@mtrosemom my D who is on a cheerleading break from feb-may has definitely been less focused now that she has so much time to do her work. She did better when she was at practice till 5:30 then came home showered ate and did homework. Now she comes home, naps, dilly dallies until she realizes she is tired and now has to do her homework.
@snoozn my dog walk is as much exercise as I get too…I just let him out the door he does his business and comes back in. So much for me exercising.
And all of the mailings just keep getting thrown in the recycling bin. It is all a game to boost up applications. I wish they’d stop wasting money and just lower the tuition.
Maybe someone could come out with a 50-state collector set like for the state coins. So, kids could be hoping to hear from some college in Hawai’i or Alaska to complete their set.
My D enjoys the mailings, many are from schools she has never heard of and we could never afford, but they can be entertaining. Carleton is her favorite (“just 7 miles from the big steer”), but they send a mailing or email almost every week now and it is starting to creep her out. She calls them “thirsty”, I guess that is new slang for desperate.
My D’s favorite mailing came from Worcester Polytechnic Institute which we visited on spring break. They sent her a little foam sheet that came apart into pieces which you can solve to make a cube. They promised that “more puzzles are coming,” so she is looking forward to that.
Case Western Reserve has become her “stalker” school. I looked (she shares her dedicated college email account with me – I’m not a snoop!) and just this month they sent email on April 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14 and 15. And there have been several snail mails as well.
My ds’s biggest stalker right now is Harvard. Twice every week he gets an email - and several mailings have come as well. No. He is not applying to Harvard. No wonder some of these kids are so surprised when they get rejected from the ivies. They probably think, “hey, they emailed me all the time! I thought I was a shoo-in!” Uh… no!
Major frustration with DS 17 who takes a casual approach to everything. He has good grades, is great about getting school work done, and has a decent (but could be improved) first ACT score. But he is too busy to visit schools, too indecisive to make a list, and too stubborn to listen when I suggest things. Between spring sports and his upcoming summer job as a camp counselor (away for 9 weeks!!!) I don’t know when we’ll be able to get this party started. Am I stressing too early??
I had no idea there were so many ballet dancers here. S17 is a ballet dancer and dances 15+ hr per week. He is in a pre-pro program and gets out of school early to dance. At dance from 3-9 today with class and rehearsals.
He is most likely going to college but there is a tiny part of him that wants to try the company route after senior year.
He is trying to find a program that would allow him to continue dancing but not major. If anyone knows of one, please let me know. He also does tap and modern and wouldn’t rule out other forms of dance.
I suppose ballet is considered athletic since he gets a PE exemption for his dancing.
For AP calc or AP Stats, his math teacher said the AP calc route is the way to go. Like everyone else said, AP stats is seen as an extra class.
@jmek15 Just my opinion, you are not stressing too early. On the other hand, it’s not too late, either. It’s an important decision, and eventually needs to be prioritized somewhere in his list of ‘things to do’. Could it be he’s not ready for college? Could he benefit from a gap year? I, personally, would be pretty concerned if my D did not even start looking at schools until fall of senior year.
Again, it’s not too late, but you probably need to sit down and make some plan with your S. Get some criteria (major, size, location, etc.) and you can do some legwork. Are any of his friends looking?
ETA: I see you’ve had a D that went through this (now I remember…Arts Scholarship to CWRU), so you know the drill. Don’t need me telling you!
@jmek15 I think since you are a parent on cc, like all of us we are on top of everything and quite involved. But I believe the majority of parents and kids wait until the fall to start looking where they want to go and start filling out applications. If you’re not doing EA or ED, the majority of applications are due beteeen November - January 1st. That gives plenty of time from August to research schools and fill out apps. But like I said, I think we are a minority here and we like things to be done early so it can be frustrating. Like @2muchquan said, you can do the legwork. When the time comes in the fall you’ll be prepared to help him.
The schools use marketing companies whose job it is to screen students using their PSAT/ACT/SAT/AP performance.
In the old PSAT, all it would take is a 60/80 in one section to meet the requirement of most top schools get your kid sent a solicitation to apply. People on CC were baffled to receive a solicitation from MIT with a 60/80 in PSAT Math in the past.
@crazym0m, you are not crazy. I think some schools try to increase the number of applications by encouraging kids who have some, but only a slight, chance of being admitted. DS’ stalker was Columbia. No, he did not apply! Knowing there were at least a couple dozen at his high school with better chances.
@jedwards70, with how much dancing your S does, I can’t imagine he would just up and quit when he goes to college! Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, but it seems like there are tons of schools where he could pursue whatever degree he wants and continue to dance as a double major, a minor, or simply take dance as electives. When D11 was looking, her plan was to major in biology and minor in dance. Her list (on the dance side) was schools that focused on modern and international dance rather than ballet, so not much use to your S. If you are talking about a conservatory vs. a regular college, she noted at the time that some programs seem more conservatory-like even if they aren’t officially a conservatory. For any dancer I always recommend looking at the Five College Dance Department (https://www.fivecolleges.edu/dance) in MA. Five very different colleges (well, 3 for your S, though he could still take classes at the womens’ colleges!) with one combined dance department.
D11 got all her PE credit through doing aerial dance workshops at school! One of her life dreams is to bring dance into public schools K-12 (eventually on a national level) to embrace a wider view of “physical education” and bring in more arts… Well, I don’t want to write a book here, but I think it’s a great idea!
