Parents of the HS class of 2010 - Original

<p>I lurked this past year as S went through the college application process and am so glad to have a year without that! D will be taking prep course and kinda do a one-shot at the SAT, PSAT and ACT. With other commitments, we decided it was better for her to focus all at once, and then move back on to life. We'll see what happens!
So I'm looking for care package information for college freshmen as D and I start getting ready for our new pink life - it'll just be us with no males in the house.
Thanks for starting the thread.</p>

<p>Jumping in as well with a just turned 16 YO daughter in California. </p>

<p>Yes on learners permit - no license yet</p>

<p>No on SAT prep - she will start a class in September</p>

<p>Yes on AP class summer work - annoys me too - I'd like to see the test date moved back a couple of weeks in the school year to relieve some of the time line pressure. Summer reading also includes East of Eden and Cannery Row (we live in Monterey Bay Area - Steinbeck country)</p>

<p>Summer Activities - We just got back from a dream vacation in Paris and London - using up many years of frequent flyer and hotel points. She also took a sailing class and is hosting a number of old friends from other parts of the state. Nothing academic (which I regret)</p>

<p>College visits - having just gone through this with DS (who will be a freshman), I am not a huge fan of college visits except during the school year. To quote my son "they all look alike when there are no kids here - and what college would dare to admit they don't have a large library as well as access to the interlibrary loan system" We will be making a number of trips in the fall.</p>

<p>College leanings - smaller school, probably a LAC, in the western US. Leading possibilities Willamette, Lewis and Clark, University of Portland, Saint Marys of California, University of San Diego.</p>

<p>ECs include "Link Crew", CSF, Soccer, Track, and Horse Therapist.</p>

<p>momof3sons - thanks for clarifying about the erg. No wonder I've never heard of it - no crew team at D's HS.</p>

<p>If your S doesn't run over the summer, I'm sure it's hard for him to catch up in the fall. That must have been horrible for him to have been in a cast all season last year. D had a similar experience during her softball season this spring - only her wrist was in a soft cast, not her leg.......lol. That was bad for so many reasons.</p>

<p>D runs about 3 miles a day and about 8 one day per week. The only thing is, the past 2 weeks, the weather's been bad during the early mornings which is really her only free time for running, so she's put in way less mileage than normal. And now she's away, and I doubt she's able to go running - I should have asked ahead of time, but I didn't thing she'd feel up to it anyway. She'll be home tomorrow, and hopefully will be herself again by Sunday. </p>

<p>Welcome to erisamom and Scualum. </p>

<p>Erisamom - good luck to your S in college, and to you and your D just beginning the process. </p>

<p>Scualum - I wish we had time to visit schools while they're in session - but those will be few and far between. Cool that your D is a "Horse Therapist." How did that happen? I'm guessing there has to be a story there........lol.</p>

<p>My last (of 3 boys) will graduate in 2010.</p>

<p>He is spending the summer as a counselor at a boys' camp where he has unfortunately been assigned the cabin with the 7-8 year old month longers. He's exhausted!! It ends on Saturday, and he is chomping at the bit to get his drivers license on Monday morning! He also starts PSAT/SAT prep Sunday night, which he's not going to be too thrilled about!</p>

<p>So far, academically, he has done great, has one B from freshman year, and is trying to keep it that way. His dream is to join son #2 at Univ. of Texas, and if he gets another B, it may knock him out of the guaranteed admit spot in the top 10%. So, he will be buckling down come fall! </p>

<p>EC's are journalism - he is the sport's editor, football and lacrosse.</p>

<p>S runs every day- schedule set by coach. I think he should get a day off, but he adheres strictly to the schedule. May be looking at DIIIs if he wants to run in college- and wants a bigger school, and there aren't many out there that I know of.</p>

<p>I knew I should have explained that one. DD has been riding for most of her life. A couple of years ago, she was approached by one of her riding instructors about getting involved in a program where children with disabilities are brought out to the ranch and given a chance to ride horses. The "Horse Therapist" works one on one with the child - helping them to get comfortable with the horses, leading them around the ring on a lead rope, etc.</p>

