<p>@ AvonHSDad, You probably already know about this program, in fact it may be the one AvonSon qualified for, but I thought I’d post the link as it’s at Miami U, Ohio:</p>
<p>[Miami</a> University Junior Scholars Program](<a href=“Summer Scholars Program | Miami University”>Summer Scholars Program | Miami University)</p>
<p>I can’t remember AvonSon’s main interest so I won’t go hog-wild posting other’s, but this one is supposed to be quite good.</p>
<p>My older daughter self-studied for several APs but they were in social sciences or art history. I think it is more doable if you can just read the material. I don’t know how well it would work for sciences. I guess I would look at the pass rate for AP physics and examine a good prep book and see if it seems reasonable. For instance, the AP bio pass rate is terrible. My D worked hard in a good class and still scored a 2 last year. My kids are probably more verbal than mathematical but I would hesitate to encourage them to self-study a science or math AP.</p>
<p>I’m such a ding dong!! ApolloSon qualified for a program earlier this week, not AvonSon. I can NOT multitask. 
</p>
<p>Sorry for my confusion in post #821!!</p>
<p>^^^ Blue - No worries. AvonSon wasn’t in that program at Miami. What you might have remembered was that he was admitted to the Honors College Program in the University last year. I will keep track of the Junior program for D-14 in a couple of summers. My older son is a grad from Miami and he loved the school. Thanks for the link.</p>
<p>Happy to report my D only has 1 B on her midterm!! SO excited. Last year her GPA ended up a little over 3.2 so we are all hoping to get that up this year!</p>
<p>Congratulations to PearlGirl!! 
</p>
<p>It’s always nice to see our kids hit their stride and get excited about good grades! It really validates all their hard work, doesn’t it?! Those upward trends are nice to see.</p>
<p>(note to self, I need to find out how 2education does all those fancy colors and pictures…)</p>
<p>mspearl~happy to hear D is doing well this year! </p>
<p>HighHead~which AP physics is S thinking about? From what I understand, they are not all the same. D’11 took physics C -mechanics and did well, but it was a class not a self study. We are lucky in that our HS offers 24 AP classes, so there are very few kids that self study. If they are interested in a class that isn’t offered they usually dual enroll at the local university instead.</p>
<p>Apollo~congrats on the ACT score!</p>
<p>Which leads me to ask about the time frame most of your kids are following regarding the college entrance exams. Are many of the kids taking them as Sophomores?</p>
<p>D’14 will take the psat in a couple weeks since her HS pays for all the sophomores to take it as a practice test. It will be interesting to see how she does since she isn’t in a math class this semester and it is her weak spot.</p>
<p>Big sis ('11) didn’t take the ACT until her junior year, but I’m thinking we may have D’14 take it this spring. She took the ACT for the Duke TIP program in 7th grade, so she has experience with it and did really well on the English portion. But I have a gut feeling we will need to work on the math portion.</p>
<p>In the meantime, she is busy with marching band. She is really enjoying it, but continues to insist that this is the only year she is doing it because she has too many AP History classes and language classes in her “plan”. I think having APUSH and Marching Band at the same time has been an eye opener for her. Not a lot of time available for a lot of required studying. An experience I hope she learns from :)</p>
<p>@ BamaMom - Our kids don’t take APUSH until their Jr year. Soph year is a choice between APEURO and APWorld. APEURO is deathly and unless you are a serious humanities kid, this is not your choice. The flip side on that is the top school in our state will only take a APWorld score of 5, so if that’s what you choose you have to do it well if you want college credit.</p>
<p>On standardized testing, S2014 is planning on starting SAT’s fall of his Jr year, with the exception of the SAT subject test for World History this May/June while the information is fresh. The SAT math goes through Alg2 and he is taking Alg2/Trig H this year. It makes sense for him to complete this year before taking the test. One thing we did find is that with students that need SAT2’s, starting spring of your Jr will not leave you time for EA/ED as there is only one SAT test date that will make a 11/1 deadline (the Oct test date). </p>
<p>For EA/ED, if you test SAT1 in May of your Jr year, SAT2 in June, retest SAT1 in Oct…
<p>Soooo, if your student is going to apply EA/ED and wants to utilize score choice fall of their Sr. year may not be a viable test date option. This is my third time down this road and I just learned this tidbit.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of college admission blogs. Lots of universities have them. Some are better than others. Some are simply rah-rah for their school (and that’s okay). Some I feel are worth following even in the early stages as you can learn lots of information that knowing ahead of your students actual application season can be very, very helpful.</p>
<p>Last year there was a thread listing favorite admission blogs…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1077818-25-best-admissions-office-blogs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1077818-25-best-admissions-office-blogs.html</a></p>
<p>You’ll see from the link which one is my favorite. ;)</p>
<p>I also follow a few on twitter, and they are so, so funny. It honestly helps to but some humanity behind these admissions offices, at least from my perspective. The admissions rep from GMU (who moved on to Brandies this year) has such a dry sense of humor, had me in tears during last reading season!!</p>
<p>What older brother did regarding tests which worked well was PLAN and PSAT as a sophomore, PSAT “for real” fall of Junior year, ACT and SAT winter of Junior year, and SAT IIs in June of Junior year. S1 got a very high score on that ACT so didn’t end up doing any more testing Senior year, but that schedule was designed to leave time to re-study and re-take whichever he preferred in the fall of senior year if necessary. </p>
