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

I forgot to mention PE. 2 years of PE. One must be taken as a freshman and you must pass a physical fitness test after freshman or else you have to keep taking PE. (Because of a snafu DS didn’t pass… he was really pissed about it. It wasn’t worth fighting.) But a sport, marching band, flag, cheerleading all count. Only exemptions are for students who are ranked top 100 in the country in a sport they are actively training for. (And yes the district does have a handful who get this exemption every year.)

And no pep band for basketball. MB is fall & for football only.

Gotcha. I can see that with the clarinet. We limit to 4-5 ish per instrument (sax, trombone, trumpet) and less for percussion so not that large. Not small either mind you. Stage band (lower) takes up to 6 per line I think so slightly bigger. We’ve some amazing clarinet and flute players who do sax for jazz, with the occasional flute or clarinet solo.

I’m a bit concerned, S has a bass trombone on loan for the summer and is trying to learn that. Which I support but hope it’s not at the expense of audition quality for non major scholarships. His teacher wants him to immerse himself in the bass all summer so we will see. He needs to do one audition tape in the fall, one live audition locally in Feb and the other dates vary depending on where he ends up applying.

@eandesmom Read your post on the other board about your son’s summer program. I hope that goes great. Should be interested. Good mom for letting him come home by train.

S17 is almost done with his month at camp. I can’t believe it. He finished Wed & fly’s home Friday. Camp bus takes him back to his grandparents who put him on a plane home. Even though it’s hotter than ever, it’s starting to feel like summer is winding down.

@curiositycat333 it was a bit sad actually. The classes are for juniors and seniors. Who all, in my opinion, should be capable of catching a bus or train or walking to wherever they need to go and figuring that out. You would have thought I was a unicorn. Turned into a discussion by some of the students that were working the check in about how protective, or not, their own parents are/were.

Classic though, on Saturday he had a bit of a reality check. He’s asking me some questions as he starts to pack and is like, “a schedule, there is a schedule? I hate schedules”. And then, “it is going to be all class all day? So really like summer school? Ugh”. LOL! It sounded great in concept to sign up but it hit him hard he was actually headed to school for a week. Luckily he was totally over that, started himself back on his meds yesterday as he will want them for the week (takes summer and weekends off of them) and seemed pretty excited as we picked up his text book and syllabi at check in. It was good he read the docs as I had missed a note about his class needing long pants and closed toe shoes for the lab work. Which made us both wonder what they will be going in the labs!

A month sounds like such a long time but it is amazing how quickly it goes by. S19 is starting his 3rd week of camp counseling, which means at the end his summer is half over. Crazy!

Did he end up doing college visits with the grandparents? I thought he was maybe going to see some schools while there.

@snoozn, @brindlegreyhound …and I feel like there is at least one more considering WWU. Checked S17 into his dorm for his week long class there, yesterday. If there is anything you want him to scope out, let me know!

I wish I could have snagged a copy of his syllabi, told the kid to keep everything intact but we will see what comes back.

@eandesmom No college visits with the grandparents. My dad ended up with some health issues & we couldn’t get the tour at UCSC that we wanted. And I really wanted to go on that tour. In addition we received an invitation to a family function in early October, coincidentally when DS ends up having a 3 day weekend. Better timing for a visit, school will be back in session & the tour is already booked.

I’m buried in work & trying to find an affordable used car. Trying to buy a used car within the next two weeks.

I continue to be surprised how protected many kids are these days. And then they aren’t ready when it’s time to go to college. At 12 I signed DS out to walk home from a summer camp and other parents were surprised. It only required walking across one protected intersection and took no more than 10 minutes. And I’ve been flying DS back & forth to his grandparents since he was 7.

@curiositycat333 contact the campus. They often take walk ins. In our experience, they don’t know how many tours they can offer until after the first week of school when students finalize their schedules. They probably have a minimum number of tours listed now but will add more after school starts.

Not at UCSC, I checked. It’s because it’s a bus tour & there are limited seats. It’s a big hilly campus. They do take walk in’s if you get there way early & someone doesn’t show up and I considered flying up this week so I could do a self tour if necessary. But we have this trip in October & school will be in session then. (It’s a quarter system.) So it’s better all around. DS already booked the tour for October.

@curiositycat333 really? We toured UCSC over spring break and they had three check in tables. One for people with reserved spots, one for people on the wait list and one for walk ins. It was a large group and they kept apologizing for that but they took everyone.

The tour at UCSC is a walking tour. You need to park off campus and take a bus (which picks up frequently) to campus but the tour includes a presentation by an admissions advisor and then a walking tour. The walking tour ends at the student store where they give you directions as to which bus to catch to take back to your car.

@curiositycat333

It’s so true. My S may not have the stats of so many but darn it, the kid can iron, cook a full thanksgiving dinner including making the pie, do his own laundry, shop online, manage his debit and savings, pack for a trip or a college class without my oversight and get himself around really almost anywhere. And manage two jobs, a full school load during the year and crazy EC competing schedules.

I worry about SD who has never worked in her life and really can’t do much of what I just listed above. She is not well set at the moment for life after college and does not know how to go about getting a job!

I went ahead and booked our fall OSU tour. While I don’t need to yet, I figured I should snag the one in service day we have right after their academic year starts and get it done (as that should play into app before priority deadline lol). A little annoyed with the format, it only allows you to list one major area of interest but yet you can request multiple college tours. No option to view the music program though so that is a bit of a bummer.

