S24 finally did a little bit of practice ACT. He did a practice science section on the ACT website. Got about a 52% 
But I guess it is good for him to see that and know he has a month to do some more practice tests. I am just glad he even did this. Baby steps…
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Trimester 1 grades came out today and it was a bit brutal for D24. However, all of her friends’ GPAs have suffered this grading period as well. Everybody is struggling in math & physics. D24 is getting tutoring during her lunch period every Thursday as of 3 weeks ago, so that’s been helping. D24 said, “Mama, even the smartest kids in my whole grade are having a hard time this grading period.”
Her saving grace, though, is going to be that when it comes to official transcript time, the grades that go on the official transcript are only at the end of the school year…and the individual trimester grades end up disappearing.
So, for example, she’s got a 75% right now in AP French. We’ve already consulted w/the french teacher about it, who said that the AP French curriculum is crazy hard and it’s VERY normal to be getting this kind of grade at this point in the school year. She also explained that if you get a 5 on the AP French exam, a lot of colleges will give you up to 12 units of course credit (which is true, I checked this against our state’s 4 yr universities’ websites). The french teacher also gave some suggestions last month for extra practice, which D24 has been using and that’s been helping.
Other classes:
- D24 has a solid B (85%) in AP US History. I’m going to have her start using the Modern States online course lectures for their 2 US History courses to help her solidify her understanding of the material. And based on her school’s AP class policy, if she takes the AP exam at the end of the year and passes it, then the B becomes a full A for the entire school year.
- 81% (B-) in AP Calculus AB. D24 said that everybody is getting their butt kicked in that class and the tests are all heavily curved because they’re so hard.
- B- in AP Music Theory, but we’re confident that she’ll be able to bring that up by the end of the year.
- A- in AP English Literature. Happy about that!
- C in Honors Physics
D24 said that many of “the smartest kids in class, like, the kids who are so smart that they never have ever had to study or try that hard to do well” are struggling and have seen their grades drop a lot this year. D24 has a little bit of schadenfreude going on w/that and said, “Ha! Now they get to see what it’s like for the rest of us who actually have to work at it.” And then she said, “Mama, I can bring these grades up. This is only the 1st trimester. I can do it.”
I’m glad to hear the grit in my kid’s voice instead of hearing her being discouraged. Looking forward to seeing what her SAT score turns out to be. I think we’ll have her take the ACT on 2/11 and we can use the 4/15 ACT date as a back up plan if she needs/wants to retake it. And if she needs to have another go at the SAT, we’ll do that on 3/11 (at the start of her spring break, which will make her very cranky, but oh well).
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SAT scores are out now for the Nov test from 2 wk ago. D24 got a 1200 (600 math, 600 english/reading). It was her 1st time taking it.
Am not posting about this on the regular HS Class of 2024 thread since I don’t want to get into comparison stuff with people who think that a score like 1450 is “low.”
Went and compared where D24 was at the 9th grade PSAT…she got a 960 on that. DH & I are pleased w/her progress. We both think that she could get higher than a 1200 if she studied more for the SAT, but that might be like squeezing blood from a turnip.
Am going to sign her up for the Feb ACT and see how that goes by comparison. Will make her use something like Kahn Academy to prep for it.
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Congratulations to your D on her progress! How is she enjoying NHS?
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@sbinaz - that’s great progress from the PSAT. I hope she is feeling good about it!
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D24 texted me during her study hall this afternoon. She isn’t thrilled w/her SAT score, would like it to be above 1300. I told her that she definitely has it w/in her to bring her score up, she just has to buckle down a bit more and do more than the sort of half-baked studying attempts she’s done so far. I think that she must have compared notes w/her friends or something.
Thanks! She likes it so far because a lot of her friends are in it and it doesn’t require a whole lot of extra effort. She’s already got almost all of the volunteer hours she needs for the school year because she can count her hospital volunteering towards the NHS volunteer requirement.
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So this afternoon, I went into my home-grown spreadsheet of college info. I’m going to share this w/D24 this weekend. Am sharing the info here since it takes a village, ya know, and somebody might have suggestions, ideas, etc. Also sharing in case the info might be helpful to anybody.
I have a big spreadsheet that I use to track a bunch of info, like:
- possible colleges D24 could apply to & their admissions info
- what class credits you’d get based on what AP test scores you earn (there’s a lot of variation on this from 1 school to another)
- what class credits you’d get based on CLEP exams (you can get free vouchers to take CLEP exams by going to Modernstates.org).
