<p>For anyone that was wondering about the Cheryl’s cookies, on the ‘good buy of the day’ thread someone pointed out that they have single cookie greetings that are $5 delivered, and come with a $5 gift card for another purchase. Most are their frosted sugar cookies in fun holiday shapes, but they do have a few other varieties. So, if you wanted to try one without investing a lot you could send one to yourself, sample, and then use the $5 card towards a purchase for a gift for someone else. I might send one to my son just for fun. Some greeting cards come close to $5!! What the heck. :)</p>
<p>Glad to hear your son is feeling better beadymom. Hopefully he’ll be back to xc soon. There is just no ‘good’ time for these kids to get sick when missing just a day can throw them off.</p>
<p>I have not noticed an increase in mail … it’s still just trickling in. I do remember last January we received tons of mail and e-mail - I guess after the PSAT & PLAN test results were out.</p>
<p>We had open house at the high school tonight. The principal is the same one that was there when I went there MANY years ago, so he’s getting a little senile. I had to laugh when he said the highest ACT score was 35. There was some other fact that he got blatantly wrong, but it escapes me now. With that in mind, he also suggested for all sophomores to take the ACT their sophomore year since Algebra I & Geometry would be fresh on their minds. My son did and it was not a problem for him, but I definitely see the benefit of waiting towards the middle to end of junior year to get more English, and studying in general, under their belt. </p>
<p>The APUSH teacher (remember the subject I just finished saying that my DS was not crazy about!) appears to be a really good teacher. She knows what is on the AP test because she helps grade it. She teaches the students how to write the essay answers and how to manage their time to answer the multiple choice questions with time to spare. The low score he received on his first exam was to be expected (that was hard!!) because she is still training them how to absorb and process the information. She promises there will be A’s in the class by the end of the year (I wonder if there will be any by the end of the semester!).</p>
<p>The AP Biology teacher also discussed the AP test. He said that in a typical college biology class half of the students fail or drop, therefore they want the same results with the AP test. They grade all of the tests with the raw scores then assign the AP score - giving half passing, the other half failing. His goal is for more than half of his class to get 5, 4 & 3’s. Can anyone can confirm this method of assigning AP test results for Biology?</p>
<p>Interesting information about AP Bio. S3 took it by default. AP Chem was cancelled. He likes bio, we’d just rather he not take it the first year after a major overhaul. We’ve already had back 2 school night and this would have been good to ask. They have it the 2nd night of school before you have a chance to form any type of questions about their class. Your kids have literally seen each teacher once.</p>
<p>Our daughter has been getting college stuff for the last few years … after she took the SAT in elementary school. (I wish I would’ve paid more attention and remembered what she got on it! lol)</p>
<p>I think we get at least one piece of college mail a day - today was U of Chgos turn. ;)</p>
<p>I have the big blue book (though with the DVD option) and it is a 2012 copyright. Sometimes I find that Amazon search doesn’t always put the most recently published edition at the top of the search results so there could be a more recent one available.</p>
<p>DS did some prep over the summer but none yet this fall. Between his course load, a varsity sport, a club sport , etc. there hasn’t been time. But he will try to squeeze in some the next few weekends. We will focus on CR and writing as he has the math down.</p>
<p>And the college mail has been a fairly steady flow for a while now. Mostly unread, but tucked away in a big bin to browse through when he has time and inclination. </p>
<p>His school does have a busy slate of college rep visits this fall so he at least has looked at that schedule and marked the ones he is interested in attending. We are also using Columbus Day (thankfully no club soccer tournament) and some teacher workdays to schedule visits at nearby schools. This spring we have a Midwest school tour scheduled (NU, Michigan, Wash U, Purdue, etc.).</p>
<p>Planned testing schedule is PSAT in October, Math II SAT in December (could not fit it in last Year), SAT in January, AP exams (chem, APUSH, and CALC) in May, and Chem SAT in June. If he does well on the SATs in January he will not do any retakes. No need to stress out!</p>
<p>We are getting college brochures in the mail almost every day. Quite a few are regular repeats…U Chicago, Wash U, Mount Holyoke, etc… The flow seems to pick up about 6-8 weeks after my 2014er takes a test.</p>
