<p>Critter:
My 2016 grad is taking AP Calc AB and AP Physics B as a Freshman. What is your kid interested in pursuing? How competitive is your high school?</p>
<p>JenPam:
Thanks for letting all know the importance of documentation.</p>
<p>Happy New Year Everyone-
I am impressed by the communication going on here. I have two kids a junior and a freshman.</p>
<p>We seem to have lots of math-oriented 2016ers! My son is taking precalc/calc this year. Will take Calc bc next year. His school is a small public magnet.</p>
<p>Count my DD out of the math-oriented students. She is struggling in honors geometry. Her loves are choir and Spanish.</p>
<p>She has actually made herself a to-do list for this week. AP gov has assigned homework, and short science and English projects to complete. Since exams start the 14th, I suggested she do online review problems for geometry, a chapter a day. Started today, on her own! I think she sees the clock for 1st semester grades ticking away. Hope it lasts.</p>
<p>Could I get that āpackageā pm as well?</p>
<p>Absolutely love this site. So much information.</p>
<p>So for those that have their sons and daughters take the PSAT, what would you consider a decent score? My boys (twins) took the test, but trying to gage what others would consider a good starting number.</p>
<p>My D got a 209 which we considered decent but only good enough for NM commended - depends on what you are after?</p>
<p><oops -="" thought="" i="" was="" in="" college="" class="" 2016="" need="" more="" coffee!=""></oops></p>
<p>If my son gets B+ as his final grades this year, I will be greatly pleased. He has not yet figured out how to study more than whatever the review sheet listsā¦It seems, the more helicoptering I doā¦the less he actually doesā¦so, that isnt working here! Some of this is maturity, some is that I think he really has not clear idea what he wants to do ālaterāā¦so, he has little motivation. In other news, he made an early Jazz Band ensembleāonly 3 freshmen were accepted, so heās pretty happy with that. Maybe itāll be musicā¦</p>
<p>The goal is to make national merit score for your state in 2 years when the kid takes it in 11th. So what is good is very individual at this point since some kids tend to make up a lot of ground and some donāt.</p>
<p>Ok back on CC after a hiatus (for mental health). </p>
<p>Like others on this board, trying to launch a senior and pay attention to my freshman.</p>
<p>Impressed that so many of your schools offer APs for your freshmen. Our public really only sees kids start at the APs in junior year and they average 2-3 for their 11th/12th grades. It seems the workload is quite intense regardless if class is AP or honors. Donāt know why so much HW is busy work.</p>
<p>Have always wondered if education isnāt backwards - ie, the better student you are, the less HW you should get. This would be incentive for all kids to do better!</p>
<p>For the PSAT, Iām just guessing, but I think that anything 175 or so would be within shooting distance of NM Finalist (assuming thatās your goal) and easily within commended. It depends on your state and the cut-off for your state, and also where the points are missed (commended is the same across the country, no matter the state). If itās math and your child is in Algebra 1, for instance, well, he/she hasnāt had all the math that is on the test yet. So you can only expect that score to go up. </p>
<p>For my kid, itās pretty clear that vocabulary is his weak point. Whether he does anything about that, well, weāll see. Heās a big reader but he found some of the vocab on the test esoteric (see, SAT Vocab word right there!).</p>
<p><a href=āhttp://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1199607-national-merit-semifinalist-qualify-scores-class-2012-a.html[/url]ā>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1199607-national-merit-semifinalist-qualify-scores-class-2012-a.html</a></p>
<p><a href=āhttp://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14820992-post683.html[/url]ā>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14820992-post683.html</a></p>
<p>I have noticed that from 10th to 11th test, most kids on average improve 20 points, the upper threshold being about 25 despite the standard preparation kids do during summer after 10th. The variation of the required scores between states can be as many as 20 points from the highest to lowest. </p>
<p>So 175 can mean they only have to cover 28 points for some states while needing 48 points in others. The scores for this year seem to have dropped by about 2-3 points for several states but last year the state with the highest cut off was 223. </p>
<p>We need to track what our state scores have been over the past few years and need to set an individual goal for an improvement. Sounds like some have already met it which is great. National merit is a good way to get lot of money at some colleges.</p>
<p>Ditto ā can I get the PM re: the advice books as well? Many thanks!</p>
<p>sahp2kids - agree with your point about HW. For example - my DD is building a DNA model this weekend ā seems very much like busywork. Sigh. In general, Iām not a great fan of homework, so this kind of work assignment seems pretty tedious and dull.</p>