@texaspg, well that does explain it, but I don’t understand why they would do that. Maybe the PSAT etc. won’t break down their block scores finely enough? It just seems silly for an Ivy to target a kid who had something between 600 and 800 on one section. Shouldn’t the Ivies be targeting kids who have 700+ on both? I feel bad for a kid who isn’t “in the know” or doesn’t have a CC obsessive parent and gets a bunch of Ivy mailings and thinks “Wow, I didn’t know all these great schools wanted me!” and then it creates an unrealistic college list leaving off most places where they’d actually fit and be likely to get in.
@snoozn - if you look at the statistics for most top name schools, you will see that they have admitted people in that range.
Check out bottom of page 7 and top of 8. Who will actually get admitted with these scores is up for debate but they do admit them.
http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2014-15.pdf?m=1457640342
The thing is - even if your kid is someone who can contend for a spot at an ivy - its STILL just a crapshoot in terms of acceptance if you really look at the numbers. I was reading about Princeton’s acceptance numbers from the Daily Princetonian… http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2016/03/u-admits-6-46-percent-of-applicants-for-class-of-2020/
They had 29,303 applicants and admitted 1,894. 50.5% were male (I have a son) so that’s ~ 956 - 50.6% identify as people of color - so that’s now a pool of 472 white males (approximately). 11.2% are legacy kids (not mine) and 11.9% are varsity athletic kids (also not mine) - reduces the number even more although I don’t know how much more because I don’t know what percent of white males make up varsity athletes and/or legacies. All that to say - you could have a kid (like me) who makes straight A’s and mostly A+'s, has outstanding SAT scores, plays 2 varsity hs sports, does theater, robotics, volunteers, blah blah blah and there might not remotely be a spot for him at an ivy because there are just honestly not very many spots for a kid who is not a first generation college student, not from a disadvantaged situation, not a legacy, not a varsity athlete, etc. THIS is why there must be realistic expectations and this is why some people are completely devastated at admittance time. It doesn’t make the child any less full of potential or promise - it is just simply that there are very few spots. I will allow my son to apply at one reach school but he must have schools that are safe in terms of admission or we’ll go nuts.
Also, I think this demonstrates that all those emails to so many kids are just to raise the number of applicants to make that admittance number smaller and more competitive with the other selective schools.
One final thought on applying to selective schools… (completely my opinion) - pick ONE favorite and apply early. In the article above - the acceptance rate for early admission was actually 18.6% from the early pool while regular admission was actually only 3.8%! That, to me, means applying to Princeton regular decision is a complete waste of time… steps off soapbox…
@BusyNapping wrote “My D took Calculus AB this year and absolutely hated it. She chose to take AP Stats next year instead of BC and said whatever happens, happens. She wasn’t willing to subject herself to another year of calculus just for her college apps. Plus, she’s genuinely interested in Stats, so it’ll probably work itself out.”
Same here for my D. They wouldn’t let her into AP Calc BC unless she had a 94 average in the AB class (she’s up to an 89 right now). She decided not to fight it, although reading about how the AO’s see AP stats is really bumming me out since she’s going to major in comp sci. But, it is what it is. It gets exhausting worrying about whether or not you’re making the exact right choice all the time.
She just took the mandatory AP practice test for Calculus this morning (woke up at 7 am on a saturday to get to school, such a trooper!), it’ll replace whatever her lowest grade is.
Speaking of dancing, I blew out my knee last night at a Duran Duran concert by dancing in heels for four hours. According to my fitbit I put 18,800 steps in yesterday, does that count as a sport? :D. My knee is wrapped and iced, hopefully I’ll be better by my next tennis match, or I’m gonna have some 'splainin to do.
Some “mom” (using the term loosely) brought her two kids, around 8 and 10 to the concert last night. Then she left them for about fifteen minutes to go do whatever (I’m sure she assumed my friend and I would watch them-which of course we did because we can’t not, but wow!). She was so on my “you suck as a parent list”-the videos were very explicit, Simon LeBon was talking about, um, adult stuff, and the sound levels were so high I had earplugs in. Not cool at all for her to bring them. But hey, they got T shirts >:/
Count my dd amg the kids who refuses to take BC…and she is an incredibly strong math student. She just doesn’t like it and wants more time for things like a linguistics course. (This, @2muchquan, is definitely one of those, well, here is what we think moments and then the choice is hers. Same with her refusal to take any APs and only take CLEPs…ok, her decision, but not one without consequences.)
I did want to share the fact that the cal AP exam is changing next yr in case any of you were not aware.
https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/calculus
Well, D20 is done with her gymnastics meet. Only placed in one event. Tough competition! IL won the state bragging rights for her age group, so she got a plaque.
I also got to do a quick self-tour of UK. Pretty darn nice! Lots of construction going on. New student union and rec bldg, science bldg, dorms. I was surprised how few kids were around, even for Saturday. Maybe too early. Liked it a lot. Have to come back with D17 if she needs more southern choices. She would have loved the new dining ‘mall’ :D/
@MotherOfDragons my D took a practice AP calc at school this morning too. She said she did well on it so thats a plus.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I didn’t know things were changing for the AP exams. Thanks for the heads up. Our kids are really getting the brunt of changes this year!
@2muchquan that’s great they won for her age group and got a plaque. I used to do gymnastics, kinda miss the flexibility I used to have. But I can still do a perfect cartwheel 