Anyone took Biology Olympiad? Scores came out today. My S took without any prep and he was name semifinalist. Not sure what that means.
Congrats to your S @srk2017
Iāve not heard of Biology Olympiad but congrats to your S @srk2017 !
Congrats to @srk2017ās S.
Do you all know when our kids start to sign up for taking the AP exams?
I recall DS14 signed up through his school around this time.
For this yearās exams? We homeschool, but around here, schools have signups with deadlines from late January to mid-March. Iād call the school today to check!
@4beardolls our deadline for early registration through our school was 2/20 or something like that. It went up in price after that but you could still sign up. Iād definitely call the school! Our school hounds us until we sign up and pay butā¦itās mandatory that they take the test in all AP classes so they are on top of it. My step kids HS did not require the test to be taken, it was optional so little info came out about it.
@dcplanner
Thanks for that info even though it is a bit of a bummer. My D is in pretty much the same place as yours. Even though she hasnāt had the same engineering teacher each year, the program is a pretty tight community and she has good relationships with all the engineering teachers. And like your D, sheās never had the same math or science teacher for more than one year. Iād also say from conferences that while most of her math/science teachers would give her a solid LoR, Iām sure it would not be near as strong as the engineering teacher.
Iāll have her start thinking about which other teacher to ask and then maybe ask the schools individually once she narrows down her list. Sheās not looking at as high a tier, so maybe her schools will be a little less strict.
Our school signed our kids up for the AP somehow. Not sure how they do this, but I know I still owe them money for the May test date. Our kids donāt have to take the tests, but if the do not, then they only get a .5 bump in the GPA for the class, where normally itās a 1.0.
Thanks @4beardolls, @eandesmom , @WhereIsMyKindle Physics, Chemistry and Biology have Olympiads. They typically have local exam first. Around 300-500 kids are selected as semifinalists and they take national exam. Top 20 are invited to a study camp in summer and top 4 represent USA in International Olympiads. Top 4 are pretty much guaranteed Ivy admissions and most likely top 20 too. In our schools history one made it to the USA Chem team and 4 or 5 students were selected as Finalists in Chem and Biology.
I just got the email that we need to sign up and pay by this Friday, so you should still be able to get into the AP ordering pipeline.
I think AP registration varies by school. Today was the first mention of AP registration and it will take place all of next week during lunch @ $95/exam, late fee of $50/exam.
My DDs school pays for AP exams. They want kids to take as many as possible because it helps with their status. I am sorry for those of you who have to pay.
@snoozn I agree, Iād ask your Dās special ed case manager to send a few paragraphs to the GC for possible inclusion in the GCās letter.
@CA1543 If he doesnāt want to take 5th year Chinese, I donāt think 5 years is needed. For highly-ranked tech schools, a lot of them donāt require more than 2-3 years of foreign language; check websites of likely reach targets. DS has 4 years of Spanish after this year and will stop.
Our engineering program has seniors take 2 or 3 engineering classes during senior year (scheduled into the late evening). Some take even more. Before they got rid of the FRC team, those were Robotics classes . Many kids got into good schools with that and some got into MIT/Caltech. Now the classes are called āMechatronicsā instead of robotics. DS plans to take 2 of those, not 3, so that he can fit in UC or community college classes for math and science/CS.
DS is planning on taking AP Lit because he thinks heāll like it, but a lot of our seniors take a dual-enrollment English class on the HS campus, because you can get double UC credit taking AP Lang + DE but not for AP Lang + AP Lit. There are a couple of interesting-sounding English electives at DSās school like Mythology, but I found out that class is actually for kids who failed a semester of English to make up the credits, not for kids who like mythology. So, you might want to ask about specific English electives if he doesnāt already know. If he can change in Sept/Oct, thatās a good backup plan for taking AP Lit.
Our engineering teachers do write LoRs, but they would only come from either the programming/CAD teacher, the machine shop teacher, the engineering physics teacher, or the engineering design (art) teacher, not from the whole group of engineering teachers. I think they would count as STEM teachers from the colleges Iāve looked at, but maybe not āscienceā. DS isnāt planning on any of them for recommendations; heās planning on his AP Physics teacher.
DS had fun at Science Olympiad, but their team isnāt big enough to compete in all events. DS did 5 events and got 1st in oceanography and game programming. His Science Club should recruit more kids to participate next year.
@srk2017 Congrats to your S and good luck on the national exam!
Late AP registration (+$15) at our school is March 1-18. Free and reduced lunch kids pay $20 per AP test; full price for others.
DS used his Math Circle teacher for a math LoR for summer programs. I donāt know how that will look to them. She writes LoRs for the homeschool kids she teaches. Sheās known DS since 4th grade, and only works with advanced students. Heās only had dual-enrollment math since Alg II in 9th grade. The Calc BC class was dual-enrollment on the HS campus, but the teacher was pretty disinterested in getting to know students.
Very fun on the Science Olympiad, I wonder if that will come up my radar for S19. We have a state wide bio expo competition coming up in May that S19 is doing. He is the only freshman to have been selected by the school to be part of the group competing. It will be interesting to see how he does, it is all individual project submissions.
As for S17 and LORās he thinks I am nuts for even bringing it up now as his school doesnāt address it till fall. He is likely right, at least given the schools he is looking at at the moment. But he should have solid options between his APES, APLang/Drama and PreCalc teachers. He should have two of the three next year, hopefully all and even if not, the PreCalc one would be solid either way. His US History teacher is also a solid option as a backup.
So, Dās teacherās already wrote some LORs for summer programs, so it would be easy enough to to ask them to modify them for college applications. So, I am not sure how to go about this since I donāt think our version of Naviance will store them, but I will check. Does D just ask the teachers to send the pdfās to her? Should we just give them a heads up that we will be asking them to do this in the fall or should we ask them to do it now? Iām not familiar with the common app, can we store them there? is there a limit to how many we can load to the common ap? When can we start saving them to the common app?
Thanks!
The way my D16 got her LOR was to ask her teacher first in the fall, then log onto her common app account and through there you send an email to that teacher. The teacher needs to go through the common app to upload it. You arenāt able see the LOR unless the teacher sends you a copy separately. It is important when filling out the common app to sign the release called FERPA that says you donāt need to see what the LOR says. My sister in law who works in admissions at a highly selective school says itās important to sign that. For each school you have saved on the common app you will have to invite the teachers you want to write the LOR. Each school will have a number of how many and specifically what kind of teacher (core teacher usually). There may be a school that has space for an additional LOR that they say is optional, like from a coach, employer, religious leader etc.
I have not been here for a while and it is a lot to read through 
and I am still working on it!!
Quick question, in DDās AP Language, they have been doing essays and she keeps getting 8s. She said every scorer can only give out two 9s. I tried to Google the essay score distribution, and couldnāt. Do any of you know about the essay score distribution? Thanks!
Getting ready to leave on our first major college tour/spring break trip. Iām proud that I remembered to look for local Groupons for the areas we will be touring. I found discount tickets for āMuseum Hackā (National Gallery of Art in DC) and for a Segway tour of DCā¦hopefully those will be fun/different tours of the area for my teen. She seems pumped. The segway tour is a surprise. I feel weāve done a good job of blending college tours with local fun.
Happy Spring Break everyone!
@carachel2 thatās a great idea using groupons! When I toured last year with my D16 we tried to do fun stuff too. However this year with my D17 Iām not sure how much time we have. We fly in Tuesday tour one school and then Wednesday we tour another and fly out that night. I was just going to find a local place to eat and walk around the town, but you gave me a good idea and Iāll look into finding something fun to do. Our spring break starts Friday the 18th so I have some time. Thanks!