<p>S3 is hoping to get a job for the first 6 weeks of his summer (which is doesn’t start until the end of June). If that happens, it will severely limit any college visit trips.</p>
<p>Yep, summer visits to New England LACs will take place, combined with a sports camp along the way so D can get an assessment of her potential to play at some of those LACs. Summer is very short - school runs until mid-June, and preseason starts mid-August.</p>
<p>S’13 is hard at work on the dreaded physics class egg drop project - using only tape and straws. And I am quickly running out of eggs. Luckily, I made S put the egg in a plastic bag before the test drops to contain the mess. Zero successes so far, more tweaking is required.</p>
<p>D13 got news today that she is a semifinalist for study abroad with the National Security Language Initiative for Youth this summer. Hoping that this summer will work out. Last year she didn’t get past semi-finalist but I think her rationale for her language choice and reasons for participating are better this year. Now I just wonder how she’ll get to the interview from her western boarding school.</p>
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<p>WOW! That is a lot! Congrats to her.</p>
<p>Not quite sure about summer plans at this juncture. I think Spring Break would be the best time to look at some schools but D really wants to do the Spring Break mission trip with the church. I guess we will do some here and there during the school year too. </p>
<p>D is interested in possibly going to a summer writing program, so she is researching that. I’m also thinking either a summer job and/or a college level class at the local CC. We’ll see.
First Christmas, and then figuring out my younger two in terms of day camp for summer.</p>
<p>Vandygrad: D2 plans on doing another writing program this summer too. I don’t think we’ll do any college visits over the summer; we have 7 planned during random days off and Spring Break this year. We’ve seen 1 other on her list which will leave 5 to see during senior year. </p>
<p>indycat: congrats on that score! That’s well over the highest state cutoff so I think we can officially say hooray for our threads first NMSF :)</p>
<p>Apollo6: congrats on the study abroad program! That’s a wonderful opportunity.</p>
<p>PSAT curve sounds brutal. I’m torn between wanting to know and wanting to remain blissfully ignorant. Oh who am I kidding…I WANT TO KNOW!</p>
<p>So, what does that mean when a PSAT curve is “brutal”? Is there anything we can read into that? DS’ PSAT score dropped from 220 sophomore year to 215 this year, which was our state cutoff for this last year. This is all new to us, but I was hoping we’d be sitting more comfortably for the next 9 months!</p>
<p>Indycat: Congats that’s a wonderful score. National Merit here you come!</p>
<p>Summer Plans: Most importantly we are trying to plan a multi-generation trip to celebrate my FIL’s 80th birthday. (I am lobbying for a disney cruise out of NY - he doesn’t want to fly and I think it would cover the wants of people between ages 7 and 80) After that we need to fit in drivers ed - it didn’t happen last summer and build season is starting soon with Robotics so I don’t think it will happen during the year. DS is also thinking about Project Catapult this summer, but no definite plans.</p>
<p>I am finding our list of possible colleges is getting less focussed as time goes by - we visited some schools last spring break and then focused on taking the SAT 2’s (which now I don’t know if we’ll need.)</p>
<p>What do you do with a kid who got 800 on his Math 2 and Chemistry (without taking AP Chem)SAT’s, but spends 40 plus hrs writing a weak 2 page English paper. Grades where on the rise in 10th grade - not as much in 11th, but he pulled a 4th quarter miracle last yr, so who knows. Wants to study Engineering, but wants a mid-sized university with freedom to take other courses.</p>
<p>And add to all of that, Mom wants some Jewish life and I am unsure how much support he will need and how he will handle independent living with Aspergers. Oh and some merit aid would be nice since we won’t qualify for need based aid, but have spent a fortune on moves and thereapies to get him to this point.</p>
<p>OK - I just want the GC to respond to my e-mail and give me DS’s PSAT scores.</p>
<p>@MumTo3: Technically speaking, when people say that a PSAT curve is brutal, it means that ETS/College Board decided that a certain section was particularly easy. By doing this, College Board then goes and curves each section to match the section’s overall difficulty.</p>
<p>As a junior myself this year and having just received my PSAT scores (and missing my state’s cutoff by a margin), I can confirm that the Writing section score was pretty bad. For example, in previous years, missing one question on the Writing section might have resulted in a 79, while missing two might have resulted in a 77 or 76. But this year, missing one question in the Writing section resulted in a 76 (Wednesday administration) or a 75 (Saturday administration), whilst missing two resulted in a 71 (Wed.).</p>
<p>CantConcentrate, we won’t know this year’s state cutoffs until September. Oklahoma’s cutoff went up 3 points last year; it could go back down some. Indycat’s D’s 231 is a safe bet, but many of us will be like MumTo3 and waiting it out for 9 months for official notification.</p>
<p>aggh I couldn’t take it anymore and emailed our GC about the psats…</p>
<p>There was a poster on the National Merit subforum this past year (it’s under the scholarship forum) that had done a pretty good job of predicting if individual state cutoffs were going to move. College board will release an overview of the 2011 PSAT results by state (last years slides were dated 12/22/10 so I’d think we’d see this years posted sometime soon after New Years) and you can look at your states numbers and see how they’ve moved from past years. They’ll be here: [PSAT/NMSQT</a> Data & Reports](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/psat]PSAT/NMSQT”>SAT Suite of Assessments – Reports | College Board)</p>
<p>For data wonks like me, it’s calming to play with the numbers because it gives me a sense of “doing something” while waiting. For others it adds to the stress. So I don’t want to add any additional stress to this process for any of y’all :)</p>
<p>David: you’re far more patient that me. I emailed day 2 and got shot down 
Ah well, there’s hope for seeing them during exam week (but I’ll be sure to mention to D2 to stay at the back of the kids who are asking…)</p>
<p>The GC just emailed me back and said they went out this morning…now I don’t know if I am more or less anxious! At least now I know when to expect them.</p>
<p>DD’s school had an announcement yesterday, “come pick up your PSAT scores at xxx office on Thursday or Friday”. Seems pretty transparent.</p>
<p>Congrats Indycat (NMSF) and Apollo (study abroad)! </p>
<p>Still no word on PSATs here however D will not reach NM levels so I will just wait until they make it home. </p>
<p>D did a summer program at American U last summer exploring journalism. She loved it. This summer will be short, end of June to Mid Aug (soccer starts). I think we are going to have an old fashioned time of it. As in get yourself a J-O-B. :0) We are also planning some time in Canada, and some time visiting some colleges. But a J-O-B is in her future.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed for scores with which you’re happy, David and Bernese!</p>
<p>Rob, will that thread be easy enough to find? I might want a link if I can’t find it …</p>
<p>D got her PLAN test results this week, both her GC and I were very pleased! Now to wait for the PSAT, I did email her GC about them, we are on very friendly terms, and she said they did not have them yet? I am not concerned so much about NMF, she did well as a freshman but I would like to see a considerable jump in scores!
D is so excited she will be an official junior Jan 9!</p>
<p>Alright, Rob. I give up. Can you provide the link, please? No one knows for sure, but I’d love to see the methodology.</p>
<p>Son’s school said PSAT results will be released after the holidays.</p>