<p>I believe that most schools recalculate the GPA using their own weighting system, or dropping art/PE… whatever rules they want to follow.</p>
<p>As to score choice, you are correct that you cannot pick and choose the best scores from each sitting to forward to the school. Many colleges, however, “superscore” once they receive the reports and here’s why: it makes them look better and rank higher. They want to report the best scores possible to paint themselves in the best possible light.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, it seems fewer schools will superscore the ACT, although I wonder if that is changing? From our own experience, we know that Wash U will superscore the ACT, as well as Indiana U. Emory and Franklin and Marshall will not.</p>
<p>“Would any AP Chem teacher ever suggest that a boy buy a pair of shoes, rather than take an AP class because it would be better for his sel-esteem? AP Chem is not for everybody, I get that, but Yikes!”</p>
<p>Quick reply Glido: The chem teacher did not suggest my D buy cute shoes instead of taking the AP Chem test. He advised not wasting the $89. The person who suggested buying a pair of cute shoes instead was my very dear friend, an AP Calc teacher, who has known my fashionista daughter for 15 years and understands she will be probably be a NYC fashion buyer or representative ten years from now. No slam intended. We joke about it all the time how a child who loves style and glitz more than anything could come from two of the least fashion-forward Seattle parents.</p>
<p>Just catching up on this thread. It’s been busy!</p>
<p>Several school districts in our state administer the ACT to all juniors in late April on a regular school day. They’ve been doing it for several years and it’s paid for by the district. It does ensure that most the kids have at least taken a college entrance exam before applications start.</p>
<p>I wish they’d pay for AP exams though. Those get really pricey! DS did end up with credit for four classes in college, so it was worth it. One of those credits was from AP Chem and I think it was the hardest test he took in all of high school. His teacher actively discouraged many of the kids taking the AP Chem class from taking the test. He only wanted kids who would get a 4 or 5 on it to take it so his stats would look good! Ugg! Do I have to mention he was a terrible teacher? But it is a really tough test, so I can understand why a teacher might discourage a student from trying to take it after just regular chem. I do question the suggestion of buying shoes instead! How about subscription to Scientific American of Discover?</p>
<p>Our school district pays for the AP exams, but there is a down side to this. The students usually takes AP Lit/Language as dual enrollment classes. Then, they often do not take the AP exam seriously, which is why our scores are not great. They figure they have the DE credit. Well, not every school takes DE or in some cases, they will give only elective credit. </p>
<p>What I do not like about my son’s school is that kids have the option of omitting an AP score from their transcript. You have an off day, and you get to cherry pick which scores to keep. As a teacher, all I can say is I wish we got such a privilege. That poor score hurts our averages.</p>
<p>Son’s school does offer an SAT prep class during the fall semester. He could not take it, because of a huge schedule conflict. Over the best few years, there has been a Kaplan course offered in our county on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It does not work with the athletes’ schedules, as they usually have games or meets one or both days. The kids do receive a discount if they take the Kaplan course. I plan to seek out a summer SAT prep class for our son. Some of the community colleges offer them.</p>
<p>pacnwmom–I recall reading last fall that the # of students taking ACT surpassed # taking SAT, primarily b/c 14 (or so) states now use the ACT as their state achievement test. (We use the CMT and CAPT tests in CT, hence the C at the start of the titles.) Historically states in the middle of the US administered the ACT as their achievement test, but I believe NC joined that group this fall. Am not sure of the implementation of first test in NC. </p>
<p>I think I recall reading that many states do not include the writing section of the ACT when administering the ACT as the state standardized test. I do not know if this is the case in your state or if it would even be an option to have a student sit for the writing section, but I recall parents regretting that their children had not, so I am mentioning it here in case taking the writing section is an option.</p>
<p>Seattle–thanks for all the info. Am still curious if clerical staff (or computer?) extracts the info for Ad Coms to review and presents in school’s preferred format or if Ad Com sees all data as submitted. Am guessing that it is a mix of both, so that Ad Com can make a quick at-a-glance decision and then also delve more if needed.</p>
<p>MomRead- What averages do you refer to and how does omitting an AP score hurt your average? </p>
<p>I have no idea what the point increase is for honors and/or AP classes at DD’s school. But she does, I’m sure.</p>
