Parents of the HS Class of 2017 - 3.0 to 3.4 GPA

Parent Cafe
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Happy news!

The audio recording of the music audition is DONE! Now he just has to actually send it tonight but that’s the easy part.

It’s awfully pretty if I do say so myself. He seems quite relieved and less stressed about the live one now. While he did have the ability to do multiple takes it was still one performance (versus the 2 movements recorded separately and then edited together as one piece).

Less happy news. Semester is over…now we wait to see if he pulled of a B in Calc or not. Sigh. Rest of the grades are solid. A C won’t kill him, or the GPA but it sure won’t make anyone up the merit offer either lol.

S19 is making the same grade mistakes. Different reasons, different issues, arguably far more frustrating. Grrr.

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Great news for your son! @eandesmom

Well, the bad news is daughter got a C for the semester in AP Phy C. And the good news is daughter pulled out a C for the semester in AP Phy C!!! Seriously, I’m glad she pulled it out on the last exam, I won’t worry too much now.

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The WSU merit money is for NMSF. Glad to hear good things about Pullman. S17 is very much an outdoors guy.

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While I was going through the wonderful current incarnation of our list, I noticed that actual merit seems to be higher than the NPC most often (sometimes significantly!), about a match the next most and lower (sometimes significantly) just a few times. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the rest of D’s comes out above!

@Hankster1361 and @curiositycat333, D was denied by OSU honors. I will say I thought her essay for that app was the worst of all her essays. But who knows if a better one would have saved it. So there’s one data point! And great news at WA State. I’d like to see the words “tuition-free” in my near future.

@mommdc, that Maine match program does look a good deal. D looked into Maine briefly but couldn’t work up too much excitement. I think it sounded like there wasn’t much to do off campus.

@hipmama, a big grats to your D on Hampshire! My oldest (HS class of 11) D had some similarities. She went to a small alternative school with no AP, honors, etc and seminar style classes. After a bumpy start she ended up with a 3.7 and good SAT, but only one EC.

She got into her two top choices, Hampshire and Sarah Lawrence, but decided in the end to go in-state and avoid debt. She LOVED Hampshire though. That was the campus where we got to the middle and she said “This is my place.” Kind of sad that it was not to be, but things have worked out well anyway. Hampshire sounds like a great fit for your D and best of luck to her!

@eandesmom, well, grats on the music audition stuff being done, but hope the grade situation will turn out well.

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Hampshire is on my baby’s list as well and we are still waiting for those results. It used to be higher on her list, but lately it has slid because my DD16 who is at Mount Holyoke has been talking it down-not the school, so much as the area. She says it’s too cold and too isolated. However, having two girls in the same place will make my life much SO MUCH easier, and if the money makes sense I may give them my old car to share. That will make them feel less isolated.

My worst nightmare is one child in Western Massachusetts and the other in Southern California! How do the logistics work on that?

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@eandesmom Thanks again for the list–it’s awesome, and I’m so happy to see all the acceptances. Yay on completing the music audition–that has to be a huge load off his mind! And good luck on the calculus grade. My S did not pull his up–77 for the quarter, 79 for the semester–This is actually a long story that I’ll go into below… He’s still waiting on his IB Bio grade, but everything else was good, so he’ll end up with a 92+ average for both the semester and quarter even with calculus.

@hipmama Congrats to your D–That’s awesome that she poured her soul into her apps and was rewarded.

@Hankster1361 Congrats–Great news about WSU!

Nothing too exciting, but S got enough snail mail yesterday to keep interested in the college process. 1st was an invitation to Scholars Day at Albany, which should mean that if he finishes the application, he should make it into their Honors College. It also is on either 3/3 or 3/10 which is way better timing than the general accepted students days in late April. Than he got info from MSU’s James Madison College (his selected major) about more scholarships to apply for–yay, more essays! :-S The awards are for $1000 to $3500, so I told him to pick one or 2 to write that he thinks he would be the best fit for. The engineer in me started calculating odds–they take 350/year into the program, and I figure maybe a quarter of them apply for the scholarships, so he has between a 1% and 5% chance depending on how many awards are given out for each scholarship. So, I’m not going to push him to go for everything, but he should at least show some interest…