<p>beadymom: I hope your son settles into a good routine with APUSH and glad to hear the teacher sounds good. My DC backed out of APUSH before school started. The last two AP history classes(APHG and APWH) were successful but DC knew how many hours went into study for those classes. Could DC have succeeded in APUSH? Absolutely. Are there more valuable ways time can be spent instead of studying US history? Absolutely. The rest of the schedule is AP Chem, AP Calc, AP Lang&Lit, college credit Spanish, and PLTW so we are hopeful nobody thinks the slacker route was chosen by taking grade level US history.</p>
<p>college4many - This is the very thing my S2 had to decide and the time intensive history APs were the one’s to go. Individually they are capable of succeeding in any one of them, it’s a matter of time management and making sure you can succeed in everything you do sign on for. Colleges understand this. It didn’t hurt S2 in admissions at all.</p>
<p>novamom - The Big Blue Book that comes with the DVD with the 2012 copyright is the exact same book as the 2009 edition, down to the page #'s. They simply packaged it with a DVD and upped with price. The DVD does contain an extra SAT that was previously administered so that alone may be worth the price. I do agree with you, Amazon does not always put the most current versions at the top of a search list and you sometimes have to dig.</p>
<p>^I echo blueiguana and college4many – I think our kids are getting good experience in deciding how to spend their time and choosing a mix of classes that’s challenging but not overwhelming – all good skills they will use when they’re on their own in college, picking out classes.</p>
<p>In our school, S’14 feels that the regular history is actually tougher than AP History. More presentations, more projects, and overall, less interesting. I wonder if in our school, the “regular” history teacher tries to load them up with more work to show it’s just as tough as the AP version. Whereas the AP class has more breadth and less assignments, but each one goes into more detail. Overall, S’14 feels the AP class will be a better fit for him.</p>
<p>A thought just occurred to me for those of you that have been getting mail daily vs. my ds that gets mail just trickling in. I wonder if it also has to do with the students location/high school. I mean, surely, there can’t be a smart kid in Arkansas. haha! Just kidding! </p>
<p>If I would have been filling out ds’ schedule, I would have chosen the regular history for him. When he came home with the AP listed, I didn’t try to talk him out of it. I’m sure he will do fine. It’s just learning how to study for it. He went through this same process with a math teacher several years ago.</p>
<p>Interesting comments on college mail. It’s only trickling in for D14, even though she has signed up on many colleges “Want More Info” lists. I thought that the schools had gone high-tech since D10, because she had a lot more college mail at this point and was on the same testing schedule. I’m sure the mail will pick up next month, since D14 took the ACT last weekend.</p>
<p>Hi all. I haven’t posted for a while and thought I’d drop by to share the lovely news that my Class of 2014 D isn’t in school b/c her teachers are on strike. Yes, we’re are in Chicago and the strike is now taking on national proportions and is turining into a referendum on labor/education reform. Yippee! (< insert sarcastic tone here.) </p>
<p>D had 4 days of school last week & was fairly excited about the year. The strike started on Monday 9/10 and today is the 3rd day. It concerns me that it might last a while, although no one knows for sure. So far, D is enjoying her “second summer”, but that won’t last long. I am thankful that she is not a senior or a fall sport athlete- I really worry about those kids.</p>
<p>Mommylaw … I heard through the grapevine that Brizard resigned. Haven’t seen any news on that as of yet. (I’m a product of CPS, btw.)</p>
<p>In other news, University of Evansville was the piece of mail today. Honestly, they pretty much go right into the trash and DD won’t even look at anything yet.</p>
<p>Oh mommylaw! I am so sorry. I saw a another piece on national news last night. No matter where you stand on the issues the bottom line is the students are the ones loosing out, and that is totally unacceptable in my view. I hope some sort of resolution is met quickly, even if it’s temporary while they work out a final agreement, to get the teachers and students back in the classrooms.</p>
<p>Just wanted to throw in my two cents to the SAT prep materials discussion. I’m an SAT tutor, and the only book I recommend for practice questions is the Official SAT Study Guide (aka the blue book). Kaplan/Princeton Review/any big box company can be OK for learning some test taking strategies, but their practice questions are notoriously inaccurate (my inner cynic says they underestimate students scores since they want to sell you classes!).</p>