<p>Beginning to research summer programs for DD. </p>
<p>PSAT score is back ā and she was pretty happy about it, even though as she told me āit was hard.ā</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Many people asked about the PM for the book. It is better if I post it here.</p>
<p>I was recommended āWhat High Schools Donāt Tell Youā. I ordered the book from Amazon, will start reading soon.</p>
<p>My recommendation is for a book āA for Admissionā. This is highly informative book written by an Adcom officer. This book explains how the actual admission process works in a highly selective school- I had no idea before reading this book.</p>
<p>Hi all! This is my first time posting. I have one DSā16 and one DSā19. Great tips and info here! I look forward to learning lots from all of you. :-)</p>
<p>What I wish I knew earlier is like many others: document, document, document. Keep a log of all activities both co-curricular, extra-curricular, and external volunteer stuff. We fortunately have much of D13ās scouting time accounted for, but hadnāt thought about documenting sports/class meeting time documentation info.</p>
<p>carimama-</p>
<p>Welcome-lots of '13ers here.</p>
<p>JenPam-</p>
<p>AP Calc is very tough here. They are down to 8 kids. Iām not so sure he thinks itās awesome at times, but he belongs there and I would rather the kids take the right classes and get a B if necessary instead of protecting the gpa. He had one sister and brother do the same and it seems to have worked out ok. </p>
<p>Good advice on the updates. We also had ours update the community service hours as they went and keep copies of everythingā¦so much easier on down the road!</p>
<p>Dragonflygarden-</p>
<p>Good tip about reading up on stuff early. As you know our Sā13 is highly motivated as well. Isnāt it nice to have success SCEA and be able to relax a bit now?! I wish more folks in our town would grasp the importance of rigor. They donāt realize that by protecting their grades with easier classes, they take themselves out of the game for competitive schools and the best college preparation. Sā13 was the only one here to get into a SCEA school in forever. </p>
<p>Mommom-</p>
<p>Sā13 is interested in physics. He also likes math (which is good because as he says, the overlap with physics and calc is huge) and econ. Very analytical, but also very creative. Took AP Lit his soph year and loved it. I think it was a big boost for him in so many ways.</p>
<p>As for his school, I would say it is absolutely non-competitive, to the point that when he talks about where he comes from, people think heās joking. This has been a big topic of interest in essays, interviews, etc. He self-studied BC and Physics C, and so on. (Normally Honors physics is the science senior class here that everyone tries to avoid. He took it as a soph.)</p>
<p>He has really enjoyed doing things during the summer to make up for what isnāt available and our Dā10 did the same, but mostly in the humanities/social sciences. It was quite an eye-opener for our kids to see what goes on outside of our community. It also gave them a good sense of whether they wanted to go away to college or stay in a state school environment, like most in our corner of the world seem to prefer.</p>
<p>Are your kids in a competitive and/or magnet school? Are you all ready to roll with your junior?</p>
<p>Wow, so many '13 parents. We had all of our kids three years apart. I used to tell everyone it was the perfect spacing and if it went more than three years after the last one, we were done! (My mom had two of my brothers 18 months apart and she said to never, ever even think of trying it!)</p>
<p>dr- Congrats on the jazz ensemble. We had three in jazz band and one in jazz choir and they all loved it except here it is always zero hourā¦so before school. They donāt always like getting up before 6 am but the fact that they do it tells you how much they enjoy it!</p>
<p>NMSF- We have one of those states that is always the top half-dozen or so because of one area of the state that is on academic hyper-drive. Where the scores need to be varies so much from state to state.</p>
<p>Texaspg is right- Re:PSAT, some kids tend to peak early. Some prep like crazy and actually go down over the years or never achieve on the SAT what they got for a score on the PSAT. Our '16er took the actual test as so many do to qualify for programs in middle school. Sā13 took the PSAT first time as a soph with no prep (which is very ahead of the game here) and then took the test on a whim with his brother so he would be more comfortable. They took a practice test and he did so well that I had him practice the essay, just in case and he ended up knocking it out of the park. That really took the pressure off for the PSAT the next fall. Again, I think taking AP Lit so early couldnāt have hurt. I guess long story short, it depends in part on where they are in the curriculum.</p>
<p>(Too much information-sorry. Iāve noticed that the later I post, the more I ramble.)</p>
<p>Also, the class of '13 PSAT scores were lower because the Wednesday administration was apparently an absolute beast! Everything got curbed down to match. I suspect they will be on the rise for the class of '14.</p>