<p>STEM and girls is an interesting topic and I’d love to see the results of that study. One small piece of the puzzle is that STEM kids, girls in particular, are portrayed in film and on tv as unattractive, poorly dressed and ill groomed. While I’m sure there are some STEM kids who fit that mold, the same can be said of an equal number of college students pursuing other majors. DD doesn’t fit this mold and people (adults are the worst offenders) are often surprised and a bit shocked that she’s interested in math & physics.</p>
<p>Ct1417- I looked at D’s SAT score report online. It said last year graduating class. D took the SAT in June 2012 of her sophomore year. The percentiles for your state and your high school did change quite a bit since the last time I logged in (2011 vs 2012).</p>
<p>Regarding the GPA, to keep it simple, D just adds 1 to all AP classes up to 8 semesters as allowed by the UC. </p>
<p>Agentninetynine- D’s best friend brother goes to Caltech. He mentioned that even the attractive girls “dumped” down their looks. He does not understand why either. Girls can be smart and attractive too.</p>
<p>Kees4me: I totally get what you are saying. Your first post was very clear about who said what and why. I completely get that $89 is a waste of money for a kid to take an AP class that doesn’t go to his or her strength. </p>
<p>–</p>
<p>A99:</p>
<p>The study that I referred to is fascinating and it came in the wake fo the president of Harvard University being pushed out due, in part, to provocative comments he made about studying why so women go into the STEM fields of study.</p>
<p>I attended the first meeting of the academics and the 130+ junior high girsl. It was eye opening. All of the girls were 11 or 12-years old and from public schools. They were selected as the girls with the best grades in science and math. One could not asked to have their daughters included. The first thing the professor asked the girls was, “who would like to work in a laboratory to study how to use physics and chemistry to separate H2O, water, and the many things that we commonly find in water naturally - things that might not be healthy for us?” A few hands went up. Then the professor asked how many of them would like to work to find a way to help poor children all over the world who get sick from a lack of clean, safe water to drink?" Every hand went up. </p>
<p>The professor told the parents in a seperate meeting that when these questions are asked of young boys, many of them are interested in using math, and science to find the answer to a question. Young girls are much more interested in helping people that are vulnerable. They don’t care what they have to do to help, they just want to help. Nothing about role models.</p>
<p>There are many studies showing the same gender pattern when it comes to engineering.</p>
<p>In trying to attract women to engineering, the most effective messages involve projects that improve people’s lives. The young men are more concerned with how much money they will make and the status of the profession.</p>
<p>This is not to say that no young women care about making money and no young men care about helping people, but there are clear differences by group.</p>
<p>^ I think the focus on helping others v. wealth might be as a result of societal attitudes. Even now, in this supposedly egalitarian era, women are largely the ones who stay at home or are expected to stay at home with children. Women still do most of the housework and cooking. In other words, society expects the XX group to contribute to a larger group as a part of its’ responsibilities, whereas there might be less emphasis on such ideas for boys. </p>
<p>I think mentors or even role models can be important. It’s somewhat reassuring and inspiring to see someone like yourself doing well and conversely, can be depressing if you don’t see such examples. For instance, all of the people who have my ‘dream STEM career’ at the local university are men. While many of these people are very nice and smart, it’s sort of disquieting and raises questions about whether one can “really make it”.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there is a physiological difference that results in differing interests for boys and girls. I personally don’t like engineering because I am somewhat more of a dreamer/big picture person and being an engineer requires you be really focused on concrete goals and ideas. </p>
<p>
I know some people who go to Caltech and I think it might be just because there’s so much school work to do. I mean, after 60 hours on problem sets, I think I’d have a hard time caring about making myself look attractive, lol. Looking good all the time is lots of work- “sloppy chic” takes a surprisingly large amount of work to pull off.</p>
<p>Am I right in thinking that, more girls are starting to get very high ACT/SAT scores, more girls are actually doing well in Math/Physics, so we will soon see more girls applying to Engineering/Math/Physics? I am an optimist :)</p>
<p>I’ve been following the conversation regarding stereotypes for STEM kids given here, both for boys and girls. I’ve started and few responses and none seemed to really get at what I was trying to convey. What I have experienced, both in my students hs, and at S2’s university, does not mirror these in any way. Their hs experience is a little different as they attend the magnet IT (Information Technology) hs in our county so I’m sure this has something to do with it. The entire student body is not IT/STEM as say TJ is, so there are some students that are at school here because it is their home/zoned hs, and some because they applied to the speciality program. The non-IT students are also very high achieving, and there is a lot of mixing of regular and IT students in AP classes.</p>
