<p>MDMom,
If your DD is making it a competition with her older brother and is chanelling the energy to do so on her own then good for her. That is self motivation and she will definitely soar! If this competition, however, is occuring from any other aspect then that may not be such a good idea.</p>
<p>Learninginprog - thankfully, it is her own doing. And trust me when I say that she does enjoy having an āon-callā tutor ;)</p>
<p>S2 got his drivers license today. As I type this, heās driving himself to his voice lesson (only about 2 miles away) and then over to a friendās house. I think I might pour myself a glass of wine and put my feet up!</p>
<p>Thats awesome MDMom. Even better when the āon call tutorā is willing to assist :-).</p>
<p>Yeah for Megmomās DSā on getting his DL!!</p>
<p>BEST DAY EVER when S got his DL!!!
I instantly gained 5+ hours of my life back from driving them back and forth to HS, Cheer and FB/Track practice & workouts.</p>
<p>Megpmomā¦enjoy that wine.</p>
<p>megpmom: Congrats to S2! Mine has had his license almost 2 months. I kind of miss dropping him off at school. That was when we had some of our best conversations. But I donāt miss all the back and forth dropping off and picking up.</p>
<p>MDMOM1314: Could you please tell me how you got this private college consultant? We have been thinking of this for a while, but not sure how to go about it.</p>
<p>megpmom: congrats ā¦for your Sās DLā¦</p>
<p>Almost through the second week of school here, and my D is very busy juggling her academics with field hockey. AP English Lang takes a lot of her time as the hw requires much more thought and analysis. First APUSH test is today, but my D has heard through the grapevine that the tests are not as hard and mentally exhausting as AP World last year. She has managed to get some study time in after a lot of field hockey this week and is hoping to do her best. She scored her first hat trick (3 goals in a game) in a big win against a neighboring rival school last night! So happy for her as the coach awarded her player of the game! Senior regional orchestra auditions are a week from Saturday, and she is gearing up for that as well. Nothing like jumping into the thick of things right away!</p>
<p>I was referred to the consultant that we will be meeting with tonight by several other parents who have used this particular group.
I wouldnāt say that I was panickingā¦but I was panicking about Sās options for College.
One mother I spoke with recently, her D graduated with a 4.2 GPA, 30 ACT, Varsity Song, 100+ Service hours and did not get into USC :(</p>
<p>His general stats are (but donāt want to bore you with detailsā¦):
Cum GPA through Soph: 4.33
Class Rank: #4 overall (Fresh year rank was #5 overall)
Classes for Jr year are: 2 APās, 3 Hnrs
CSF, NHS
School ASB
Football first 2 years
Varsity Track first 2 years (All State this past season)
A little light on Service Hours (around 55 to dateā¦)
PLAN test score must have been pretty good as he has been receiving āinterestā letters from Rice, Brown, UofChicago, Columbia, etcā¦
And of course, his list starts with Stanford and Harvard and ends with USC :/</p>
<p>My husband and I figured that it was a small investment on the future one we will be making with his College education.
I would talk to other parents at your school, preferably those who have had kids that have graduated, etc. See what services/consult groups they used and what their admit rate was. The particular consultants that we are using limit the amount of students that they work with to 50 per grad year. And, they have experience with Ivyās which is a plus for us :)</p>
<p>All of our children really only get 1 shot at thisā¦just trying to do the best to help them get to where they want to go.</p>
<p>1 week into school and my kid is already failing a course due to not turning in homework!</p>
<p>Uggh ā Canāt wait for college when homework does not count toward the grade.</p>
<p>Already too little sleep. </p>
<p>Since becoming a parent Iāve done a 180 on homework ā really hate it. With a 7.25 hr school day - study halls which are not permitted at our school+ required sport requirement after school + required participation in at least 1 other school activity + outside school stuff * 3 kids = 1 crazied mother who wants to move to a school with no homework</p>
<p>MDMom: Iām no college consultant, but I just looked up USC on College Navigator at IPEDS: [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=āhttp://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]Collegeā>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)</p>
<p>USC has a 24% acceptance rate, so in my mind that automatically puts it in the āsuper reachā category for everyone regardless of scores & gpa. USCās 25-75th% for ACT composite score was 29-33, so your friendās Dās 30 put her closer to the 25th percentile of enrolled students. The conventional wisdom is that the lower end of the enrolled test score spectrum usually consists of kids who are: athletes, children of alumni, development candidates, URMs, etc. </p>
<p>Best of luck tonight! I donāt even think there are any college consultants in our area; the private schools have in house people and itās not something that public school parents are aware of.</p>
<p>Thanks RobD 
As of now, S considers USC is āsafeā school. Husband and several family members went to SC so hopefully the legacy will pull through. Unfortunately, I have seen several ālegaciesā not get in.</p>
<p>We have access to the in-house counselor at the Private School the kids attend, but would like to see if we can a little extra help with the Ivyās with the outside help.</p>
<p>Luckily, S has had some contact with a Track Coach from Stanford. So praying that develops over the next year + into some kind of āhookā for him.</p>
<p>We are almost through week 2 and the pace has definitely picked up. Production drama has started so S3 gets home from cross country practice every day at 4pm and then twice a week he goes to school for drama from 6pm to 9pm. He had a cross country meet on Saturday, one yesterday and another one this Saturday. His brother and sister are finally back at college so there are less distractions. </p>
<p>MDMOM: I am sure your counselor can give you an idea of what a āsafetyā for your S might be. YOu might check out the USC forum. A lot of kids with stellar stats and connections have been rejected. S2 applied when he went through, He had a 4.5 GPA, 2 varsity sports, captain of both teams, student government, blah, blah,blahā¦ and I am an alumni and he was rejected (and accepted to a lot of great public schools including UCLA, CAL, UCSD, Cal Poly SLO, etcā¦). He was kind of using it as a safety too (first choice was UCLA) and had not shown them any āloveā (campus visits etcā¦) which might have been at least part of the reason for the rejection. I hear that USC has ārelationshipsā with a lot of private schools, so maybe that will work in your sonās favor. </p>
