<p>I tripped over to the common app website and discovered that this year they will be open for applications beginning on Aug 1, instead of July 1. This means one less month to work on the apps. And I remember what a pain it was when my S was applying to college. Now I get a month chopped off the time frame. </p>
<p>Oh bother</p>
<p>^^Even more reason to get a start on essays in the summer!</p>
<p>Just hope I can get a hold of the common app essay questions before hand. A parents work is never done :)</p>
<p>I can’t believe that our kids are next in line for the roller coaster.</p>
<p>Isn’t it happening a little too soon?? I remember talking to some parents of juniors last year around this time (when D was a sophomore) and thinking that we were way ahead of the game. Fast forward one year - it feels like we haven’t made much progress - there’s so much more to do and hardly any time.</p>
<p>Take deep breaths…breathe in and out, in and out…</p>
<p>How are your students doing?
Our student is swamped–
Very tired and very busy…and not feeling quite right…</p>
<p>In fact to even consider putting the search on his plate- our student gets a blank look of of what is panic —</p>
<p>4 Aps, Honors Physics, etc and a heavy demand schedule for a sport–there is little time for sleep let alone new demands…</p>
<p>In case anyone else finds it useful, here’s the link to the AP Chem test study materials:</p>
<p>[Free</a> AP Practice Tests](<a href=“http://www.ap.testfrenzy.com/]Free”>http://www.ap.testfrenzy.com/)</p>
<p>I find the SAT/ACT forum and subforums really helpful for info on good resources to study for the AP and other standardized tests. There are recommendations on the best study guides for each subject, also.</p>
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<p>Yes, that’s my child - mad stressed, no sleep. Hasn’t watched shows that she DVR’d since September. It’s time to start doing serious ACT prep, but don’t know where the time is going to come from.</p>
<p>PreCalc was her easy class. Then there was a department meeting where the teacher was told she was “spoon feeding them.” So now the teacher hands out worksheets and tells them to figure it out on their own and everyone is getting really low quiz grades. Hmm…maybe that spoon feeding was actually called TEACHING.</p>
<p>During a study break last night, D1 bounded up and asked if I could remember something for her. She told me that some people who’d applied to one of her reaches submitted their apps near the deadline, and didn’t get assigned to an interview. She wanted me to remind her to make sure to submit her apps early for any schools where she’d be requesting off-campus interviews. I actually already knew this 
but just said sure, I’d remind her. Progress!</p>
<p>OUr student’s AP teacher for Chem wants them to "figure it out and dig it out of the text and online " so they have the skills they need to survive college. Thats fine except our student is a jr and also the Physics teacher feels the same way…yikes</p>
<p>Thankfully the AP Calc teacher is teaching --but is very tough…she gives 0-10 quizzes. Either its a 10 and perfect or a 0 if there is any error…and 4 of those per term equal a test!</p>
<p>The AP English teacher is swamping them–as is the AP latin teacher–our student has to translate 50 lines of Virgil every night…</p>
<p>The packet the GCs gave the kids had some general info (which we have gotten here at CC) and then had tons of questions for the kids to think about…
the kinds of questions that take lots of time–for them to think about themselves and who they are becoming…All good but really time consuming if done well.</p>
<p>A friend of ours has kids at a high profile school in Atl–
those kid are given a big packet of questions that must be prepared with written answers…for sometime next week!
