<p>Very cool @petrichor11. We just finished touring Purdue university…loved it and love Indiana!</p>
<p>Also on a trip and had a great college visit in SC today! DS’s comment “I love everything about it except how far it from home”. I think he will at least apply and it gives him a great match for his list. And now there are 3 for the app list and 2 more for the want to tour list. A very productive day! </p>
<p>Do your kids have…like…nine million mile long lists of schools to narrow down? That’s the job this summer: winnow the list from fifty to, say, a dozen or so. D is doing that, but S is just making his list longer.</p>
<p>@Mysonsdad – I can’t really give you advice regarding Math2 prep, other than the obvious. Go through the book start to finish. Make note of the chapters or sections that represent new material or are particularly troublesome, so he can review them in the week or two before the test. On both the exercises and the practice tests keep track of wrong answers, so he can re-do those questions (blinded to the correct answer) in the week before the test.
I set up a very specific work schedule for my son, which given his lack of executive skills proved to be very helpful for him. Much better for him c/w giving him the book and telling him to work an hour-plus per night. Finally, I think that it also helped that I repeatedly tried to boost his confidence during the prep process. Made it easier for him to work if he felt that it would make a difference. So, it might help to tell your son that a 630 on that first practice test IS really good, and that you’re sure that, as long as he does this work, that he’ll get into the upper 700"s. Every night when my son told me that he finished his prep work for the night I told him he was a hero, and that it would pay off. I know a lot of CC kids don’t need that push or reinforcement, but S14 did/does. </p>
<p>@3scoutsmom – Wow. No one out here takes the SAT in their sophomore year. At least not that I’ve heard of. And given the curriculum of our kids" high school, neither of them will have taken an AP course prior to their senior year. . . Will get S14’s AP scores tomorrow. He really screwed up his final semester, getting a C in AP Chem and raising his C-/D+ in AP Stats to a B only by getting a perfect score on the last test (and by the munificence of his teacher). We’ll see. </p>
<p>If any kid has plans to go into premed in college and/or apply to medical schools, I would advise the parents to watch out in terms of taking dual credit classes which have a college transcript. AAMC requires all college level classes to be listed and transcripts provided irrespective of when and where these classes were taken. AP credits only carry over if the college provides credit for those classes on their transcript but any community or real college credits have to be listed for medical school applications.</p>
<p>So doing well in college classes or avoiding hard classes is a MUST for someone planning on medical school.</p>
<p>How many times are your kids going to take the SAT?</p>
<p>Petrchor11: No we have the opposite problem here. We are working on coming up with 5-6 to be excited about applying to. My DS is more of a “of course it will be fine type” that needs to be encouraged to. “shop” for the best fit and FA package. Not because he has his heart set on a school but that he is much more focused on his sports, friends and schoolwork. That is why I am excited about now having 3 to apply to and 2 more he wants to see. We have 1 reach, 1 match and 1 safety on the list at this point so major progress has been made since spring break. </p>
<p>I hate being out here on the West Coast because it seems like so many top colleges are back East. We have visited Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA. I thought about taking S back East this summer to see some schools but may not have time. I know a few people who have applied to schools they thought they may like and then visited after being accepted. Their logic being, “What if they find a school they really like and are rejected?”</p>
<p>How many of you ran Net Price calculator for your kids dream school? Just ran one for mine and I really need that drink!</p>
<p>DD will take one PSAT, two ACTs, and two SATs. </p>
<p>Have no idea if she’ll take any SAT IIs or self-study AP tests (might do CLEP tests as an alternative). If so, maybe late in senior year and early in (expected) gap year. </p>
<p>DD is preparing two college-search lists, so it’s getting a lot longer at this point. One is for mainly residential schools where she’d live on campus, if we can afford room, board, and travel. Currently at ten schools. The other is for local school she can get to via bus or train, in case our finances require she live at home. This list is at six (plus the two overlap schools from the other list). </p>
<p>The lists will likely morph once we know her ACT/SAT scores. </p>
<p>D’11 took the PSAT twice and the ACT once. She did not take the SAT. Her score on the ACT while not perfect was sufficient.</p>
<p>S’16 will not take the PSAT. He has no chances of being a NMF and is a terrible test taker. It is not worth the time. He will take the ACT once, have not decided when. Likely sometime next spring. I am not expecting anything earthshattering in a positive sense.</p>
