<p>It seems like we are all going to have to take a leap of faith that the Adcoms know the complex personalities and grading structures of all of these schools (plus homeschoolers!) I don’t envy them!</p>
<p>Question: How have you arranged your kid’s interviews? Do you call, email? Should the email/call come from your kid? I’ve done the back-office work on setting up tours and info sessions since most of it is online. Thoughts on the next part?</p>
<p>Thanks, all!</p>
<p>We have set up interviews online. I admit that I have taken to emailing both D and S with notes about what they need to do - getting teacher recs, interview set-up/followup, etc. I also have used bullet points in those emails to outline what they need to cover in an email. I feel kind of guilty about that, but I guess I justify it by telling myself that they have certainly never been through a process like this, so they can’t be expected to just know what to do on their own. They have had absolutely zero guidance from the (very, very young) GC. When I emailed the GC with a question about college apps and Naviance, she answered, but also added, “This will all be covered at a meeting next September,” which was her way of telling me that I should just be patient and there wasn’t any need to be doing anything over the summer! When I asked her what her plans were for coverage while she was out with her pregnancy (due Sept 20th), she did send a questionnaire for the kids to fill out and return to her, so that she could write their LORs early. She will then give them to another counselor to “tweak” as necessary. I feel badly for the other kids/parents that may not even realize she will be out in the fall…this could really throw off their application process!</p>
<p>I let my kids set up interviews. The first couple of times they called or e-mailed we went over what they needed to say/write first, but after that, they got the hang of it. It’s definitely a teaching moment vs a sink/swim moment for us.</p>
<p>I don’t remember if I mentioned it before or not, but no ranking here and plenty of kids > 4.0, but usually with relatively low test scores.</p>
<p>Adcoms do need to look at things carefully, albeit, quickly to get through as many apps as they generally have.</p>
<p>My kids’ school (private, grad class ~70) does not rank. </p>
<p>Attended graduation for a local HS (public) and I estimate that over half the student body stood up for GPA 3.5-3.75, 3.75-4.0, and 4.0 (11 kids) combined. Wow! Half the graduating class has an A average. That seems… not average…</p>
<p>Kids should set up their own interviews even if you have to sit there and make them do it! ;)</p>
<p>Finally have a Senior in the house. Wrote his last final this morning and is very relieved. Barely squeaked A’s in three classes where he sat on the A/B cusp all semester, and brought up the one C to a B. Whew!</p>
<p>I don’t know of any schools around here that rank. I know my kids school didn’t. But what the gc does is gives your kids gpa, then tells how many kids are in the class, and then they say - this number of students have a 3.7 - 4.0, this number of students have a 3.5 - 3.69 So without giving a specific rank, you can see where in the class they fall. </p>
<p>When my son graduated hs last year his now girlfriend was certain she was valedictorian, when her parents asked out of curiosity how a girl with all A’s and as many AP’s/honors available didn’t win, they wouldn’t tell them anything. They didn’t even announce the val’s gpa. My personal theory is the kid who won was a well loved student who was really involved in lots of school activities and they chose him.</p>
<p>Collegefortwins: I agree with Mathmomvt there is no need to buy a jacket for a college interview.</p>
<p>Dd’s school is also one that changed its grading system. After freshman year they added a 4.33 for an A+ grade. I’ve basically been calculating her GPA for anything needed as unweighted and out of a 4.0 scale as I can’t figure out how to do it with one year on the old scale! They won’t tell her what her exact rank is until later this summer/early fall when they put all the junior year grades in. They weight AP and honors classes for rank but not for GPA. The one thing that may hurt her rank is the two years of band she took that are considered a CP rank. What stinks most is a free period study for a 7th class doesn’t affect the rank but taking band or chorus as a 7th class will bring down your rank even if you get an A or A+ in it!</p>
<p>DD was told she is near top of class. But big question will be with Val/Sal as supposedly you need to be at the school for all 4 years to be Val or Sal. We think the #1 in class right now is one who transferred in as a sophomore. I guess the policy is because they don’t want a transfer from an easier school to be Val or Sal but she transferred in from a harder school. Plus DD says she’s a really good student who works really hard.</p>
