Parents of the HS Class of 2013

Parents of Class of 20xx
2721

<p>Meda- most state require a standardized test of some sort for the graduation. In our state it is MCAS- To do MCAS, one need not study for it. It is a basic reading/writing/math test that most high school students can pass. There is no reason to worry. Your D who has done well in PSAT will have an easy ride. If you want to prepare, it would be enough to go through the past years questions to have an idea on how the questions are.</p>

<p>My S not spending time for preparing for PSAT even though I have purchased books for him. He has done one practice test and did reasonably well. And he thinks spending time on those practice tests is boring/not exciting enough for him. I wish he parctices more- MA has a high score needed for NMSF cut off. </p>

<p>The work load is heavier here than 10th grade. He is spedning more time on HW and test prep for sure. He has APUSH and BRIT- LIT as his most time consuming subjects.</p>

2722

<p>Meda: Here in California there are mandatory state tests and I believe they are ridiculously easy and no studying is required. They are taken in Sophomore year with the hopes that some will pass by senior year. I would imagine your daughter will have not trouble with them at all. </p>

<p>Nellieh: Students on the tours are all different grades, a little bit of everything. In the Spring they will have admitted student tours just for the admitted students. For D1 I dragged S2 along (they are 2 years apart) on all of the tours because I didn’t want to have to go again. But I left S3 at home, which is why now I have to start all over. S3 has been on a lot of campuses, for a variety of things, but never been on an actual tour, so I need to get my act together. S2 actually does tours for recruited athletes at his school, so maybe I should start with a private tour there.</p>

2723

<p>nellieh, we saw a mix of juniors and seniors at the open houses/tours. My D plays 2 sports, so we fit in visits when we can, some will be this summer unfortunately. (She missed a Columbus day practice yesterday to do the UChicago open house.) She is my youngest, I never took younger siblings along on tours, and it turns out there was no overlap at all in the schools they were interested in.</p>

2724

<p>I was going to wait until my son gets his ACT/SAT scores before we start visiting colleges-he’s taking the ACT in Dec and the SAT in Jan. Then we will be in a better position to determine whats what. I think my son wants to go to CA for school (stanford, cal tech, berkeley, harvey mudd- he is a math/science engineering type- none easy to get into) although I could also see him staying here in the northeast. I see a trip to CA on the horizon!</p>

2725

<p>David - I took my son to CA in August. My first time to CA and I LOVED it. </p>

<p>We visited the Claremonts. We stayed near CalTech. Be sure to visit another Claremont besides Mudd even if he is only interested in engineering. I enjoyed hearing about both the academic and social aspects of the Consortium from different school view points. It was great to see multiple dining halls as well. </p>

<p>My son is still struggling to get homework in consistently. I am so frustrated I am ready to pull him out of school. I just keep breathing deep and repeating the CC mantra “Love the kid on the couch.” What he is lacking in homework he is making up for in the Pumpkin Chunkin contest. His groups air cannon may get the pumpkin across state lines. This from the kid who doesn’t want to go into engineering. FWIW - AP Calc & Engineering are the only classes he is doing well in and completing all homework.</p>

2726

<p>Regarding labels for the college fairs, if any of your kids are attending the big college fair given by the NACAC, some of the dates have online preregistration available where a bar code gets created and the colleges can just scan it.</p>

2727

<p>Anyone have ideas for math tutors? My d is struggling terribly with pre-calc - 2 D’s. Reminds of the rotten teacher she had in 8th gr for algebra I - it traumatized her for life! She had been doing great until then A-, B+, then sunk to a C/D in 8th; bounced back up to an A in geometry/trig in freshman year. She knew she’d struggle in 10th gr algebra II, ans she started off with a C, and on her own, got to a B+ by end of year (the teacher, who was head of the math dept insisted she must have had a tutor, but we couldn’t afford one). At least, if you needed extra help, the teachers were there to meet with you but before school started. She always had her a cappella class then, which she could not miss. Here, she went to the teacher to ask for extra help, and she only gives group help not individual :frowning: </p>

<p>Tutoring we are is expensive. The best math guy is $200/hr; then $150/hr for the others. I was offered a college student who was a jr, and my d met with her for an hour on Saturday for $80. The problem was, she doesn’t know pre-calc; she could tutor up to alg II and then she took statistics in high school (never bothered with calc - wish we would have known that before we met; the big SAT tutoring place here recommended her since we couldn’t afford the higher priced tutors). I did try and look up some tutors from other colleges in the area, but you don’t really know what you are getting. I took this one on the college prep services recommendations, only because I knew they had a good reputation and wouldn’t put themselves in jeopardy if the tutor was bad.</p>