<p>I have decided that I am not going to stress out over this process with my son. I have been through it once with my D and it is not worth the stress. S will end up where he needs to be, so will most of our kids. A big name school is not necessary to achieve a proper education. In many senses, a good, solid school that is not top 20 or even top 100 may be better for our kids. Why do they need the extra pressure of trying to get into a big name school that only accepts 2% of the applicants? Our jobs at this point are to figure out finances and have honest talks with our kids about what we can and will pay for, so that they can put financial safety and matches on their list and maybe also assisting with time management skills. The test scores, grades, and EC’s all are the students responsibilities.</p>
<p>@seal16 I have run the net price calculator on many many schools. I also have a DD in college so I have a pretty good idea what our contribution will be. BTW one of the biggest factors on our list is how well a school meets need. </p>
<p>@Petrchor11 We have an extensive list of possible schools (based on major) that we plan to narrow down over the next year based on son’s grades and test scores. </p>
<p>Son took the ACT in June. He did pretty well but will be retaking this fall. As of yet we don’t have plans for him to take the SAT. He will be taking the SAT 2 Math 2 this fall after some August study time. </p>
<p>With S14 we did a number of pre-application school visits. He wasn’t fully engaged in the process (maybe like Cheeringsection’s son), although it was at least helpful in terms of him figuring out some of the parameters with which to compare schools. It did help in terms of eliminating schools. For example, when we visited Colby most of the guys looked like they played lacrosse and had stepped out of a J.Crew catalog – not exactly my son’s demographic. He thought that the school might not be a good fit. So, on the first go-around there a number of schools he didn’t like (which was helpful) and only one school that he REALLY did like (USC, from which he was rejected). . . When we did the admitted students’ days/tours he was much more focused. Number one, these schools ‘wanted’ him, and that meant something to him. Secondly, this was all much more tangible to him – he finally appreciated the significance of the decision that he was about to make . . . Of course if one is considering binding early decision it’s a must to visit early, and maybe more than once.</p>
<p>Because the UC system was so strong for so there are simply not as many good private colleges in California. UC is not what it once was, and it does force many of us in CA to look out of state. Not necessarily a bad thing – I think it’s good for kids to experience life somewhere other than their home state, but of course it’s expensive. Risking repetition from prior notes, although the elite/lottery schools don’t offer merit aid, there are a lot of good schools in the East, Midwest, and South that do.</p>
<p>There are times I wish that our school didn’t offer AP classes until 12th grade, it’s a VERY academically competitive high school. D16 knows a few kids that are trying for valedictorian and they have had their courses laid out since 6th grade to maximize their GPAs! It gotten so bad with kids taking classes on line and summer school (which don’t count for GPA) to get regular classes out of the way, that they now require all students to take a minimum of four NON-weighted class and at least 3 must be taken before 12th grade because so many kids were having to drop sports and music which don’t have weighted option to have a chance to make the top 10%. Here is tremendous pressure for class rank here in Texas since top 10% gets you in as an auto admit to most Texas schools, top 7% for UT Austin. Our school bases GPA on weighted grades, to get your weighted GPA you multiply a regular class grade by 1.0, by 1.1 for pre-AP (honors) classes and 1.2 for AP classes. There’s no way you could make top 10% here without lots of AP classes. Technically only two AP weighted classes are open to freshman because they don’t have any prerequisites but if a student has the prerequisites they are allowed to take AP classes anytime 9th-12th grade. </p>
<p>D16 is at a slight disadvantage because she is in orchestra so 4 year of a regular class elective, she did not start a language until 9th grade (most of her peers started a foreign language in 8th grade in foreign language 2 class so they will be in foreign language pre-AP in 10th and AP in 11th), because she was home schooled prior to 9th grade they would not allow her to start 9th grade in pre-AP English or pre-AP Biology (I fought and got her moved to pre-AP Bio for second semester). As a result based on end of first semester 10th grade she was only ranked 37 out 647 with even though she had an unweighted GPA of 97.714. Her weighted GPA was only 105.143 we have been told that in this school, historically students need to have a weighted GPA of 115+ by the end of the first semester of the senior year to make top 10%. She’s managed to pull her GPA up 2nd semester of 10th grade, Unweighted 98.11 Weighted 106.16 but they haven’t released the new ranks yet. Next year she is taking 5 AP classes and one pre-AP class so hopefully that will boost her weighted and keep her in the running, her goal is to graduate in the top 5% but I’ll be happy if she stays in the top 10% because Texas A&M is her safety school.</p>
