<p>Hello, there. I think my family is still recovering from launching our D1, but must refocus and help D2 in her college search. She’ll graduate from high school in 2014. We are getting a lot of mailings – some of which I secretly filled out online forms for because I thought they fit her. Hey, if she shows no interest, no harm, no foul. But others just seem to show up. I wonder if that’s a “sibling effect”? Most of the unsolicited mailings come from colleges D1 researched or visited. One even sent D2 a leadership application even though she’s only a junior.</p>
<p>partyoffour – I still haven’t recovered, and D’s a college sophomore!</p>
<p>re: test prep – S’14 keeps telling me he thinks he’ll do better on the ACT, but I want him to take SAT in January anyway. He has not one, but 2 tutors – one for English, one for Math. I’ll see how long I can keep thi$ up.</p>
<p>I’m setting S’14 up for a few tutoring sessions (starting Monday!) with the tutor S’11 used with good success. She is mainly focused on the English side, but fortunately my kids don’t need any tutoring on the math side. He’s supposed to do a practice PSAT before Monday and bring it with him so she can use it to diagnose his weaknesses and figure out what to concentrate on.</p>
<p>Wish my son had some free time for tutoring for the PSAT or ACT, but he really does not with all his AP work, cross country and a part-time job on the weekends. The funny thing is, I would not be surprised if his scores are decent when he takes them in October. He did a tremendous amount of reading, critical reading, through several classes over the past year. His AP bio teacher has been giving weekly prefix quizzes since school started a month ago. All of that could be a big help to him.</p>
<p>^ Momreads… our older student- now a soph in college did almost no test prep.
Like your student, had a ton of APs and did fine. With school, sport and other commitments there wasn’t time for the prep. K1 was a top 10% student and had nice grades.
One thing that may help assuage your worry is to check your HSs profile…for the avg SAT scores/ACT scores etc and also the passing/success rate of those taking the APs. There are lots of kids who take APs yet won’t pass…If your HS has a very high rate of 4,5s…your student will likely do well testing in both the SAT/ACT venue and APs.
At least that is our experience.</p>
<p>Our K2 is twice exceptional (bright and LD) so the classes and rigor differ…and the journey will differ. There is no where to really add more to K2s schedule. I so want K2 to spend some time prepping for testing…and at the same time know the grades this term are more important than the psat…</p>
<p>Rescuing from page 5!!</p>
<p>D14’s ACT scores arrived yesterday (that was quick). Looks like she will be going to college…</p>
<p>S14 with day off from school tomorrow…plan to let him sleep in then go for tour of local university…</p>
<p>DD’14 is doing some PSAT prep with her grandmother, who is also an SAT prep tutor. It’s once a week after school because that is all she has time for. And she needs it as she is a math and science kid and can use the help on the CR and writing portion.</p>
<p>The homework load this year has tripled from last. She did homework from 4 p.m. until she went to bed last night at 10 p.m. A lot of it is APUSH.</p>
<p>Congrats MImama! I feel your pain Agentnine - DS has an overflowing dance card with homework, school paper, sports, PSAT prep and trying to get his driver’s lic.! Too much. I keep telling him to hang in there until after the October PSAT, then he can get a little breathing room. Jr. year is a bear.</p>
<p>Hi all, I had taken a break from this thread last year because DS14 was NOT ready to even THINK about college and I was getting waaaaayyy too excited about the topic, so I pulled back. He’s on collegeboard right now completing a personality test and studying for the PSAT so I am giving myself permission to return. : )</p>
<p>We’re with you, Agent99. DS has way too much on his plate. We have scouts tonight, where he will (hopefully) get last Life rank requirement signed off. We are starting to discuss Eagle projects, but I need to get him through this year in one piece. The homework load is horrendous. He was having severe anxiety the last couple of weeks. I don’t think we will do any college visits until after the PSAT.</p>
<p>Congrats on the good ACT results, MImama!</p>
<p>Congrats, calla1 on DS14 reaching the next milestone! I wish I could say the same for mine, but he still is not ready to think about college. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. He does have his career planned though! I am trying to get him to make the connection that college and his career goals are interrelated!! ;)</p>
<p>I totally understand the too busy to do any PSAT/SAT studying! DD14 is finding Junior year very busy with homework! Since she had to drop band because of scheduling conflicts, she’s now taking 7 academic classes including 2 APs, the rest honors. I think the step up from honors to AP (Spanish and USH) along with an additional academic class is stressing her schedule. Add on to that several all day volunteer events with HOBY and a job on weekends, along with leadership responsibilities at school and dance and voice… </p>
