Didn’t know if people on this thread had seen Compass’s new predictions for NMSF. http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/ Its range is higher than Testmaster’s.
CA range is 219-222. My DS got 220. He didn’t focus on PSAT, so if he makes it’s nice to have achievement.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Thanks for the link. It’s the same # for our state I think. Boo. D is bottom of the likely ‘range’ number. So hard to decide whether to plan and take the SAT (for a confirming score) or just assume the worst, and scramble to take it after September if by chance she makes it. I don’t think there’s a chance. It would be nice to be done testing, as well as not giving CB more $. It could mean a bit of money tho.
What would ya’ll do??
I’d wait. No point in taking it if it isn’t needed.
My dd is not planning on taking the ACT. She took the March SAT hoping to confirm her PSAT score. She told me yesterday that it was 21 days until the scores are released, so I guess she has been thinking about it. She really wants to be done with testing. At this point. She is still above the highest predicted cut-off range for our state, so she is really hoping to make it to NMSF.
I am really hoping for her sake that her Mar scores are high enough. If not, she will be taking the June test. The good thing is that she has been tutoring another student in math prep for the ACT, so if she does have to take it, she won’t have to do any review herself. She will also take it w/o writing bc none of the schools she is currently interested in want the writing score. (She took it with writing in March and she definitely did not write as much as she wanted to. She wI’ll be happy to take it w/o writing.)
Can I just rant here about the school GC? Granted, it is a large public school. I totally know resources are probably limited etc. etc. DD is ranked in the top 15 out of 650 kids. She sees her GC occasionally to double check on courses.
Recently she has visited a couple of times to find out the best options for math next year. She got off track briefly and took IB Math SL and now needs/wants to take calculus next year. The pre-cal teacher is not known for being overly inspiring so she was trying to figure out if she could take it online and what the ramifications would be for her GPA and class rank.
The GC told her “I don’t even know your class rank…where are you?” Umm, really? I mean I don’t expect her to know everyone’s rank but geez, she is in the top 15!!! And then she said "I’m terrible at math and I don’t know how it works but if someone takes more AP classes than you it might impact your rank.
REALLY?? And then D asked her “do you think I need pre-cal or can I just go right to AP Cal A?” And she kind of shrugged and said something like “it doesn’t really matter.”
She has it worked out, talked in detail to her current math teacher, etc. but really. Scratching my head.
@carachel2 Well that’s frustrating. Sounds like the guidance counselor is clueless and can’t offer much guidance. Can you advise your daughter instead? My D’s GCs are great (very big HS) and because she is ranked in the top 2%, they go out of their way to help her even when she procrastinates. I still provide the course selection guidance though. Your D does need pre-calc. But maybe she can take it in the summer and then Calc next year? My D found pre-calc to be harder than calc (she’s a weirdo though). Lots of kids at her school are just doing pre-calc during the summer.
@itsgettingreal17 …she talked at length with her current math teacher and he told her he feels she will do fine in AP Cal A. They are actually doing about two six weeks worth of pre-cal in her current class and she is doing very very well. I have emailed him to verify this but arghhh…something with the school email system is causing the email to bounce back.
She does plan specifically to do some on-line pre-cal prep this summer with Khan. IDK what to think! H is an engineer and says she doesn’t need a whole year of pre-cal? (I feel like I’ve asked this here before so please everyone forgive me if I’m repeating.)
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek! Looks like they are sticking with their TX prediction. I guess they trust the Testmasters data and calculation. Still hanging on to hope here.
@carachel2 I agree with your H, but some pre-calc is a good idea. It does provide the building block for calc. I remember though that when I was going to school, I only took 1 semester of pre-calc, but it was an accelerated class. I do think your D’s plan to study pre-calc over the summer is perfectly fine.
@carachel2 Yikes! Not much guidance in that counselor!
Your dd might be able to do targeted prep with Thinkwell. http://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/products/pre-calculus
D is also at the lower side of the predicted range for our state. Sigh. She will only take the SAT in the fall if she makes the cutoff. Her ACT scores are fine enough 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek …that looks like a great program and exactly what we were looking for.
And yes, very frustrating to have a kid who asks for so little actually get SO little from her GC.
Her IB coordinator, however, is stellar and can absolutely be counted on so at least she has that.
Of course, I could break down and schedule an actual meeting with her GC. I’m afraid my “RBF” (as the kids call it these days) would reveal my true emotions about her and would result in some sort of indirect punitive action towards my DD lol.
@carchel2 I would make a horrible school parent. The bureaucracy would drive me crazy.
Edward Burger is a great teacher. I think your dd would probably enjoy the course far more than Khan clips.
OK, then. Time to move on from NMSF threads. I will un-bookmark… 
In the effort to provide as little money to CB as possible, someone mentioned that you can add a Subject Test on test day, and CB will charge your CC…no problem. Do you know if you can ‘remove’ a test from a test date, without being charge…while still taking the 2nd test that you signed up for? I guess this would require a refund from CB?