<p>Grades make me nuts, in homeschool I teach my kids for mastery. If they don’t get a concept we keep going back until they do get it. No, “ok you know 75% of the subject so you get a C and move on,” no, “you messed it up the first time around so even though you’ve shown you know it 100% now you still only get a B”… but that’s a whole other rant.</p>
<p>As for taking the SAT in 10th grade it’s not uncommon here, at least for those kids that plan to take the SAT two or three times. It seems that the ones that are aiming for high scores are the ones taking the test at the end of 10th grade. The ones that only plan on taking the test once say they are waiting to take the it near the end of 11th grade. This is just what I have seen with my daughter’s friends, I can’t say this applies to anyone outside her particular circle of friends. @Mysonsdad My D16 will take the SAT twice, she got 2150 in 10th grade which is good enough for her first choice school but feels she can improve that to put her in a better position for scholarships plus she has a pipe dream of MIT but would need to significantly improve her scores for that! She’ll also take the ACT once because her school requires it.</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel I’m so glad your S14 was able to pull up that Sat grade! Wishing you luck on the AP scores! We won’t get D16’s World History AP score until 7/6. She’ll be in transit to summer camp so she gave me the codes to to access her account in case she can’t get WiFi.</p>
<p>@Cheeringscetion We have our list down to 3 schools: reach (in so many ways)- MIT, match- OU, Safety-Texas A&M and doubt that it will change at this point. We are going to tour MIT at the end of July, D will be in Boston anyway so might as well. I’m kind of hoping she doesn’t like it and brings her list down to two. If by some fluke she got accepted, I have no idea how we would pay for it.</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom I wish you luck with the MIT dream. My DS also had that dream, planted by an accelerated math teacher in elementary school, but has let it go for several reasons: 2014 Val from his HS was wait listed, campus is too urban, and too far from home. We will not even go to see it. I have always seen it as a poor fit anyway but waited to say so until he had voiced campus type and distance preferences. What parent would discourage such a dream if their child was willing to work for it?!? However I greatly agree with @bajamm’s comments above. They will end up where they need to be and we need to be honest about finances to facilitate that process. I wish your D all the luck and scholarship money she needs, if she gets in. We could have paid for MIT but my retirement is more secure with it off the list!</p>
<p>When I was back a East I took my son to see Harvard and then MIT. At Harvard there were lots of people there and the surrounding town was very busy. When we got to MIT there were something like 4 kids playing frisbee. It seemed so boring. My S immediately wrote it off his list. Like everyone else here, finances play a factor also.</p>
<p>@Cheeringsection - please don’t wish her luck! MIT is on the list for all the wrong reasons the only reason I haven’t discouraged it at this point is that it keeps her motivated to keep her grades up and increase scores which will help with private scholarships. I have been honest and told her that she is welcome to apply but that we may not be able to afford it. She started her list by looking at the top schools for her major. In her case it was Pen State, OU, FSU, UMiami, MIT, UA- Huntsville, Texas A&M. We found out that Pen State and FSU offer little merit and would be hard for us to pay for, she gleefully took them off her list. She’d have a good chance of merit aid at UMiami but their program isn’t a really a good fit for her and she wasn’t as excited about Miami as I was (I lived there pre-kids ;). ) UA -Huntsville has a great program and is well connected to NASA but it’s very small and doesn’t offer things outside her major that she is interested in and there web page is horrible! That left her with MIT, OU and TAMU. She really doesn’t like the idea of TAMU but it has a good program, affordable and she’ll be an auto admit so it’s a perfect safety just in case something unforeseen happens. OU is perfect for her in every way great program, all the non major courses she wants too, good location and offers good merit aid. So why does she want to apply to MIT? Primarily because we are originally from MA and she goes to back to camp each summer with her childhood friends and wants to be close to her MA friends and Girl Scout her camp! This plus her GC is encouraging to apply to several schools. I’d be ok if she only applies to OU and TAMU. I am so grateful that MIT only has a 5% acceptance rate! </p>
