<p>In my mind, history isn’t any different than most humanities liberal arts degrees in that it isn’t pre-professional. It prepares you for nothing and anything. Just like an English major or art history or political science or philosophy degree. Presumably someone who graduates with one of those degrees can think critically, write, etc. One can be a history major and go to medical school (as long as med school pre reqs and MCATs are taken) or law school or business school. Or one can get an entry level job in business or a non-profit or with the government. Granted, in this economy it will likely be a bit harder to find that first job but with persistence, networking, and a decent resume with some internships and/or work experience someone with an UG in history can find a path to a career with or without graduate school. </p>
<p>I think all of you are echoing what I was thinking. He loves history, but doesn’t see where that degree alone would take him - other than perhaps lay a foundation for law school. But with the current economy, law seems to be a dicey proposition. International politics/political science was another area he thought he might be interested in - I sent him an article that detailed all kinds of jobs you could get with that degree. He read through it and said “Mom - I think all they are saying in this article is that don’t get just this degree - it’s pretty useless :)”. He’s still trying to figure out what he might want to study…</p>
<p>Well, honestly, that doesn’t put him on a short list. An awful lot of kids switch majors a time or two, or go the “undecided” route for awhile. As long as they’re not expecting to apply to a university in the UK, where you sort of have to have that settled up front, or switching concentrations six or seven times, it’s not a bad thing.</p>
<p>Yes and No to knowing what concentration you would like to study. Many Universities you applied to the school and the university. Ie Purdue; UC schools; you maybe admitted to the university but not your school of choice.
It is hard to transfer into a program at many universities.</p>
<p>Hello all, new here, having returned to CC in the last few weeks in search of information on test score release dates and such. Discovered this thread and have been skimming with interest. Ordered a couple of SAT writing prep books based on a rec here, so thank you for that.</p>
<p>I have a daughter who graduated in '13, and I was pretty hands-off/clueless about the modern college app process. Back in the day, I tossed out a few college apps, took the SAT with no prep, arranged to finance it all myself, and in the end it was all good. What I am realizing now is that the process is much more involved than it used to be, and the money required to get that college education can be staggering. </p>
<p>I started paying attention toward the end of my daughter’s application process, and realize now that we could have been smarter about it. She is using my husband’s GI Bill, and what I know now is that there is a huge variation among schools as to the value of that program. It can be a full ride in some places, and in others it makes barely a dent. In the end, she ended up at Univ of WA as an out of state student, where it makes a moderate dent, but we still struggle to make the various payments required. Thankfully, her program is good there, and she ended up really liking the school and location, despite initial misgivings (she thought she wanted a smaller school and possibly a women’s college initially. The competition for her came down to UW and Bryn Mawr in the end, and she decided two days before the deadline.)</p>
<p>So now the second daughter is coming up, graduating in '16. She’s a motivated student and a good test taker, which will be helpful in the upcoming year. She’s interested in a possible engineering major, though she’s not sure of the type, and would like a school that offers a Chinese major or minor. We have always homeschooled, and have had her do a few SAT subject tests and AP exams to validate the parent-grades. (That was something my older daughter did not do, again, because I was clueless.) She did the PSAT twice, in 9th and 10th grade. She scored well enough in 9th grade with no prep to have qualified for semi-finalist if she was old enough, so we are hopeful that she could qualify this year, and are putting a good bit of effort into test prep right now. She’s probably going to do her first SAT in the fall as well. She will not have the GI Bill, as we are using it on older daughter, so looking for schools with good merit aid.</p>
<p>Her schedule for the upcoming year includes AP Biology, AP Music Theory, and AP English Lang (she did AP US Gov, English Lit, and Calc AB in previous years), along with US History, Mandarin (considering AP exam, but not sure), and Orchestra. She did a summer Calc 2 course at the local university, which has put her a bit ahead of the game, and we are debating whether to forgo math for the upcoming semester to allow for more time to focus on test prep and her sports/extracurriculars/volunteer work (figure skating and cross country will have major fall comps, and the All State Music Festival is in there too). She would resume math second semester, probably with Calc 3 at the University.</p>
<p>Looking forward to reading more here and commiserating as we figure this thing out. :-)</p>
<p>My kid loves history, did quite well in school and on APs but expects to be a premed in college.</p>
<p>@arisamp – Forgive my glib comment about history majors and working at Starbucks.
