<p>One last thing, on the topic of college lists and fairs. We don’t have a list here, per se, but I have been researching colleges with good merit scholarships, and then checking to see if they have D16’s programs (engineering and Chinese). So, I have some in mind. She is not super interested in the topic, though I think a few visits might change that. Funny, because my oldest was definitely interested in researching colleges, and did it on her own.</p>
<p>There’s a college fair here tomorrow, but I don’t think we willb e going.</p>
<p>I have been tellng S,“Just think, by this time next year you will be applying EA to some schools” to motivate him. He recently told me he might be interested in Notre Dame, and last night when the ND vs. FSU game came on he was all excited. I told him if he went to ND some of those players may actually be in his classes. He didn’t seem to care. Oh well. I don’t know if I mentioned the PSAT, but he thinks he did okay. He said he should have left a few more questions blank. </p>
<p>On another note, first quarter grades came out, 6 A+'s and an A in APUSH. He got a 92 on an essay which kind of surprised me because I had a teacher at another school tutor him on the report. The teacher who tutored him has been teaching longer than the teacher who assigned the report has been alive and thought it was worth more than a 92. Not complaining, just found it funny.</p>
<p>@AKFirefly - My DS16 is also interested in Mandarin and STEM - there is an interesting program at JHU that was intriguing when we visited this past summer. However, I disliked other parts of the visit, like the student stories about how “great and receptive” the faculty are to what sounded like annoying grade-grubbing. ;)</p>
<p>Mysonsdad: We have had the same beefs with my D’s AP English teacher. She took a college class in English last summer and the teacher raved about her writing. The first essay she did here which was a nice essay and looked at by others received an awful grade. They peer graded after the fact and there were essays that were unfinished, only had a couple of sentences etc that received the same grade as my daughter. We did not raise a stink, but it did smell. She has raised it up to a 95, but it still gave her a different feeling about this teacher.</p>
<p>Those are some terrific grades, mysonsdad! And cool that he is gaining some interest in college choice.</p>
<p>Fretfulmother, interesting! I had just this week investigated JHU after hearing they offered good merit aid (though if looks like that claim may have been incorrect)</p>
<p>Yes, it’s odd re. JHU and merit aid. I thought it was better than it is, but it turns out that the full ride number isn’t zero, but just very very small. :)</p>
<p>@Sophmore1, that is what I hate about essays, the grading can be so subjective. My D11 had an English teacher once who asked for a rough draft of an essay and then graded it like it was the final product. I thought, “Then what is the point of a rough draft?” Once my S gets his essay back I am thinking of asking the teacher why did S get the score he got.</p>
<p>@fretfulmother & @AKFirefly – Not a good school in terms of merit money (unless your child has won the National Intel Science Search or is an URM), but WUSTL has a fantastic Mandarin program and an excellent engineering program. </p>
<p>It would be a kick if both your kids ended up at the same school! </p>
<p>S took PSAT yesterday. he thought it went better than the practice one the school has them take as a sophmore “I learned some of the tricks”…like…he was saying the prep class he took helped…??? *-
in terms of visiting colleges or fairs…my S seems to “waffle”…some days he has ideas of places he’s interested in…other times…he says “it doesn’t matter, I don’t really care where I go”… I agree…we will have a better idea in the spring, after PSAT and SAT’s/ACT (I don’t know which he will really take)…and more grades come in. I feel that for my S…if we could wait till summer to really look at schools…it would be better. It is soooo far away from the “reality” of going away…that I don’t really know if looking at schools is really beneficial…so early for him.</p>
<p>FWIW, my D hs '11 did not end up applying to the school that was her first choice at the end of her junior year. She only applied to one school that she visited before starting her senior year. She ended up going to a school that she didn’t visit until March of her senior year during admitted honors students days. It is 1600 miles away and we didn’t have the money to visit until we knew she was serious about it. As it was, she went alone. </p>
<p>Junior year is all about figuring out if the student wants a small, medium, or large school and researching the ones that has areas of interest, not necessarily about building the be all and end all of final lists to apply to. That is for the summer and fall of senior year.</p>
<p>@bajamm - I totally agree that junior year is for narrowing down, but I don’t necessarily think that the small/med/large (or even the urban/rural/etc.) would apply for all students.</p>
<p>In a way, it reminds me of when realtors would be frustrated that I didn’t want to commit to either a condo or a house. My conditions for a place to live were things like 2+ bathrooms, and proximity to certain landmarks - and the property’s governance structure wasn’t my top “branching algorithm”. Similarly, I don’t think size or location is the overarching branching for all students. Someone might want e.g. a place with both Ocean Engineering and French available as majors, and access to a Bahai chaplain on campus, but not care about size or location.</p>
<p>@fretfulmother you are right, not all filters work well for everyone. The large, medium, small, rural, urban are all fairly common for many people and yet generic. Most people will have a preference about whether or not it is ok to go to a school in a town of less than 2000 population. (many small LAC’s are in towns that small and it takes a special student to attend a school that does not allow freshmen to have a car and is located in a town that does not have a grocery store, movie theater, or bar. I know these schools exist, I attended one. Unless your student grew up in such a town, it will be a huge culture shock going there. So, yes, on some level, the size of town anyway matters.) </p>
<p>I would hope that most people could choose and use the filters that work best for their families and situations and understand the spirit in which the common or generic ones are used. In the future, please feel free to substitute your own filters or criteria for whatever words I use in order to make it pertinent for you.</p>
<p>@bajamm - thank you, totally agree - I did not mean to offend! Just to give some more thoughts.</p>
<p>How does a student manage with no grocery store and no proximity to one and no transportation? Would s/he be expected to just buy all meals from the college? I grew up in CU, i.e. UIUC, and while a “small college town,” we certainly had grocery stores, so I don’t have that experience.</p>
<p>@mysonsdad - it’s true that essays are not as objective to grade! That said, I have stopped ever asking for “rough” anything from students (science/math, but still we have things like lab reports). There’s way too much leeway when a teenager makes it “rough”. Some will do nearly what one might think of as “final” and others barely make an effort. Instead, I ask for the report as due on X date, and then we treat them, as a class, like drafts to be revised again before any grading - via peer edits etc.</p>
<p>Do you take advantage of the free SAT reporting to colleges? Somehow I do not feel comfortable sending scores I did not see yet. But some of the colleges on D list require all scores to be sent to them. So how does it work? If she will have let’s say 12 schools on her list and she will take 3 SAT, 3 SAT II and 3 ACTs how much will I have to pay if I do not use free reports sending option? And also, if a school requires all tests to be send, am I better take free reports offer even if her score might be not as high as I expect it?</p>
<p>On score choice for ACT you pay for EACH school to have a report. I do not know about the SAT we did not use those scores. We didn’t use free reports because we wanted to see scores first none of her super scored for the ACT.</p>
<p>So you technically can expect: $12.00 * 3* ? Of schools. The fees add up fast!</p>
<p>Since we are on the subject, can some one confirm that if you use the free score reporting that the College Board will send ALL previous SAT including and SAT Subjects score for test taken after 8th grade to the schools you list?</p>
<p>I may have a little different approach but I plan to send to 4 schools each time the test is taken. My DS knows this. I see it as incentive to do his best. 2 of the 4 for the Dec exam require all scores anyway. I still have time to change it and I have a reminder on my calendar for that deadline but I would be surprised if I do. He is not interested in Ivys and would LOVE to be 1 and done so sending the score is just part of the process. My DS normally performs best under pressure anyway. </p>