<p>scualum - what a great program! I wasn't sure if you meant a "therapist" for horses or exactly what you described. Sounds like a truly meaningful EC.</p>

<p>dufay - my D is normally a lot like your S when it comes to running - but we've been having some serious lightening storms this summer - so no running then. Her days and evenings are already packed with obligations, so if she can't run in the morning, then she can't run. She has done it a few times in between her afternoon volunteer job and her SAT prep class, but she really felt like she needed a break at that point in the day. </p>

<p>Luckily, the volunteer job is over, and her tutoring should be finished this week.</p>

<p>Hi everyone! Another junior parent here, about to send child #1 off to college for the first time. Although I'm sure my D will have a much different experience than my S in the college app process, I'm feeling a little more relaxed about it, having gone through it once. And she was watching her brother intently, so I think she learned a bit too :) </p>

<p>She has spent her summer looking for jobs, taking short trips with friends, and playing soccer. We just returned from a "college showcase" where coaches come to scout players from all over the region, so that got her thinking more about college. When her job search yielded only a very part-time job, she took on a couple of volunteer jobs and stepped up the babysitting to finance her wardrobe needs.</p>

<p>SAT prep? Not yet, but I've offered my similarly unemployed son a job tutoring her, so I'm hoping that comes together before he leaves us in 3 weeks. The whole family is going to drop S off at University of Southern California, so D will look at a few schools while we are there. I'd much rather do the visits during the school year, but her sports schedule eats up almost all the school breaks during the year. She's very interested in a LAC, and I'm very interested in merit aid, so she may be casting a wide net next year. With any luck, she'll have a shot at National Merit and can consider some of the same offers my son had. Those made a big difference in his decision-making.</p>

<p>DS will be a junior in the fall and it's been tough getting him interested in thinking or talking about college. DD will be a college junior this fall, so i'm trying to ramp up the energy to go thru the entire journey again.
I actualy love researching schools, and passing on snippets of interesting info. to DS. He's finally starting to pay attention a bit. :)
We took a college trip thru the Northeast in June which was an eye-opener for him. I think he finally realized what it takes to get admitted to some of the great schools we visited (no ivies). It seemed to make it more real for him.
It's all quite an adventure!</p>

<p>What's up with all the AP summer work? S didn't get any assignments.</p>

<p>Hi everyone, and welcome.</p>

<p>FauxNom - We're in the same situation regarding visits during the school year - too difficult with the sports schedules and some other ECs. Good luck getting your S to tutor your D - that rarely works in our family. My S is in middle school, and my D is the 16-year old - and S never lets D tutor him, although he needs the help at times.</p>

<p>BengalMom - you'll be able to share your wisdom from round one with us.</p>

<p>Youdon'tsay - who knows? D didn't get assignments for all her AP classes, just for APUSH and AP Eng Lang. The AP Art History teacher said there would be an assignment, but D never received it and neither did her friend who is also taking the class. AP Physics, she never heard anything about an assignment at all. But the assignments she did get are quite time consuming (though even combined not as much as she got for AP Euro last summer).</p>

<p>Don't complain, and consider your S lucky.</p>

<p>Hi everyone, I just wanted to check in to the new 2010 thread.</p>

<p>My rising junior D is keeping pretty busy this summer.</p>

<p>On the driving front, she's anxious to get her permit and begin driving lessons--it's just a matter of finding the time to take the exam. During the day she's helping out at a local camp for at-risk children. I'm glad that she's found a community service activity that works out time-wise, but that she also happens to like. Earlier this summer, D participated in an intensive creative writing program in Iowa, which she really enjoyed and got a lot out of the experience.</p>