<p>The new job is about to go. Expecting her to work about 18 hours on a weekend when she should be using the time to study is not going to work. She sat down and did a pros/cons about the job and it was mostly cons (except for the money!) So we’ve talked about how to call and tell them that it’s not working out for her and she can’t give them the time they want. In a best case scenario, maybe she could work for them next summer when she’ll have more time. She had applied at the beginning of last summer and got called at the end so it really caught her by surprise. She doesn’t want to go in this weekend for more training if she’s not going to continue there but we’ve told her she needs to tell them verbally, not by email. I think once she talks to them this afternoon after school she’ll feel better, but it’s stressful having to make that call and resign, especially since it’s her first job! But it’s really what is best for both her and them. If she could work only one weekend day the weekends she’s available, that would be great, but with shifts from 5 to 9 hours long, it’s just too much!</p>
<p>Hopefully making that change will leave time for SAT prep work and not just get taken up with new volunteering events! But in any case it will leave more time for homework and a bit of down time to see friends and “have a life”!</p>
<p>Just got an email from S’14’s GC recommending he move to Honors English from AP. I’m not surprised – initially he wasn’t even supposed to be in AP English. At least they’re telling me before first quarter grades come out. I’m surprised they haven’t said anything yet about AP History. Maybe he can handle 1 AP, but not 2? Sigh…</p>
<p>Classof2015 - Similar thing here with DD. She is overwhelmed with AP Chem and wants to downgrade. Worst thing is that the kids do labs together as partners and then the teacher accuses them of copying each other on the lab reports! What kind of baloney is that? Of course they will have the same report as they wrote it together! Give me a break!</p>
<p>OK, sorry for the rant but this kind of crap drives me right up the wall. </p>
<p>D has guidance session this afternoon (class style meeting) so it might be interesting to see if any other girls say anthing about the AP Chemistry teacher. Hmmm… Stay tuned for updates.</p>
<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>Congrats all around!!!</p>
<p>How quickly this month has flown by… I am sure the rest will follow suit. </p>
<p>@akmom-- dd14 got her first job @ Shake Shack, just opened 2 weeks ago. She had training the week before so I understood the crazy hours/every day schedule… but then that trend continued… </p>
<p>She was on the schedule to work until 11pm/12a on school nights… NOT HAPPENING…
and til close(1:30-2am) on weekends. Which I didn’t realize what they meant when they said “close” LOL … so here I am, thinking she will get off when they close the doors @ 11pm and she had to stay another 3 hours to clean the place… so that was the last time that happened… </p>
<p>The next day, she sent an email to the manager(they do everything by email–training updates, opening events, schedules etc…) AND its also nice to have documentation… </p>
<p>So she emails them that Sunday after she worked all week in training… then that Friday til close, and Saturday 10a-4pm…to say that d/t her hectic school/EC schedule, that she would only be able to work every Fri, and every other Sat or Sun… and she would no longer be able to work past 11p on weekends/no school nights… so manager shoots back…that they hired everyone for full time work and that they would have to see how she would move forward. I was upset b/c how can they hire a 16yo high school student for full time hours? </p>
<p>It should also be noted that the majority of the workers are hs students and work 5-6 days/week… and said that they have no time for homework. And when they complained about the hours, the managers also told them that they were in search of people who could work full time…</p>
<p>DD14 gets reply email from the manager saying… OK! Every Friday is great… and she could pick up days where she needed/wanted… that was last Wednesday. She worked Friday and studied all weekend/did homework… then woke this Monday morn to an email from same manager asking where she had been all weekend and her employment was in jeopardy for not showing up. So dd14 forwards managers email back to her and says that she thought everything was ok/squared away and she would not have left them understaffed had she known she was still on that schedule… I felt it time for her to bid the Shake Shack adieu… its obvious that they don’t adhere to child labor laws(the high schoolers work past midnight, a no no here in CT & they older workers go home @ 11Pm)… And they work them like dogs… the place stays busy with customers(99% Yalies) and they move non stop for 8 to 10 hours per shift… talk about abuse of the body…</p>
