Parents of the HS class of 2010 - Original

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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<p>Add me to the list of those with 2010 graduates. And, having just read through this entire thread, I am reminded again of so much to do--I had forgotten about the SAT II's. We hadn't even given a thought this summer to PSAT or SAT preparation. And, he couldn't even take any AP classes until this year at his school. Guess we'd better get a plan going. </p>

<p>We did, however, have a great summer of college visits--we did an 8-day, 6-state, 11 college visit and had a wonderful time (we made it more of a sort of 'family vacation' and included a little sightseeing and lots of fun). We flew to Philadelphia and then took trains everywhere else, ending up in Boston. (Also spending time with my oldest son who had opted to stay at his college for a job this summer instead of coming home). </p>

<p>I had been through the whole college search and application process just 2 years ago with older son, but never did many college visits. So, we really enjoyed this trip. Younger son was so excited that he had to buy a T-shirt from every single college we visited--no need to shop for clothes for school this year :-)</p>

<p>Anyway, I do have one question to ask--my son is wanting to take both AP Calculus and AP Statistics this year. Are 2 AP math classes too much--will the homework be excessive? He's very good at math, but I'm not sure about taking 2 in one year. Any advice, anyone?</p>

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<p>I am doing double duty, with twins in the class of 2010. They are fraternal and very different in what they hope to study. We have done a couple of the programs where five schools do a "road show" at a hotel, and I have now really started to concentrate on single schools which are starting to come to our area to make presentations. I cannot imagine how we are going to do the visiting when they will undoubtedly end up in very different kinds of schools. I have begun my routine of "mean mom" in earnest as of this a.m. I cracked the whip and insisted that they start SAT prep using the "Xiggi" method. :)</p>

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<p>Clarimom,
My impression is that AP Stat is significantly easier than AP Calc. I base this on the one student I know who took AP Stat early in high school, freshman year, I believe. He breezed through the course. He became a math major in college, so he was obviously a strong math student.</p>

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<p>S1 took AP Calc BC and AP Stats his senior year (along with AP Physics B&C) and had no problem with the work load. As I recall there was very little homework. He agrees that Stats is not exactly a math class.</p>

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<p>jackief - I'm sure your D will do what you're expecting her to do about stopping in to visit the adcoms. Not sure if mine would do that, even if I asked her to.</p>

<p>Clarimom - Welcome! You're right - so much to do this year! Glad you had a successful college tour. Care to share where you went and what you thought of the the schools/what your S thought of the schools? Lucky you - your younger son was actually excited! Mine is hating the very thought. </p>

<p>I'm sorry, I can't really answer your question since D hasn't taken either course yet, but I believe students regularly take AP Calc and AP Statistics at the same time.</p>

<p>momof3sons - good for you getting your sons to start SAT prep. I have to find that link to the "Xiggi" method. D probably won't want to hear it though. She ended up with good scores on her practice CR and Math tests after the course she took (the very useless course). Now, I would like her to take a real practice which includes the writing section. The one she took was real, but they skipped the writing portion.</p>

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<p>LIMOMOF2 - We visited Swarthmore, U.of Penn., Princeton, Columbia, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, Yale, Brown, Harvard, M.I.T., and New England Conservatory--all 'reach' schools basically but mostly cities we had never been to and colleges we had never visited. S is interested in music performance and computer science, so we particularly looking for somewhere he can either double major or at least have concentrations in both areas. Here's a brief rundown: Swarthmore - absolutely gorgeous campus, wonderful tour, everyone very friendly and helpful, taking time to personally talk in depth with S. Liked having train station right at end of campus. Definitely one to consider; a bit on the small side. U.of Penn. - nice campus, seemed very busy and very big. We took the tour, but didn't spend much time as we wanted to get to the Independence Hall/Liberty Bell before it closed. Then ate Philly cheesesteaks at Geno's and Pat's. This was all in our first day...Second day, Princeton - beautiful campus, good tour guides, nice school. Doesn't allow double majors, though. Third day, off to NYC. S was not as impressed with Columbia; tour guide seemed not as knowledgeable, campus seemed very noisy with construction, air conditioners running on top of buildings--just one non-stop hum so at times we could hardly hear the tour guide. He also wasn't excited that they require a swim test for graduation. He actually has crossed Columbia off his list after the visit, even though I'm sure it's a fine school. We visited the 2 conservatories listed, but no tours were available. A long day, then off on train to New Haven. Yale - older S is there, so it is a special place to us. Beautiful campus, great school, S has really enjoyed it. Then off on train to Providence and Brown Univ-nice campus, great town, great information session and campus tour, good computer science, definitely a possibility for our final list. And, finally, Boston--I loved the city. Visited MIT--was surprised at how large it was. Great tour, nice campus, interesting architecture on several of the buildings. Was happy to see good programs in the arts as well as comp sci. And, Harvard, is, well, Harvard. Nice campus, really fun tour guide, interesting information session. New England Conservatory smaller than I thought it would be, and not real impressed with the facilities, but still exciting to be there. We also walked the Freedom Trail while in Boston. In addition to these eastern school, we have also visited UW-Madison and Northwestern. I think S is in the preliminary stages of getting a college list together, but I think way further along than older S was at this time.</p>