<p>My d gets it in class when the teacher explains it, and she is able to do the homework; however, when she gets a test, she absolutely doesn’t know how to attack the problem. She was so upset today saying why does everyone else get it but me. I wish I was good with numbers. I felt so sad, because I am useless with math. She is a great writer, but she just doesn’t process math. She’s panicked about the SAT’s as that is her weak spot, and the tutoring place said that your writing scores and math scores are generarally 10-20 points apart. I didn’t see the correlation, but when I looked at her 8th grade SAT scores (she didn’t prep), the math and writing were exactly 10 points apart. NOT GOOD since writing is her strength. </p>

<p>She loves literature, but each school teaches things differently. This year writing an argumentative essay is giving her some problems; as is APUSH with the QEC (question, evidence, conclusion). The teacher had no recommendations for books on how to write that way, so I will have to investigate on my own to see what I can find. It took her all weekend to do 2 essays - 1 for APUSH and 1 for AP Eng Language both about making an argument and supporting it. </p>

<p>She is using Khan Academy online, which is great for math as well as the Annenburg Center’s math site (showing why you need to know math in the real world). </p>

<p>I’m beginning to wonder if any of her physical (not to mention the stress from all these changes) has something to do with her processing. She is left handed but she struggles to do things with the left side of her body (this started happening after she stopped dancing). She had an echocardiogram and EKG, and the cardiologist wanted her to have a stress exercise test, because she has low blood pressure and a very high standing pulse (123), so they are trying to rule out orthostatic disease. She has been short of breath a few times (which we thought was her asthma) but she got very lightheaded and dizzy. The dr said it could interrupt blood flow to the brain (so scary). She refuses to acknowledge any disease, meanwhile I’m worried sick and want to take her pulse and bp as he said, but she refuses. She thinks because her ekg and echo were ok, that there is nothing wrong. </p>

<p>At any rate, if she can’t do the math, she is not going to be able to do the physics, so that will be two subjects that blow her gpa, and I can’t hire a physics tutor for sure. Junior year is the worst year so they say, but this takes the cake. She can’t wait for the year to be over
She said school reminds her of a soap opera. You can miss a week and come back and you can pick up where you left off. At her old school, if you missed a day, you were so far behind. </p>

<p>I think if they taught at a faster pace in public, and lengthened the classes to an hour, school would be done end of May, instead of end of June. </p>

<p>Thanks for the info on the state tests too. In private, you don’t need to take those. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps because they take the ERB’s vs. the state mastery tests? </p>

<p>Good luck to everyone’s kids who are taking the PSAT’s tomorrow!</p>

2728

<p>Medavinci - I don’t agree with the info you received about SAT scores. My D’s writing and math scores were over 100 points apart and we know several kids like that. Now her writing and CR scores were identical, but math is not her strong suit. Her math was below 600 and she got into several great schools - American, BU, SMU, TCU, etc. </p>

<p>Hope your D finds a good tutor. And I would suggest that she try group tutoring with her school teacher. It will also show her teacher that she is trying. My S’s math teacher gives extra credit for going to tutoring.</p>

2729

<p>Happy PSAT day everyone! The extent of D’s prep was looking over the freshman & sophomore tests & answer sheets that she took the last two years and she felt comfortable. She didn’t study for the SAT’s that she took on October 1st either, but I’m hoping that the experience was enough to kick that stuff to the front of her brain. Ah well. It will be what it will be :)</p>

<p>Surprisingly when we were chatting yesterday, she asked when the Chicago, Brown, Rice, Cornell night visit was and I said October 20th. She immediately said “ooh, that’s the day I get my SAT results” so I guess she is more interested than I thought!</p>

<p>Math tutors: D1 used one that was a teacher at a local private school. Only $50/hour but that’s the going rate here. Can you check to see if any of the local teachers tutor? Since teachers don’t make much money, many of them tutor for supplemental income. </p>

<p>meda: here all the sophomores have to take the PLAN which is the pre-ACT. They’re actually taking it today; sophomores who choose to take the PSAT today have to take the PLAN make up test tomorrow.</p>

2730

<p>Wishing all the PSAT-takers good luck!</p>

<p>Ds2 decided not to run this morning in favor of more sleep. He was projecting much confidence this morning. He’s funny in that, for him, so much of test-taking is mental – that is, feeling good going in. He took that practice test a couple of weeks ago and scored well so he didn’t want to do anything to take that confidence away. He told me if he took another practice test and didn’t do as well it would hurt his confidence. I drove him to school this morning and told him he’s “test clutch.” He liked that! lol</p>

<p>One thing he did do last night is set up a college e-mail account. I greatly appreciated that as ds1 just put my e-mail address down and I didn’t understand why I was being inundated.</p>

