<p>Regarding CS vs. Spanish, if he is able to take AP Spanish next year, I don’t see any problem with satisfying the foreign language recommendation/requirement at even the most selective colleges. </p>
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<p>I’ve heard that adding a bunch of ECs senior year doesn’t do much for college admissions, as colleges prefer to see longer term commitment. Still, no reason to not do ECs if he is interested in them and has the time.</p>
<p>It sort of agree with the piling on science if your planning to be a science major. My S took AP Chem sophmore year, passed the AP with a 5 and took the SAT II and got a 740. Only dumb mistake we made was not sending the SAT II scores to any colleges, since I did not start planning college things till the last couple months. This year his junior year he’s in AP Bio, and honors Physics. He wants to take AP Physcis his senior year.</p>
<p>It’s all perspective, if your child is strong in science I’m sure piling it helps and doesn’t hurt. You just don’t want it to be too much pressure on the child.</p>
<p>His current class load this year is, Honors Pre-Cal, AP English, AP Biology, Honors Physics, and I’m not sure about US History that might be AP or Honors. But he plans on taking the AP and SAT II in English and Biology this year I believe. December he has SAT and ACT we missed November test deadline >.<</p>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>Only dumb mistake we made was not sending the SAT II scores to any colleges</p>
<p>Why do you call a mistake? Is it necessary to send SAT II scores to colleges as and when we take it? My S has taken SATII- bio and Chem in freshman and Sophomore year- but didnt report teh score to any of the colleges yet. </p>
<p>S is taking AP CHEM, HONORS PHYSICS and AP Computer Science this year. Next year he will go for AP Physics and may be AP BIO. He doesnt know if he wants to take AP BIO yet.
At the same time, he is doing his spanish 3, and next year will do AP Spanish. He will also do AP lit. next year. </p>
<p>One question: HOW are you all doing a box for quote? I Couldn’t figure that out…</p>
<p>santookie, there is no real need to send your son’s SAT II scores anywhere at this point. When he is actually applying to schools, you can send your son’s SAT II scores at the same time you report his SAT I scores at no extra charge.</p>
<p>BerneseMtn </p>
<p>My thoughts on AP Bio – remember next year will be the first year under the “new” AP test. The revised test is suppose to make the scope of the material smaller and more depth. IMHO – There will be little prep materials available. Teachers will not have a clear idea of what is required. Could be difficult. OTOH - curves may be better. Everyone is in the same boat.</p>
<p>If your kid reviews all the prep books, I’d avoid AP Bio.</p>
<p>Our school does not permit doubling up in subjects. Rare to receive permission for 2 science course – impossible to receive it for 2 AP science as the school alternates offerings each year. In my naive opinion, 1 AP science is fine unless she is aiming for MIT.</p>
<p>Thank you for the response. I was under the impression if you didn’t pick your 4 schools to send the SAT II scores you lost those 4, and had to pay the normal fee which is around $18 per school. We were completing the SAT and ACT apps and paid. Those stated we had till December right before the test to pick the schools we want the scores to go to. I thought we lost those 4 that were attached to the SAT II.</p>
<p>On the subject of AP and science classes. It’s all dependent on the person. My son really wanted to take AP Physics, but I guess it was AP Physcis C or something. So he did not yet have the math for it I assume. But he’ll definitely be taking it next year.</p>
<p>Yeah doubling up could be quite stressful. I think with my sons workload he’s stretched thin some days. He in cross country and with the labs and what not, plus AP English he’s only been able to go to practice and zero meets for cross country.</p>
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<p>Well he just took the SAT this month. So, Spring might be too soon? We were thinking a year to develop and mature. He could also use the summer holidays to prepare. Although, S did say that this year, during the week between Oct SAT and PSAT his understanding of grammar for the Writing section improved significantly. As such, if he scores close to 70 on the PSAT Writing (as opposed to 62 predicted by the SAT), he could retake the SAT sooner, perhaps after the Christmas holidays.</p>
<p>Thanks, Longhaul. I don’t think I knew about the “New” Bio test. I will dig around to get a bit more informed.</p>
<p>AP’s: We debated this year about whether to take AP Bio or AP Chem. Decided on AP Bio. A lot of the reason was because the new test would be uncharted territory. Hoping they offer AP Chem again next year. They have not offered it in some time, and I know there are not very many kids in the class. S2 felt unprepared in his college chem class. He felt like “everyone else” had already had AP chem. Of course, our regular chem teacher is not great. Which was part of the problem. </p>
<p>SAT: It is my understanding that SAT math has very little to do with regular math. I think it is more logic than anything. ANd maybe the same can be said for SAT writing. Rumor has it they look for a certain formula (incorporating something from literature or history).</p>
<p>Considering that the current AP bio exam has less than a 50% pass rate, the new one has to be better! Good luck to anyone taking it this year. My D13’s teacher last year was an exam reader and a teacher trainer. He predicted a 4 for her and she scored a 2. It was a very hard exam. This year she’s backtracked and chosen IB environmental systems. I don’t think she ever wants to study biology again. I’m planning for my 2014 son to take the new course and hoping it’s a better one.</p>
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<p>Your boy must be a smart kid, who was always pretty good at math throughout his life. My boy was always weak in math, so we were skeptical about his plans of becoming an engineer. We began to believe him only when he got a PSAT math score of 61 (92 percentile) last year. Prior to this he was always around 50 percentile in math. Even in 7th grade, when he took the SATs as part of Duke U, TIPs program he was around 50 percentile in math (98 percentile in critical reading).</p>
<p>I would guess that the majority of engineering undergrads today took only 1 AP science class in high school. Bio, Chem, Physics, and AP of one of them. AP Calc is probably also pretty common among engineering students.</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages when I was in engineering school (at a state flagship), almost nobody had taken any AP classes in high school.</p>
<p>Perazziman, Son was not selected to take SAT in middle school. He bloomed late and seems to have caught up in math and science. But DD bloomed earlier and so has had more opportunities for honors classes and taking SAT and ACT through CTD, Northwestern’s version of TIP.
