<p>Today was the day when all of the students at D’12’s school who do outside research present their work to the public. We let D’15 skip school and come listen to presentations. Now she’s thinking hard and reconsidering where she wants to go to high school. The good news is that she’s set for next year. We’ll see about the year after. </p>
<p>Oh, and D’12 gave an awesome presentation!</p>
<p>The scheduling bad advice I was given was more like lack of advice. It was never made clear that if my son did band he would not be able to double up on the science before senior year. This cost him in not being ready to take the SAT Subject test in any science. He had to take one to try and get into an ivy engineering program but he really never had a chance to do well enough to help his admission. </p>
<p>In the end I think it turned out ok. I don’t think he would have ever dropped band anyway but it would have been nice to have known.
We did a lot wrong because our HS just doesn’t send many kids to the kinds of schools he ended up wanting to go to.
Her schedule is picked out and we won’t have these issues since she isn’t a music kid.
I will have more later but wanted to address that quickly since I haven’t been around cc much the last few days.</p>
<p>Curious whether any of your K15’s are using the various online sites to see potential school matches or if this is just way over the top to even suggest to my D15. Working through all of the various college sites for a consulting gig has got me thinking this wouldn’t be a bad thing…like some here have said about seeing campuses…to get them thinking about what going to a top school means. I showed D16 some pictures on one of the sites from some decent state schools within what I’m thinking our budget will be, and immediately heard from D15, “No one wants to go to a state school!”. They’ve visited Purdue, F&M, and North Georgia campuses due to family connections, seen Ithica at a music camp, and will see SUNY Genesco for camp this year, but don’t really comprehend what attending any of these schools would mean in terms of academics and other acceptance criteria, not to mention the $$.</p>
<p>I suggested yesterday I sign my daughter up for the SAT Question of the Day and she looked at me like I was an alien and said “I am only in 8th grade!”.</p>
<p>So not really much to do here except know she has the right schedule, see if she can take the PSAT as a Freshman as well as a sophomore, hope she can do well enough on that to perhaps make the state cutoff for NMSF (I doubt she will but maybe with enough practice can have a shot), and double up her sciences sophomore year so she can take those dreaded SAT Subject tests in Junior year. I also know that you can self-study and take the AP exams, which would have been a huge help for my son but I just didn’t know it at the time.</p>
<p>Those are the kinds of things I am talking about when I talk about mistakes. Not anything we did wrong per se-just not knowing things we could have done so we weren’t always fighting against the tide.</p>
<p>So I think that’s all I have to add right now. :)</p>
<p>Pepper, why do you want your D to take the PSAT as a freshman and as a sophomore? It doesn’t count for NMSQT until Junior year. </p>
<p>It is a good idea to do practice SATs and ACTs to see which one suits the student better. (The College Board and ACT, Inc., offer free practice tests online, and sell books with tons more. Or else ask friends with older teens for the books their kids barely used.) I can see doing one “official” sitting in advance of the junior year PSAT to familiarize oneself with the standardized test format in situ – although one could do that just as well by taking SATII subject test(s) on material covered in class(es) and kill two birds with one stone. But I really don’t see any point to taking the PSAT over and over. Seems like a waste of time and money!</p>
<p>S07 (S11 college–I don’t know how to refer to him!) took a prep course after 10th grade for the PSAT, which he took in October (I think). He then went ahead and took the SAT in Nov. since it as all fresh. He was an NMF and didn’t take the SAT again but did take the ACT.</p>
<p>Practice. My son is a NMF and is going to a college next fall where it means full tuition. I don’t think it would hurt to take it as a freshman to get an early read on hoh she’ll handle that type of test. It doesn’t cost much and it’s not more than a few hours on a Saturday. Well worth it in my opinion.</p>
<p>Ah, Pepper, you have said the magic words, full tuition. 
