her the friends who betrayed and trashed her behind her back, it also showed her the friends who defended her, behind her back. She really appreciates those friends. She’s spending more time with her Spain trip friends and more excited about the next big step in life. It wasn’t all bad.
Thanks for chiming in! It always helps to feel like we’re in good company. For me, there was this feeling like we needed to get everything right before D21 left for college, so when things went wrong, it felt worse somehow. Hopefully, I have learned that the process of growing up and becoming more independent doesn’t have some kind of finish line! I’d like to enjoy S24’s last year at home and not worry so much that he’s not ready in some way.
Got all of our hotel rooms booked for out TX college road trip!
D24’s choir is offering up a free Amazon Echo, I think, for any choir member who completes the entire book of this condensed music theory workbook for singers. D24 did some quick math and figured out that she’d have to do 7 pages a day in order to complete it and she’s actually doing it! Bonus is that it will probably help her prepare for the AP Music Theory that’s in a little over a month.
AP Calculus AB teacher decided that she’s gotten tired of checking all of the homework assignments every day, so starting right after spring break, instead of D24 and all of her classmates being able to boost their grade by getting almost perfect HW scores (because those were graded for completion, not for getting everything right…the focus was on learning from your mistakes and all that), the teacher decided to change up the HW grading criteria.
So NOW how it works is there’s one “HW Check” per week. It’s set up exactly like a quiz. But D24 said that it doesn’t have very many questions on it, so if you miss 1 or 2, you’re down to a D or an F and it carries the weight of ALL of the HWs for that week.
As a result, it’s tanked D24’s grade in the class. Tanked everybody else’s grade, too.
I learned this since progress reports went home a couple of days ago for the class and us parents all had to sign the progress report and kids had to return them to school.
So I wrote an email to the teacher and included the principal (who is a middle school math teacher by trade…the principal is awesome, our family had a good relationship w/her). And I asked:
Would she please consider switching the HW grading method to the prior one? Since the new “HW Check” method is essentially a quiz, and therefore, ALL of the grading for the class is now based on quizzes and tests, which is different than what the syllabus said at the start of the year.
Does she have an ETA on when she’ll have the mock AP exams completed and feedback back to students? (The actual AP exam is 5 wk away)
Does she have any suggestions or feedback on how D24 can be better prepared for the AP exam?
I sent that night before last. It’s been crickets since then. What do you want to bet that the teacher is now receiving additional ‘coaching’ and guidance? In the meantime, it’s pretty frustrating.
Got a ridiculous reply from the Calculus teacher. Learned from D24 that the teacher goes on long tangents talking about her personal life and her boyfriend. Well, I’m going to include some of that in the teacher surveys they send out at the end of the year.
Presented 2 Calculus options to D24:
(This is to head off “worst case scenario” of her not getting a 3 on the AP Calc test)
Finish the rest of the lessons on Modern States’ Calculus course online. She’d have to do 2 per day between tomorrow and day before the AP exam. This is totally achievable.
Take Calculus I at local CC this summer, which is an online only class. Less than ideal. D24 doesn’t do well with “online only” classes.
Told kid to pick one. She wisely chose option 1.
Good thing about this is that UofA, UNM, and NMSU all give you college calculus math credit for passing the CLEP calculus exam. So even if she tanks it on the AP calculus test, this will be used instead to demonstrate that she has the chops to do it.
She’s going to do the same for her AP French class. Only with that on Modern States, she only has to do 1 lesson per day between now and the AP exam day. Same situation as above for UofA, UNM, and NMSU in terms of CLEP exam credit.
D24 said that today in physics, 95% of the class scored better on the retake exam yesterday. If you scored a lot higher the second time around, the test will replace the prior one that everybody ranked. Otherwise, he’ll average the grades together. So there’s possibly light at the end of the tunnel on that.
Mine is shooting for a 32 (got 28 composite back in December with a 33 reading but only a 22 math ). SAT last month were a bust for him so he is sticking with ACT. Taking it 4/15
Did another 20-min college thing w/D24 this evening. Here’s some highlights from that and other stuff this week:
we watched an online info session presentation that Centre College has on their visitors page. Comment from D24: “But it’s in Kentucky…I don’t want to go Kentucky…!” It’s staying on the list because I said so. We will need to visit in person. There’s a hospital walking distance from campus and they have a program there with pre-health students to have them go through shadowing rotations with different medical specialities. My kid has no idea how hard it is everywhere else to get that kind of experience.
she started her “2 lessons/day” of Calculus on Modern States yesterday in order to finish with that before the AP exam. So far, so good.
she also started w/the same for French, only it’s 1 per day.
also is continuing with the Music Theory workbook that choir handed out last week. 7 pg/day.
she got email reply from Austin College admissions officer, who will be at the event on campus 4/10 that we are going to.
learned that Austin College does give college credit for CLEP exams. Info is posted on their website.
also got info from Southwestern University’s admissions officer. That person said that Southwestern does NOT give extra weight to AP or IB or dual credit, but does consider the rigor of your course load. Honestly, it was a lot of fluffy words that made me think, “Ok, what you’re really saying is that it’s at your discretion how much merit $$ is awarded in that range to a student.”
D24 needs some extra NHS volunteer hours so is manning a “buy a flower for a teacher” booth next week after school.
Austin College test optional policy includes requiring an interview. D24 very nervous about that idea. Am going to inquire with school counselor for advice. I think that D24 will need interview practice. Like a couple of mock interviews. With somebody who’s not Mom or Dad.
lots of eye rolling and sighing during Centre College online info session video, but she perked up a bit when they talked about stuff like “close relationships with your professors” and “close knit community.” Biggest class size is 30. Most are around 15. Presenter said when he attended, one of his UD classes had 4 other students in it. D24 laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s like my French class this year. That’s no big deal.” I told her, “You don’t realize how rare it actually is to have small class sizes in college.”
she was not turned off by the Centre College student body size of 1402. She said, “Mm, yeah, that’s fine.”
Now that S24’s second ACT has scored better than his first, wife is wondering if pushing him not only to give SAT another try, but work on ACT also and do a third take either in June or August to give it a little boost.
I thought that might be too much for him to handle, since he is retaking SAT in June. Or we could just let me use his ACT score of 33 and be done with it. But S24 thinks if he can get a higher SAT, he can get better merit, or open more doors…
D24 got her CLEP voucher from Modern States for US History I so we did the whole registration thing through College Board’s website. Now just waiting for the local community college to let us know the date & time for her exam.
). But if he is willing to sit for 30 minutes 5 evenings a week until 4/15 I’ll take it!
Well, I’m going to include some of that in the teacher surveys they send out at the end of the year.
). SAT last month were a bust for him so he is sticking with ACT. Taking it 4/15 