<p>@petrichor11 my 3 kids are almost exactly two years apart now that the two oldest are in high school and I only have my youngest left at home to homeschool, he feels like an only child. I think it would have been better through the “diaper years” to get it over with all at once instead of 6 continues years but looking at paying for college I’m glad they are spaced out. I guess there are pros and cons but it’s not one of those things we have much choice in, we just take it as it comes.</p>
<p>D and S are five years apart. When D left for college, I was so glad to have S at home! But I think he was bored at home - headed off to boarding school the following year! Left us feeling bereft :)</p>
<p>From a financial perspective, it sure is nice to have that five year gap though!</p>
<p>Don’t know if this is relevant to anyone else, but:</p>
<p>My son took the SAT’s in 7th and 8th grade as part of the Johns Hopkins Talented Youth program. Those scores are supposed to be ‘purged’ from their records after one year. Last night when we registered him for the December SAT’s we saw that one set of those scores is still in there. As some colleges require that you send them ALL scores, when we did a mock run of sending his scores to one of those schools the College Board’s system REALLY wanted to include those scores (there was a way to bypass that). I called them this morning and the phone rep said that she’d send the request to purge the scores to the appropriate department. We’ll see.
So if any of your kids took those SAT’s, you may want to check that those scores are no longer in their College Board score record.</p>
<p>I think the profile needs to be set up correctly for it to be purged. D took in June after 8th to to have a baseline score since we knew it would disappear. It did disappear by the time 9th grade ended.</p>
<p>Our high school counselors are assigned alphabetically. They follow their students for 4 years. I find it works very well not having a new counselor every year. By sophomore year, D12’s counselor and I had reached an understanding; she was willing to work with us, even to the point of calling me at home to get schedules worked out. She started with D16 in 8th grade and has been incredibly helpful. She also understands that I know what my girls need and I don’t stop until they get it, so it’s just easier to make the changes and keep me out of her office.</p>
<p>In all fairness, she is a very good counselor and gets to know her students. She wrote a glowing recommendation for D12’s common app. However, she has a lot of students on her caseload, so outside of schedules and college apps, she won’t see my daughters much.</p>
<p>@texaspg – Thanks. The weird part is that they purged his 8th grade score, but not his 7th grade score. Their policy is that all scores are purged unless you request in writing that they be saved, which we clearly did not do. So, they messed up. I’m pretty confident that they’ll fix it. Just wanted to send out a heads up. </p>
<p>Congrats to your son, @arisamp ! Great news about the ACT.</p>
<p>We are solidly into fall here. The cross country running season ends for D16 tomorrow with Regionals. Even if she qualifies for state, she is opting for the figure skating Regionals which is happening at the same time. She sure has loved the running though.</p>
<p>Plugging along with Prep Scholar, and taking along the PSAT/SAT prep study materials along during our week out of town for the competition.I’m sure she is looking forward to getting those both out of the way. Interesting thing I learned this week: our state is requiring a college/career readiness test for graduation and thus is paying for either SAT/ACT/WorkKeys. Since we have paid for an SAT, might have them do the ACT. That test would be in March.</p>
<p>So, if the student is wearing a Vanderbilt shirt and Dad is wearing Alabama gear, will the school they are touring today know they are not the 1st choice, or even the safety?!?! Not meant in a snarky way at all but does not seem like thinking ahead at all. </p>
<p>Ha, yeah, seems ill-advised, lol</p>
<p>First quarter grades this week…he was doing well in 3 not so hot in two. By looking at his grades (classes) you definitely can tell that my kid is a humanities kid.
