<p>Very self motivated kid here, but also a procrastinator. Never knew that both can go together, but they can 
I did not realize how self motivated he is until late in his freshman year. I guess I was just used to nagging, as all I was seeing was the procrastinator part. Bad mom. But today I know better.
He sets very high goals for himself which I see now as not being that good. I do not won’t him to lose his confidence along the way.
DS will be taking PSAT this year. All sophomores are encouraged to do it for practice.</p>
<p>finearts - yep, our oldest D just launched 2+ weeks ago and it’s much the same as you described. She was a great older sister and really created the balance in the house among the other 2 and DH and I. They all get along really well but D1 was there for support, games, advice on life, homework, etc and it’s weird not having her here for that anymore because like you mentioned, it isn’t that the younger 2 want more attention now on them, or at least not as much as we now have to offer 
Although in some ways it should help as younger 2 are the ones that will need a bit more accountability for classes. </p>
<p>I hope they have a great time at the concert - that is such a great thing for them to do! Enjoy seeing him very briefly!</p>
<p>Ok…what is your opinion on this strategy for taking this first, optional PSAT. I forgot about it when S was in 10th grade and he went in totally cold, no calculator and not even a pencil and half asleep. Did ok but this turned out to be a really good outcome since he assumed he would do very well…the disappointment was a good motivator…he knew he needed to do better and actually agreed to go to a pre-psat/sat summer session (4 sessions) before 11th grade and did really welll when it mattered. </p>
<p>D has some type-A friends who are already doing some studying for the PSAT and asked what I thought. So…I told D she may want to just look at the booklet so she sees the format but not to bother studying…Why not see how you do cold so you know how you much work you need to do for the 11th grade if you want to try to get national merit sf, national hispanic, etc. She’s a bit of a nervous test taker so I thought why put pressure when there is no need? Thoughts?</p>
<p>I agree with you fineartsmom!</p>
<p>Check out a practice PSAT for format before to get over the test jitters, but no need to practice. </p>
<p>I agree that the “cold” test taking approach provides a solid baseline. This baseline helps focus the test areas which require more attention.</p>
<p>OTOH – if I had a kid who really wanted to study, no harm to permit her to.</p>
<p>I’m going to have my D’13 also take it cold the first time to see how she does. She’s usually a good test taker so I want to see if that is still the case. I did the same with D1 (who was not a strong test taker) although unfortunately her best score of ever taking PSATS/SATS was in 10th grade, but we couldn’t have known that either way :)</p>
<p>My son took the PSAT in 9th grade and did horribly, as to be expected. He hadn’t been exposed to much of the math and if the vocabulary isn’t something he picks up from a gaming magazine, forget about it. I’m interested to see the improvement this year just from the extra year of schooling. I will definitely have him prep for the 11th grade sitting though. He also is beginning to understand that he needs to expand his reading material. I’m forcing an hour of reading daily now that school has started. Once it’s in his routine though, it shouldn’t be an issue and he will probably (hopefully?) go beyond the hour.</p>
<p>There will be no prep for either the PSAT or PLAN in my house, unless D decides to review some math. It is absolutely no pressure as far as I am concerned, since it has no bearing on anything.</p>
<p>For the sake of full disclosure, D’13 took the ACT in 7th grade for Duke, the SAT in 8th grade for JHU, the PSAT in 9th grade as well as a independently graded ACT. All 10th graders in our district take the PLAN and it is strongly recommended that the GT & Pre-IB students take the PSAT in 9th & 10th grade for practice. So she’ll be plenty familiar with the format when the “for real” time comes. </p>
<p>My oldest didn’t really prep much before the “real” ACT or SAT; she did a few practice math sessions but that was it. Both my girls are voracious readers and that is a big factor in why they test well, especially on the ACT. </p>
<p>Am I the only one unhappy that this kind of stuff is raising it’s head so early in the HS career? I was really hoping to take a year off from thinking about college. D’13 had to do the Kuder Career Inventory this week and that’s brought up a whole other set of discussions…</p>
<p>Day 2 of school and all seems to being going well. Looks like it’s going to be a good year!</p>
<p>Day 1 of school today – earlier start time this year & I am happy to say my “not morning people” family got there plenty early.</p>
<p>But all is not good – S 13 lied to me about his summer reports. I discovered he completed them yesterday just prior to my getting home from work. It is the lying that they were completed that bothers me more than the procrastination. So frustrating!</p>
<p>I will have D look over the booklet they send home when registering for the PSAT so she sees what it is like. Unlike robD’s D, she has not already taken the ACT, SAT, or PSAT! She will be taking two SAT II’s in the spring, since she is in trig and APUSH, so there may be some extra prep for that later on.</p>
<p>mamabear: I forgot about SAT II’s! D will probably take the one that matches up with APEuro this spring; D1 never ended up taking any and was fine, but we thought she might have to scramble a little at the end of junior/beginning of senior year as schools were going on and off her list. I’d rather have D’13 have them in the bag and not need them rather than worry last minute.</p>
<p>I got to schedule teacher conferences this morning! We have those next week.</p>
<p>Something easy to do for PSAT “prep”: Sign up for the SAT Question of the Day from College Board. I get them every day for fun and forward them to ds2. This will help familiarize them with question formats but is stress-free. With more than a month to go, that’s plenty of “practice.”</p>
<p>Big news here is ds2 attained his big goal for the year: elected class president. Now, if only he would work on those grades …</p>
<p>YDS: that’s awesome! Congrats to your son :)</p>
<p>Congrats YDTS!! Great news!!!</p>
<p>Congrats to him YDS!!!</p>
<p>Congrats on class president.</p>
<p>A word on PSAT. Some programs require PSAT score for admission.
One that readily comes to my mind is RSI.</p>
<p>Has anyone been to Yale’s multicultural open house? They have one in early October and I was wondering if any parents felt it was a good experience for their children. Thanks.</p>
<p>10 tests/quizzes between today and tomorrow. D was up till midnight studying & is a little stressed Her group of friends had some kind of video chat study session last night. I think they’re all going to drive themselves crazy. </p>
<p>D doesn’t know this yet (because I just found out) but the band Train is giving a free concert Sunday night here in Nashville. She loves them & saw them at the Ryman back in April. I’ve registered for the free tix & will be picking them up today. Thinking that might be a good pick me up after a stressful week.</p>
<p>Garnet, you might try posting that question in one of the sub-catefories here: [Specialty</a> College Admissions Topics - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/specialty-college-admissions-topics]Specialty”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/specialty-college-admissions-topics). I’m Hispanic and have found that forum very helpful and friendly – and not just for Hispanics. Lots of info is shared by many people. </p>
<p>Ds1 was not interested in any East Coast schools so I can’t speak to Yale’s weekend, but he did attend events at a couple of schools and had a great time.</p>
<p>Yikes RobD - 10 test/quizzes in 2 days sounds rough! THe concert sounds like a great stress reliever - how neat that happened at such an opportune time!</p>