<p>In a situation like this you might think, especially with the stereotypes for girls, you would be able to look at the girls in the IT program and make a distinction from the main school population. Both DH and I have mentored extensively with the IT program, so I know these kids. I promise you, the same mix of assured popular very fashion conscious, to more reserved and less interested in appearance is going on in the IT program as the main student population. Perhaps it’s because these girls have a place to be themselves, lots of strong female role models from the classroom, community, and industry working with them, but I don’t see the gender bias that girls want to to into STEM to ‘help’, where as boys are after prestige and earning power. Sometimes this is true, but I see it across gender lines, not correlated with them.</p>
<p>Speaking more generally for my S2’s university (as I don’t know these girls on the level I do the hs students so I can’t speak to their motives for entering STEM), I do know from my time visiting on grounds, meeting his friends who are also e’school students, and frankly from the fb pictures that show up on his page (c’mon, if they are there I see them ), the women in the e’school don’t seem to have any different grooming or social skills then the rest of the school. They are all very bright, attractive young people. I don’t know perhaps it’s the air in a college town or youth, but they all seem well groomed and not at all the stereotype of a socially awkward computer/STEM geek.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to argue with anyone, I’m simply trying to say in my own experience…limited to our hs (where I do know the students well), and S2s university (where I’m simply making an observation on brief meetings and pictures)…this hasn’t been my observation or experience.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading about the girls in STEM with interest, too. In so many ways, my d2 seems like she might fit. At least she doesn’t wear make-up and keeps her hair in what my mom would call a pixie. She plays on the school softball team and runs track. You’d think nerdy and boyish from that description, right? Except that she’s a varsity cheerleader, on track to be squad captain next year. She is has striking features and is one of the most fashionable people you’ll ever meet. She can rock looks that most of us only dream of pulling off. In fact, she’ll be doing some print modeling for a local company this spring. </p>
<p>She wants to major in math, maybe double major in math and chemistry. She expresses no desire to help people or make the world a better place. She likes the subjects. And money. She plans to make a lot of money. And then marry “well,” too. </p>
<p>I know. She’s one person. And might be one of those few girls would would have said, “All right! Water impurities!” And I can see that research can be used to identify motivation. But how the heck does research ever quantify “nerdiness?” There’s the old porn definition (I know it when I see it), but really, how do these researchers go about making this determination?</p>
<p>In my experience as an (old) girl in STEM, the women I’ve known weren’t generally more altruistic than the men. I personally don’t dress up and wear makeup (though my personal hygiene is excellent if I do say so myself) and I consider that a great perk!!</p>
<p>seattle_mom, I think in <em>our</em> day women went into STEM careers because they love math and/or science. But what is happening now is that we’re finding that lots <em>more</em> women could be great in STEM careers, and would choose them if they were presented differently. A young woman may not love math or chemistry, but if she’s good enough at them, she might be happy to use them as tools to do something she feels is important and fulfilling, like helping people have safe drinking water. When I talk to middle school and HS girls about engineering, I tell them that they don’t have to love math, they just have to be able to get through the engineering math classes to get to the good part where they can start using math as a tool to do important and creative things in the world.</p>
<p>At my current school, a lot of guys who I wouldn’t consider the highly motivated/love math beyond anything group still go into engineering because they see it as a viable career option. The girls, seem to feel like they need to genuinely love math/sci to get into engineering or STEM jobs. I think mathmomvt is correct- maybe just the presentation is different. </p>
<p>I think I would’ve been excited by water impurities back when I was 11/12 but for some reason, I like the pragmatic uses of science (or at least the field I’m involved in now, biology) more now because there’s an incredible amount of suffering as a result of diseases. The field that really captures my curiosity is actually astrophysics and I dunno if I’m actually smart enough to do well in it, lol.</p>
<p>Also, I think nerdy is a tough definition. Does nerdy mean love of things because of the thing itself? Does it mean enjoyment of a subject? It’s hard to say.</p>
), the women in the e’school don’t seem to have any different grooming or social skills then the rest of the school. They are all very bright, attractive young people. I don’t know perhaps it’s the air in a college town or youth, but they all seem well groomed and not at all the stereotype of a socially awkward computer/STEM geek.</p>