<p>SAT IIs should be considered sophomore year as well depending on what the student is taking, and will be taking Junior year. Obviously, the ideal setup is to take a SAT II in a subject just as you’re completing that class. S1 probably made a mistake wrt chemistry. He didn’t take the SAT II after Honors chem in 10th grade, feeling that he’d had a poor teacher and hadn’t learned enough, and knowing that he’d still be taking AP Chem later. But “later” was senior year and we realized a bit late that you can’t take the SAT II’s based on your senior year classes because that’s way too late. He took AP Bio and precalc Junior year, so took those SAT IIs junior year, but he was interested in at least one school that wanted a science <em>other than</em> biology, so he ended up self-studying for the chemistry SAT II Junior year as well. We were thinking that if he needed a more humanities-oriented one, he could take English senior year, since that’s more of an ongoing skill development one than the math/science ones. Anyhow, it all worked out in the end, but the Chemistry would have been smarter to self-study during Sophomore year than junior, had we realized…</p>
<p>BI~I hadn’t even thought of SAT subject tests. D1 didn’t take any since the schools on her list didn’t require them. Guess I better start looking into that for D2. Thanks for the link!</p>
<p>Mathmom~D1 followed a similar testing schedule with similar results. She did retake the ACT and SAT the fall of senior year to improve her writing scores.</p>
<p>I was curious about how many started taking them as sophomores since D1 didn’t. My current thought process is to have D2 take the ACT this spring. That way if she needs to study up on the math portion, she can spend the summer brushing up and then retake in the fall. I know she’ll do well on the English part if her 7th grade score is any indication, but math…she can do it and is in the advanced math track, but she just doesn’t have the confidence she needs.</p>
<p>I remember that mathmomvt - or at least I remember several of the 2011’er’s taking the Chem subject test in fall/early winter of Sr year. The Chem subject test anyway you slice it is just brutal. S2011 took AP Chem in his Jr year (after a year of honors chem, required in their school) and was thrilled with his score…good, but you’d expect an 800 (or close to) after two years of honors/AP Chem w/ A’s. It’s that hard.</p>
<p>Speaking of honors Chem, S2014 just got smacked with a really lousy grade in a practicum today. He’s really bummed. Bluedad and I think he probably underestimated the amount of prep-work he needed. He hasn’t had anything lower then a B in class since elem school and nothing lower than an A on a report card since 6th grade…he’s devastated. As long as he takes this as a good learning lesson (ie a deserved kick in the rear) then it served it’s purpose. I’m sad that he’s sad, but I’m not sad he got the grade he earned…</p>
<p>My S scored over 700 between honors chem and AP chem, so he was pretty happy. I don’t remember the exact score, but he was pleasantly surprised, because after writing it, he thought he’d done more poorly. I think the curve must have been generous.</p>
<p>Should probably start caring again, but having an '11 in school now, and seeing again how little these numbers mean in terms of actual readiness for college, makes hard to think they matter. And that’s probably a bad thing as I know very well that admissions and scholarship aps loom. Still, until such a time as I can care, I plan to let d14 enjoy being a sophomore. She hasn’t taken a single practice standardized test and I don’t know if there’ll be any APs in her future (our school only offers 8 anyway).</p>
<p>O’Lives, depending on your D’14’s goals and what she wants to do that may be just the right thing to do!! There is no one single right way to do this!! Every child is different. My oldest never took an honors or AP. My S2011 didn’t take AP until his Jr year because the ones offered for Soph didn’t interest him. S2014 is a different animal so I’m taking his lead. He may find he bit off more than he wants and back off some next year.</p>
<p>I posted the following in the SAT forum and got no response so I thought I would post it here…Opinions please?</p>
<p>My son will take the 10th grade PSAT in 2 weeks. We were just looking at the PSAT booklet and it says you can list a major on the form where you are listing that it is ok to receive info from colleges.</p>
<p>Is it wise to do this or not? My son will be doing something computer related so he could put that down but I didn’t know if it was good or bad to do so.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>@cruisnfamily: Relax. Many, many decisions in this process have absolutely no consequences to the ultimate outcome. This is one of them.</p>
<p>Agreed, it doesn’t matter. Note that if he says it’s ok to receive info from colleges, he will be INNUNDATED with both email and snail mail for the next 3 years. If he lists a major he is interested in, he might get some more focused mail. S1 said yes, but found the information useless – colleges didn’t do anything to really distinguish themselves from one another, so he couldn’t get much out of it. In terms of figuring out where he wanted to apply, asking on CC for help finding schools that might fit his parameters was much easier, and the he could research them online. I am guessing that S2 will say “no” on that, but maybe he will want to be flattered by the mail. (On either the PSAT or PLAN he accidentally coded that he was interested in optometry, so he got a lot of info on optometry programs for a while there.)</p>
<p>
I was just asking a question as to the pros and cons. Way to make me feel stupid. Nevermind.</p>
<p>Cruisin It might be worth it to see which schools offer programs in his intended major. It might open up some possibilities that hadn’t hit your radar.</p>
<p>I don’t think there can be any harm that comes from it, so if he thinks he knows what he’s interested in it, it’s fine for him to go ahead and name a potential major. It’s only used for when they sell the lists of students to colleges, afaict.</p>