<p>Longhaul: I hate homework too!!</p>
<p>Thank you very much for the information MDmom134, I and my H are thinking about a private GC tooā¦We are in a public school, have not met GC yet, dont know what to expect. Both myself and my H went to colleges abroad, so there is difference of procedures and the whole notion of not knowing exactly what to do surprises us. My S is doing 3AP+ Linear Algebra+3Honors classes in this year. His school seems to grade on a 4.5 scale. A+ in AP or Honors can earn 4.5 points as oppose to A+ in a regular class earns a 4.0. So far the school has not communicated any GPA or class rank to us. I kind of has an idea about where the GPA of top 10% of teh class is in previous years. My son is a self motivated learner but not a person who is bothered about grades that much. He spend a lot of time studying the things he like as oppose to study for the sake of grades. So his grades may not reflect what kind of a learner he is even though he has maintained an A- at least in all subject with an exception of Honors english last year. Has a number of really good ECās and a team sport to his credit. So we are wondering if three of us can arrange some thing like a private GC who can at least throw some light into this application process. </p>
<p>This forum has been so useful to me and it is always nice to know that you are not alone in this process. We moved to this town when he is in 9th grade, so we dont know any parents so far. So this is my only place I get any information regarding college application</p>
<p>DONI, it would be great to find the parent of an older student to āmentorā you. We can help with general college stuff, but there may be tricks of the trade at your school that only an experienced hand would know!</p>
<p>Meg- congrats on the drivers license. I cannot wait but unfortunately it will be almost a year. D is still 15 and in my home state no permits until 16, then we must wait about 6 mos to get a license. I really could use it now as we are in teh middle of soccer season. </p>
<p>Ds school had an open house last night where we were able to travel through the schedule. We got to learn a bit more about the IB program and requirements. I felt my blood pressure rising as there is just so much to it. D has not had killer HW yet. I do know she is very efficient. </p>
<p>We have begun our EC arguments early. We are in teh middle of varsity soccer so she is booked nightly until at least 5. She is also on the school newspaper and a student council officer- which means that every morning she needs to get to school an hour early. And of course she is an active member of both of those so she is always volunteering to take on major fundraisers, assembly planning, and event planning.</p>
<p>blueshoeā¦great news about the hockey goals! D scored one too last night with brand new stick. I had felt bad because for 2 years she has used the stick that I bought in one of those ābeginnerā packages with the bag/balls/shinpads. I, frankly, never expected her to like this weird sport. It was a pretty lousy stick (wood?) and way too short for her as she has grown over 3 inches since 9th grade. </p>
<p>FH is an absolute killer way to start the semester. She returned from an away game last night at 10 to do physics/math/spanish and wash shin pads for practice todayā¦I went to bed long before she did! Still, it is a short season but I think it makes them prioritize and become efficient right at the beginning of the semester. As soon as she is done she can take on drivers ed and perhaps SAT prep on hte weekends after club soccer winds down. </p>
<p>We have an ancient Honda in need of a driverā¦On the one hand my life will be so much easier when she is driving and on the other I will miss the information you get while driving around to practices/games/events.</p>
<p>Thanks famm! Picture of D ran on the front page of the sports section above the fold! She was thrilled! Then she got disappointing results on the APUSH test.
Alas, the ups and downs of junior year beginā¦</p>
<p>eta: Congratulations to your D as well famm! Sending wishes for a successful season to her!</p>
<p>I need some advice. My sonās 10th grade PSAT was 154. He took the SATs in May and got a 1680. 590cr, 560m, 530w. He did no real prep for it. He had been attending a free college prep workshop at the local library and he took the same practice test a few times and he readā¦not studied, but readā¦a few chapters of the Spark Notes SAT book. And that was it. Iām not sure that a self directed (mom directed) prep plan will be very efficient for him. Over the summer, I had him start working on the Blue Book. He will do the exercises but doesnāt seem much interested in reviewing why he got things wrong. And once he knows what the correct answer is, he canāt act like he doesnāt know it when redoing the wrong problems. </p>
<p>Anyway, I found a reputable organization that offers test prep and admissions counseling. They did a small group at his high school last year but because of budget cuts, wonāt be repeating it. I have heard good things from the people I asked about it. But they offer private SAT tutoring for 5 or 10 weekly 2hr sessions at $55/h. I realize thatās a great deal for private test prep but still would be a stretch for me to save up between now and March. Iām willing to do it though if I could be reasonably sure it would pay off. Iām hoping that he can get scores as close to 650 as possible across the board when he retakes in May. But is that a ridiculously unrealistic goal based on his current scores even with private prep?</p>
<p>D2 seems to be off to a good start - sheās really enjoying physics which surprised her but made her happy she switched her science. She is utterly bored in her AP English class and tried to switch to the harder teacher but that class was full - she loves english so is bummed she has the easy teacher since she is envious the other class is already reading great books and having discussions. Iām hopeful she can work something out.</p>
<p>And sheās ****ed now because her theater teacher let someone else switch classes but not her, I told her Iād go to bat if needed but she doesnāt want to leave her class with too few people, or make waves this early in the school year which I get. Typically she will gripe and grumble but make do, I just get to the be the brunt of the griping and grumbling!</p>