So, Calculus… Our school is pretty small, ~160 in S sr class. But they offer 2 versions of calc–AP and one dual enrolled through the local community college. Because S is an IB diploma candidate (1 of 2 in his class with ~5 other kids taking some IB classes), he got placed into AP calc (which is more rigorous and moves faster) because the other IB kids are high math achievers, and are generally STEM kids. So his AP Calc class is a total of 5 kids, all the high math achievers and S, the lone social science kid in the bunch. And S has an ego–we’ve known since he’s a toddler that when he struggles with something, he won’t ask questions because he doesn’t want to admit failure. (I know, I know, it’s a life skill he needs to get over, we’re working on it…). And when talking to him last week, he actually said, “I don’t ask questions in class because I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ that holds the class back.” ~X( I normally let him handle things with teachers, but the teacher also put a cryptic comment on the grade report that suggested something’s going on. So, I emailed… Yep, teacher has noticed S shuts down if he gets lost, and then doesn’t do homework for a week until it reaches a critical level, and he scrambles to catch up. SiGH… With only 5 in the class, the teacher is going to work more on the side, individually with S (whether S likes it or not), and he’ll keep me informed on the subjects they’re working on so I can be ready to help him at home. So we’ve got a plan… :)>- Calculus onward!

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@Fishnlines29 I know that feeling, good news/bad news on a C. I’ve a similar situation with S19 in French 4 lol.

@Hankster1361 that is good to know, I hadn’t realized WSU was that generous for NMSF! I don’t think S19 has a chance at it but you never know. I could deal with being a Cougar mom if I had to. If you go visit, you must get some of the Cougar Gold cheese. The Ag school (one of the best in the country I think) makes the cheese and it really is amazing stuff! All teasing aside, my kids haven’t been interested in any large state schools…so it’s not a WSU/Pullman thing at all. Super solid engineering and seriously everyone I know has raved about the tours so I’ll be looking forward to your report!

@mommdc we looked at that Maine program, it is a good deal. I couldn’t get S17 excited about Maine though. Their ENVS is super marine focused too which didn’t help.

@snoozn we shall see. If he eeked out a B on the final he’ll get a B- which I’d be thrilled with at this point. Honestly the biggest hurdle in Calc is his buy in, he isn’t seeing the point of it for him…as in how do I use this in my life moving forward? He definitely has the ability to double down and get it, and chooses to deploy that energy elsewhere. I am not telling him that at least one of the curriculum concentration paths at one of his favorite schools has zero Calc (econ and stats instead) if he meets the pre-req waivers. LOL!

@MSU88CHEng My S19 is exactly like that. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He is used to being the opposite of that guy and does not handle being on the other side of knowledge well at all. Completely shuts down. Huge issue. If you end up with a strategy that works please share. We’ve tried everything. For ours it’s a control issue but it is also an organizational one. Different nemesis (French 4) but same result. It does seem to compound though as if one class gets very out of control/critical level, he then seems to shut down across the board a bit.

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@eandesmom and @MSU88CHEng our oldest (hs class of '14) used to be the kid that everything came easily to, never asked questions because he didn’t have to. Fast forward to being an engineering major and coming from a hs that never challenged him (so no study skills) he had to learn to ask questions. What really helped him “see the light” was husband sitting him down and explaining that he’s paying the professors to teach him and if he isn’t learning everyone is failing. He is now “that kid” and even takes a little crap about it from peers but most of the kids appreciate it - if he doesn’t understand something clearly it’s a guarantee someone else doesn’t also. He’s also really developed relationships with some professors and that’s helped him realize they don’t think he’s dumb just because he asks a lot of questions - they think it’s a good trait.

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Hear ye, hear ye, the Struggling Calc Son Symposium has been called to order! TacoSon doesn’t like to ask for help either. In his case, I think it’s extreme shyness, and we’ve been battling this issue for years. This is his second year with this math teacher; she knows and likes him. She is very non-threatening. But he still can’t work out the courage to ask for help. He’s maintained a pretty solid B this quarter and his C+ first quarter was high enough that as long as he doesn’t bomb the final he has a chance of getting a B for the semester. Fingers crossed.

@MSU88CHEng , yesterday I emailed the teacher to say I was trying to get TacoSon to stay after to check on a few things and if there’s anything she could do to encourage him, I’d appreciate it. I then emailed TacoSon to suggest he stay after (exams started today to yesterday was the last day of regular classes), and he hemmed and hawed, saying he wanted to get home to start studying for today’s exams, etc. He was NOT happy with me when I told him I’d been in touch with the teacher. He asked why I don’t have faith in him to figure these things out, and I calmly replied that I know that he struggles with this, that next year I won’t be able to butt in, and I wanted to be proactive about it while I could so he isn’t as scared about it in college. When I picked him up, he admitted that it was “somewhat useful” and says he plans to go in again tomorrow.