<p>So she gave her written 2 week notice this past Monday… A nicely typed letter saying that she cannot give the SS the hours that it so rightly deserves and has appreciated the opportunity to work her first job, will always have a special place in her heart… yada yada yada… my mom wanted it to be a little more biting, LOL but I told dd to stay young and sweet(not old, bitter and jaded) LOL</p>
<p>She hand delivered it to the managers mailboxes and she already has a job lined up, one where the owner expects teens to do homework, get sleep, put school first… and its a stones throw away from SS…healthy/organic type restaurant thats very popular with the Yalies/New Havenites as well… been there for 37 years and she gives back to the community on a large scale… so it be nice for dd to work for this woman… who also owns an italian restaurant next door…versus a corporation who only cares about their bottom line… which is fine to care about the bottom line, but not at the expense of my teenager or the others who don’t have parents who are as involved as I am…</p>
<p>She is otherwise doing very well in school. Her dual enrollment at SCSU is going well. 100% average thus far on her quiz. </p>
<p>Had meet the teacher night… APWH teacher /2nd year teaching AP/guy who is probably in his late 60’s/looks like the Lorax with white hair instead of orange… kids didn’t do so well on test this past May… 1’s, 3’s… He said that last years group wasn’t as half as smart as this years class-this years class is bright, analytical, thoughtful etc…</p>
<p>I then asked what dd14 needed to do/self study in order to score 4-5 range… his response… who cares about scores, what matters is learning WH… I understand that, but when applying to college, aren’t 1’s frowned upon?</p>
<p>Oh yea, one last thing, she did a SAT practice test yesterday…couldn’t finish b/c my job called and we had to run… I will have her finish today maybe? Its like pulling teeth with the busy schedules… but its gotta get done… also using college board online sat course. and some other free websites…</p>
<p>AvonHSDad–I feel your pain re: AP Chem. This is the first year it’s been offered at DD’s schooo–they have had Advanced in the past. First test was this week so we’ll see how it’s going to go. I was very impressed with the teacher at BTS Night. She seemed committed to helping the students not just plug in formulas but understand the process. Teachers certainly make or break it, don’t they? Juggling jobs and AP classes and sports and extracurriculars—just can’t see how they can do it “all.” My motto is school is your job and there will be a performance review! LOL. This weekend DD adds an SAT class to her roster to complement her PSAT class. There will probably be some repetition, but it’s one way to make sure the studying gets done! Our school is having a huge slate of admissions folks coming by but her first period class is calculus so she doesn’t feel comfortable missing it. We’re trying to supplement by catching the evening sessions but there is play practice and homework. I’m putting off any more visits until we actually have an SAT score in hand.</p>
<p>DS school does not even allow jrs to meet with visiting admission personnel unless they happen to have an overlapping free block (unlikely)</p>
<p>New Haven - good call on DD turning in her notice at the Shake Shack! That is entirely too much to expect of a teenager! I bet this other job would be much better for her.</p>
<p>Our school has been having admissions people coming in, too. This year, I’ve noticed it will say “Seniors”, I don’t remember that from last year. They didn’t even announce WashU when they came. DS received a postcard, but didn’t go because it wasn’t in the announcements (like all the others have been). That was one of the schools we toured this summer, so he’s gotten the info. But I was kind of wanting him to “show some love”. 
There’s a couple more coming in the next couple of weeks that he has gotten e-mails and postcards for. I’ll make sure he’ll go to those even if they are not announced - and even if they say “seniors”! haha</p>
<p>Still struggling with APUSH. The other classes are going well - some are challenging him and that’s a good thing. Finally back to running CC after being sick.</p>
<p>DD’s college counselor at school suggested that if you can’t make a specific visit with an admissions person, write a brief note that can be dropped off to them or merely just drop in early and say hello and that you have to miss it because of things going on in that specific class. DD has had to do that a couple of of times. It’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing.</p>
<p>NewHavenCTmom: My son ('14) laughed when I told him about the AP WH teacher saying it was more important to know the history than to worry about the AP score. He liked the subject, but I guarantee he loved getting that 4 so he does not have to repeat the class in college. Generally, colleges and universities do not use AP scores as part of their determination for acceptance. But, my son did recommend that your daughter look to do well on the DBQ and essays. He said that the AP WH edition from The Princeton Review was a big help, too.</p>