<p>While she was in Iowa, we visited Grinnell. D and I were both impressed with Grinnell and I'm glad that it's on her list of schools to apply to next year. That having been said, I do generally agree with Scualum, and would prefer to visit schools while they're in session. The problem for us this coming year is, having checked our school district's '08-'09 calendar it looks like there will be very few "in-service" days off, apart from Thanksgiving, December, and Spring break. Obviously, Thanksgiving and December breaks won't work well for college visits. So, it looks like we'll have to a marathon trip over next spring break (a little New England, some upstate NY, some Ohio...) There's also President's Day weekend, too. I'm also thinking about bringing D to a couple of relatively local schools in late August, before HS gets started for the year, but while the college year has already begun.</p>

<p>(Speaking of college visits)LIMOMOF2, I was looking through the CC visit reports for William & Mary. Your report was helpful, and I was wondering if, after visiting W&M a year ago, your D is still interested. My D is very interested in visiting there, mainly on the reputed strength of their English program. It will be interesting to see if it's a good fit or not.</p>

<p>D is also keeping quite busy with PSAT/SAT prep (on her own, using the big College Board guide) and chipping away at her summer reading. She'll be going from one AP class last year to four in the coming year--which is another reason why I want to be really careful about not pulling her out of school for college visits. There is so much pressure in those classes, and it probably doesn't help that our school year doesn't start until after Labor Day. My D also has summer reading only for APUSH and AP Engl. Language. At least now she's pretty much figured out when she'll take the ACT, SAT and SAT II tests over the next year.</p>

<p>momonthehill - I'm glad you found my report helpful. D absolutely loved W&M, but I don't think it will be on her list because she's now thinking about studying engineering. Last year, that wasn't the case. Having said that, she may change her mind again. We visited the school mainly because we were staying at Colonial Williamsburg and we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity - I didn't expect her to like it as much as she did.</p>

<p>My D is also going from one AP last year to 4 this year (possibly 5, but probably not) - and I agree, it's not a good idea to pull them out of school for college visits. You're lucky you've seen your school calendar for the coming year - ours won't be mailed out until the end of August. My D also goes back after Labor Day, and we have on idea when she'll be taking the ACT or SAT this year (sort of depends on how she does on the PSAT). The SAT IIs she'll take in June - probably US History, Physics (depending on how she does in that class), and Math. I know that sounds like a lot, especially since she's already taken two - but she'll most likely need math and physics if she plans to apply to engineering programs, and she's pretty sure her history grade will be higher than her Bio and Chem grades (which were fine, just not perfect).</p>

<p>
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What's up with all the AP summer work? S didn't get any assignments.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Same here. He's got AP World and AP Prob & Stats in 11th grade. Oh, well. I'm not complaining.</p>

<p>My son has seven APs!</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry except last summer I found out about extra work two weeks before school started from a friend who mentioned in passing that her daughter still hadn't finished the "suggested" summer reading. Uh, what summer reading?, I asked my son. He had no idea and suposedly the work was posted on Facebook. Well, not everyone has a Facebook! Grrrr.</p>

<p>Seven APs - WOW!!! Our school doesn't have enough APs for that even to be a choice... how many total AP classes does your school offer?</p>

<p>More than 30.</p>

<p>Wow that's a lot of APs. Do the students really get to have a choice? </p>

<p>My daughter is doing two APs and the rest IB classes. She's doing studio art this year and is beyond excited.</p>

<p>A significant number of the APs are required. For instance, the state requires four years of English, and at our school all junior and senior sections of English are AP level. In my son's case, all four of his cores will be AP, plus an AP language (fourth year of Latin) and then just by virtue of his interest , he's got one more as an elective.</p>

<p>OK, I just went and checked his sked vs online course listings and realize his BC Cal is double-blocked with a math class that technically isn't an AP, but, to this liberal arts major, DiffE and Discrete Math sounds plenty hard enough to be an AP!</p>

<p>That sounds like a lot of good choices Youdon'tsay, and the math sounds killer.</p>

<p>Oh, and add my daugher to the list of people with a ton of summer work.</p>