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<p>Clarimom - thanks so much for that summary of your trip - it was very interesting, especially as my D has so many of those schools on her list as well. It sounds like it was a very successful trip, so congratulations. And congrats too on having a S at Yale - that's just great. It sounds like you're off to a great start.</p>

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<p>Clarimom,</p>

<p>That does sound like a reachy list of schools you toured. I know with music programs it is all about the audition, although with the non-conservatory universities on your list, the level of competition for a clarinet might be more managable, given the weed-out nature of their academics.</p>

<p>Do you have a list of match/saftety schools (none on your list can be considered a match/safety by most CCers) from an academic perspective that also have the desired strong music programs with computer science. I'm thinking about places like Indiana U (great music program as I remember, but that was from a long time ago) or others of that level where admissions (from an academic perspective) are more of a certainty?</p>

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<p>We went to a small get together yesterday and one of the women (I've never met her before) works in the financial aid office of a local private college. She was saying that kids are having a hard time finding student loans this year. Lenders are just not lending. That scared me a little since we were planning on at least some student loans to get D through school.</p>

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<p>This has been "in the news" recently in this area as the agency in MA which gives many loans has been unable to do so this year. I think I have seen links to some of the articles from The Boston Globe around here somewhere, maybe in the financial aid section. Warning that I stray from the topic for the remainder of this post..</p>

<p>What puzzles me is why people get hit by it so late in the year. I would assume that most people relying on loans for this school year would have secured them before August.</p>

<p>Another related area is that the company where we have a home equity LOC recently told us "too bad, we are cancelling your LOC because of declining home values" Of course it did not include a refund of the yearly fee we pay to keep the LOC active. However, we had recently refinanced (same company as the LOC) and had by our choice to keep monthly payment similar put money INTO the mortgage (ie lower principle) and were also going from 30 yr to 15 yr. The letter didn't take these and the appraisal done at refinance time into account, when we called them on this they didn't totally freeze the LOC but cut it in half. In talking to others after this happend the general wisdom was that if you have a LOC you plan to use for college or for another future expense, don't assume it will always be there take the money out earlier if you are unsure.</p>

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<p>Hi goaliedad,</p>

<p>We haven't really narrowed down our list yet, but at this point S is not considering the conservatories especially (it was just fun to visit and think about maybe for grad school) and due to his performing ability as well as academic level we're pretty sure about any of the schools in our state system, so we'll put those on the safety end. I agree that Indiana is good for clarinet right now, also Oberlin; both possibilities. There's also Carnegie Mellon. We'll see how this junior year goes, how the audition preparation goes, how the test scores come out, etc. Hopefully by this time next summer we'll have narrowed down his list :-)</p>

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<p>I am another 2010 parent. I went through the process 2 years ago with S. D seems not particularly interested, has looked at a couple schools on her own and tagged along after her big B a few years back. My concern is that as a 3-sport athlete she will have almost no time during school year to look at schools. I hope as her friends get more into the process, she will, too.</p>

