<p>KLucky: I think our kids go to school together 
My D was sick last week too & ended up missing 2 days so we had the catch-up fairy at our house last week. On top of everything else.</p>
<p>I have two freshman daughters in high school this year. One chose to take the ACT to get a ābaselineā this year. Weāve just received her score online, and I am trying to understand how good it is, and what to expect of her future scores based on this one. She received a 27 over all. Anyone with a child who took the ACT this year as a freshman? Thank you!</p>
<p>D took her ACTs as a freshman this year but we havenāt gotten scores back. What I can tell you is that is an amazing score for a freshman. D1 who is a senior had friends who were IB/AP kids and scored 28-29 as seniors. </p>
<p>A 27 composite falls at the 88% but thatās for upper level students.</p>
<p>First AP exam tomorrowā¦
He has another two scheduled for next week but at this point we are thinking he should skip AP Human Geo and not try to cram in and study like crazyā¦
Any othr AP testers in this crowd?</p>
<p>No APs yet, but I just registered my S for his first subject test on June 5 (bio). Iām curious to see how it goes. His teacher says he is a good candidate to take it.</p>
<p>3 APs in 9th grade? Wow. I donāt believe the 9th graders in our HS have that opportunity (S is taking the most challenging courseload offered).</p>
<p>Kelowna: to my knowledge, only 1 freshman at our HS has ever been allowed to take an AP class and that was because he was an uber math genius, had run the math table & took AP Statistics. The 1st AP they can take is sophomore year; I had asked if D2 could take a 2nd AP class next year (a 1 semester version of an honors class she was going to take anyway that was new to the school) and I was told that the administration thought sophomores taking 2 AP classes would be ātoo much.ā Decided it wasnāt worth my energy to push it. Whatever! Good luck to your son! D1 is taking her first right now.</p>
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<p>Just for comparison purposes, our D1 scored a 29 on the ACT as a HS freshman and ended up with a 32 as a senior, though she never liked that test as much as the SAT where she did perhaps slightly better (CR+M+W = 2200) and ended up at Haverford. I think you can expect your freshmanās score to go up by several points. The ACT was originally designed in part as an āachievementā test and still is somewhat more so than the SAT, which originally billed itself as an āaptitudeā test. They both play down that distinction now, but my D1 says thereās somewhat more advanced math on the ACT than on the SAT, which now dubs itself a āreasoningā test with math problems that arguably require less math knowledge but are trickier and less straightforward than those on the ACT. In any event, D1ās ACT math score went up significantly as she got more math under her belt, and her ACT science score also went up sharply with a little prep work, learning to interpret graphs and data tables. This, I suspect, is a pretty common pattern.</p>
<p>My D got a 29 from testing in Feb through Northwestern NUMATS (Northwestern University Midwest Academic Talent Search). Just yesterday, I got the stats back from NUMATS, but I got the ACT Student report from ACT a long time ago. </p>
<p>According to ACT, 29 is a 94% in the US and a 93% in our state for all test takers. But among the 9th graders taking the ACT through NUMATS, it was the 88.5 percentile. They show the means for NUMATS participants - 20.6 and for College Bound Seniors - 21.1. Then they show the mean separately for 6th, 7th 8th and 9th graders. 9th grade girls average 24.4 and 9th grade boys average 24.7. This was all interesting stuff to me.</p>
<p>No AP classes allowed for freshman in our schoolā¦S just took the test to ātest out upā in science and mathā¦weāll see. After my other two (lower GPA/higher standardized tests) Iām much more interested in S3 keeping his GPA as high as it is rather than jumping too far ahead of the pack being more matchy/matchy seems to be a better path rather than being too lopsided since this one is interested in Big 10. The other two went to small schools that I think can look at an application in a more holistic manner. Sophomore year will be more challenging and give us an idea of what his academic horsepower really is. He took, like his brothers, the ACTs in middle school (for the Midest Talent thing) so we āknowā about where heāll be ACT wise.</p>
<p>We donāt have any AP classes for sophomores at our school. We tried to sign my daughter up for one and they rejected it. We decided to take another class since she dropped band and will have time to take it her junior year now, but it makes me sad to think that our high school doesnāt allow what so many other schools do. Our school board is the most inflexible group of people Iāve ever had the displeasure of having to deal with. They are absolutely arrogant, and believe every parent is far less competent to make decisions for their kids than they are. They have literally passed ārulesā that make taking 4 years of a foreign language nearly impossible, and taking other classes, that students who want to compete for slots at tough schools need, nearly impossible. The weird thing is parent after parent has shown up to meetings to ask for waivers for certain ārequirementsā and they are denied each time, and treat the parents as if they are asking to put their kids on crack and deal it to others. Itās truly indefensible how they treat parents and honors students. They believe without their āwiseā rulings all kids would end up pregnant, drug addicted, alcoholics. (Sorry about that rant, seeing all of your options for kids makes me jealousā¦)</p>
<p>AtomicGirl, that would make me jealous and furious to boot! Does anyone on the school board have kids in the high school?</p>
<p>Only one AP in sophomore year, APUSH. I donāt know if others are available in special circumstances. Iām going to need to research this because our youngest ('18 