2731

<p>Here we have subject tests yearly for graduation. Since my childen are in an honors program and the AP/IB tests are earlier/harder/etc, it is just a blip for them. Not much to do other than show up with a number 2 pencil. </p>

<p>Tutors here are 40- 50 an hour. I have had great luck with some tutors when needed. D really needed assistance for Algebra and we got a tutor. I should have gotten one for trig but honestly the issue there was effort not comprehension. And of course to D the teacher was “rotten”, not that she (my D) was not working hard enough. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I have visits scheduled in the next month to Syracuse U, and Ithaca. I am trying to get D focused. Last night she lost it a bit when we discussed college. I think it is sinking in that she has some serious work to do to get where she wants to go. Which is good.</p>

2732

<p>Regarding tutors, there is an online site called Wyzant that can help you find private tutors.</p>

<p>Is it possible for you to help her yourself? I’ve always been my D’s personal math tutor, as math has been her weakest subject, while it was always my strongest subject. Even if math isn’t your subject, there are probably things you can do to help structure her studying.</p>

<p>Sometimes with math, the biggest problem on a test is not being able to identify which “type” of problem/solution a question is asking. During homework, the student does a whole bunch of the same type of problem in a row, and knows the solution for that type of problem, and is able to apply it. But at least for my D, she will frequently ask me which type of solution she needs to use for a given problem. So, the best preparation for her is mixed review problems, where she has to figure out herself which problem/solution type to use. Even a parent who isn’t great in math can help put together a mixed review set of problems. Sometimes textbooks have websites with additional problems, or you can purchase a workbook that goes with the textbook, which has answers provided. It is especially important to have a resource with extra problems that has the answers provided, and also good if they show the steps in getting the answers. Even if you can’t find the workbook that goes with your specific textbook, there are sure to be other Pre-Calc workbooks available.</p>

2733

<p>Getting a good tutor can be quite difficult. You have to find someone who knows the material AND someone who can teach it. We tried, briefly, a math tutor but found that tutors were for the seriously lost student with poor numeracy skills
Tutors may not really help the kid who is a good math student stuck on a particular topic and once stuck on one topic finds all the others that build on it are also difficult–which, by the time they get to pre-calc–is generally the case. </p>

<p>Math is my favorite subject but frankly I havent seen a lot of hte math my daughter is doing for over 30 years. Asymptotes? continuous series? ELLIPSES? But it is basically learning a technique and then using basic math facts to apply that technique. </p>

<p>Did you ever think to try tutoring her yourself? Really
you don’t have to know the math yourself to help
sit down and do the first few chapters of your D’s book and you will see that she is unlikely to have problems with the math (calculations and number manipulation) but it is the logic in applying the math to a new situation/problem. Nothing in the equation for an ellipse is much beyond algebra 1 (some additon, some multiplication and division) BUT finding the particular points/orientation/location of the ellipse can be complicated (like following an elaborate recipe for Duck L’orange) and lots of formulas. What happens is that the student has missunderstood the teacher’s directions or misread an explanation or skipped a piece of information. Once they have that “gap” they keep getting problems wrong and can’t see why. With my son, who was far more patient than my daughter, I would ask him to sit with me and the book and have HIM walk me through the explanation of the topic/problem type. Often, by trying to teach me, he figured out what he had skipped or misunderstood in class or in his silent reading of the chapter. D hates to do this with me (I think she is worried about looking stupid or something
) but I have noticed that she often is helping and discusisng math and physics with friends and finds working with a WEAKER math student is actually helpful. By the time she helps her friend she has figured out what she is doing wrong. It seems counter intuitive but it works for some students
if your daughter is willing to try it, go back to the material where she started to have trouble and READ the text book together outloud and work through every example in the textbook (not just looking at it but actually writing out the steps)
It goes painfully slow at first
have her try to explain it to you. Then she should look at her recent tests and quizzes, look at the problems she missed and figure out where she went wrong. I bet she has a few ah-ha moments. THEN if she still can’t figure where she went wrong, she gets an appointment with teacher who can explain it but she will be able to focus on what she still doesn’t understand. Right now the whole chapter looks confusing. She needs to break it down to figure out what piece of information is missing or confusing. The huge benefits are that you don’t spend any money, she learns how to figure things out for herself and you get to learn about infinite series and asymptotes
how fun is that!? Also, I have NEVER had a public school that does not make some math teachers available before or after school to help. It may not be her teacher but someone is there with an assigned time and place to help. Good luck!</p>

<p>PS It has been over 2 years since I helped son in math but son found that he “discovers” stuff when he tries to explain it to me
how to synthesize and simplify and has even called from college about a very advanced algorithms class to share a really cool brainteaser of a proof that he was stuck on
I had no idea what he was talking about but by the end of the conversation he said he think he had figured out what he needed to do.</p>

