<p>That’s great news, pdxsuzanne. It takes some pressure off when your DD can get a high score as a junior.<br>
We are waiting for my DS’s PSAT score in order to start formulate his list of colleges. He will take SAT in Jan and ACT in April and will sign up for the additional question/answer service for both tests. Right now, he has many ‘dream schools’ on his list. Until we see his real test scores, those schools will remain to be dream schools.</p>
<p>I GOT MY SCORES!</p>
<p>2340!!!</p>
<p>800 CR, 770 Math, 770 writing, 11 Essay. I must’ve missed one writing question.</p>
<p>I’m so happy. SAT, I am ** DONE ** with you. Thanks for the advice about not cancelling…thank god I didn’t.</p>
<p>AHHH, I’m so happy. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE.</p>
<p>Congratulations, Ecouter! Fantastic! You ARE done! Nice work!</p>
<p>Way to go ecouter and congrats to pdxsuzanne’s DD! That’s great news to have in hand before Thanksgiving – you both definitely have something to be grateful for!</p>
<p>Congrats to both. Nice to have this behind you!!</p>
<p>Congratulations pdxsuzanne and ecouter11!!!</p>
<p>NewHavenCTmom: I watched Yolanda Pelzer singing yesterday, it was amazing watching her. Not sure why, I remembered you and your DD. One day your DD might be standing on stage and doing something everyone else admires.</p>
<p>Congratulations (to all) on the scores! It’s nice having one major hurdle in the past. Of course, there are many others coming up… but for some of us, they still include more testing.</p>
<p>Youngest is spending the night at U Rochester with his brother. I’m hoping for inspiration. 
Regardless about that, I love seeing them enjoy some time together for a few days catching up on their lives. Time is flying by! Next year at this time we’ll be deep into application season again.</p>
<p>Congrats on the scores! I’ll get DD’s PSAT scores at teacher conferences in December and work out a plan from there. She’ll take the SAT in March as she has a conflict with the January date and the ACT in April. Then we’ll keep working on a list, but many of the schools she’s interested in are SAT optional.</p>
<p>DD headed off to a big half day of school today - Mass followed by a rally and then the powderpuff game! She’s so excited to be playing in it - go juniors! Her first term grades were excellent and she managed to squeak by with an A- in physics so she’s pleased about that. Even got A’s in APUSH and AP Spanish despite skipping Spanish 4. And I love how my non-catholic DD once again has the highest grade in religion!</p>
<p>Brought DS 11/15 home from college yesterday afternoon. So glad I was able to get him early enough to avoid the massive traffic jams last night and today! He changed his major from mechanical engineering to math and is much happier now that he’s made that decision and all is set. Luckily he’s pretty much on track for the major and doesn’t need to decide quite yet whether his concentration will be applied math, actuarial or statistics. His courses next semester will finish the required math classes for all the majors and add in Econ which he wants whether he does actuarial or not. So it’s nice to see him in a good place!</p>
<p>Hope all have a happy thanksgiving!</p>
<p>That’s great news Ecouter11! Beautiful scores. I am particularly impressed with the CR. I have heard that CR can’t much be studied for - it just reflects years and years of reading well written books. Agree or Disagree?</p>
<p>Congrats to all who are happy with their scores!
PS</p>
<p>S 14 and I took the MIT tour Monday. He was impressed that he is genuinly interested in a lot of their programs. I bought the story they were selling about how it ‘really isn’t a pressure cooker - look at all the supports we have in place.’ I was impressed with the ease of getting work in labs - the professors seem to really want the undergraduates, no matter how inexperienced they maybe. The male/female ratio is great. Lots of upperclassmen living in the dorms (which seem nice and close by to the classrooms) Also I didn’t realize that they have a few ‘alternate paths’ to avoid the massive intro lectures in the first year. Getting in is another story, but glad S seemed to understand the upsides and downsides.</p>
<p>Yup, I finished my binder, and slipped S’s notes into the proper place. I told him - your job is to learn their language, take notes!</p>
<p>Smiles,
PS</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving to all. Haven’t been on in a while given the recent storm and it’s aftermath as well as the fact that I’ve returned to school myself and so things have been hectic.</p>
<p>It’s been hectic for DD14 as well. Very crazy with all of her ECs as usual. Academics have gone suprisingly well. Her weighted avg this 1st qtr is a 98 so we are beyond thrilled especially given 3 AP classes. I think having a study hall period as well as lunch has helped her get work done given that her time is consumed by ECs well into the night most weeknights.</p>
<p>With the storm, her Nov SAT was postponed. Horrible communications from both Collegeboard and her HS. In fact we got the email about the rescheduled date from CB on Friday, Nov. 16…the day before the exam. Luckily, she had heard rumors about it so we were prepared for her to take it. I had been a few weeks since she finished her prep course (which was excellent), so I was worried, but she came out of it pretty happy. We shall see how she performed I believe by Dec 4. She is also set to take it again on Dec 1.</p>
<p>Hope everyone is doing well and enjoys the day with family and friends today!</p>
<p>D had a day off last Friday so we did a school tour. We visited Vanderbilt on Friday and Miami of Ohio on Saturday. The weather was great for both schools which made the driving much easier. The Vandy presentation and tour was probably the best we have been on over the past three years including S-11’s college visits. There were about 20 or so students in the info session with their families and the Adcon did a great job telling it like it is including the admissions numbers problem, the “tie breakers” they look at beyond grades and test scores, the use of the wait list, etc. She also had a great sense of humor and sprinkled it into her presentation at the right times. The tour lasted over an hour as we ended up in a group of 5 students and we had two tour guides. Although both were sophomores, they were well trained and knew the campus and the information when asked questions. D really likes this school and the size is near what she likes (6,500 under grads and 350 acres of campus). She needs to increase her test scores if she wants to apply here.</p>
<p>The Miami visit was also well done but not as polished as the Vandy visit. Since we were there on a Saturday, the presentation was in the large auditorium in the new business building. There were about 150 - 200 in total with families and the presentation was more of a canned powerpoint presentation by a junior member of the Admissions staff (or possibly by a senior student - hard to say as she never introduced herself in detail). The tour was very good. We had a junior from Kansas City who was well spoken, took her time and enjoyed talking to the parents and students in our group of about 8 families. D feels the campus is larger than what she wants (17,000 undergrads and 2,000 acres) so will most likely look at this school as a safety as it is in state for us. I must add that the campus is still beautiful and there has been a lot of construction over the past 10 - 15 years when I last visited as my older S graduated from Miami back in 1995.</p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the kind words, everyone! 