First, agreeing with @momofzag, I do believe that even in this difficult economic environment most kids who graduate from a reputable college with top-notch critical thinking and writing skills will find themselves a niche, regardless of their specific major.
Instead of a stand-alone history major, your son can double-major or minor in economics or business. If in addition he can speak a second language he might start a career in international business. A couple of schools that S14 considered, Tulane and Miami, have all sorts of connections in Latin American and run academic programs oriented towards international business. I’m sure that these programs aren’t unique – they’re simply the ones that we ran across. . . . .For many careers our kids may ultimately going to need a graduate degree – he could pursue something like a Master’s of Int’l Affairs and could then looks towards a career in the foreign service. . . He could choose a specific area in history that would dovetail into a career path. My brother-in-law has a degree in History, and his area of interest was the history of clinical psychology. He ended up with an advanced degree in psychology and is a successful family therapist. Studying the history of public health (combined with a minor in public health) could lead in some interesting directions. Etc., etc. . . He can contact the History depts of schools to which he’s applying, and ask them what their graduates are up to. He might get some interesting answers.</p>
<p>@AKFirefly – Welcome to the thread. Sounds like your D16 performs at, shall we say, a pretty high level. Our S16 also scored high enough in last year’s PSAT to qualify as a NMSF – it would be a shame if he can’t hit that same score this year when it counts. Other than swimming, this summer is dedicated to test prep, although so far he’s much more into the swimming that his study books.
In terms of looking for schools that are generous with merit aid, there are some good threads here on CC, and the following links might also be helpful – A list of private universities and private liberal arts colleges in decreasing order of the fraction of kids who get merit aid (as well as noting the average merit aid awards):</p>
<p><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</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts&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=lib_arts&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&sortby=non_nb_aid_p&sortorder=DESC</a></p>
<p>@asleepatthewheel thank you for the links; I don’t think I have seen those before. Very helpful. I agree with you, would be such a shame to miss the cutoff junior year! I hate to put so much emphasis on one test, but it’s an important one as far as potential merit aid.</p>
<p>As far as majors without an obvious career path, my D13 is a double major in linguistics and Near Eastern language and culture. We are hoping for the best :-)</p>
<p>I apologize for the rant the other day, just a day of frustration. Thank you to every one for letting me vent. Things have gone from bad to worse, now all the kids who he tutored are giving him a teasing about how bad he did. I am just hoping there is a mistake in his score.</p>
<p>Have you figured out if there is a way to appeal? I was checking the AP site and all it seems to offer is a handscoring oof multiple choice part. Apparently multiple choice answers are scored by the computer while the longer version answers are scored by people.</p>
<p>@Mysonsdad - sorry to hear that. The teasing from the kids is probably worse than dealing with the fact that his score was low.</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel - I get that your comment was made, at least partly in jest 
He does know he can still pursue history along with another subject such as economics or business…he’s trying to figure out what interests him the most. He’s definitely not alone in this - I am sure there are several other kids in the same boat. </p>
<p>In other news, he’s been volunteering at a theater camp this week and thoroughly enjoying it. His comment to me the other day was that “these kids have too much energy”!! He’s primarily with 6/7th graders and I find it so amusing - just a few years ago, he was one of those kids with too much energy :)</p>
<p>Yes, the day we got the results I called college board and sent in the form. Thank you for asking though.</p>
