<p>How is it your kids don't turn 16 until October? Did they skip a grade?</p>
<p>Here in our New York town you can turn 16 as late as December 31 of your junior year. My kid with a summer birthday is in the middle of his class age-wise.</p>
<p>And LIMom, you are correct. This is certainly not a teacher assigned project. He read one of the AP US History books (Flags of our Fathers), but not the other. He still has Catch 22 and perhaps something else for English. He can't remember what. Natch.</p>
<p>Oh I just realized I made a big boo-boo. Star Wars not Star Trek. I've been told innumerable times that the Star Trek books are terrible, but the Star Wars books are pretty good and consistent even though written by many different authors.</p>
<p>Ahh, really? Here it's Sept. 1st.</p>
<p>LIMOM, I really think the Dartmouth tour, at least the tour we got, needs to be supplemented. I understand not being able to see inside of dorms, although I really would have liked to, but we also didn't go in any classroom buildings. I would suggest if you have extra time to tour these yourself. Our tour could have been cut short because it started to rain. I did like the fact that they had the student-only panel. You can definitely tell they get a lot of applicants and interest in general, so the admin office is run like a factory. But it is still (my closed-minded) daughter's first choice. </p>
<p>Our cut-off date is Sept 30 and D started 1st grade a year early.</p>
<p>D started school in NY where the cut-off was Dec. 31 and parents did not generally hold their children back a year if they had late birthdays. Where we are now, she still would have made the cutoff (end of October at the time, but they have since moved it up), but MANY parents held their kids back if they had late birthdays. As a result D has kids in her class who are more than a year older than she is. It is very interesting.</p>
<p>Mathmom - you are only partly correct about the NY start date - it actually varies by district. In some places the cutoff is Dec. 31st, but in our area, it's Dec. 1st. Cutoff dates are so arbitrary! I know of several people who sent their kids to private kindergartens so they could have them start kindergarten along with the rest of their friends. My D, with her summer birthday is also in the middle of her year. S, with his end of Sept. birthday is one of the youngest in his grade. In his year, there are a lot of kids who are over a full year older than he is (kids who either started late or got held back), plus a lot of the kids with fall birthdays from his year started late themselves so they're in the grade below his. I can only think of a handful of kids from his grade who are younger than he is.</p>
<p>I think it's great that your son has a project of his own making for the summer. D had so many things she wanted to do - but so little free time. She still has quite a bit of work to do on her summer assignments, so she is getting stressed out about that - but she's been concentrating on the physics because she has that test coming up this week. Once that's over, I'm sure she'll feel better.</p>
<p>jackief - about the Dartmouth tour - I really do hope we get to see inside a dorm. When we toured W&M last summer, they couldn't show us inside the dorms because they were getting ready for kids to move in the next day - but, our tourguide brought us onto the front porch of a dorm, and we could see inside the first floor rooms (some people were already moved in and had their curtains wide open). That was sufficient. </p>
<p>I have to call Dart to find out if they'll still be having the student panel because we'll be arriving the day after summer session ends. We were able to get a reduced rate at the Hanover Inn because they're pretty empty that night.</p>
<p>Our Ds must have similar personalities - only my D is more fixated on Princeton than Dartmouth. The thing is, Princeton doesn't ever seem to take students from her school, while Dart takes 2 or so each year (well, for the past two years, anyway). </p>
<p>BTW, I hate that Sept. 30th cutoff date! Both of my kids would have made it - D is July and S is Sept. 28th - but a few of his friends who have birthdays after his definitely belong in his grade. I can understand why your D skipped. Was that easy for you to do? I know you send your D to a private school. Here, it's really hard to do that in the public school - you can either start them early in a private Kindergarten and then have them tested, or you can just aggravate the admiinistrators to death. We know examples of both.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom - for some reason, holding kids back was not as common around here back when D was younger, but it became very common by the time S started school 4 years later. He has a friend who was born on the same day (his mom and I were in the hospital together!), and his friend is in the grade below his because they held him back.</p>
