<p>kumitedad, U of O is on D1’s possibles list, same deal with cost (though travel expenses would climb; flying out of Eugene isn’t cheap). </p>
<p>Going in the other direction, as UC prices climb, the cost differential between UC and the $$$ fullpay privates shrinks.</p>
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<p>Our large public HS does just the opposite – there are no lockers (other than for PE, but can only be used while you are in PE), and the kids must carry around all their books (backpacks permitted) all day long.</p>
<p>The “Colleges That Change Lives” roadshow was in town last night. I went stag, since D1 is away for the summer and the spouse needed to provide taxi service for D2. </p>
<p>The evening started off with a general information session to discuss the CTCL history and philosophy. The presenters were filled with good humor and calming vibes for both students and parents. They talked up the virtues of a LAC education, of schools giving students the tools to become creative and critical thinkers, good writers, and being able to work well collaboratively. They downplayed the importance of choosing a school for a specific major. As one presenter (IIRC, an adcom from Eckhart) said, “I knew what I wanted to do from age 10 to age 19. I’ve never done that.” And they said that the process should be fun and shouldn’t lead to stress. Easy for THEM to say, they’re not California residents who are seeing their public university system becoming less and less of a known commodity. But I digress. </p>
<p>To get the students engaged, they told the students they were going to read off some statements, and if a student agreed with a statement, they should stand. Then if they agreed with another statement, they should raise 1 arm. Then 2 arms. Then move their hands around, then wave their bodies, then do whatever. “Tell us what you have to offer,” the presenters said. First statement: “I am preparing academically for college”. Then “I take part in community service.” Student government. I am creative. I like math and science (you aren’t allowed to sit down). I take part in a varsity/non-varsity sport, have a job, think I’m interesting. The students were told that their parents WOULD embarass them at some point in the college tour process. The presenter said when she toured, her mother would always ask where the nearest hospital was. </p>
<p>Final words of advice to students: when you’re on a tour, and if someone at a school asks your name, don’t turn wordlessly to your parents. By now, you should know your name and be able to introduce yourself. Final words of advice to parents: your kids will be very busy and overscheduled…so put any college search activities on the calendar as well. That can include going through the boatload of college brochures on a Sunday night, or writing an essay.</p>
<p>The second part of the evening was the actual fair. Rather than fill out interest cards at each table, you filled out one card and then checked off the names of the schools you are interested in as you made your way around the room. Even if you’d already expressed interest or visited a school, you were told to check the name again because it allowed you to further express your interest. I gathered up lots of brochures for D1 to look at later. All the reps were personable and easy to talk to, and the students seemed to get into the spirit of the evening. Saw a couple of friends there; one looked very deer-in-the-headlights, the other was there with a child who is in love with St. John’s.</p>
<p>Worth checking out if the CTCL tour comes to town.</p>
<p>I’ll second the CTCL roadshow. I dragged spawn to it, and he ended up very glad he went. He now has three of the schools identified as possibilities should he be one of the 60% of Rockers who transfer to a different school.</p>
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<p>LOL. It’s amazing how these bright young people can lose the ability to speak.</p>
<p>Sending son off in 3 weeks to out of state LAC. Daughter not too interested in college search yet. After school starts and PSAT she should be more engaged. Looking forward to supporting her through the process.</p>
<p>We’ve visited three colleges in the last couple of weeks - Ursinus, Lycoming and PSU main campus. I have a B student interested in (this week) information science and technology or something along those lines. We’ve been enjoying the colleges that do special programs/open houses and he’s signed up for just a couple of more in the fall. I did sign him up for the Oct. 10 SAT because it’s at our HS and I’ve lined up a personal tutor to work with him. It would be SO nice if he would get a decent score and be done with the SAT’s first sitting. Meanwhile, he’s got two more books to read for honors English and AP Euro and some programming homework for AP comp sci. Summer doesn’t mean the same thing it did when I was a kid!</p>
<p>For anyone that’s in SE PA, put the National College Fair in Philadelphia on your calendar - Sunday November 15th at the Pennsylvania Convention Center <a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/EventsTraining/CollegeFairs/ncf/Fall/Pages/09FPhi.aspx[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/EventsTraining/CollegeFairs/ncf/Fall/Pages/09FPhi.aspx</a></p>
<p>My S’s private school offers the Princeton Review, for a fee, to the jrs. I do not have any info on the cost or timing (except it is offered 2X during jr year). I was not planning on having S take the class, figure he has already proven he can do OK on the SAT. When he took it in May of this year he got an 1860 with a really bad W score. CR 720, M 640 and W 510. He is strong in W, honors/Ap English, etc so I figure his score will naturally improve over the course of a year. In the past he has been asked to help out at his school when they need kids with strong writing skills, so I figure his score should be higher next time with a little more prep and another year of English. (He is taking AP literature and writing this year) Math was lower than we expected also. His PSAT was 198. </p>
<p>Anyway, I am seriously thinking of skipping the course offered at his school and just wondering what others are doing. Obviously I want him to do as well as he can on the test, but really think the prep class would be a waste of my money and his time considering he knows the stratagies to taking the test. Especially if spend more time on what should be his strong section, W. He has the potential to raise that another 150-200 points.</p>
<p>I am thinking of having my D take the online prep courses from Collegeboard.com for the SAT, and the official ACT prep course from their website. More than anything else, would like to see which she does better in so she can concentrate on that on. Its 70$ for the SAT and 20$ for the ACT</p>
<p>I didn’t know college board offered an online prep course, I will have to look into that. I do like their question of the day and the explanation they give showing why the correct answer is correct if you get it wrong.</p>
<p>Mamom,</p>
<p>My S took the Princeton Review course (and the free follow up) and took the tests three times. He decided at the last minute to take the ACT, just spent a week with a prep manual, and his score was higher than on the SAT. So this time with my D I will also try to figure out which test she will do better on</p>
<p>Kumitedad,
I have heard that some kids do better on ACT than SAT. I will have to pick up an ACT book at the library and coax S into trying it. </p>
<p>School starts in 3 weeks and football next week, time is definitely running out to try stuff. I am really not looking forward to this school year. S never went back to the RMV to retake the test for his learners permit. Probably for the best, one less thing to worry about right now.</p>
<p>I have seen the ACT prep course on their website. D planned on signing up for this and taking the ACT this Sept - but haven’t heard anything more after that. I kind of doubt she’s taking it in Sept. mamom - I understand completely. School starts in two weeks for us and she’s not done with the summer work, let alone do any additional preparation for the exams.
