<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel - thanks so much for posting your experience with your S. It is very frustrating to watch indeed. For us, since S is a at a boarding school, we have way less control. He’s been in charge of all his daily activities/homework for the past three years now. He did ok freshman year, not so great in his second semester sophomore year. He does know how important it is to keep his grades up - so I am hoping he gets his act together this year. I know he has a tough schedule! @3scoutsmom - bribery doesn’t work well with my S for some reason - never has! Unfortunate. He’s supposed to go on a school trip next summer and my husband did tell him that if his grades slipped, that trip might not happen. Not the carrot, the stick 
Don’t know if this will work any better…</p>
<p>@arisamp – My bad. From your prior posts I should have remembered that your son is at boarding school. . . I hope that his falling short of his goals grade-wise last semester is enough of a wake-up call to get him motivated. His being on his own out there is a bit like learning to swim by being thrown into the deep end of the pool – the consequences of his actions (or lack thereof) will be evident pretty quickly. Hopefully he’ll swim, not sink. It must take a lot of equanimity on your part to not have him under your wing. . . At least you’ll have less to worry about than many of us when our kids head off to college. Some kids go a bit nuts when they’re on their own for the first time.</p>
<p>SAT’s next week so this is when my S decides to start having all night video game sleep over. When I say anything to him there is friction. </p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel I hate when other parents start intervening in how someone raises their kid. My friend and I got into that a few years ago and then one night the police brought my 14 year old daughter at 4 am after they caught her drinking and hanging out with three 18 year old men (who happened to be former students of mine). At that point I realized no one is a perfect parent and I told my friend he won when it came to parenting skills. From what I know about you on this site, you are a wonderful parent, don’t let anyone knock you.</p>
<p>@Mysonsdad – Thanks for your kind words.<br>
I think that I’ve mentioned on this thread that we have two older girls, my wife’s daughters from her first marriage that we raised together. D1 (now 36 y.o.) was brought home by the police after she was found drinking beer in her car in the parking lot at a high school dance. For the police, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. And of course D1 was planning on driving home from the dance. After high school she decided to move to her father’s house (across the country) and to waitress instead of going to college (she’d been admitted to Cal Poly SLO) at a restaurant where the menu was a laminated placemat. Hung out a lot at a motorcycle bar with a bunch of Hell’s Angels wannabe’s. After a few years she got her act together (sorta), went to a local state college, graduated, met a really good guy whom she married, and has three great kids. She’s a wonderful adult, but she’s stuck in a dead end job and her family is constantly struggling financially, as she fell short of where she could have been educationally and professionally. For a decade my wife would think out loud, “If we’d only done _______ instead of ________ . . .” until she realized that this sort of thinking is a fool’s errand.</p>
<p>We’re all simply doing our best with this parenting stuff. Life’s not a controlled experiment, and none of us will ever know what would or would not have been different if we’d done ‘A’ instead of ‘B’. Don’t beat yourself up about your daughter’s trajectory. Life is long and she’s still young. My two sisters, one a child psychologist and the other a professor of early childhood development, both told us that D1 would probably ultimately end up as someone whose values mirrored ours (more than the bikers), and they were right. Your daughter has time. . . . I’m sure you were ready to shoot your son last night. Ugh. And BTW, no court would have convicted you – it would have been considered justifiable homicide. But at this point all you can do is to make sure that next week he’s well-rested before the test, and that he doesn’t forget his ticket, ID, pencils, and calculator. Fingers crossed out here for you guys.</p>
<p>I have two older steps-- and the thing that struck me when they became young adults was that the very things that I most admired in them as adults (fearlessness, a quick wit, spirit of adventure, massive self-confidence) were the exact things that made me want to ship them to the Cannibal Islands as teens.</p>
<p>Less than two weeks to go until the PSAT’s, and S16 has lost all of his momentum in terms of preparation. He worked pretty diligently over the summer, but now that he’s back at school (and swimming twenty hours a week, with frequent weekend meets) he can barely keep up with his homework, and has not looked at any PSAT stuff in weeks.<br>
His school ran their first-ever PSAT prep session on Friday during morning break. He went (I didn’t leave him much option) and then texted me, “They’re covering stuff like get a good night’s sleep, don’t forget your pencils, etc., and now that I’m here I can’t leave!”. Oh well.
