<p>Regarding college mail, My S hasn’t gotten too much, but then again the only college board test he took before the PSAT was a World History subject test in June. He’s gotten a few things from U of Chicago, Vanderbilt, Bard and that program Lead America. Otherwise nothing, so I am assuming the PSAT related mail has not started yet. I hope everyone’s SATs went well today. My S is taking the ACT next weekend and he announced he is not going to study much for it because he is more interested in the SAT. I have to say that is annoying me even though he might be right. Also I can barely stand the suspense about the PSAT results- I know others may have to wait longer according to previous posts, but I can’t take it anymore!</p>
<p>Waiting to hear from S how the SAT went…praying he was able to finish his essay this time. Tomorrow starts prep/studying for the ACT next weekend.</p>
<p>S also informed me that his Track season is “starting a bit early” this year. Seems like the Coach wants him and a few others to run in a local Meet on the 17th.
To be honest, I am not to sure what I will be more anxious for…his test scores or his times from the Meet.</p>
<p>Wishing everyone out there great baseline scores or score improvements!!
:)</p>
<p>“Baby, It’s (dark and) Cold Outside…” I feel for you. I was up at 5:30 to judge at S14’s speech meet. I got there and learned that he wasn’t performing because he hadn’t officially signed up for that meet. Ugh!</p>
<p>Try this
[ quote ] remove the extra space inside the brackets [ /quote ]
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<p>Report from the SAT: He said it was long. He thinks it went well (which doesn’t mean a whole lot because he is a glass half-full type of guy), that he finished the essay and that there were mostly seniors in his room.</p>
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<p>Ugh is right! Were you able to refrain from ripping his head off right then and there? ;-)</p>
<p>Thanks for the Quote link and tutorial. I’m about to find out if I learned it or not!</p>
<p>D said the SAT went well overall. I’m glad she didn’t feel bad about it but we’ll see how she fares. She strongly felt that being in AP has helped her with taking long tests. She told me about her essay and her ideas were good- hopefully she hit most of the parts of the formula they use. </p>
<p>This weekend our church is doing “Walk to Bethlehem”, which is an interactive reenactment of biblical times, including a marketplace, live animals etc. D will pick up a good 9 or 10 service hours on that AND she gets to hang out with her friends, so win/win.</p>
<p>Good morning fellow '13 parents! Seems like we had quite a few taking the SAT yesterday. I hope the results are good for all! My D will be taking her first SAT in March, but more importantly first semester exams are next week. Interesting setup we have here as the first semester is not over until the end of January, but exams are before the winter break. This is the last time my D will be taking a full set of exams as AP students are allowed to exempt the second semester exams if they have taken the AP test and seniors are permitted to exempt all exams if they have a B average. My D will start the push for them this week and it will be a grueling couple of weeks, but she is looking forward to being almost complete with this part of high school.
Juniors also find out their class rank at the end of first semester, so there is quite the buzz about this around school as well. D was also nominated for summer residential governor’s school on Friday! She is very excited and wants to go, but there is still a long process to go through to get there, and she won’t find out until April if she has been admitted. It is a month away from home living on a college campus, so it would be a very wonderful experience for her. </p>
<p>Vandy, I used to take my kids to a Walking Through Bethlehem at a local church when they were young. It was very realistic and the actors were very good at staying in character. We enjoyed it a great deal. I just mentioned to my D the other day that we should go again since we have not been in a number of years.</p>
<p>I found the post-PSAT mailings for my older son covered the entire range of schools and showed that the schools are probably only selecting based somewhat on scores, a lot on ethnicity and race and sex, and TOTALLY ignore if kid put down a field of interest and self reported gPA. How else to explain why my mediocre grade/URM/interest in Art only/good but not stratosphere score kid would get mailings from schools that do not offer art degrees such as the West Point and the Naval Academy or just a BA in art and not a BFA? and ivy leagues where a kid with good but not great scores and mediocre grades couldn’t possibly have a chance. I assume they just want to increase how many applicants they get making the student think that if they received a mailing or an application it MUST mean they have a chance. Harvard sent two complete application packages–what a waste of paper! Yale made sense given the strong art program but really…Columbia? Cornell? for art? for a low B student?</p>
<p>I have warned D to take with a grain of salt what comes in the mail or email. She should spend time looking at the mailings of “unknown” schools if she has the time and interest to see if a good fit may exist.</p>
<p>A very few schools did sent very targeted mailings to my sonThey would send a letter saying “Given S’s score, if he has xyz GPA he would be eligible for ABC scholarships/honors college/etc.” Some were related to his ethnicity and would talk about diversity on campus, student organizations and some special merit scholarships. However, most of the very targeted mailings were just letting students know about merit scholarship opportunities. These, obviously, only are sent to kids who get high scores. I assume the higher the score, the more of these very directed mailings you will get. However the general brochures and even applications seem to be broadly distributed and only loosely tied to scores. </p>
<p>I hope all did well in their tests. It seems like a good strategy to get them done before the holidays like a benchmark. March is my D’s first big SAT but I am hoping the prep class will be enough to get a score she can be satisfied with. I don’t think taking a test more than 3 times looks bad unless the kid already has high scores and seems to be neurotically trying to increase by 20-30 points. But, if a kid does one as a sophomore and makes real increases the next two tests as a junior, who would think it weird to try one last time to get another significant bump?</p>
<p>I’m finally caught up with this week mail. PSAT scores will be available Dec13-14. I can’t wait to find out the scores.</p>