She did however finish the drivers ed course and several of the actual driving lessons needed…</p>
<p>Just signed up for both online courses, ACT and SAT. Now she’ll see if there is one test that she does markedly better in. That would be worth the price of admission.</p>
<p>She will be taking her first tests in Jan/Feb. When will everyone else be taking theirs?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>hey there kumitedad! Good luck to your D with the testing. I’ll be pulling for her. :)</p>
<p>mamom: My S is actually an incoming frosh but my twin Ds were in the hs class of 09. What I wish we had done was had each girl take the SAT and ACT for the first time in the same rough time period and then seen which was better. As it was one of my DDs did so much better on the ACT than the SAT that I felt like the cost of SAT prep and additional testing dates was a waste of $$. We would have been better off focusing solely on the test on which she performed best.</p>
<p>That said, petersons.com offers a testprep for SAT and if you put in the time and don’t see scores improve by 200 points they will let the student complete the course again free of charge. It wasn’t overly pricey and it was effective for one of my Ds. ACT does an in-house prep via their webpage and it helped my ACT D bring her composite up as well.</p>
<p>I changed my son’s SAT date to November. I’m not sure what I was thinking having him do the SAT one week BEFORE the PSAT. It sounds like most of you posters on this thread have some high achieving CC kids. Mine is more like a real life B student that takes challenging classes but is not going to be in the top 10%. </p>
<p>I would like son to take the ACT, but the dates are all screwy - [ACT</a> Registration : Test Dates in the U.S., U.S.Territories, and Canada](<a href=“ACT Registration | ACT Testing Dates | The ACT Test”>ACT Registration | ACT Testing Dates | The ACT Test) The only one that looks feasible for us is the one in February. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my older son took both the SAT and the ACT and his scores were very similar. He did a bit better in math on the ACT, but worse in something else.</p>
<p>D started school today. Hopefully, all schedule issues are ironed out - she was in touch with the teacher even as late as yesterday - she is hoping to take AP Psych. This year was a good first lesson in options and having to make tough decisions. She decided to drop French to be able to take AP US History and then at the very last minute, it looks like she’s dropping Orchestra if she can get into AP Pysch. Will be a tough schedule - hopefully she will do well.</p>
<p>We talked about testing dates - but she hasn’t signed up yet. Will take the PSAT in Oct. She wants to take the ACT, but the sept date is definitely out. She has to figure out a good date to take the SAT and the ACT - depending on sports schedules and the time she’s going to have to prepare for these. So far, prep is almost non-existent. Frustrating for us to watch…but I guess it has to be on her terms…</p>
<p>When are your juniors planning to take these tests?</p>
<p>Our school is offering AP psych for the first time this year. My son wanted to take it since many of his other friends were doing so, but I talked him into taking Mass Media. No grade bump, but he loves making movies now and it’s much more in his field of interest. My one regret is that he had to drop band for computer programming - our school only has room for one elective sophomore and freshman year.</p>
<p>Wow, everyone is up and running! 
D3 returned to school today. PSAT in Oct…and SAT in the spring?! If she needs to retake, then it will be in the fall of 2010. That’s what her sisters did…so, we’ll keep with that schedule in order to reduce the amount of jr yr stress.</p>
<p>S2 is taking SATs in October, 4 days before taking the PSATs. How crazy is that? But, he’s been working with a tutor over the summer, and she encouraged him to take the SATs when the course was done. He’s been doing pretty well on the BB tests, and the studying for SATs is basically the same as PSATs, from what I understand. I’m sure he’ll take it again in the spring (March maybe), but then he can focus in May and June on APs and SAT IIs. I like the idea of him being done with testing by the end of junior year, and focusing next fall on college applications. </p>
<p>Thats the plan, anyway …</p>