<p>I never understood the holding back/starting late thing for perfectly normal kids (it does seem to be mostly boys).</p>
<p>About the dorm thing, D did several tours this summer and they did show the dorms. There was no one there, of course, but she did get to see the layout of the rooms and the tininess of the closets. I wonder why Dartmouth didn't do that. (BTW she saw Barnard, Bard, and RPI).</p>
<p>D's due date was on one side of the school cut-off, and she was born a week late on the other side of the cut-off. FOR HER, going early was the best choice. She was writing stories in K and although she was quiet and shy THAT WAS HER PERSONALITY and it wasn't going to change in a year (you can tell my frustration is still here). So we had no leeway for public K so we sent her to private K. We then needed to have her tested (on our dime) and recommendations etc etc for her to go to public 1st 4 days early. The schools were crowded and they were trying to limit extra kids in cases like this. But it has always been good for her and we don't regret it. Sports is a big reason we have heard for not pushing ahead, she is not an athelete so we didn't think it would be a factor. Each kid is different, younger D is end of Aug and for her I don't think we would have fought the cut-off. They both went to public elementary and private starting in 6th.</p>
<p>LIMOM do you have any grads from your HS at Dart who could show you a dorm? There were some with ground level windows we walked by and I considered peeking in but thought that would be too much. One guy even asked if we could see a dorm and he was told no because they are all different levels and don't want to give the wrong impression. Also tried to get details on how the dorm assignments worked for students coming back from their leave terms and just got vague answers on getting put wherever there is an opening. But I think the biggest thing I missed seeing was the dining in action, the one dining room open to students/public during the summer definitely lacked variety and good choices. I understand there are fewer kids there in the summer but there is at least one class doing the summer term. The Hanover Inn looks very nice and is definitely convenient.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom - from reading the posts under "College Visits," I've gotten impression that many colleges don't include dorm rooms, or even dorms, on their tours. The reason often given is "security," which I guess is understandable, but when you're going to be paying big bucks for something, you should be able to see what you'll be getting for that money.</p>
<p>Oh, and did you post about those college visit? D isn't considering any of those schools at the moment, but if you posted them, I would read them for sure.</p>
<p>LIMom, that's why I said "in our NY town". I was pretty sure I'd seen that other NY districts had other cut off dates. I'm not a big fan of cut off dates - I wish kids could just start K when they are ready. I had a September birthday and skipped first grade with no problems. As far as I know NY kids perform just as well as kids from states with earlier cut off dates, and school calendars that start well before Labor Day.</p>
<p>My older son had no interest in seeing dorms. After CTY his opinion was that they were all the same. The dorms we did see on tours (with the notable exception of Caltech's wildly painted halls and occasionally even the rooms themselves) didn't change his mine. Ironically, the room he ended up with was much nicer than anything he'd seen before - it's a roomy one bedroom apartment with only one other roommate. He liked it so much he kept it for this year too.</p>
<p>Mathmom - sorry, I must have misread your post - it was very early in the morning. </p>
<p>jackief - if I had been in your situation regarding the school cutoff date, I would have done the same thing with my D. She was already way ahead by the time she went to school, and it would have been crazy to keep her home a whole extra year. My D is an athlete, but I had no clue about that when she started school (nursery at age 3). I started her in gymnastics when she was 4, and I realized then that she had potential - but I had no idea she would get into the sports she eventually became involved in - she was really a girly-girl (and still is, even with the sports). </p>
<p>S, on the other hand, I had to think about. I just wasn't sure what to do because so many people were holding their fall boys back. The thing is, S had a lot of friends by the time he was ready for school (from Mommy & Me classes, library story time, nursery school), so I enrolled him in our district's pre-k program - and he was fine. Not as fine now that he's in middle school - but that's because he is overly concerned with the social aspects of school, and not at all concerned with the academics. We're working on that with him, but it isn't easy.</p>
