Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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<p>Son’s high school has had graduating classes in the mid 400s for the last couple of years. </p>

<p>Our weighting system works different then most I’ve seen. Bonuses are added onto the overall unweighted GPA to get the weighted GPA. For each honors class they add .0125 to the overall GPA and for each IB/ AP classes they add .03. It takes a lot of honors and IB/AP classes to add up to one full point of extra weight. The good thing though is taking a non-honors or study hall doesn’t hurt your GPA it just doesn’t give you that bump on the final GPA. </p>

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<p>all this pressure on these kids. What ever happened to learning for learning’s sake, and forget about the grades? I know…that went out the window years ago! These kids only know the “goal”…not the journey…even in college now…right?! It’s all about the job and the “success”…not about what your knowledge will actually do for you or your neighbors…how you can help this world…The colleges only care about those scores/grades…it used to be they wanted a well-rounded person…now, they want what looks well-rounded on paper…but, who really cares about the kid and what they really want? sorry, I rant. It’s just frustrating to me. And, my kid isn’t gone of those IVY-going kids…but just to have him do what he wants to do…is taking a toll!</p>

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<p>D’s high school has approximately 150 students. We have the state lottery scholorship too, a few go out of state and she wants to be one of them. :sigh:</p>

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<p>Drmom, I hear you! That is why we homeschooled until 9th grade no tests, no grades just building the foundations and a love of learning. But the fact is, if you want to go to a four year college you have to either jump through the hoops or play the high school game. In our case my kids would likely have to take a SAT II test for every high school class they homeschooled and would not get the benefit of free daily language, music, art and lab science instruction. We have several friends that homeschooled through high school but most took the CC rout and only a very few went directly four year schools. Not there is anything wrong with this, my boys may end up on that path, but d16 is thriving in this new to her world of grades and competition. </p>

<p>Is she learning? Yes! Some of what she is learning is beyond what I could have provided her and much of what she is learning is a waste of time but she understands it’s part of the high school game. She is also learning the skills needed to work with others in a competitive environment, something that I think will serve her well in college and in the work force. Yes there is a lot of pressure but I’m happy she has an opportunity to learn to deal with it now, well she is still at home, where I can provide support as needed instead of waiting to experience this when she is off on her own. She isn’t going for the ivys and she is firmly rooted in serving her community and has manged to follow her passions in high school (German, high adventure, harp, stem, community service…) You may have to get creative but it can be done.</p>

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<p>My short list of SAT prep books:</p>

<p>-- S14 scored a 660 on the Writing section when he took the SAT’s for the first time (with no specific SAT preparation) in April of his junior year. When he re-tested in November he got an 800, a direct result of his using (only) two books.
– “The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar” by Erica Meltzer. My kids’ high school does a really good job teaching grammar, and S14’s grammar skills were stellar even without the preparation. But Meltzer breaks down the grammar one needs to know for this test into discrete chunks, then more importantly shows you how the exam will test you on these chunks. Her work is brilliant. The book is really do-able – it can be covered in a month at a pace of 20 - 30 minutes a night. Not that awful, really. Any kid who masters this book will kill the Writing’s multiple choice sections.<br>
– “How to Write a Killer SAT Essay” by Tom Clements. Written in a glib fun style, this book teaches the student to essentially pre-write his/her SAT Writing section essay, and then shoehorn that essay into the prompts. It does cover the technical aspects of the essay, i.e., format, sentence structure, use of literary devices, etc., but it’s not a book about how to write. It’s a book about how to score well on the SAT Writing essay. My son scored an 8 (out of 12) on his first essay, then a 10 the second go-around, even though he didn’t finish his last sentence (!). </p>