<p>On another note, we’re in the middle of our college tour! We saw Yale on Tuesday. Didn’t make it in time for the tour but did get to the info session. The adcom who ran the info session was great! She talked for about 75 minutes and it flew by. She said she covered a lot of info about Yale in general that was covered on the tour so we didn’t feel we missed much. We had done a bit of a self guided your in April and had parked somewhere else on Tirsday so had seen another part of campus getting into town for lunch and getting to the info session. Decided it’s a really long shot for DD so IF she gets in we can go back and visit for longer. Of course she still really liked it so it will stay on her reach list. </p>
<p>Yesterday we visited Drew in the morning. I hadn’t made an appointment as I wasn’t sure of when we’d be arriving given the traffic trying to get from CT to NJ in the morning. Nevertheless we found the admissions office and stopped by. Supposedly they have tours at 10:30 and an info session at 11:15. We were there about 10:40 and saw no sign of anything. Including no one at the main desk! There were maps and directions for a self guided tour right outside the door so we decided to do that. It was a good tour and a pretty campus but DD decided it was too small a school building wise for her. She wants something more spread out with more than one science building, etc. The campus has lots of trees on it and I can understand the descriptions of living in the woods. </p>
<p>Next stop was Princeton - loved! We’re in trouble there as she’ll have to really improve her test scores to even have a shot at the lottery (although the adcom said that test scores were the last thin he looked at and that no one thing was going to admit or deny you). The campus was beautiful and the town was cute if really crazy trying to find a place to park to grab lunch. The tour guide was great and I could see DD being friends with her. I’m not sure which sold DD more - hearing about the paper she had written about “Music Man” or that the band doesn’t march but just runs around all over the place during football games! DD loves playing in the band at her school games but they’re so small that this year they didn’t leave the stands. The past two years they would just stand in a semicircle on the field during halftime. Actually marching would be way too intimidating for her but randomly running around is just up her alley!</p>
<p>So I’m hoping that really liking two reach schools will encourage her to study hard this summer for her ACT and SAT and hopefully improve them when she takes them this fall. Motivation helps!</p>
<p>Today we’re off to see Ursinus and she also has an interview there. And we may check out Villanova this afternoon.</p>
<p>We met with college counselor a few days ago and it seems S list is ever changing. Right now we have about 14 schools on the list. Every time we visit a school, it gets dropped off the list and a new one added! Argghh! Especially frustrating since we have already visited 12-15 schools and only 2 have stayed on. We will have 3 trips planned end July/August so he better “love” one of them! </p>
<p>Also got SAT 2 Math II subject scores in this morning. He was happy with them so guess we are done with that one. Honestly, I was hoping they would be a bit higher but I know he tried his best. </p>
<p>AvonHSdad – thanks for the school visit updates! Enjoyed reading them. I will have to remember to bring good walking shoes and ditch those stilettos for Lehigh! Perhaps based on that not a good fit for S since he is already a bean stalk! LOL.</p>
<p>akmom – loved your Princeton story! It sounds like she had a good connection there so I am rooting for your D to go there! What a funny thought of the marching band running around!</p>
<p>CT1417 - We will tour Lehigh end of August and let you know how that turns out. Bucknell - I did have S look at the school virtually a few months ago, but he was not interested in the course offerings they had for his major. So we took that off the list.</p>
<p>Got sat 2 physics back this am…bumped score up 70 points from previous, so think standardized testing may be done unless DS wishes to shoot for the moon with an October go at the SAT…entirely his call…</p>
<p>Hi all …</p>
<p>I’ll weigh in on our grading system too. Our unweighted is out of a 4.33 (A+) and weighted is out of 5.33 (again, A+). And our school doesn’t rank publically either - though you can ask and they’ll tell you. </p>
<p>(Come to think of it, theoretically, you could have straight A-s your entire high school career and not have a 4.0 GPA. A bit strange.)</p>
<p>And we don’t have a valedictorian or salutatorian either. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that … on one hand, I hate the train of thought where everyone is a winner. (“And you get a car! And you get a car!”) And on the other hand, I’m sure the difference in GPA between #1 and #2 is itsy bitsy. Heck, I’m sure the difference between #1 and #10 it teeny as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the visit reports! I so enjoy hearing everyone’s perspective and experiences. </p>
<p>Congratulations on the early reports of our June test scores. I’d already shared this was the final test no matter the score. Too much stress, CR & M goals met, time to move on. It was the W that was dogging him. I actually had to refresh the screen to see if the scores were right. The CR & M were identical which is what confused my sleepy, uncaffeinated brain, with a beautiful 800 in W. 