- COA of each school
- merit scholarships at each school, what stats you need to earn it, what GPA you need to maintain to keep it, by what date you need to apply by in order to qualify for it
- COA (tuition, room, board) after the merit scholarship
And since my DH wants to know what the financial bottom line is (He’s a numbers guy), here’s the bottom line based on today’s SAT score:
Cheapest to attend:
Univ of Arizona - $3000/yr Recognition Award (we are in state). My sister is footing the bill for freshman year room & board regardless of where kiddo ends up (my sister doesn’t have kids, very generous offer of hers & we very much appreciate this since she didn’t have to do this). Makes COA = tuition, which would be $10,200. Sophomore-senior year, D24 could live rent free in my sister’s spare bedroom & commute ~ 40 min drive to campus. We could then offer up the $$ savings to D24 to use towards grad school.
Next 2 cheapest:
- NMSU in Las Cruces, NM - this would be w/their Crimson Success scholarship + AZ OOS Award, which amounts to total of $20,621 award per year. Tuition, room+board = $17,366/yr. ~5.5 hr drive from where we live. 1 hr from El Paso, TX airport.
- Louisiana Tech - honestly, this one really isn’t even in the running, but I found it ages ago randomly and including it here in case anybody’s interested. D24 would qualify for a $11,049/yr merit scholarship, bringing tuition+room+board to $17,010/yr. My mommy instinct says that D24 would be happier at U of A than here.
Other options:
- Univ of New Mexico - $16,290/yr merit award w/their AZ Reciprocal scholarship. Brings tuition+room+board to $21,792. ~1-1.5 hr plane ride PHX–>ABQ. 6.5 hr drive. Has med school, pharmacy school, PA grad school.
- Univ of Alabama - Huntsville - $11,050/yr merit award. Brings tuition+room+board to $23,084. Given D24’s interest in the medical field, I think U of A is better choice than here. Plus UAH is harder to get to (cheaper airports are 2 hr drive from Huntsville). But if she was a computer science sort of kid, we’d seriously consider this given great internship opportunities in the aerospace/defense industry job sector in Huntsville. This school could be an option for D26.
- Hendrix College - in Arkansas. Small college. This is probably a no. We’re not even planning on doing a college visit. But they have a really intriguing auto-merit award program where you basically pay same tuition as you would at your state’s flagship university. So tuition+room+board would = $26,300 (same as U of A).
- Austin College - in TX ~ 1 hr drive from Dallas. In addition to merit scholarships, they also have a fine arts scholarship that D24 could probably qualify for due to her choir involvement (that’s up to $4k/yr). So tuition+room+board might end up ~$21,000-$25,000/yr. Have read promising things about Austin College having a really excellent pre-health program. They’re also starting up a PA grad program in either 2023 or 2024 and Austin College students get a guaranteed interview for that. D24 very interested in becoming a PA. This could be a solid contender if D24 willing to work full time in summers to offset some costs + if she’d be willing to take on $5k/yr student loan. Dallas airport ~2 hr plane ride from where we live.
- Centre College - in small town of ~18,000 in KY. ~1.5 hr away from an airport. Also has good pre-health advising program. Merit scholarship + a fine arts/choir/music scholarship would being this to about the $24-$25k/yr range. Airfare to/from would be more expensive than going to school in TX. I think she’d fit in well w/the campus culture there. Will probably visit in senior year.
Out of price range:
- Southwestern Univ - in TX near Austin. With a merit scholarship, tuition+room+board would be ~$31,000/yr. A bit out of our target price range. I think that D24 would like the overall vibe of the nearby town better than the one near Austin College, but I suspect that Austin College will have a leg up in the pre-health advising area compared to Southwestern.
Will NOT be applying to ASU or NAU (both in state for us).
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If she’s more interested in health than in CS, have you looked at U. of Alabama - Birmingham? Flights should also be significantly better from there than Huntsville, I would imagine.
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I will check it out!
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It is nice to have a starting point. I feel like that is hopefully around where S24 will be. He isn’t taking it until March. My worry with him is that he could definitely do better but he is lazy. He is taking the ACT in December and has only done a couple practices and not even for all the subjects. Stopped reading the reading comprehension test because it was boring 
I keep trying to impress upon him that he wants actual choices and options, he needs to motivate to have scores decent enough to send. We are in MA and he is dead set on leaving the area and heading south, so every and any school he likes is a state school and with us being OOS it will be hard. Anyway, good luck to her as she takes the ACT. Will be interesting to compare tests and see if she prefers one over the other.
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Our D24 son is struggling with 3 online classes. He actually has A’s in his 5 other classes. His school cannot find teachers for Math, Chemistry and AP Human Geography so these classes are virtual. He loves Human Geography and really wanted to take it. He hates Math. He is a procrastinator especially with things he doesn’t like to do. His Math teacher called us worried that at the rate he is behind he will struggle to finish this year long self paced class he needs to graduate. We talked with our son and shared out expectations and talked about xbox, phone, free time being privileges and he has to do his work to get these. It seemed to make a difference and he has started to try to catch up. His school has allowed Late work to be counted until now so he hasn’t learned of consequences for waiting until the last minute. He wants to go to a small college and study abroad his junior year but I am concerned about him being able to motivate himself to do the work required. He doesn’t want to work very hard and wants a balanced life of soccer, friends etc. I recently read a book by Adam Price- He’s not Lazy. A lot of good tips but trying to figure out best ways to support him during this crucial year and focus on balance and mental health for all. Hard to be a teen parent sometimes!!