I signed D up for Physics and Math II a long time ago for the the June test date. I want to, at the urging of her Chem/Phys AP instructor, move the Physics test to October since they are going to be doing prep in class next fall, and have yet to cover all the concepts on the test. I’ll still have her take Math II (oops, should have done it ages ago I guess) in June.
I’m guessing I’ll be stuck with making a change to the registration, but wondering if anyone has done this.
@carachel2 Do confirm with GC on the revised course plan. Or ask the math teacher tell GC so that course registration can be changed (a week before beginning of the school year for us.)
I had DS take on-line Precalculus over freshman summer without checking with the school. Apprently, there is certain approved on-line class from school district. He did not take that one, so they did not allow DS to skip PreCalc. DS ended up taking it again. I guess it was the easiest class ever to goof over.
@2muchquan I have not tried that but I suggest you check at the CB website.
Our plan is take SAT in November or December if DS becomes NMSF. Since he got excellent ACT score, we don’t want to take a chance on SAT for the sake of NMF. With early application deadlines of November or December 1st, we don’t have to worry about unexpected low score. What y’all think about this plan?
Holy cow @carachel2, thankfully your d has you advocating for her. Even tho your RBF (I am also afflicted) may cause issues, it may be helpful to let the gc know you are indeed interested in what’s happening.
I had a THAT PARENT moment last week. Not proud of it, but as they say s&*( happens. Several months ago I signed up ds to take the AP tests on the school’s website. He was standing in my office as I pushed the button. Never received a confirmation but that happens on occasion and didn’t think anything of it until I get a panicked text from son that he was not signed up. I called the teacher in charge. He tells me that there’s nothing he can do for my son as its too late and why didn’t son realize he wasn’t signed up? Um, w-h-a-t? If we’re going that route why didn’t APUSH teacher question why son, who is top student of all his classes, wasn’t registered? This is a relatively small private school.
I explain that I did indeed register son and that since this is a prep school, perhaps they can advocate for kid since clearly this is not our doing. Turns out others had issues signing up, but we’re the problem. sigh. After I pushed and pushed, he agreed to check with the principal. Turns out we just need to pay an additional $55 fee. Grrr.
Oh my haven’t been on here in while and everyone’s been busy! Loved reading what everyone is up to, college visit reports, etc. I feel like we just started in full swing here. @Mom2aphysicsgeek thank you so much on all the info you have posted about language programs. My son is looking to major in Accounting hopefully with a double major in Russian (would consider minor if that’s all he can do). He wants to go into Intelligence after school and definitely wants to spend at least a semester abroad. He has never taken Russian but his interest is peaked. He took 4 years of French but hasn’t had it in school this year or next because of scheduling conflicts.
My son will definitely miss the NMF cutoff, but should still be able to get some decent merit aid at some schools with his SAT/ACT scores. He always knew he wanted Accounting but adding Russian certainly closed the pool of potential schools dramatically. He is hoping to find some place he can continue to be in a drama/musical program as he loves being in performances and just played Bert in Mary Poppins at his school (proud momma). He is also considering applying for a ROTC scholarship and going that route into Intelligence. So many balls still up in the air but I feel more settled now that I think we are done with SAT/ACT and starting to visit some schools next week over Spring Break. The ROTC Scholarship board first meets this summer so he is prepared to get on his resume, checking out the essays and asking for letters of recommendation as soon as we get back. If the ROTC application gets him moving so we have less to do next Fall then I’m all for it. Exciting year coming up for these kids.
@carachel2 Sorry about your clueless GC!! For what it’s worth, our GCs don’t know rank that well, because the transcript system only calculates rank when they print all the transcripts at once, which I think only happens once or twice a year, and there can be a lot of movement over a year. But, they certainly do know who the top or top-ish kids are.
DS skipped Precalculus by doing it from a book and testing out, so I have a little experience with the range of topics that needs to be covered. Precalculus is kind of an odd beast, because it’s an unconnected group of topics that weren’t covered in Alg II and aren’t “calculus”. I checked this with DS, and the important topics to know are:
– Trigonometry including trig identities and the unit circle. This gets used a lot in calculus, so kids should be good with this. It was covered as part of Alg II at our school and the precalculus class reviewed it.
– Functions. Gets used a lot in calculus, but is also typically introduced in Alg II.
– Vectors. Not sure how much this is used in Calc AB, but definitely used a lot in physics. DS says there was a review chapter on vectors in Calc BC somewhere, but you don’t actually use them much as part of calculus until multivariable.
– Matrices. My son says matrices are used in the 2nd semester of Calc BC (when taken without prior AB) for finding cross products and dot products. Probably not needed in Calc AB.
– Sums, sequences, series, and limits. Basically an intro to calculus, which will be repeated in the first couple chapters of Calc AB.
I looked at an online Math SL syllabus, and it looks like she may have already covered much of this. However, I don’t know if your Math SL is a one-year or two-year class. Our SL courses (DS is taking Spanish SL) are one year and HL are two year, but I’ve heard that our IB implementation is non-standard.