<p>-- S14 scored a 720 on the Critical Reading section on his first attempt. It’s an impressive score, but less so in light of the fact that he’d scored a 700 when he took the SAT in eighth grade (part of the John Hopkins Talented etc.). As he put it, “Dad, 2+ years of private high school tuition and all we bought on the SAT CR was 20 points!” Shortly before his second SAT sitting Erica Meltzer came out with her CR prep book, “The Critical Reader”. My son didn’t need that much help on the vocabulary stuff, so I can’t really comment on that aspect of this book. But he did need help on the reading/passage sections of the test, and this book was fantastic in that regard. It’s written at a pretty high level – she specifically states that she makes no apologies for a sophisticated approach. But as with her other book the return on the time invested was spectacular. My son got this book only a few weeks before the test, but he gives her credit for helping him get his CR score up to 780.</p>

<p>-- No recommendations for the Math section. S14 never did any studying specific to that section.</p>

<p>-- Finally, as @3scoutsmom alluded to in a note yesterday, the importance of the PSAT’s cannot be overstated. We were vaguely aware that the PSAT score determined one’s National Merit status, but we had no idea how valuable (both in terms of admission and money) it is to get NMF status. S14 didn’t prep at all for the PSAT’s, and missed the California NMF cutoff by 2 points. Ouch. S16 will be working on this stuff during the summer and will do some final review in Sept/Oct in preparation for this year’s PSAT in mid-October. </p>

<p>Obviously I’m no expert. I’m sure that there are all sorts of good prep books out there, and I’d also guess that the prep courses work pretty well. Just wanted to share some books that may not be as well-known as the Barron’s, Princteon, Kaplan, etc., but that worked well for us. Best of luck to everyone. We’ll all go through this together.</p>

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<p>Asleep, I totally agree with you on the “The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar” by Erica Meltzer. I haven’t looked at her Critical Reading book yet. CR is one of D16’s strong points but it never hurts to review. I’ll add it to our prep book list as well. Thanks for the suggestion! </p>

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<p>petrichor - our local public high school had a Senior class of 550 when my daughter graduated in 2012. My 2016 son chose a very different path and attends an all male public leadership academy which will have about 40. Talk about two very different experiences!</p>

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<p>S class is 109 and they do not rank. On the college profile the gpa mean for the past 4 years 3.2-3.3. Average SAT middle 50% 1890; middle 50 % ACT composite 27-30.<br>
This school is a stickler on really earning grades,in many if you get a grade higher than a B you rocked the class.
All classes are taught at an honor or college level. Most students will have taken 4-5 AP’S by graduation and some none and those who don’t still do well in the highly selective catagory of colleges and universities. They do not weight gpa.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the list of SAT prep books! We need help with math though–anyone have a suggestion?</p>

870

<p>^
PWN the SAT: Math Guide by Mike McClenathan</p>

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<p>^ Thanks–ordered!</p>

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<p>Asleep, thank you so much for the list.
For whoever asked, my high school usually graduates about 170-190 each year. My S class has 165.
As far as qualifications, my S wants to go to an Ivy but I think the SAT will hurt him. I can’t afford 4 years at UC’s so most likely CC for two years and then a UC.</p>

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<p>@Mysonsdad‌ I think your plan for a CC then a state u makes good financial sense. I also think it is alright to go ahead and apply at 4 year schools and see what the merit and financial aid packages are. It may (or may not) end up being affordable. Just be honest with your son about what sort of package needs to come through before you will be able to afford it, so he is not surprised by a financial no when acceptances get in.</p>

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<p>@mysonsdad – We know a number of kids who’ve taken the CC to UC route. It has served them very well.</p>

<p>@bajamm’s point regarding merit aid is well-taken. Both from our own experience with S14 and through reading a lot of threads here on College Confidential I was amazed how much merit money is out there. Here’s a link to a Kiplinger webpage that is a (?partial) list of private colleges in decreasing order of the percentage of kids who get merit scholarships (“non-need based aid” in their terminology) and the average dollar amount of merit scholarships for each school: <a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&sortby=non_nb_aid_p&sortorder=DESC”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&sortby=non_nb_aid_p&sortorder=DESC&lt;/a&gt;
For instance, Case Western (a very high quality school) gives merit aid to over 50% of the kids who attend, with an average award over $20K. That’s not nothing. A number of CTCL schools are also quite generous with merit aid.<br>
. . . That all said, doing some homework for the SAT’s and getting some good scores will only help.</p>