) is gifted in math (the reason she will be homeschooled starting in the fallāthere were no schools except the one at $12K :eek: that could handle her needed acceleration). She will most likely be way past geometry, the choice for the highest level freshmen, when she starts high school. Bleh.</p>
<p>How do you plan your S/Dās summer? staying home self study/goof off? Any good summer camp to join? Some of them are really expensive. My D has no idea how she wants to better spend the summer, of course she told me she would sleep till noon everyday which is so far she can think ofā¦
Seriously for a freshman girl, what is best plan? My S used to stay home working his math problems (he qualified multiple USAMOs), but my D does not like math, I guess there is DIFFERENCE between girls and boys. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Well, my son completely tanked this year. I expected high school to be a tough transition for him, but I wasnāt expecting him to do this poorly. The upside though is that now it looks like he will be getting the services I felt he has needed but his middle school didnāt and he can really only do an upward trend from here on out.</p>
<p>^^Sorry to hear that. Itās hard to predict how the kids will adjust to high school. The upside is itās just the first year and adjustments can be made now for sophomore year. Junior year is the really tough year at just about every high school. I held my breath most of the year as my dsylexic hit high school but he came through it with an adjustment on the fly here and there to his schedule to mix up the math and science with the reading-heavy classes so he didnāt end up with an easy tri with little reading and writing, then a really, really reading and writing heavy tough tri. Having two older kids now finished with high school does because you know the āsystemā and how to get classes changed, etc. If this one were my first I know I would be clueless.</p>
<p>nerdyDad: because I know my kids are pretty crispy by the end of the school year, I let them have a lot of āvegā time. For my freshman D, itās tough since she canāt transport herself anywhere. Older D will be working, so Iāve staggered some things throughout the summer. Sheās going to a 3 day journalism camp (cheap & local) then has a week off; then sheāll go to a 2 week academic camp (expensive but older D went & I think it will be a great experience) then a week with our youth group helping out in Appalachia, followed by a week volunteering at our Vacation Bible School. In between, sheāll sleep late, read and she has a very ambitious plan with her group of friends to make a movie. There will be some summer assignments coming out soon, but theyāll be for AP Euro. No math or science in the summer in my house :)</p>
<p>Our school will let you take whatever AP you want as long as you have met pre-reqs.
This is actually a bit of a problem as DS wants to take many 
I am so afraid he will burn and his GPA will drop.
The only default AP for sophs. is APUSH. </p>
<p>OK, so has has texted me after AP Calc BC exam today saying that he thinks he did OK.</p>
<p>nerdyDad, my '13 D will probably be babysitting (two families, but no regular gig as of yet), keeping her younger sister and cousins occupied as needed, helping around the house, updating Facebook continuously, reading almost continuously, writing, etc. She is NOT mathy despite being good at it.</p>
<p>The past two summers have been really rough, family-wise (lost my mom last November to ovarian cancer after 18 months), so Iām letting the kids be kids.</p>
<p>KLucky, several are retired educators and have grandkids, not high schoolers. One has younger children. I left my first meeting so upset, if I could have had a couple of other parents join me on the board I would have. I donāt consider myself a politician at all, but I figure I couldnāt possibly do worse.</p>
<p>As for summers, I have usually let my kids veg - started during our homeschooling years - but last year I wanted my Sā11 to get a job, but too young. My D will work a few more hours each week with the cat adoption agency. We also hope to go on a foreign missions trip. We had thought we would go to Northern Ireland, but theyāre not sure they need us yet. Whereas, we heard missionaries from China tonight and they need all the help they can get. So we may go back to China - I would absolutely love that. Other than that we hope to visit some colleges for my Sā11.'</p>
<p>I would like for S to get a job but we have a lot going on.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>RobD: your D sounds like having a good balanced plan to me, I like that, I am going to do more research to find possibilities and opportunities nearby.</p>
<p>KLucky: I am really sorry to hear your sad story, I can feel the family pain, my mom and father-in-law are very sick, they are are over 80 now. We are doing all we can to support them(it is part of our duty, isnāt it?). I let my kids know but not get involved emotionally. My D occasionally got babysitting work in the neighborhood, no regulars either. Facebook connection is my Dās daily activity among other things, yes reading, not much writing, she is lazy. She said she may study some SAT preparation books this summer for the incoming PSAT test this fall. </p>
<p>AtomicGirl: Voluteer work might be a good idea, but good volunteer works are hard to find, last year my S volunteered at CDC for a week with introduction of a close friend.</p>
<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Iām new to the boards and just getting started but this is a great kick-off thread!</p>
<p>My name is Leeann and my Dh is Rob. We have three kids and our eldest will be in the HS class of 2013. She is nearing the end of her Freshman year alreadyā¦ OMG! I canāt believe how fast it flew by.</p>
<p>I havenāt really had a chance to read the thread yet so I will be doing that next and looking forward to getting lots of good information (and maybe being lucky enough to contribute some as well!)</p>
<p>Leeann
Vanderbilt 1987
mom of three (15, 11, 8)</p>