2734

<p>Stressing about the PSAT. S did okay last year, taking it cold as a sophomore. He did an SAT prep course over the summer and signed up for the same provider’s PSAT prep this fall. But his practice PSAT test scores have been all over the board. Some show improvement, others don’t. I suspect we picked a poor prep course, but now S goes into today’s sitting wondering if he’s improved or not since last year. Grr. Not much more to do but cross my fingers and hope he’s calmer than I am today!</p>

2735

<p>Yep, 13th, nothing to do but wait. :slight_smile: I was pretty confident about ds’s chances, but this year the cutoff went up four points in my state so I’m not nearly as confident. It is what it is. What drives me nuts is that our school won’t release results until January. Grrrr.</p>

2736

<p>DD is taking the PSAT test today. She is enrolled in a SAT review class through the school, so I am hoping that will help a bit. Good luck to all the test takers!</p>

<p>Med: Try and find a senior, preferably one who is in Mathletes or some other Math club at her school. Call the head of the math department or the guidance councilor and ask if they can recommend a senior who is strong in math and who might like to earn a few dollars. See if the guidance councilor can even ask him/her if they are interested, since they are not going to give you their number and your DD will be too embarrassed to ask. Offer him $30 an hour or whatever you can afford. See if that can help. I know this is stressful, but you have a lot of stress and drama in your posts. You keep coming back to “this school doesn’t offer the things our old school did”. This is not good for your DD. She doesn’t need your stress and she doesn’t need to hear it is the school’s responsibility/fault. It’s not, it is hers. Have her go to the group help sessions, the teacher will help her. It also shows the teacher she is trying and she will get individual attention. No, the teacher is not going to schedule a personal session with your DD. It is really not necessary. Have her go to the group session and try and get a student to tutor DD. Good luck!</p>

2737

<p>In my S school, every study period has math help in the MATH OPEN AREA. It is supervised by a teacher and students in higher math classes who are designated math tutors will be there to help. My son is a math tutor. He does math tutoring during his study halls and so do a lot of other students. So from morning 7 to evening 4 some one will be there(either a teacher or a math tutor) in the math open area to help students who have some questions with their homework. This is apart from teachers who will help them when they make prior arrangements. I heard many students do come to this math tutoring very regularly and get the help on their homework.</p>

<p>Meda- the reason why the private shcools don’t need the state test is that they are not accontable to the state.They have their own way of measuring their students progress. Most of them do some sort of standardized test- like IOWA TEST - to measure the progress of the students. This state tests are state’s way of bringing in accountability to schools. It is in fact a progress report for schools.</p>

2738

<p>We use tutors all the time in our house
if either of my kids is stuck on a concept, they first go to their teacher and then a tutor. </p>

<p>We did a full round of college visits this past weekend - I am taking D2 to schools that I know she will be able to get in and I am waiting for test schools before we visit selective schools. We have gone to big, small, urban, suburban and rural. </p>

<p>D2 has decided she really wants a big D1 experience
so that narrows it down a bit. I am shocked becasue I really thought she would be more inclined to go small and close knit. Both DH and I are surprised. We will have her apply to a couple of small schools in case she changes her mind.</p>

<p>She found some schools we visited too
add the adjective
nerdy, homongenous, artsy, and my favorite too annoying. In this particular case I had to agree with her
both the info session and the tour guide were frankly annoying! </p>

<p>So, D2 is really surprising us with her direction
Happy PSAT day! Good luck to all
</p>

2739

<p>momofboston, good plan to make sure she applies to a range of schools. It’s good to have options down the stretch. The last week in April, ds1 and I visited his top two choices, one a 2,000-student, rural Midwestern LAC 1,000 miles away and the other a 45,000-DI in-state school. These places could not have been more different, but I think it was a huge relief to him to, at the end, have a real choice of what he wanted his college experience to be.</p>

2740

<p>Happy PSAT day!! </p>

<p>Tutors: D1 only had maybe one good math teacher in high school and so she would self-teach herself everything. Junior and senior year she tutored Algebra II and Pre-calc. She also helped S2 and S3 (and even some cousins online). In college she consistently tutors others in her classes. And now she wants to be a math teacher. Go figure. Often, when my kids struggle in any subject (AP Bio was particularly tough for S2) I would go to the bookstore and buy them either the AP BIO for dummies book, or the notecards or something along those lines. Although I was good at math and chem, I don’t remember any of it and am of no help. But those books often explained things in a way that was easier to understand. </p>

<p>Meda I think if your daughter can figure out a way to make this school work it will be in her best interest. It seems that colleges love kids that overcome adversity and she has certainly had her share and more of adversity, but if she could find a way to make it work (socially and academically) it would make a really great college essay.</p>