It just feels like at least one thing is done and now I can move onto the next challenge. Standardized testing is such a pain! Now hopefully the subject tests will go well and everything will be done on that front. It’s particularly good for me since Spring 2013 will be insanely busy with APs and major EC events. </p>
<p>ParentSparkle: I think it’s probably the easiest way to do well on CR. I love reading and read many, many (not all of them age appropriate ) books back when I had the time. Alas, nowadays I even have to skimp on my school required reading and mostly stick to reading the New York Times, the Atlantic and sometimes Huffpost since articles require substantially smaller investments of time.
I think a person can do well if they memorize lots of words (beyond Direct Hits 1 and 2) and do tons of practice; however, this isn’t very much fun. I actually find the CR passages kind of interesting: my last test had a really interesting article about how humans really want to have their feelings and thoughts confirmed. </p>
<p>I kind of crammed in my SAT stuff into the last week before the exam though… :P</p>
<p>So funny that our little thread was so quiet for a few days, then a nice flurry of activity. I was wondering where everyone had run off to. </p>
<p>@Ecouter— I hate to say this… but I told ya so! You rock and I am extremely happy and proud of you! Your hard work is paying off and its so nice to share in your excitement/accomplishment! </p>
<p>HappyORmom–I had never heard of Yolanda Pelzer. I yahooed her and wow, what a voice on her! So sweet of you to think of us… no matter what the reason is! Even sweeter of you to think of her and her future success. From your mouth to Gods ears my friend! I often find myself thinking of my cc family in my days activities as well. I thought I was just a little on the weird side!! LOL </p>
<p>Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I am a little under the weather and wishing I could stay in bed. Hope you all are having a wonderful day!</p>
<p>Happy thanksgiving!!! So many things to be thankful for this year and one of them includes the CC community. Thank you.</p>
<p>I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have been in and out of town over the past week, but still reading. </p>
<p>Congrats to ecouter & pdxsuzanne on results! </p>
<p>Thank you parentsparkle & AvonHSDad for the tour reports. DS is interested in both MIT & Vandy, so any information is welcome! Trying to talk DS into touring U of Tulsa in January on one of his days off - he’s not really interested. It’s a short 2 hours away, so I guess he’s feeling it’s too close to home! 
Vandy and Wash U are both easy drives, too, as is state flagship. :)</p>
<p>Thanks so much NHCTM and beadymom! For once, I don’t mind being completely wrong Now for the subject tests and then I can calmly donate all my prep books to my hapless sophomore friends. </p>
<p>I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Canadian Thanksgiving is American Columbus Day, so I didn’t get school off It’s not as big of a Holiday here, I think. I guess when you think about it, every day is Thanksgiving because there really is so much to be grateful for.</p>
<p>I think I’ll be applying to MIT RD next year. My friend has a cousin attending and he says it’s absolutely the coolest and most nerdy place on Earth. I think Boston would be a really exciting place to go to college; while I love upstate NY, it’s not very exciting without a car.</p>
<p>Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and fruitful Black Friday. 
</p>
<p>I just booked out trip to the east coast over spring break. [College</a> Search and Reviews, Scholarships, College Admissions Chances - Cappex](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■%5DCollege”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■) has a great tool for planning out college visits–including mapping out the best route. We will look at Northeastern, BU, Lehigh, Clark and Fordham – all offer merit aid and that will need to be part of the equation. I don’t anticipate DD qualifying for much need-based aid. She wants to focus on schools with 3K+ students. Already attending an all-grils high school so there must be boys on campus! If any of you have any suggestions, please let me know. We will probably look at Yale and Princeton (staying with a friend in Princeton and have close friends attending Yale) in the event lightning strikes twice and I win the lottery! </p>
<p>Enjoy the long weekend!</p>
<p>Congrats Ecouter and darling daughter of PDXSuzanne! Such exciting news.</p>
<p>ParentSparkle: What is the scrapbook you’re putting together. Is this a collage of all the colleges your child has visited?</p>
<p>PDXSuzanne: Excited for your trip! Sounds like a good group of schools. I can’t remember, is her major premed? What about Harvard – they have a tuition break for middle class families.</p>
<p>We’re still awaiting PSAT scores and we’ll go from there. DD hasn’t scheduled any testing yet, but she’s definitely an ACT kind of kid so she may switch gears and start studying for the ACT rather than the SAT.</p>