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Sometimes kids get so behind they give up because they have no idea how to get out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. The best thing that ever happened to my son was his teachers sitting down with him and helping HIM make a plan of how to finish the course (if they had made their plan, he never would have followed it). I’m glad it happened in 7th grade, as it was a major turning point for him. It may seem late for your son, but at least it is happening before he goes away to college.
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I hear ya. D24 struggled with this in 9th grade when everything was online. She just doesn’t learn as well with online instruction.
D24 came home proud of herself on Friday after school because she’s leading the pack in NHS for volunteer hours so far.
Had another robotics competition this weekend. Shades of the days when my kids were on a swim team. So many hours of sensory overload! 
D24 has zero desire to become an engineer, is ONLY doing this for fun. Their team is still new and hasn’t done very well so far, but they’re learning as they go. My DH is very competitive and wants them to win trophies and all that, but that’s not why D24 is doing this…she and DH butt heads about it all the time.
I sort of look at it like this: this is a useful way for my kid to learn first hand that sometimes, things don’t go according to plan, especially when you’re working on a team…how sometimes, you have to change it up, try something different, and then try again and again in a systematic way until you figure out what DOES work.
There are countless situations in the real live adult world out there in the work force where that is applicable.
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I can relate. 
D24 is applying to U of A’s KEYS research internship for next summer. It’s a competitive program that usually requires a min 3.5 unweighted GPA (hers is 3.33). But she’s applying anyway and I’m looking at it from the perspective of “Hey, if she doesn’t get accepted, this is good practice for college applications next summer/fall.”
The application requires 2 letters of rec. D24 hasn’t had to do any of that before, either. School counselor has a letter of rec form that the student has to fill out (some questions to answer, which then helps the teacher to write the letter of rec) before student talks to teacher to request the letter of rec.
I’m getting more gray hair over this because D24 has been fighting me every step of the way on this. Lots of her normal “But WHY?” questions. WHY do I have to do it THIS way? WHY do I have to answer these questions? etc., etc.
You also have to provide an unofficial copy of your HS transcript. Got a copy of that today from senior school counselor. It includes grades through end of last year.
There’s also a 500-word essay to write. More “why’s” from D24. WHY, MAMA, DO I HAVE TO WRITE AN ESSAY?! OMG, so much whining and gnashing of teeth.
So I reminded her the other day as to why…WHY is this something you should apply for? Here’s why, kiddo:
- you have to be an AZ student to apply
- it’s a 7 week program of working full time in U of A biomedical research professors’ labs. Working on actual experiments.
- at the end of the summer, you get 3 units of U of A credit for a microbiology class.
- it doesn’t cost anything, unless you want to live on campus for the summer
- it’s great experience, especially if you’re interested in medicine or medical research like she is
- there’s a student summer research symposium at the end of the program, which all of the students participate in. That’s good hands on experience.
- most AZ high school students don’t know about this program
- it would be REALLY DUMB TO NOT EVEN APPLY SINCE YOU ARE SUPER INTERESTED IN THIS SORT OF THING!
This kid originally thought that all she’d have to do next summer is volunteer at the hospital for 4 hours a week. 
Holy cow, child, that’s a good one. Nope, if you don’t get into this internship program, you’ll be getting a job.
God help us all. Pray for us. LOL.
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D24’s PSAT11 scores are available. She did well, improved from taking them a year ago. 580 Math and 700 Verbal. Kind of surprised, as she is definitely a more math-oriented student (hasn’t voluntarily picked up a book to read since about 2nd grade). I have her signed up to take the SAT in March and she’s going to work with a prep tutor we used for my D20 for 8 weeks beforehand. Based on how she did on the PSAT10I had been thinking/hoping she could aim for about a 1350 composite, but now maybe we can set our sights a bit higher.
With no involvement in school-related extracurriculars (despite my constant requests), she’s going to need an impressive SAT score to chase merit.
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Our school has Scoire this year so no ability to peak scores. I guess we will have to wait until Tuesday.
Is there anyone else out there from NY? S24 has dropped Regents Chemistry for a regular science class. They didn’t have a chem teacher for the first two months, and once the school was able to hire someone, S24 had a hard time catching up. Although he did well in Regents Bio and Regents Earth Science, he really struggled with the concepts in chem.
Any ideas on how Regents vs non-Regents science is seen? Literally every kid I’ve known in town took Regents Chem (competitive high school near NYC), so I don’t have any perspective.