For UofO we just dropped by the music dept. after the tour. S17 thought was would be weird but it really wasn’t, they were very nice & he got to talk with some students in the marching band including one from our city.

@curiositycat333 we aren’t going to visit U of O (too $$$) but we may try to do that at OSU. Just a bit of a bummer as we’ve found the direct music department meetings to be helpful. I may still reach out separately to try an arrange.

Call the music department ahead of time. Or better yet have your son do it. I’m sure they would love to have someone talk with him. At OSU our tour guide was in the marching band so he was able to answer DS’s questions about it.

S17 fly’s home today. He spend 11 days on the trail & hiked over 100 miles. Should be really fun to see him this afternoon. Then it’s time to start cracking the whip. Next week won’t exactly be rest for him. He needs to start AP homework, take an online health class, haircut, senior photo, back to school shop, and all sort of other sundry stuff. Not to mention start the college apps. (Band camp starts a week from Monday)

Anyone here start filling out the common app or UC app in August? Not sure if I should add that to his list for next week or not. I’m anxious to have a look at the common app, but it’s really only used on a few of his schools.

@eandesmom Does you son come home this evening or does he stay the weekend?

** Re: credit reports ** Just found out you can’t get credit reports for anyone under 18. Doesn’t affect DD’s situation. But means my advice to go check it for our teens is wrong. (Sorry about that. I guess I’m not checking S17’s.) Might be something to have him/her do as soon as they turn 18.

This seems really wrong, since it seems like there can be problems before a kid turns 18. Not sure what you are supposed to do if something pops up earlier.

I was advised to start by disputing the credit check agencies. So far it doesn’t seem like anyone has ruined DD’s credit. Just someone else seems to be using the same SS#.

P.S. Just realized I posted this to the wrong board.

S17 comes home tonight. He’s had a blast and sounds like he has learned quite a bit. I only get snippets so I’m not at all sure what it means, if anything, for the college search but will find out next week. H and I are in Cal now and head to SLO later today.

I do want him to get the common app done in August. Not sure if we will hit send on any yet or wait for Sept scores but for ones that superscore we may go ahead and send in.

Hitting a CTCL event next week and then his ACT prep starts, plus summer homework.

My S19 heads out on a 50 miler on Sunday.

That is frightening about your D’s SSN, good that no damage so far but really scary and what do you do long term to protect yourself/her?

New here and I posted a new thread but I think it might fit here better. My oldest daughter is going into her Senior Year of high school now. She spent her Junior Year in Zagreb through Rotary. None of her classes will transfer but she may get some elective credit for her Croatian language class. She took one AP in her freshman year but didn’t score very well on the test. She doubled up in science and English for her sophomore year in preparation for year abroad. She just returned mid-June and is taking the AP’s that are available but no science. She has a 3.75W GPA and a 30 ACT on her first try in sophomore year. She will be one week shy of 17 when she graduates and though she is young, she is pretty mature. They did not know about the Youth Exchange program in our area and she was able to get the local Rotary up to speed and has helped this year’s student as well. Her goal is to promote youth exchange throughout the high schools and middle schools and she has had quite a few speaking engagements already. She is working now and though I gave her the option of community college and then transferring, she wants to major in International Relations with a school that has Slavic Languages and Cultural Studies. She has not been involved in many EC’s but has volunteered for many years in children’s museums and science centers. She interviews and writes very well so we are looking at schools that have a more holistic approach to admissions. She is also interested in slightly more liberal leaning student body.

Based on this info., are there any schools that she should be looking at? She is Hispanic, (and Armenian) if that makes a difference. We are looking into schools with good financial aid packages (including merit).

We have looked into Macalester, UNC Chapel Hill (we are in NC), Barnard, Colby, Kalamazoo, Juniata, Wooster, St, Olaf and American University.

@mackatarinasmom Welcome.

Check out as well the 2017 Thread – http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1479899-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2017.html#latest Given her interest in Slavic Languages you should really go over there, as there is one parents who has a homeschooled teen who wants to study Russian. I bet she has some good advice for you.

You are welcome to stick around. Not sure I can help you much with ether Slavic Languages. I’m confused when you say she doesn’t have many EC’s. She is working, & if she is working on the Rotary both count. EC’s that she is passionate about can be more helpful than a huge laundry list. Just depends on where you are applying.

I don’t have many suggestions because my S17 is looking a West Coast Engineering or other STEM. But maybe others will have good idea’s. The only school I know much about in your area is Gilford.

@mackatarinasmom I saw your thread and it seems like you getting good advice on that, I agree with curiosity cat that the 2017 thread will be helpful, I believe many of those looking at language majors are focusing on language flagships versus LAC’s but they will have some great insight as to how to research the depth of the program.

But definitely hang around, this is a fun sub set of that larger thread which can feel tippy top heavy at times. I think we are all pretty active on both but the lists of schools can look a little different at times.

Welcome!

@eandesmom what did you think of SLO?

@mackatarinasmom the first school that comes to mind is Middlebury. Others to look at include Bennington, Oberlin, Beloit and Lawrence. It sounds like your D has had a very interesting experience which some schools will greatly appreciate.