<p>@IJustDrive -Thanks!
Wow, never realized this could be a problem. He took the SAT Math II in June, AFTER he finished 8th grade, so he was technically a 9th grader at that time. What month did your daughter take it in? I am sure Math II should not be a problem to take again, but a nuisance…
I have read (where?) that the scores can’t be more than 4 years old. In his case they will be less than 4 years by the time he applies/accepts. Do you mind sharing which school your daughter applied to/you called? Maybe we should PM? After all this is 2015 thread - not to freak the rest of you kind people…</p>
<p>OBM – Congrats! I hadn’t realized that your S had made a decision either. I am just not keeping up.</p>
<p>I wish D’15 could take PE outside of school. There’s too many classes she wants to take and too many blasted PE requirements! At this point it looks like she’s going to need to decide between AP Euro or AP Music Theory in Jr. or Sr. year. Both are reputed to be great classes.</p>
<p>It’s certainly busy season here too. D’15 has an audition (both seating and for next year’s orchestra) and two tests today. And a violin lesson. And we just signed her up for an audition for another outside orchestra, and she’ll have to get her audition pieces back up to performance level. I made the mistake in August of buying opera tix for mid-week this week as a special treat, so she’s running on even less sleep than usual too.</p>
<p>Opinions from experienced HS parents: I’m throwing together a basic activities resume for D’15 so that she can apply for local summer positions, and to use an an outline for the future (so we are less likely to lose stuff along the way). Do I include the exceptional middle school activities/awards? How about middle school honors (local to the school)? Obviously they’ll go by the time she’s a senior.</p>
<p>(I’m so DONE with assisting D’12 with her life. I’m ready to move on to the next one!)</p>
<p>Hi all! Sorry I’ve been out of the loop, we decided to move back to Texas this summer and things have been busy with S12 waiting for college results, D15 settling in to high school, and D27 (she’s three) being a typical toddler. We are currently in a rental house while our house is being remodeled to make it ready to sell. Doesn’t that suck? We were waiting to do the remodeling until we knew how much $ we would have to pay towards S12’s college. Somehow the Stanford SCEA rejection is feeling a little better now that he has solid acceptances with merit money to perfectly acceptable colleges! So glad we do not have to come up with Stanford tuition. Sorry, I know this is about the '15s, but having a 12 is so overwhelming right now…so much to consider and wait for.
I’m right with those of you who have noticed a fresh bond between the 12s and the 15s, that is happening here too. It really warmed my heart when D15 said her big brother was one of her best friends and he smiled and agreed. They have always gotten along pretty well but being in the same school for the first time in a long time has really solidified their relationship. Now if only he could persuade her to TURN IN her homework. Suzy, I feel your pain!</p>
<p>Suzy100–Just curious. Does your Ds online course count toward GPA? In our HS, grades earned from online courses will be reported on the transcript but will not be calculated for GPA.</p>
<p>^^^IJD- Funny you brought up resume. I told S2 yesterday to put a resume together since he is going to a summer job fair hosted by a water park on Saturday. With S1 we did not include any middle school’s honors/awards/ECs in his resume or college applications as we were told only to include the ones in HS.</p>
<p>SDF – I’m debating between simply including a few of the more important middle school things (after all, it was last year!) and having a separate category labelled “Selected Middle School Honors and Awards”. Which I guess would mean having a category labelled “High School Honors and Awards” which by necessity would be very sparse, given that most of those come out in a month or two.</p>
<p>ooh, I like to see the thread busy. :)</p>
<p>sunnydayfun, yes, it will count toward her GPA, which is really the only reason that she’s dropping it and that I agreed to that. She’s generally conscientious about her work and she’s a good kid, taking a rigorous load, and so I didn’t want to see her penalized for missing this, although in the back of my head I did have a “Should I make her stay in it to teach her a lesson?” thought. Maybe I’m just a softy. </p>
<p>PN, I’m glad she could drop it too, with no repercussions - it won’t show on her transcript. I was surprised to learn that she could essentially drop any class right up to the end of the semester without it appearing on her transcript. </p>
<p>IJD - Great idea about keeping a list of honors, etc. from middle school - I hadn’t thought of that!</p>
<p>WW, while I am generally baby-crazy, I don’t know how you do it with a toddler!</p>
<p>It’s nice to hear about the bonding going on with siblings. D2 will be a freshman when D1 (D’15) is a senior, and I hope to see the same happen with them.</p>
<p>Congrats to those whose 12’er has a happy acceptance in the door!</p>
<p>In general: do your kids’ schools have awards for freshman? What kind? No idea if my D’s does.</p>
<p>IJD – yes, keep the middle school activities for now. They’re still recent. They’ll fall off the resume naturally as new activities come on and you have to trim to reasonable length. But I would skip labeling middle vs. high school. Instead, organize either chronologically (which accomplishes the same thing as your labels, without being in-your-face about it) or else by topic (e.g., group separately music activities, language, science, etc.)</p>
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<p>My bad in the way I said that - he hasn’t. It’s just that none of the schools he applied to are far away, furthest is 4 hours drive. His favorites are closer. He’s got enough FA at one to know he’s going somewhere, and that one is 3.5 hours drive. But he’s hoping for a good package from a top choice that’s 45 minutes away :)</p>
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<p>Great idea! I’m sure she will gradually replace them all with HS achievements but that sounds very useful for summer and other HS programs and has to be a good start for college apps.</p>
<p>Resume is a good idea. I think I’ll suggest that to my daughter.