Maybe he’ll do some prep next weekend, maybe not. My wife reminds me that I can’t control this whole process as much as I’d like to. And I suspect she thinks that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>D16 is currently at the first of two proctored practice PSAT tests I signed her up for. Just hope she does well. She did a full timed practice SAT at home yesterday (including essay this time) and her scores went down a little from her other practices tests scores and I’m a little concerned that she is getting discouraged. I hope a good score today will be motivating. I reminded her that scores on all four of the practice tests she’s taken so far, if scored as the PSAT would easily make the cut for NMSF in our state and 3 of the four tests scores would make the cut for any state. </p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel I know what you mean about wanting more control. I really want her to do that PWN SAT Math book but am hesitant to remind her about it, she just has so much homework! The only reason she agreed to go to the proctored PSAT test sessions was that they conflict with church and she’d rather take a test than go to church. She is so ready for the PSAT/SAT to be over! She’ll have 3 weeks from the PSAT before the SAT and then she’ll be done. Her brothers will be on a Boy Scout camp out the weekend of the 18th so we plan to take D out to dinner some place really nice that Saturday. </p>
<p>D’s practice PSAT score this week dropped 23 points from two weeks ago. How is this possible? I was so happy since her first score was 4 points higher than any state cut off, and now we are going in a wrong direction.</p>
<p>@seal16 I honestly believe that some of it is just luck. You know that particular vocabulary word or you don’t, you make a careless mistake or you don’t. On the PrepScholar site it cautions that practice SAT scores can vary as much as 40 points per section so even they admit to a degree of ‘luck’. Is it possibly she got tripped up on a math problem and ran out of time? That happen to my d last year.</p>
<p>D just texted with her score from the practice test today, not perfect but good enough. I went back and averaged d’s four practice SAT tests and was pleased and a little surprise that the average was almost the exact score she got on today’s test. This reassures me that she’s really in that range. </p>
<p>I have decided not to “remind” D about the PWN book but will ask her to list all the questions she’s missed on the practice SAT’s and PSAT’s and make sure there’s not a pattern of mistakes.</p>
<p>Other than wishing them good luck and crossing our fingers on the day of the test I’m not sure that there’s much more we can do for our kids at this point. Oh, other than feed them and make sure they are well rested 
Because obviously testing companies don’t think parents do that on a regular basis!</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom Timing is not a problem for her anymore. She always finishes 3-5 minutes earlier, it those careless mistakes…</p>
<p>Although I am trying to get S to study more in this final push for the PSAT I think I have just come to the conclusion that I hope he does well, but I am not expecting a miracle. I would like to see something over 2100. He has a PrepScholar practice test next week, so Iike I mentioned, I want to see how close PrepScholar is to the PSAT and the actual SAT score. No study for S today, he is involved in a nationwide student organization and we are at a conference. I have been asking him if he will be ready for the real SAT in January and he assured me he will be, but who knows. It’s funny, reading my posts I feel like a crazy person, I am all over the place with this whole college thing. Thank you to everyone on here for such great advice and listening to my psychobabble lol</p>
<p>Attended another college open house this weekend. This one may have moved itself out of contention. The location is good, campus is walkable, the college is the right size, school spirit is there, but the facilities for Engineering were disappointing. They did a poor job of showing us what they showed us and did not show us much. We may have to go back for a personalized tour just to keep it on the list. Maybe that explains why many apply but none have attended recently from DS’s HS. 
At least we were able to visit it with just a day trip!</p>
<p>@Cheeringsection – What school? Is there some reason for us not to share impressions of specific schools on this thread? Not being argumentative, just want to make sure I’m not missing something.</p>
<p>I agree with @AsleepAtTheWheel, you are simply giving an opinion on a school. There is nothing wrong with that</p>
<p>Just a Midwestern engineering school that I did not think others would have on their lists. Also it is DH’s alma mater so was avoiding identifying ourselves. </p>
<p>I apologize for being cryptic. Maybe this is a better approach. Anyone out there able to recommend a mid sized (15,000 or less), hands-on, engineering school with school spirit, good intramural participation, small city or suburban location, little focus on Greek life, and decent merit? Prefer Midwest but a school with good airport access might work. No 3-2 programs please. No ACT/SAT yet but care much more about fit anyway. Top 15% of class with 4.3 GPA. Projected ACT is low 30s (based on PLAN).</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel - yes, the fact that S is in boarding school means we have little control over his daily actions. Only a nagging email every now and then and a nagging phone call once a week Seriously though, this kid is fairly on top of things with this one exception. Hoping he can turn that around. We did meet with one of his teachers here last week and she told us that in her experience these kids do very very well when they get to college - mainly because they are used to managing on their own.</p>
<p>Reminded S that he is taking the SAT this weekend. Oh yeah mom - I remember!! He did say he did some work - although it is very hard to tell if he did take a full length test or just looked at stuff. I am a bit concerned that he might be taking this a little easy since his ACT score was good. Ah well - the plan is that he takes these tests now and if the scores aren’t what we’d like, he will take the tests again in spring. Spring is going to be crazy for him with the musical, the end of the year stuff, the AP tests and the like - so it would be great if he could finish these tests right now!</p>
<p>@Cheeringsection - don’t know about Merit aid, but have you considered University of Missouri at Rolla?? Now called Missouri S&T I believe - good hands-on engineering school, great school spirit, small city. Only problem might be the airport access…</p>
<p>Question, I know every student is different and trying to increase a SAT score is relative to the older score, however, for those that are doing prep scholar or getting a private tutor is there an acceptable increase you are looking for?</p>
<p>Trying to gage what parents/students think would be a good increase after taking the SAT. </p>
<p>@fflmaster D16 got a 27 last year as an un-prepped sophomore. She’s doing SmartPrep They say she should have a 4 point jump in a year. We’re hoping, eventually for a 32</p>
<p>Keep in mind it’s harder to increase you score as you get to the upper end and at some point there is a matter of luck involved
10th grade PSAT was 214 -> expect not less than 220 -> hope for 228
10th grade SAT was 2150 -> expect not less than 2250 -> hope for 2300</p>
<p>The folks at PreScholar say they think she should be able to reach 2300 but honestly it will be more a matter of her being on her game or having an ‘off day’ For us, the number to hit is PSAT 220 our states historic high cut off is 219, anything over that is just added peace of mind while waiting for the 2015 cut off to be announced. Her current SAT is good enough for admission so there’s no pressure there, maybe a higher score will help with some local scholarships but that’s about it.</p>