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<p>Clarimom,</p>

<p>I know what you are talking about in not narrowing down the list. Goaliegirl has about 15-16 schools on her list right now, but even that list is expanding now with a recent contact we received. We started her list with safety schools and matches (academically and hockeywise) and now are discovering that the academic top end might be expanding. Don't like to get too specific online, as the female goaltending community is very small nationally and basically everyone is about 2 degrees or less off of everyone.</p>

<p>We've done the extensive drive-by tour last May (good way to get a sense for place), and will focus on more thorough campus visits going forward. I would say that by this time next year we should have it down to 1/2 dozen or so schools.</p>

<p>Good luck with the audition.</p>

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<p>Hi everyone. We're on our college tour now. I'll give details once we're done, but so far, I would say it's a success.</p>

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<p>My son's list presently has 30 schools on it. The more we research, the more we find to explore. I'm waiting to see how he does the first half of this year. He aCT score as a sophmore is on the high side for all of the schoolsthat he is interested in. If the GPa goes up, some reaches or matches may slide down.</p>

<p>How important is it to a college that you visit? Will they only think you are interested if you step foot on campus?</p>

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<p>warriorboy648, I think for most schools the visit is not all that important. In fact, many of the schools we visited with my younger S didn't even have us sign in. For my older S, out of the 13 schools he applied to we had only visited two--we really couldn't afford plane fares. We attended regional meetings when possible, and learned much from the viewbooks and websites. He was accepted into his top choice school, which we had not visited. Good luck to you and your S during his search.</p>

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<p>Finished our tours - though we're still not home. I think overall, it was a success. D liked all of the schools a lot. I'm not sure whether she preferred Harvard or Dartmouth - there were different things about the schools that appealed to her, but those were her two favorites. I'll give more details about the visits when we get home.</p>

<p>warriorboy - of the 4 schools we visited, only Tufts had us sign in/fill out an info card. Dart, Harvard and MIT didn't want anyone signing in/took no information. By far, the largest crowd was at Harvard, BTW.</p>

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<p>I was talking to a mom the other day, she also has a student who will be a junior. When I mentioned trips, etc. she said like a lot of parents, they were limiting them because of cost/time, but also she didn't want to get her hopes up. When I asked her to elaborate, she said, she only could afford colleges (behond state) that gave very good aid, her daughter was an excellent student but she didn't want to get her hopes up visiting colleges,etc before she took all her tests and maybe even then. I told her some of it was expectations set beforehand, but before I could elaborate, she said, "How many colleges did your son apply too?: I answered about 6 or 7. She then said, "how many did he get in", I said all of them. Then she went on, "how many packages could you afford?" I said two or three were managable at the time. She then said she couldn't dangle colleges her daughter might fall in love with before she knew she could go there. Maybe this isn't an issue with families that saved quite a bit before high school, but do you think she has a point or do most students grasp what is a "maybe" vs "we can do this"?</p>

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<p>I think it depends on the family and the kid. </p>

<p>This summer, we talked to S1 about what we could afford and his role in the process. Bottom line for us is we could swing four years at an in-state publc. He likes many of the small LACs we've visited, but they are out of our range without scholarships, and that is up to him. Getting into one of these private schools will require staying on top of his grades this year, doing some SAT prep this summer, etc. We also told him we would not take out and would not allow him to take out monstrous loans in order to finance an undergrad education, especially after learning that he's eyeing grad school (news to us!). Oh, and last piece of the puzzle was don't fall so in love with anyone place that you think it's the ONLY place you want to be. Thankfully, he generally can find the good in more things, so I think he'd be willing to go to most of the places we visited. </p>

<p>He's taken all that to heart, and I think it will turn out well for him. He's a really mature, easy kid and seems to have a good grasp of the situation. In fact this weekend, he's making me take him to two college presenations, so he's really getting into it!</p>

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<p>I agree that the amount of aid received depends on the family as well as the institution. Our older S applied to 13 schools, ranging from absolute safeties to high reaches. Our plan was to see where he was accepted, and then compare all the aid packages before deciding. It was surprising to see how varying the financial aid packages were that he was offered. (I think his safety state school had one of the least attractive packages). I have also heard that there is some room for negotiation at times on financial aid with particular schools. My bottom line advice is don't let the tuition cost of a school stop you from applying if it is really a dream school for you, because you don't know what the package from them will be until you're accepted.</p>