@eandesmom , thank you so much for the updated list. It’s great seeing the range of schools our kids are considering!

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@Hankster1361 That is fantastic! Congrats on full tuition scholarship with such a great school!

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So D received a call from the head of the International and Global Studies dept. at UNCG. They had about a 15 minute conversation about how she became interested in Russian and IGS. and what their program offers. They said it requires study abroad (which is exactly what she wants) and they mentioned where they have students studying now. They also said the top students have a concentration in Russian. Sounds good. Now if she can get into the Honors College and get a little bit of financial aid that would be perfect.

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@snoozn–S17’s college counselor told him he would NOT get in to OSU’s Honors College. At this point S17 doesn’t even have the application done. We visited, and while I loved Corvallis and the school, my son did not. OSU came back into the picture after the Purdue engineering rejection. We did the honors college “tour” at OSU, and it seemed great. It was a one-on-one tour since the admissions scheduling messed up the scheduling for the day so we missed the regular tour. Overall though, while my son is an excellent analyst/writer, he is a STEM kid–he just doesn’t enjoy english, etc. (although he really likes philosophy–go figure!).

@MSU88CHEng – “I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ that holds the class back.” --That was my son at the beginning of this school year in AP Physics C. He was the only student in a class full of high achievers who had not previously had calculus . He did not want to ask for help in class, and he did not want to ask the other students. I called the teacher to see if he was just in over his head, and he said S17 was at a serious disadvantage but encouraged him to ask the other students for help. He said they are good kids, that many of them are TAs in the regular Calculus class, and that the best way for them to reinforce their skills is to teach it to others. I think that resonated with S17.

@eandesmom --re WSU and NMSF scholarship, we were pretty sure S17 would not advance to finalist, so I did lots and lots of research on schools that give $ for semi-finalist. Most that do have a 3.5 GPA cutoff. I don’t know how I found WSU, but the website was not clear on if it is competitive. I called admissions, and they confirmed that if S17 was accepted the scholarship is automatic, no strings attached.

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@snoozn I know someone from another online board, who’s D went to OSU and got into the honors program. (I won’t say much since she’s not my kid… but this kid deserved it and there were reasons for attending this school.) Mom described OSU honors as being very selective and as hard to get into as a school like Harvey Mudd. While OSU takes a lot of students & their acceptance rate is high. The honors program is very selective.It’s one of the reasons I didn’t feel like pushing my son. While he has the SAT’s to make him minimally eligable I couldn’t see it happening.

This mom also told me that if you student does well freshman year, and is motivated they do take a number of kids into the program as sophomores. I’m also not sure UofO is more interesting to DS than OSU at this point in the game. I liked OSU better, but what does mom know… :wink: Although OSU will be less expensive. But my son liked the overall feel of the campus more. Both have CS… I think OSU’s CS is arguably the better program, but if he does want to double major/minor in linguistics and/or music UofO is a better fit. We will see…

@tacocat333 While my son doesn’t have problems in Calculus. He did in Spanish last year, and sometimes other classes. Doesn’t like to ask for help. It’s very frustrating.

@Hankster1361 How does a kid take AP Physics C without Calculus. Is he taking it concurrently?

Our school doesn’t even offer it & refused to. And they have more than enough kids who finish Calc by the end of junior year to warrant it IMO. I also think it’s easier than what DS is doing. AP Physics I & II over the whole year. All the math without Calculus when 80% of the class knows Calc. It’s frustrating.

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So much fun to read the big list! Congrats especially to @Hankster1361’s S - a full scholarship - wohoo!!
To all fellow members of Son’s (and D’s) struggling with Calculus - at least the dreaded 1st semester is drawing to its close! CoyoteSon, like @MSU88CHEng’s S is in a small Calc class (only 3 students) and doesn’t like to ask questions, and has a dyslexic tendency to miss a negative sign somewhere, so often gets the wrong answer even when he understands the concept, which makes it difficult to tell whether he’S struggling with a concept or just with execution.
Hiring a real math tutor once a week has helped CoyoteSon’S homework grades (and fingers crossed has helped shore up those concepts! This is the only tutor we’ve ever hired - CoyoteSon wouldn’t even take an SAT test prep class; am hoping that the tutoring is teaching him that he will benefit from going to professors office hours next year! Yay to Tacocat333 for sneakily getting TacoSon to stay after school and grudgingly admit that 1-1 time with a teacher actually helps!!)…so CoyoteSon has pulled that D+ to a B- in the last three or four weeks. He takes the midterm on Thursday - will see if he actually learned enough from the tutor to keep that B- from backsliding on the midterm, and maybe even squeaking a B. @eandesmom: Don’t know if the tutor idea can help with French…but I definitely recommend it for Calculus :wink:

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@eandesmom - by the way, big sigh of relief that the taped audition is well done - wishing E luck on the upcoming live audition.

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@CoyoteMom That was my D in math… One test the school gave her in 8th grade to show if she was ready for Algebra. She got a 50%. But if you looked closer, it was clear she got the concepts. She just made little mistakes like missing the minus sign, translating a number wrong… Over and over and over again. They ended up letting her into Algebra the next year. She passed with C’s. She has language LD’s (not really dyslexia) and math wasn’t hard for her to understand concepts. But word problems and multiple choice test she did terrible on. (She liked to pick that “trick” answer on any multiple choice test.) She made it through Algebra II but the only higher math she took in college was Math for Artists.

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Ha ha curiositycat333! Totally familiar with the math mistakes – lucky your D wants “Math for Artists”! CoyoteSon really likes math and puzzles, and has always loved science. Word problems don’t trip him up so much as his messy handwriting/non linear way of writing (driving his Astrophysics teacher crazy and negatively impacting that grade too).
The real reason CoyoteSon didn’t get discouraged early on is because we were still homeschooling when he started Algebra I in 7th grade. (This is fairly common track in Virginia); I saw the silly mistakes impacting his “getting” the concepts, so I slowed down - we were late starting that year anyway, so CoyoteSon took about 1/2 of 7th and all the way through 8th grade to complete Algebra I. That gave him a solid foundation (and the 1-to-1 support to take longer in some sections).
Though my DH, who is an engineer, was very unhappy that CoyoteSon was “behind” because he was only +1 year ahead in high school math, instead of +2 years! Lol! I think DH has finally come around to realizing that CoyoteSon’s strengths may mean that it’s OK to not be an engineer!

I think CoyoteSon will want to take Calc and Statistics in college. He may want to pursue Economics or Anthropology or some other social science, or maybe even a natural science – he’ll just need to take the initiative to get continued 1-1 support to make sure he masters the material. I forsee continued CoyoteMom nagging in my future >:)

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@curiositycat333 --regarding AP Physics C without prior calculus, yes, S17 is taking AP Calculus AB concurrently. He’s a math kid, but given past history I wasn’t sure he’d step up to the workload. I’m so proud of him that he did!

Regarding tutors, I’ve gone that route for S19. The tutors primarily help to reinforce concepts, explain things a different way, and yes, are a huge help in getting the homework done. I have lined up tutors for Honors Chemistry and Spanish this semester, and really, really, really wish I had done so last semester.

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TacoSon received his acceptance to Dickinson today, with about $20K in grants and $4K in loans. Considering that brings the COA to around $50K OOP, Dickinson is a non-starter – just as well since TacoSon can’t keep it straight from Franklin & Marshall anyway.

Pitt has “awarded” $5K in loans but no news of merit. According to the Pitt rep on CC, merit decisions are made weekly through March. TacoSon has the test scores but not the grades, so while I’m hopeful I’m not unrealistic. Lower overall COA keeps it somewhat in contention but hard to justify vs. his in-state options.

I’ve got to say, it really sucks to be in this B+ GPA/upper middle class income bracket sometimes.

@CoyoteMom , similar experiences with Virginia math sequence. The pace of algebra is so important. It’s such a rat rate to be 2+ years ahead when the focus should be on what it takes for the student to really absorb the information. Are you planning on going to the GMU Honors thing later this month?

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@tacocat333 - aargh about the date for GMU Honors College accepted students - CoyoteSon’s Robotics team is in the VA state finals, held from about 8am-6pm in Richmond that very same day. I think I am going to have DH take CoyoteSon to Robotics tournament, and I will attend whatever I can for the “families” of accepted students at GMU. If you’re attending with TacoSon, we should have a special handshake or something to meet in person!