<p>My S will probable take Driver’s Ed during his Spring Break and get his permit right after his March b’day. He can log driving hours during the summer and get his license in September. I don’t know how often he will drive - he takes free public transportation to school, and we have neither space nor $ for a car for him - but it will be nice if he can drive himself to some weekend commitments so that H and I can do other things. Our '11/'15 D just got her permit last summer and has no time at college to practice, so she may be going to road school with her little brother this summer!</p>
<p>D is in drivers ed at school right now and will take the driving test as her final within the next two weeks (depends on weather since he doesn’t take them out if it is raining). If she passes she will get a certificate that she can present to the license office when she turns sixteen. Exempts them from having to take the test with a state trooper. We don’t have to log hours to get the license, they only have to have had their permit for six months (which they can get when they turn 15). As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to take drivers ed. Students with a license were taking drivers ed with D1 to get an insurance break.</p>
<p>Only restriction on the license is on the number of passengers and no driving after 11:00pm unless returning from a job or school event. I need to double check the passenger limit, was never an issue for D1, but with this D it could be! LOL!</p>
<p>All this talk about licenses reminds me I have to sign D14 up for drivers ed! She’ll take it over February school vacation and then can get her permit when she turns 16 in April. Here they have a permit for 6 months and have to take 12 hours of driving instruction plus log at least 40 hours more (I think - have to check) before they get their license. No passengers except family for the first 6 months of licensed driving - which I really like! I don’t think she’ll be driving any passengers except parents anyway as I can’t imagine her brother S11/15 will want to ride in a car with her driving!</p>
<p>On a different note, anybody else dealing with SAT 2’s this weekend? S took the Latin this morning - he was supposed to take it last spring, but forgot to sign up (!), a fact he only discovered the night before the test when he tried to print out his ticket. This was his next chance. This time, the ticket was printed and stuck up on the fridge a month in advance. 
Luckily, he is still taking Latin at school, but he did say it would have been easier last spring when they were still doing grammar.</p>
<p>No SAT subject tests here until May or June when S3 takes World History, coordinating with the AP. Most of the schools he’s interested in will only accept a score of 5 in World History so fingers crossed!</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son HH on the Latin subject test. I understand the language tests are quite hard. Some schools also use them to exempt/fulfill a language requirement so it’s a great idea to take it.</p>
<p>Thanks, BI! He thought it went pretty well, and I’m hoping it works out. He’ll take the Latin AP at the end of junior year, and with luck can get exempted from at least some of the language requirement in college. My '11/'15 D only needs one semester of FL to fulfill her requirement since she did well on the AP. She’ll probably start another language next year, but without the pressure of having to make it fit her schedule for multiple semesters. S, unfortunately, doesn’t like FLs much, but he has an incentive to do well so he can lose them ASAP. In the spring, he’ll take the Physics and BC Calculus APs, so I am glad to have Latin out of the way for now.</p>
<p>My S’14 is going to be taking Math 2 and Chemistry at the end of January, because he’s taking precalc and honors chem this semester. </p>
<p>He got his PSAT results last week, and was pretty pleased with them.</p>
<p>I got the email from college board that PSAT results are in…but you need the code from the paper copy which the school gives you. And my son’s school has not given them the results. I’m dying to see how he does! Wish there was a way to get the scores without going through the school!</p>
<p>We’re also waiting on the school.</p>
<p>We have parent-teacher conferences next week and I remember the school gave out the PSAT results along with the progress reports last year to the parents of students who took the tests (sophomores and juniors). I guess I can wait another week! Way too much going on between now and then anyway.</p>
<p>S’s school sent out an email telling us the PSAT results will be given out next Thursday.</p>
<p>I just logged on to DS college board account to see if there was information about PSAT. You need the access code but there was a list of suggested colleges based on his score and major that he indicated.
Ha Ha…most were community colleges. I didn’t expect him to do well on the test but this was funny.
He is a good strong student but stinks at tests. He took an online summer health class and really struggled with the 10 point quizzes and barely passed the test for his driving permit. </p>
<p>I read the school announcements and they call the testers into the auditorium on Friday morning and pass out the scores.</p>
<p>The school gives the sophomores their PLAN results today. We’ll see how d2 does. She’s often all over the place on bubble tests–really high one year, mediocre the next. Good thing retaking the ACT is an option when the time comes.</p>
<p>29happymom - I wouldn’t take the community college matches as an indication of poor performance on the test. The system is trying to make matches with no scores, thus the generic schools. As soon as there are scores to pull matches you’ll get a much more realistic list. </p>
<p>Keep in mind kids generally do better Jr year with a year more instruction and being more familiar with the test format. They then improve again on their actual SATs with prep. Our S2’s soph PSATs were less than impressive. His final SATs were over 2150 (can’t remember the exact score) without tremendous effort or prep classes. It does all work out.</p>
<p>dd received her score yesterday. top 5 percent on critical reading but not that high on the math and the writing. now she knows what to work on to bring her score up. she did the personality profile for careers and that seemed to be way off from her intended major. yes, the college matches were limited and way low for her score, so not quite sure how they do those. i imagine once she updates her profile with the score then colleges with show up as better matches or something. we are in the midwest and my kids generally do better on ACT than on the SAT.</p>
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<p>Interesting how a mild statement like this may reveal so much philosophical paradigm. Since the PSAT scores are relative, and not absolute, in order for a student’s score to go up, someone with a higher score has to come down in relative standing. This can happen if students with higher scores fail to improve further or do worse. Who will come down or go up and why? Again, I believe this has to do with the will of the students and how much push, er, encouragement, they get from their parents. I have to believe the CC parents are much more encouraging than average; hence the advantage for CC kids.</p>
<p>paperchasepop - i got a good laugh reading your post ! thanks ! if you only knew ! this d is our youngest and we don’t do much pushing at all ! she’s the kind of kid that has to make her own mind up to push herself so maybe there will be improvement in scores and then again, maybe not. it’s really fascinating how kids in the same family can be so different from one another. it’s been interesting to see how much more interest this d is showing in the college search process. she shows more interest in researching schools than her older siblings did. you can probably attribute that to the fact that she does have older siblings who have gone through the process though.</p>
<p>S14 got his scores today. If he were a junior he would be commended. He doesn’t quite make our state cut-off for NM for juniors. I hope he can hit the magic numbers next year. He only needs about 7 points. I’ll be crossing my fingers next year. His older brother and sister went up 10 points or so from sophomore to junior year but were still just below the NM cutoffs. I don’t think I have any more kids in the wings that are capable of this so this is our family’s last chance. ;-0</p>
<p>Just got back from the percussion team parents’ meeting and I am discouraged. S14 really wants to compete on the winter percussion team but he is also on speech team AND he has committed to a series of leadership seminars. All these things require Saturdays during January-April. Of course every one of these activities wants him to be there for all their meetings. In addition, he will have interviews for two summer activities sometime on a Saturday during that time. I think all these things are valuable activities but he just can’t do them all. I don’t know what to tell him.</p>
<p>D rec’d her PLAN score. We were very pleased at the results
She could have done better on the reading section, but was unable to finish in time. So with 1 min left she “guessed” on the last 10 questions.
At least we know now what she needs to work on ;)</p>