<p>D does know kids who are at Dart, but I doubt that they'll be there when we go this month. We'll be visiting the day after summer session ends. If she really likes the school and wants to revisit when the school's in session, there are a few people she can get in touch with and I'm sure any of them would be willing to let her visit.</p>
<p>I can't edit my visit report but one other nice thing about Dartmouth is the whole campus was covered by their wifi network. At Midd only the classroom buildings had wireless.</p>
<p>Out here in CA, the date is Dec 1st. In an interesting wrinkle locally, one of the local private schools is famous for their kids "not being ready" to advance to 1st grade. Roughly 95% of their kindergarteners are held back for a second year of kindergarten. My kids went to public school but a number of their friends went to the private school and are now a year behind. Since the private school is K-8, many of those kids end up in the public high school and are graduating at 19.</p>
<p>LIMom, no problem, my post could have been read either way.</p>
<p>I think my older son could easily have started K a year earlier than he did. With a March birthday, he was somewhat on the older end of his class. He hated writing in the early years though, so when he was younger we worked mostly at getting accommodations in math, though he had also been reading since he was three. My younger son (who has some mild LDs we think), always seemed to be about six months behind the program and might well have been better off starting later. He's a solid B student now however, despite his deficits. No one is ever allowed to skip grades in our district, but I've known people who got around it by sending kids to private school for a year or two.</p>
<p>want to give people a heads up to tokenadult's sticky thread on opportunities to meet admissions officers. Last fall we attended two of these shows, it was good because they were in town and got to see 4-5 schools in one shot which was good for doing a broad beginning look at schools. This year I happened across one on 8 best colleges which is a bunch of LACs including a couple D is interested in. We will hit this show this fall and post a report when we are done.</p>
<p>Sorry, I've been bad and not posted the college visits. I only personally did Barnard with D. My husband took D to Bard and RPI and he will not post. I will try to do Barnard sometime this week. Mea Culpa.</p>
<p>jackief - thanks for the reminder - I just went through tokenadults thread and noted some really good possibilities. There's a big one being held on LI this Oct., and that might be interesting, if a bit overwhelming.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom - not trying to make you feel guilty - post whenever you get around to it. The one I was most interested in hearing about was RPI. What did your D think of it?</p>
<p>Parents - </p>
<p>Who's taking the initiative to map-out the visits and schedule them into the summer? </p>
<p>I'm sure Son would gladly come along if H and I lined something up. But, this early in the game I don't think we need to take charge. (If nothing has happened 6 - 9 months from now, sure, we'll step in. But for now we're letting him determine the pace.)</p>
<p>I envy those of you with kids with who have developed a bunch of favorites. All we've got is a list of suggestions we'll share if/when Son asks for help. (He's gone so far as to dog-ear some pages in Fiske.)</p>
<p>What was your tipping point? Did you suggest a visit? Or did your child ask for one? Or did you say, "pick out some schools, it's time to start visiting?"</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>We're trying to be low key about it. What I did was to say that we <em>would</em> be visiting these (specific) schools to see a variety of places -- urban, rural, suburban, Ivy, state, LAC ... some of them that are actually possibles and some that are on this list as rule outs.</p>
<p>My hope was that some of them would start sparking interest -- and it's working! He's very interested in a real reach school that would allow him to tailor a program around his two major interests. And it's probably the only school in the world that would get him that kind of education. As it's one of those reachy reachy for anyone schools -- I'm hoping to use that as motivation to prepare for the SAT etc and to push himself academically. At the same time we know that it's a serious reach, so we're looking at other options that might help him get to the same or similar place.</p>
<p>It's wonderful to see them light up!</p>
<p>FYI, just wanted to thank y'all for the advice to not do Math I and Math II on the same day. He did two practice tests in one day a week or two ago, and he said he was tired by the time he finished with the Math II test. So today, he took another one, just Math II, and he did MUCH better (740 vs. 650). No test fatigue. Thanks again!</p>