<p>This is why I have never been a big fan of AP classes, students work hard all year in a class and if they don’t pass the test they wasted their time. These same students could have gone to their local community college, got the same knowledge, passed a class and it transfers. My S got an A+ in AP Euro, highest grade in the class at a highly selective school, and for what? If he had taken it at the community college it would transfer. He got a 3 on the AP Calc AB despite getting an A+ in the class. The 3 really doesn’t do him any good for the colleges he was looking at, he could have taken Calc at the local community college and had it transfer. I wish he wasn’t going for Valedictorian because he would never step foot into an AP class again. This was a wasted year as far as I am concerned, not from the point of view of learning, but the fact that he could have gone to the community college, got the same knowledge and had it transfer. And my local CC only charges a $1 a unit for high school kids, far cheaper than the $90 I paid for each AP test.</p>
<p>I had a student once who took a few AP classes and passed the tests, when she got to college she posted on fb that if she had to do it all over again she would have gone to a CC and taken classes because it would have moved her higher on the registration order list. She said AP classes did not do that. I had another student who didn’t worry about the rigor of his high school classes and went to the CC. He used those classes to take the place of some high school classes and graduated from high school with his AA at 16 years old. He will be graduating from UCLA with his Bachelors at 18. He hopes to graduate med school by 22. </p>
<p>@mysonsdad - So is the only thing they will rescore is the multiple choice or is there a way they score the entire test?</p>
<p>I think there is a method to the AP scoring madness. I have noticed that the history teachers in our school average high scores across board (4.5 or something even when their students get a B in their class) and they seem to know exactly how to ensure the students are prepared for the test because several of them participate in grading during June. I can’t say the same is true for some of the other subjects where the kid will get an A in class but get a 3 on the test despite the class being rigorous.</p>
<p>They are only going to grade the multiple choice section.</p>
<p>Welcome @AKFirefly!
I homeschool too but so far my oldest two, D16 and S18, have decided to go to public school for high school so this year so I’ll just have S20 at home. I think it might be a good idea hold off a semester of higher math next year to concentrate on test prep. Math past pre-cal/cal won’t help out on the PSAT or SAT. My D16 needs to continue with her higher math classes to stay on track for her goal but I’ve been encouraging her to spend time tutoring Algebra/Geometry/Algebra 2 students her first semester of 11th grade to stay fresh with the type of math she’ll have on the PSAT/SAT.</p>
<p>Don’t know what schoosl your D is looking at but she might want to check out Texas A & M, they are very home school friendly and have a great engineering program.</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom, thank you for the welcome! My thinking is similar to yours, in that I wonder if it might muddy the math waters to have Calc 3 going, while simultaneously trying to keep the SAT math fresh. Tutoring others is a great idea, and a nice way for your daughter to serve the community too. By the way, I have a third child as well. I had to calculate her grad year to do this, but she is D22 
She is dying to go to school, and I am considering it, so who knows what next year will look like here!</p>
<p>@mysonsdad, I am so sorry about the situation with your son’s exam. It does sound like something must have happened with the scoring, because that is just too strange to have such a huge difference between class performance and test performance. I hope you get some answers.</p>
<p>So I have been informed by our guidance counselor that our high school is only offering certain AP classes once a day, and this will affect my sons’ schedule.</p>
<p>They can either take community college courses or step down a level to honors classes.</p>
<p>How does taking community college classes rank against the AP classes in terms of applications for semi selective private and public schools?</p>
<p>@fflmaster my child’s school has about 2 APs. I am paying for D16 to take the equivelant classes non-matriculated at Ohio University. The courses are reasonably priced and She is sure to get her credits. I don’t think the colleges she’s applying to will mind. </p>
<p>I’m given to understand that, for very selective schools, CC classes are sort of equivalent to AP classes without the exam-- they’re a step up from general honors, but not likely to transfer. I’m not sure what “semi-selective” constitutes: UNC-Chapel Hill and U of M for out of staters? They’re probably more likely to take the CC transfer credits than, say, RPI.
I can’t quote chapter and verse on any of that, it’s just sort of in the category of “what I’ve heard”. </p>
<p>UC schools will transfer them, if they are listed as transferable to UC. </p>