Our son got $2K a year at his college, but they were great were other financial aid.</p>
<p>I think you’re right about the practice. Our son is really good at those types of tests (he took the GRE last August), but I don’t know about our D15. She just did the “Explore” test, which is a precursor to the ACT. It certainly doesn’t hurt and it might help. I’ll have to check out the SAT Question a Day thing.</p>
<p>Yeah, practice is good. But they can practice all they want for free at home…</p>
<p>mihcal I think I paid $20 when my son took the test. She gets to take it under test conditions two years before she takes it when it counts-again small price to pay. We can just agree to disagree on this one. What I would like to know is if anyone has had experience doing this-our school only offers it to sophomores on a Saturday so I would have to find somewhere she could take it as a freshman-has anyone done this?</p>
<p>^^Hello Pepper03, joining you here from the 2011/2015 thread 
Regarding PSATs, I have never known of a freshman to take it - however, I can see why you would be interested in seeing how your D does. My 2015 D’s middle school has the students take the SSAT in 7th and 8th grades, which does serve as good practice for PSAT/SAT (though that is not why it is administered), and also predicts an average SAT score for each student.</p>
<p>Hoping D15 can take the SAT thru CTY if they have an early June one–she did that last year, I think it’s great for practice because–for her it’s the test conditions–the setting, the rules, the tension and nervousness etc that get her even more than testing.</p>
<p>Otherwise we’re pretty laid back about it and probably not much else til PSAT Junior year, her parents are relaxed about it at least–she is the kid who begs for computer time and then only uses it to check her grades and do the SAT question of the day when I’m thinkin she’s finally relaxing after a sports game/meet!</p>
<p>Hello Pepper and mayhew from 2011/2015!</p>
<p>Hi mayhew and collegemaw! :)</p>
<p>That is my plan as well collegemaw-get her familiar with the testing or at least give her the chance to be familiar with it, make sure the schedule gives her the opportunity to be a solid applicant wherever she ends up wanting to apply-and let her enjoy HS!</p>
<p>She is also very grade focused-too much so IMO-so I don’t want to overdo anything with her-she is far more intense than her big brother.</p>
<p>My daughter took the SAT in March this year with CTY. she is in 8th grade. She did pretty well for her grade and age. She did three sample tests, not much of anything else in terms of preparation. The scores won’t be kept so it’s a good practice. Hopefully it helps her gain confidence when she takes the real test in the future. I don’t know when her HS will suggest them take the PSAT. I know it’s not in 9th grade, since we have friends in 9th grade now.</p>
<p>Familiarity with the tests is a big advantage of the various Talent Search programs. I think it gets rid of much of the fear factor Our middle school encourages the 6th-8th grade honors students to participate. It’s been a good experience for my girls. </p>
<p>The selective enrollment HS that D’12 attends requires the SAT for admission. It’s a 3 year program that starts in 10th grade, so most applicants are 9th graders. Middle school scores do not persist year to year, but starting in 9th grade, the scores stay. So there are some obvious advantages to applying (and taking the SAT) in 8th grade.</p>
<p>I have a S15 and just went through admissions with S11. </p>
<p>Our school (private college prep) has all freshman take the PSAT. During sophomore year the students all take PLAN (similar to the PSAT but for the ACT). Then as juniors, they all take the PSAT again. The school keeps this all pretty low key ie no emails that your kids need to prepare etc. The only emails are that you should make sure your kids sleep well and eat breakfast!</p>
<p>One thing I noticed is that our school recommends taking SATII on the June test date after the first year of the class. Bio after freshman year, Chem after Soph, then phys after junior year (S11 took Chem and Phys and did well >700). Don’t know if that is an option at many other places or not.</p>
<p>S15 will likely not be as science focused so we will see how his journey goes!</p>
<p>Glad to find this thread!
We just signed up our D. for HS classes. she is very excited.
While having high expectations academically, she is a very bad organizer. Hopefully that will be improved. She often forgets to turn in homework in middle school. Their school has these strange A-B days - A day: science, B day: History and French. everyday they have English and Math. While it doesn’t sound too bad, it’s a lot worse in reality. For example, she almost forgot if it was an A or a B day before Easter break. so now she may mess up another homework due time. (She messed up several times when there were unexpected snow days.)</p>
<p>Anyway, organizational skills could be a challenge. Another one is time management, since she is involved in several activities outside school, and high school work may take a lot more time than that in middle school.</p>
<p>@maxwell</p>
<p>Good luck with that schedule. Does it continue into high school? My oldest S11 was also very disorganized. It gradually improved but it was pretty tough at times.</p>
<p>My D2015 finally remembered to give me the registration materials that’d been handed out 2 weeks ago (before spring break). I emailed the HS counselor and verified that it’s OK to skip the freshman social studies elective and still be in-the-running for AP history the following year. (The catalog says “requires signature of social studies teacher.” But counselor verified that signature of English teacher works too.) D2015 would rather take art than the social studies elective. </p>
<p>I am trying to talk her into trying out for the HS dance team. She dances competitively at a private studio, so is sure to make the freshman team and has a shot at JV. But she is reluctant because she has an image of the school dance team kids being non-academically oriented. Also, it’d be a huge time commitment (0th period every day, several afternoons a week, and weekend events). There’s a workshop next week, before tryouts, so maybe that’ll convince her.</p>
<p>My d. is a competitive figure skater. She is going to continue skating in high school. She is actually not spending that much time on it (not as much as some other skaters) but it still takes considerable amount of her time. She also is a pretty good musician, first clarinet all county, tried all state, didn’t get in, wants to try again. I don’t know if she can still keep doing those in HS when academic load is heavy, plus there are more “attractions” in HS in terms of ECs.</p>