very helpful absolutely–very time consuming for a student with a heavy schedule–Probably close to impossible–I see littel sleep in their future.</p>
<p>D2 was planning on taking AP Chem next yr but not take the test. However, they got a new teacher this year and kids are dropping it like crazy, including those that did great in Honors Chem. The teacher apparently gives boat loads of homework and grabs pieces from chapters they haven’t covered and puts them on the tests. There’s talk now that the previous teacher might do AP Chem again next year, in which case she’ll take it, otherwise she’ll opt for a second FL.</p>
<p>Other than that, things are going surprisingly well. She said midterms/finals weren’t too stressful and it’s ski season, which is her favorite.</p>
<p>Yea, no real complaints yet about Junior year in our house. For S2, taking the SATs in the fall and doing well enough to be done was a real stress-reducer. I also think our block scheduling has helped, because it reduces the number of APs any student can be taking at one time (we only have 4 periods a day). We’ll see what happens with that in May though, when he has to study a couple of subjects that finished in late January!)</p>
<p>D1’s AP Chem final went badly, and she heard that the APUSH test was a massive literal fail for the kids taking it today. Not good news, but it is what it is. </p>
<p>I’m trying to figure out how the school can be encouraged to revamp their profile to include the letter grade distribution for courses. Some colleges “get” the school and understand what low grades mean. But others don’t. It’s a fair bit of work to put together that type of profile information, and parent volunteers aren’t allowed access to student records so we can’t offer up parent labor. Maybe there will be some way to randomize it which would allow us to help put together something.</p>
<p>fogfog-my d is literally drowning in work and EC’s. She just finished a drama production this past weekend. And started today on the spring play. She has regionals for Odyssey of the Mind last weekend in February. She is up until the wee hours getting her homework done between AP Physics APUSH and her honors courses. HOnestly if I was her I would have crashed long ago! I don’t know how these kids do it. All I know is that I honestly did not work half as hard in HS. In fact, I didn’t work this hard until law school!</p>
<p>holliesue - I am always amazed at the vol. of work my kids do. Even my middle-school child has between 1-2 hours of homework daily, often more, every single day, and my hs junior, he does 4 hours each day. ST- when you figure out how to get the profile to show the grade distributions in the ap classes, let me know. I’d sure love to have such a detailed report for my kids in their hs - particularly with the tough ap graders - the teachers who adjust the bell curve downward such that there is one A per class… it is no wonder that some of the kids opt out of the tougher classes - not because they are not capable - but because the letter grade without context can hurt them.</p>
<p>Quick question about FAFSA:</p>
<p>when calculating EFC, do they take into account every member of the household? For example, my mom, me and my sister live with my grandmother. My mom makes about 18k per year and my grandma makes about 20k plus 10k social security (she’s a widow). So that’s a pretty substantial difference…</p>
<p>Stressed out - both physically and mentally here. D is also exhausted - she just can’t seem to get enough sleep. She’s been driving herself to school (rather than take the bus) - which gives her an additional 20 mins of sleep in the morning. She usually just gets up on her own and gets ready - but for the past week or so, I’ve had to wake her up. And she’s tired - early in the morning.</p>
<p>She was gone from 6.30 in the morning yesterday to 6.30 in the evening. Got home and worked on homework, studied for two tests today - she was up till 10.30pm. Really really exhausted - this kid needs her sleep! Her FB status reads ‘Can’t wait till Friday!’</p>
<p>My son seems to be doing fine. Not drowning (literally or figuratively 
) in work and somehow getting his 8 hours of sleep. Robotics is in full swing and meets 6 days a week and he started his SAT prep class today. Tomorrow they are forecasting snow and he has high hopes for an early dismissal. </p>
<p>He entered in his senior year classes early this week - AP English, Calculus (maybe AP Stats if Calc doesn’t work), AP Gov, Physics III, gym (no choice) and for fun - mass media II, piano, photography and Public Speaking (dual credit). It sounds like a pretty good mix of hard and not so hard, but we’re a small school so we’ll just have to see how it all pans out. </p>
<p>We’re still working out some college visits. I’ve made visit arrangements with 2 New England Colleges but there’s another weekend in April where three colleges (two in PA) have open houses or junior visit days and I want him to decide which one to see.</p>
<p>Kathiep - My S has the option of taking AB AP Calc or AP Stats next year. I asked a friend who recently retired as a math dept head what she thought. She said AP Statistics is much harder than AB AP calc. Something to consider. </p>
<p>My S has to submit applications for AP classes next year. So far he is putting in for both AP Physics and AP Envir Science (although he will only end up signing up for one), AB AP Calc, Ap Economics and AP American Govt and AP Amer History (will take 2 of the 3 hist classes) and AP Eng Lit. He will also take Irish Lit. He also has to take religion class like ethics. </p>
<p>This year has been a lot of work but not overwhelming. He likes all his classes except AP Euro History, which has turned out to be much more difficult than he expected.</p>
<p>Hoping to visit a few schools during Feb vacation. Not sure which ones yet though. We have had a hard time narrowing down which schools to visit.</p>
<p>Wow mamom, That’s a lot of reading with two history AP’s and AP English. What’s the reasoning behind taking two Social Studies classes? And Irish Literature too? That last one sounds interesting! Son’s not really aiming for the hardest math classes, he’s just going for the next level up from what he’s dong now, which is College Algebra.</p>