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I did maintain my cool. The speech team coach is writing him recommendations so I feel I owe her big time. I actually enjoy judging speech meets. I just don’t like the hours. Yesterday I judged impromptu - the topic was “Jerry Sandusky”. Two kids didn’t know who he was. One made up a speech about how he was an explorer who founded Sandusky, Ohio. I also judged original performance and prose interpretation. While I was annoyed with S14, it was a fun break from my younger 3 kids.</p>
<p>We had a great dinner conversation about college with DD. She is picking classes for senior year, has to be in the computer by 12/13. She has to pick between AP Spanish, AP Bio and AP Psych, with all the other classes already set in stone. AP Psych is the current favorite.</p>
<p>The way they do it at her school is they have Intro to Psych the first semester and it is not weighted, then they teach AP Psych the second semester and that is weighted. </p>
<p>The choice is really this: Should she take AP Spanish in the chance that she will not have to take language in college, or should she take AP Psych as a career exploration choice, since she is thinking Neuroscience as a major. My older son took AP Bio and the teacher is sub-par.</p>
<p>I was SHOCKED to get D’s PSAT scores today when I went to get the mail. I need to email the GC and commend her on getting them out so quickly. I expected them late this week at the earliest.</p>
<p>D did pretty well. She is not even close to NMF or NMSF and we knew that. However, she did improve by 90 points from her sophomore PSAT! I was quite happy to see that. Almost all of that was in math, which was sorely needed. She still needs to get the math score up some (and we’ll see how she did Dec 22!) but it was definitely steps in the right direction. :-)</p>
<p>Let me know when you guys get your kids’ scores too! </p>
<p>BTW, I took my youngest to the pedi today and was talking to him, since we’ve been family friends for years. His daughter (oldest child) is also class of 2013. They aren’t even really thinking about college yet and he looked at me like I was nuts when I asked him about it. Nice to have a place like this to hang out! :-)</p>
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<p>It really is fun and just as much fun to be in it as to go through it! My 3 kids love to participate. It’s a really nice outreach to the community.</p>
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<p>Hahaha, that is so funny! I love the explorer part. Points for creativity? ;-)</p>
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<p>Hmmm, good question and probably one the more “seasoned” parents should answer. I’m inclined to think that if placing out of Spanish would be an option, that would be the route I would encourage. But if your D really wants to do psych and has heard the teacher is wonderful, maybe I would go that route. So essentially, I can’t help you. lol</p>
<p>Look at me, all Quote-Happy now!</p>
<p>Bernese: I would recommend taking AP Spanish. Both D1 and S2 stopped after Spanish 3and both their colleges require a language and they had to take one. Their teacher for Spanish 1,2 & 3 was awful and they felt like they couldn’t handle AP Spanish (at our schools the majority of kids in AP Spanish are native speakers). I am hoping S3 takes AP Spanish next year. ONe of our friends, who took AP SPanish, but did not take the exam because she didn’t think she would pass it, easily passed out of Spanish when she got to college. Next year will be the first year of the “new and improved” AP Bio, I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know anything about AP Psych. But if the first semester is unweighted would that affect her class standing? At our school the valedictorians (top 2%) are picked after the first semester grades, and in S2’s class one girl missed being valedictorian because she took 3 APs Jr year and 4 senior year and everyone else had done the opposite.</p>
<p>Jealous of Vandygrad! I wonder if our results are sitting in my mailbox? Will find out later…</p>
<p>hey i know this is a parents thread but…im one of the “Students of the HS Class of 2013/College Class of 2017”. and im nervous…</p>
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<p>I’m guessing that’s normal. Especially based on the wildly fluctuating mood I’ve seen in my daughter the past couple of months. I know she is feeling the pressure, just like you. As a parent, I’m not entirely sure how to handle it or help her. Being sympathetic to it doesn’t seem to help a whole lot. I haven’t really given it the whole “be glad for your opportunities” lecture yet b/c I don’t think that would be well received either…</p>
<p>Hang in there, akashdip. This too will pass.</p>
<p>Re. AP choices, I think it is best to avoid AP bio if you know the teacher isn’t exceptional. Fewer than 50% of test takers have passed in the past. My D found it to be a very difficult course and test. Her teacher was an exam reader and predicted a 4 for her. She got a 2. Psychology is an interesting course and probably an easy test if your daughter is interested in the subject and a good writer. My 2013 daughter took a 3 week psych course at CTD before starting high school and self studied to a 5 her freshman year. The Spanish course could enable your daughter to test out of college FL if she wishes. My D tells me that the oral part of the exam is difficult if you haven’t practiced in a language lab but that the reading and writing part is not bad. She scored a 770 on the Spanish SAT II and a 5 on the exam but she had spent a year as an exchange student in S. America. Good luck to your daughter on making her senior year course choices!</p>
<p>Good morning! I am just catching up on your recent posts. Hope all students did well on the SAT’s! D is opting for March and June. March will be tough as it will be the musical season. D has much on her plate and the musical just adds one more thing. SHe has debated dropping it since her EC’s are already strong without it. </p>
<p>D is getting mail from the usual suspects- Vanderbilt, Uof Chicago. I suspect it has more to do with hteir marketing budgets and less to do with her PSAT scores. </p>
<p>I talked to someone over the weekend whose D has a full scholarship to M I T. At the end of the conversation, I felt like breating into a paperbag. What his D did in HS was overwhelming. Sometimes it is just best to ask, “How is your D doing?” and move along. </p>
<p>Bernese- this is just a personal bias, but I would recommend taking Spanish. I think colleges will look for that more than Psychology.</p>
<p>Good Morning to all!
nellieh- Funny that you refer to the musical season. My D is in two this spring & she is excited. She is usually in 3-4 per year.
My D took SAT last Sat & it was great to have it out of the way. We have had a busy Christmas season so far with many performances.
I hope everyone gets good PSAT scores. Our school is unlikely to give them out until January.</p>