<p>@3scoutsmom – What a great note. Never hesitate to write a long detailed note like that – I find all of that stuff simply fascinating. It’s so different from my kids’ experiences. And I absolutely cannot believe the stuff that goes on regarding gaming the system to get the very highest GPA. Well, actually I can believe it. But still, the unnecessary pressure that it puts on these kids at such a young age is just awful. It’s not even a question about being unable to take academic risk. It’s devolved down to hurting yourself by being in the orchestra because there’s no weighted option. Beyond absurd, but again, unfortunately not beyond belief. </p>
<p>It’s clear reading between the lines that your daughter will do fine wherever she ends up. Kids simply love it at Texas A&M. And with the Texas economy booming, and so many successful Aggies out there in the real world, assuming she gets a degree in some sort of practical field she should be able to step right into a career. . . The boy across the street who’s grown up with my S14 is headed to MIT. He’s a very bright kid, but not extraordinary. He’s 6’9" and was the center for the local high school basketball team that won the state championship in their division. MIT’s basketball team has been to the NCAA Division 3 final four in recent years, and the coach recruited him very actively. There were weeks where his mom spoke to the coach more often than she spoke to her spouse. He’s a wonderful kid, and we’re very happy for him. He’s open about the fact that although he loves playing basketball, he has largely viewed it as his ticket to a "better’ college than he’d get into otherwise. That said, we’re a bit concerned about him. If you check out the threads on the MIT board, there are a lot of discussions about how tough it is academically, and that’s from kids who are already superstars. They can’t give the athletes money, but they do support them with tutors, etc., and my guess is that their basketball players may get cut a break here and there. We’ll see. . . . Showing my ignorance, is OU Oklahoma? Is that where she thinks she’ll end up? Why? . . To me, it seems like such a short list. Why not cast the net a bit wider? If she does end up in the top 5%, what about UT Austin? . . The PSAT cutoff for National Merit Finalist status last year for Texas was 219. If she can raise the equivalent of her SAT score by 4 points (from 215) there are all sorts of schools that would be happy to give her a full ride!! And even with her current SAT score, combined with her GPA she could get merit aid at a lot of very good schools (like SMU, if she doesn’t want to go too far away). Are you sure that her college list is essentially done?</p>
<p>There are many schools out there giving full tuition rides to someone making national merit and none of the students in this thread have taken the test yet. I suggest it is too early to be making school choices before that test is taken and scores are received.:D</p>
<p>A&M is one such school which gives a full tuition ride to someone who makes the national merit finalist and this applies to students from any State. A&M has one of the best engineering schools in the nation.</p>
<p>The list is short because she has a <em>very</em> specific area she wants to focus on for her degree, she wants to major in meteorology with a focus on computer programing models for severe weather forecasting (non tropical) and she wants a school that offers German and a semester aboard program for meteorology in Germany is a big plus and she also plays harp and wants to continue as a non-major in a school that has a harp an actual harp program, not just an orchestra that needs a harp. Yup, OU is the University of Oklahoma. OU is number one for severe weather meteorology and meets <em>all</em> her requirements, Pen State is number one for General Met programs and meets all her requirements but is not as geographical desirable as OU and has zero chance of merit aid so it’s off the list. FSU says they have a harp program but it has limited options for non-majors. FSU was also ruled out because of lack of merit aid but may be considered for graduate school as she would get instate tuition at a graduate level. MIT is number one for research Met, it doesn’t have a harp program but she can private study with some world class harpists in Boston but the only reason she really wants to go there is because of her friends. TAMU doesn’t have a harp program and their Met program is geared to meet the needs of the off shore oil industry is still a very good program just not the focus she is looking for.</p>
<p>If you know of other programs that offer good merit, and a degree in Meteorology with and emphasis on computer modeling of severe non tropical weather, with a harp program open to non-majors and a German exchange option, we’re open to suggestions! Of course this could change at any moment but she’s been consistent with what she want’s out of college since she was in 8th grade. UT doesn’t have a Meteorology program and one of her complaints about A&M is that it’s too close and UT is even closer.</p>
<p>Good point about National Merit, this is very much on our radar. I really think she has a shot at it and OU has a great National Merit package, not a total full ride but close and it’s for 5 years! AU-Huntsville does offer a full ride but again I don’t think it’s a good fit for her. There are some other school with Met programs that offer full rides for National Merit like University of Idaho but they aren’t as highly rated as OU.</p>
<p>I’m sorry about the long posts - just not a member of the texting generation! </p>