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<p>DD’s school graduates in excess of 500 kids a year. We’ve told her that we don’t expect or even want her to aim for valedictorian – there are kids at her school driving themselves batty with trying to be valedictorian and playing the high school game. I’m with drmom123 – what happened to learning? Why is it all about how high a gpa one has? Our focus has been on learning, thinking critically, knowing what one doesn’t know, and asking questions – I always have told her – there are approximately 24,000 high schools in the US – so, even if you did make valedictorian – there are a lot of valedictorians out there – not to denigrate those who have kids who are aiming toward it. It just hasn’t been a focus in our home, and that seems to work for DD. </p>

<p>Asleepathewheel - a number of kids from our HS go to Case with that $20K in award money – several folks have told us that they are still paying $35K annually after that $20K award.</p>

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<p>Most private schools do cost upward of 50K - several of them are inching towards 55/60K per year. D goes to Case and she did receive a generous merit scholarship from them. She was also able to add on an alumni scholarship for her junior and senior years. This has made the cost way more reasonable for us - I believe we paid close to 30K for her first year, but it has been less than that for the last couple. If you won’t qualify for financial aid (we don’t), one good option is to look for schools that offer merit aid. There are a lot of them out there - although, you can rule out any Ivys.</p>

<p>We’ve had this talk with S as well. S is a good student - highly doubt that he will end up as Val/Sal - but that doesn’t matter to us or him. Personally, I don’t believe that designation matters for anything other than the actual graduation ceremony at the high school. S is one of the top students at the school, is taking very challenging courses and as long as he gets good grades, we are happy with this. A good SAT/ACT score combined with his GPA should be good enough to get him admission to a good school with hopefully, a decent merit scholarship. He hasn’t looked at many schools yet - if he wants an ivy, we might have to rethink this :)</p>

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<p>For 2013 -2014, there were 8 schools that had tuition, fees, room, and board that totaled over $60,000:</p>

<p><a href=“Sarah Lawrence College - 10 most expensive colleges - CNNMoney”>http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/college/2013/10/23/expensive-colleges/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This excludes books, personal expenses, spending money, transportation, etc.</p>

<p>Case and Western was at $54,700.</p>

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<p>SERIOUS amounts of financial aid would have to occur. </p>

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<p>dadinator - our 2012 daughters school is on that top 10 list. Luckily for us they also give very very good financial aide, so we pay less than a third of the price listed. And we live a pretty comfortable lifestyle.</p>

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<p>S16 is all done with the school year and turned 16 today. He has been out of school for about a week and leaves tomorrow to be a CIT for a couple of weeks at overnight camp. When he gets home he will have soccer work outs, online health to take, drivers test (all done with class, etc. we just couldn’t squeeze in the test), a week of family vacation and then all of a sudden it will be beginning of Aug and soccer pre-season will start in earnest. Then band camp and then junior year will start…yikes! Where does the time go?</p>

<p>S has also promised to do some self studying for the PSAT this summer if I get him the books. We have decided to save the tutoring for later in the fall since we think (based on PLAN vs. 10th grade PSAT results) that he will prefer the ACT. And I don’t want to pay for a tutor for SAT and again for ACT. I would be shocked if he will score anywhere close to NMSF cut off…</p>

<p>D13 is getting ready to start her freshman year at college after taking a gap year. She is working two part-time jobs in the hopes of building up a big enough nest egg that she might be able to do an unpaid internship or something in another city next summer. She is also responsible for her books and spending money while at college. She got some great news last week that she received an outside scholarship for $6K (!) for next year that she applied for last Feb. I had forgotten all about it. So that provides a little cushion. </p>

<p>D is not terribly excited to start school (she had such a blast during her gap year) but has registered for classes and seems to be getting her head around to the idea of college again. She still won’t even think about shopping for dorms things, etc. I know that once she is there, she will get immersed in that experience and really enjoy it but it’s a bit difficult right now.</p>