Please don’t think my intent is to brag. I’m so happy for him. He can close this chapter feeling really good, no regrets, and move on. The fact is the overall bump would have been more useful equally distributed over the three sections. Written is the least important of the three. So what. Celebrate the victory of mastery, not because it means something huge in the admissions game (which is why I’m sharing). I hope that makes sense.</p>
<p>yay blue! What a relief for everyone who has testing done. I think DS’14 is done as well. He has a high ACT score and a high SAT II math. I think he’s eliminated all the schools that <em>require</em> a second SAT II, though one school “recommends” SAT II’s in a vague way, but not saying how many or which ones. He’s applying for engineering, but none of the science classes he’s taken so far align to a SAT II well, so he would have to self-study parts of any subject to do well, and he’s not that self-motivated. So I think we’re declaring the testing DONE and going with what we have.</p>
<p>Congrats blue! Personally, I can celebrate those with great scores in the exact same way I celebrate sports wins (or great plays), mock trial wins, or great musical/theater performances. I see no difference. It’s ok with me to celebrate others even if my guy doesn’t get there. 
</p>
<p>Congrats to all with scores they are happy with! I still don’t know if we’re there or not… I might know tonight.</p>
<p>OK so we checked K2s scores. the M went down :(<br>
the CR went up 30 pts
the W went up 120 pts
the essay went up 3… :)</p>
<p>So SAT superscored K2 is solidly fine for all of the schools on the list (SAT-wise)–except maybe one…</p>
<p>The scores aren’t out of the park CC high–however solidly in the right place for the pool K2 is fishing in</p>
<p>its the GPA which is what it is… :(</p>
<p>Next up the AP scores and the ACT w W score from May/June respectively</p>
<p>Got my fingers crossed waiting on the AP scores. Hoping for a good AP Physics C Mech score to mitigate the lack of a SAT II Science test! Vermont gets “early access” to the online AP scores on the first day, yay!</p>
<p>(Also as an aside, have my fingers crossed for a NYS Regents score for a student I taught this year – we’re not in NY so we didn’t teach to that test, but we did cover much of the same content so I hope she did ok!)</p>
<p>Hi all! Just joining in. I have a DD14 and a DD19 (weird to say). DD14 is still in school and doesn’t finish until the 27th. She is experiencing a bit of “Junior-itis” and is ready for the year to be done. Her school forces each class, even electives, to give finals and she has been working on a 12-15 page research paper for APUSH. The weekend after school ends she will be headed up to Maine with some friends. Immediately after she will start an internship at the local courts with a public defender. She took the June ACT but is still waiting for her scores. She got a 30 in December. We have looked at Northeastern, Boston College, UMass Amherst, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Georgetown, American, and George Washington. Most of those have been taken off her list but she has kept Northeastern (she wants a revist and my legacy), UMass Amherst, Bowdoin, American, GW. We still have to visit Bentley, Trinity, BU, Conn College, and Brandeis (we’ve done drive bys) Luckily they are all local!
Thats all for now</p>
<p>Welcome Rashel. My youngest is also a 19 I guess (mine are boys) I had to count on my fingers to be sure ;-)</p>
<p>Well, mixed feelings about June SAT scores. DS14’s goal was to raise Critical Reading which is difficult to do. His CR score plummeted 60 points, Math declined 30 points, and Writing climbed by 80 points. Go figure. So the lemonade is a Superscore 80 points higher than single highest sitting. I wish UC system in California superscored. As he will probably apply to major in Engineering, his high math score in 1st sitting is more important, yes? I told him that as far as I am concerned, he is done with SAT. Now he focuses on maintaining a high GPA and writing strong personal statements.</p>