This has been helpful for me to think through, thanks for the thoughts and insights, you all. We have until January to decide.</p>
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It seems like State colleges have gotten a lot more expensive now. At the same time scholarships/ admissions are a lot harder to get at state flagships. I think the general view is, AP courses lead to higher SAT scores. Higher SAT scores lead to scholarships/ admission. So, everyone thinks their child should take AP courses. It is a vicious circle. </p>
<p>S is considering Texas A&M, College Station as his top choice instate school. A&M seems to have a great petroleum engineering program. They also have skeet & trap shooting teams for which S may want to try out. With his October SAT score of 1380 (M+CR), he gets an automatic academic admit to A&M (that requires 1300). Out of state schools he is considering are U of Alabama and U of Arizona. However, all these schools generally give merit scholarships to NMFs, for which the cut off keeps going up. We expect S will make commended, but not hopeful about NMF. In TX the NMF cut off was 219 last year. So, our thinking is, if we have to shell out money, then S might as well apply to some Private dream schools too, such as Cornell, Brown, Yale and Harvard etc that also have skeet and trap shooting teams. What do you think?</p>
<p>I disagree about the kids take AP courses to get higher SAT scores. At least around here, kids take AP classes for the grade bump, to be at the top of their class and to show colleges they are taking the most rigorous courses offered at their high school.</p>
<p>^ Yes gpa & class rank too. My point is that APs are needed to impress admissions and get scholarships in an increasingly expensive and competitve world of higher education. It was not like that when we were young. State tutions were much more affordable and getting admission was a lot easier. In this way, a lot of people forget the real reasons for why kids take AP classes.</p>
<p>Very interesting conversation going on! Will chip in with my 5 cents when I have time to read and digest all of it…</p>
<p>DS is in Boston for that big rowing competition. He went on an unofficial tour of MIT yesterday with an older friend of his who is a freshman there and whom he adores. Texted me saying that he absolutely loves MIT and wants to go there! The tour involved some roof exploration and other crazy stuff that S says MIT really encourages 
This is something I was afraid of, that he will fall in love with one school that is so difficult to get into and so expensive!!!</p>
<p>The competition for my S’s boat is tomorrow. He is in a stroke seat - I absolutely can’t believe that my violin/piano playing, math/science oriented, glasses wearing (OK - contacts now) kid will become so good in a sport as to hold a first seat in a state varsity boat. You can search my earlier posts about music vs sports. I still believe that music is something that will stick with him forever but the sport has given him so much! While the violin still gets picked up a few times a week for practice it is the erg that he mounts when feeling stressed, before studying, while watching movies (yes, he ergs while watching movies). OK, so please send positive thoughts towards Boston late tomorrow morning, around 10 A.M. Boston time. Hope they will navigate all the bridges in a speedy fashion. I am so happy that he is able to experience this!</p>
<p>Kelowna: Best of luck to your son and his teammates. I don’t know anything about crew (don’t really have that sport in public schools here in TX) but it sounds like a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Kelowna: It sounds to me that your S is someone VERY special in so many ways. Good luck to him and his mates. All of my thoughts will be your way tomorrow AM. (Even if it will be 7am here )</p>
<p>Thanks for the good thoughts! They did very well!
Did not finish anywhere near the top but did really well considering their abilities. S said that they all felt very good after the race.
First time in such a big event. Next weekend Portland…</p>