@IJD, it must be a good feeling to be done with assisting one D. 
Your D12 must have a pretty good idea about college by now. Where is she going? </p>
<p>We just did next school year registration. D. will take AP chemistry, AP World History, H. English, H. Precalc, H. French, PE.</p>
<p>Maxwell – D’12 is still waiting for some of her results before she decides. She refuses to speculate. I’ll let you know where she’s going in a month.</p>
<p>Hi, I have a S in his 1st yr at a well known prep school. We were thrilled during this time last yr when he was accepted. He wants to transfer to an IB prep school. Any thoughts on AP courses vs. IB program. He’s thinking UK colleges.</p>
<p>If he is considering UK Universities IB is a good option. My kids went to an International IB School where most of the kids went to UK. When considering UK schools remember that you apply to school (via a centralized application system (UCAS)) already knowing what you will be studying and that acceptances to UK Universities are “conditional” pending the final results of your IB exams or other entrance Exams. IB exam results come out beginning of July. A bit stressful in my opinion. </p>
<p>Here is a site for non UK kids considering UK Universitites.
[UCAS</a> - Non-UK students](<a href=“http://www.ucas.com/students/wheretostart/nonukstudents/]UCAS”>http://www.ucas.com/students/wheretostart/nonukstudents/)</p>
<p>Good Luck</p>
<p>@EAO, Thank you for that really helpful info. :)</p>
<p>The one thing that I had no idea about until a friend’s child went through it is that for Cambridge/Oxford application from a US student, grades don’t matter, only test scores. But test scores really matter. In order to qualify to take the entrance exam as a US student, you need at a minimum <em>5</em> scores of 5 on AP exams or 800 on SAT Subject exams. Since it’s tough to get 5 scores of 5 in a single test period, this requires significant advanced planning.</p>
<p>9 week progress reports for 2nd semester will be issued next week for D2. Yikes she is 3/4 of the way through her freshman year! </p>
<p>I went to University in the UK. It is VERY different from US style of college. D1 considered applying, but we talked her out of it and encouraged her to study abroad instead. She leaves May 10 for a Maymester at Oxford. Unlike most programs to Oxford she will actually take classes from Oxford Dons.</p>
<p>@IJD, Best luck to your D12. She deserves great college experience and education. </p>
<p>Do schools give class ranking to freshman class? (This might be discussed here somewhere. ) My D.'s friends kept telling her they ranked this and that, but we have no clue. Is it worth to ask the school?</p>
<p>^^^ Don’t. There is no point to freshman ranking other than bragging rights, and who wants to get caught up in that?</p>
<p>Apparently, our local HS (where D’15 is) has a honor roll/deans list for Freshmen (and everyone else too) that they post in a public place (physical list, not electronic) BUT they don’t actually tell the students or parents.</p>
<p>D’12’s HS doesn’t rank and doesn’t computer an official GPA. The no-ranking part is fine and dandy. The GPA thing has its pluses and minuses.</p>
<p>My D’s school does give out the GPA, weighted and unweighted (got that after 1st semester), but ranking isn’t announced until September of sophomore year. I wish they didn’t do any ranking at all.</p>
<p>D15,s school gives out both weighted and unweighted gpa.They do ranks as well.As mihcal1 said the ranks mean very little in freshman year.</p>