I wish 4 years of math wasn’t required…and they mandated 4 years of history then his GPA would be flawless :-? </p>
<p>Had a great open house visit yesterday! I strongly encourage attending a few of these, if you can. We have now seen a large OOS public research U, slightly smaller but still large IS public U, mid-sized OOS public U, and small private OOS, highly regarded U. All were chosen based upon their reputation for my DS’s probable major in engineering. I love the open house format since it gives the U a chance to tell us what they think makes them special. I do not think I could ever ask enough questions on a private tour to cover as much as is shared at an open house. All but one was an open house with classes in session. One was just a tour while we were in the area on vacation. DS liked aspects of each, and will likely apply to all, but is beginning to voice liking some better than others for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons have surprised all of us. We have one more scheduled for next weekend and then likely will not have time for more until application season is upon us next fall. There will only be time for 1 or 2 more then. Regardless, the process is “processing” shall we say and everyone involved is still speaking to each other. </p>
<p>Am taking DD16 to an open house on Columbus Day. She recently did a big college fair. There will be a few college reps visiting her school. We’ve toured six colleges so far. </p>
<p>But…she’s got this love-at-first-sight thing going on and can’t seem to really investigate any schools other than the first one she “met.” Sigh. Well, at least she knows she has to apply to about ten or so schools to likely have a choice for fall 2016. I can’t wait to get her December ACT score so we can whittle that list down a bit. </p>
<p>I agree that scores will help with the list but DS needs to add not delete! He has 1 reach (likely a better fit for grad school), 1-2 matches , and 1-2 safeties. I want him to apply to at least 6 but no more than 10. Have him a. “present” today of the ACT red book. I bought it “used” but not “abused” so it appears to have lots of good luck left in it. [-O< </p>
<p>Hi…just popping over from class of 2015. I found myself thinking “I wish I had…” And I thought when we have those 'if I knew then what I know now moments, I’d try to share. It seems like last year when we were visiting colleges, we felt a little early, as though it was just an introductory visit. Suddenly we feel like we are in a time crunch with no time to get more visits in and I wish I’d taken some of those visits more seriously, asked more questions, taken more notes…and not felt like the tours were for the seniors. I am glad we took lots of pictures though! The visits while campus is active is much more helpful than summer visits if you can swing it, and try to get your student to strike up conversations with random students in the dining hall.</p>
<p>Good luck on your college searches! </p>
<p>@shoboemom: Photos are a wonderful idea. I wouldn’t have thought of it.</p>
<p>My kiddo recently attended a college fair that included about ten colleges she’s checking out. I wished she’d had an “elevator speech” to introduce herself to the reps, but that will come over the next couple of months. Heard this shoe on elevator pitches and kept thinking about how it might help college applicants (especially those few who are invited to tweet their application): <a href=“Home | Under The Influence with Terry O'Reilly | CBC Radio”>Home | Under The Influence with Terry O'Reilly | CBC Radio;
<p>D learned about the ‘elevator speech’ from Girl Scout cookies sales! That girl can sell cookies to a Keebler Elf! (she sold 2k last year and 3k the year before) Selling herself is something else altogether, she is modest to a fault, not a fault of her mother’s;-)</p>
<p>It all can work, especially if one plans out the timing of the tests. Remember that AP exams are in May so the kids don’t really study for them until May is approaching. My S14 took SAT’s in Nov/Jan of Junior year. He then took Subject tests in June. He found the Subject tests easier than the AP exams…and he had just studied for the AP exams…he didn’t need to do extra studying for the Subject tests. Personally I think it was helpful for him to do SAT test prep at the end of the summer of Sophmore year into the beginning of Junior year. That way he got that out of the way before the rest of the year got too busy.</p>
<p>shoboemom…don’t stress about those college visits. S14 is in his First Year now. In hindsight…we did too many long distance visits. What happened is that we had to revisit after he received acceptances. He definitely looked at the schools that had accepted him with a different “lens”. It also was very helpful to revisit on “Accepted Student Days” as he could look at the other kids there to get a sense of who his peers could/would be.</p>
<p>Just popping in for a moment to agree with MAsecondtimer. Our kids thought the Accepted Student Days were make it or break it visits. D was really turned off by her potential peers at a school she had loved and visited twice. Fortunately it had been during family vacations or I might have wished we hadn’t spent the time/money. The only problem with the strategy of waiting to visit was with S '13 because he fooled us and got into a bunch of very selective schools. We thought the schools would narrow his list for us so there was a mad scramble in April. And he didn’t even get to visit a few places he was interested in that would also have payed his travel costs so he just had to figure out other ways to shorten his list. I guess the good news was, it ended up not costing us anything but it was a really gut wrenching process for him until the bitter end. I guess what I’m saying is, you take your best guess at how to handle things and hope for the best. Helpful, huh? Five kids, and just when you think you have it all figured out, the rules change…or the kids are so different they don’t apply!</p>