<p>If your student burns through the blue book, there are other free official tests for download, both on the College Board website and elsewhere. Google “SAT preparation booklet,” or PM me for info. Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>Hi Swans004 -
You said - Just wanted to throw in my two cents to the SAT prep materials discussion. I’m an SAT tutor, and the only book I recommend for practice questions is the Official SAT Study Guide (aka the blue book). </p>
<p>and I totally agree. Do you, or anyone, have suggestions for the Subject tests? (Ok, Math and Chemistry) I bought the Official books for those, and they only have one test per subject. Not enough for this situation. Any ideas?</p>
<p>My S14 is smart, but slow - he needs to over-prepare to beat the clock. He got a 640 on SAT 2 Math 2 last spring after finishing PreCalc, and he wants to increase his score. He won’t ask for accommodations - tried that already.</p>
<p>Also - I wish Common Data Sets listed 25-75 for SAT 2 scores. That would really help narrow the field, I think. Not sure how much the schools look at SAT 2, but with SAT 1 being so preppable, I’d look at SAT 2 if I were in their shoes.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention that much more college “mail” comes in electronic form. My DS set up a separate gmail account for college stuff, including when he took a practice PSAT last year as a sophomore. I have access to that account (I don’t think DS even checks it) and there is tons of traffic there.</p>
<p>So just because you haven’t gotten a lot of physical mail doesn’t mean your kid isn’t getting contacted by colleges!</p>
<p>^ AGREE!! We learned from my 2011 grad that his email would be overrun by marketing firms (it’s not really the colleges sending your kid stuff…) and they’ll never see the important stuff in their inbox. S2 set up a gmail account and uses that for anything college related so he can keep it all in one place. I have access to both, well just because I do. </p>
<p>When they start actually applying you may want to consider having them forward you all important emails (confirmation of receipt of common app, password & username instructions, etc.). You can pop these into a folder. You WILL need to go back to these at some point in time. I made it easier simply but having that email account visible along with my email (sub-account), so he didn’t have to forward anything. When I saw important things that might need to be accesses later I just moved them into a folder. There were many times I was glad I did. It depends on what you consider micro-managing. I never touched the contents of the CApp or his essays, but I did help with administrative things to stay organized and keep track of deadlines.</p>
<p>Something we found useful for our 2011 to control the mounds of mail, was a file box and a bunch of hanging folders. Starting her Junior year, as the postcards and information started to arrive she would look over the information and decide if the school was of interest. If so, she created a file for that school and kept all future correspondence in that file. If she knew the school wasn’t for her, it went straight to the recycle bin. She also had a file for “undecided” that she would revisit later.</p>
<p>When it was time to start the applications, she pitched the files of the schools that didn’t make the list. She then kept all the important information in the school’s file: application information, copy of essays, acceptance letters, scholarship offers, etc. It really helped to have all that paperwork in one place and in a manner that we could easily get our hands on information.</p>
<p>Regarding email, D also set up a separate account for college and she made certain to use a “professional” looking one (ie, her name). As she started the application process, she set up individual mail folders for each school and used these just as she used the hanging files for paper. </p>
<p>D2 hasn’t been to interested in the college search. She looks over the stuff she gets in the mail, says “I don’t know” and ignores the emails. I think it is because she doesn’t know what she wants to study, so it is hard for her “judge” a school.</p>
<p>I think I’ve mentioned that D2 is attending a newly opened HS. Well, I’ve been asked to be part of the College Counseling Committee. Her old HS (the one D1 graduated from) had a college counselor. With graduating classes of 700+, it was necessary. The new HS has a senior class of 90+ and about 250 Juniors. So no CC, just the usual academic counselors. Our job will be to help find scholarships and advertise them to the students, arrange for college reps to visit, organize and display any information that the schools send, etc. Should be fun but a big commitment. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!</p>
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