Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
3701

@dfbdfb that is so good to know! I was so into sports in high school and a foreign language was not even required “back in the day.” I’m ashamed to say I don’t know any other languages. A lot of the schools she is interested in were very specific in their summer abroad/study programs located in Germany for her field. Your career sounds so interesting…what exactly do you do?

In fact, @jedwards has been helping me use this as a lure to keep D in-state at Texas A&M! They have a biomedical engineering study abroad program in Germany that looks great.

@DOTexe …yes! She has tossed German university around but in the end thinks it would be too long to be away. She is going for three weeks this summer and will live with a German family, attend high school daily, etc. so that is a good first start. She does hope to do a study abroad in college. She was so fortunate to have THE most nurturing, caring, enthusiastic teacher ever. That teacher retired last year and has been replaced by a cool young hipster type teacher who has broadened the department to include more language competitions. Her German class is her safe place and it has been fun to watch her learn.

3702

@BigPapiofthree Hi! It sounds like you have a complicated financial situation that may not be a good fit with what I’ve seen/heard of the Net Price Calculators. I have heard of people in your situation talking to the FA office at the school for an ‘early read’ to see the level of FA you may receive, even before they apply. Is it a CSS Profile school? That’s much more detail information that the FAFSA.

I never think Need Blind is really Need Blind…but that’s the skeptical me. I don’t see a real downside to giving it a try, I would just have extremely low expectations (due to being towards the mid 50%), and I would have your S working on/done with his other Safety and Match school apps.

3703

After the questions about AP reporting I did more digging. While USNWR definitely is reporting the attempts/pass on AP’s, interestingly enough the supplemental profile sheet the school provides with a transcript, does not. It does list all AP’s and honors offered which I guess is how they show rigor as well as grade scaling

It also gives very little insight into rank, showing only the “average” of the previous years senior class and how many kids were in that class. All you can really gather is if you are upper lower 50th percentile.

3704

@Ynotgo Offering Physics C is relatively rare so I doubt colleges assume it is being offered at your school. We found that to get math courses beyond BC it needed to be at a 4 year college which also makes the possibility of transfer credit more likely at the top schools. My older son took a few math classes and computer science classes at a 4 year college and still got no transfer credit which was fine. The classes just didn’t mesh well with what is offered at the school he attends. I like the desserts–sounds like a nice group of kids at his school!

3705

My D will take AP Latin next year. She was torn if she should take that or AP physics and decided on the language because she wasn’t to go into medicine and Latin can’t hurt.

@BigPapiofthree I do believe schools really are need blind. Esp. The selective schools, they have so much in endowment they could pay for everyone to go for free. There are circumstances that if you apply ED and you get accepted but the FA package doesn’t match what you anticipated, you could ultimately get out of the binding contract. My D is applying to a selective college ED to increase her chances as well. Hope it works out for you

3706

@carachel2 asked me:

I’m a linguistics professor, with research specialties in sociolinguistics and dialectology. (I’m based in Alaska, thus the work in Alaskan Englishes as one of my major research focuses.)

3707

@BigPapiofthree , When my D13 went through the admission process, we were so naive in so many ways especially about finance. We went through my H’s layoff, starting business, failing business followed by his massive heart attack.
At the time of application, we were at the very bottom of middle class or at the top of low-income category.

We were so naive that we did ED for her top school which promised to meet 100% demonstrated need. Luckily she got accepted and received a fantastic aid.

3708

Sorry I posted prematurely.

I was so naive that I believed that if they said they would meet 100% need, they must meet need. That’s why we allowed her to apply ED. It worked out extremely well for us but I don’t know if it’s a norm or an exception.

Our match/safety list was pretty horrible. I didn’t understand the concept of financial match and financial safety, so if she would have been accepted to all those schools, none of them (except for in-state flagship) would have been affordable.

Oh, but Dickinson gave her a fantastic FA comparable to the ED school. (she applied EA there.)

3709

I would recommend that everyone look at the FL requirements at the colleges their kids are interested in, especially the major department’s reqs. Some of the schools on my D’s list requires a FL in college and AP credit does not satisfy the requirement. My D is ok since she plans on starting a new language in college and continuing with Spanish. That may inform your decision for whether to continue with a language senior year.

3710

Schools are actually need blind if that’s their expressed fin aid policy. I wouldn’t do ED if I needed to compare financial aid packages and don’t tiink many recommend it. Many of here with better understanding of admissions stars say there is no ED advantage for unhooked applicants.

3711

@dfbdfb Your job sounds fascinating.

3712

About ED and needing FA, I am in the same boat. DS dream school is an ivy and according to their NPC we can swing the net cost. But due to divorce and a father who won’t pay anything I know the NPC may not be accurate. If you apply ED you can get out of the agreement if you can’t financially afford it, so we are taking the chance. If he gets in and the cost isn’t doable he knows he will have to turn them down but he feels he would like to try. We have a set number of what we can afford and he knows that the school needs to beat that for him to go.

3713

The NPC’s aren’t even remotely close for divorced parents. They calculate net cost separately for each parent. And most schools consider step-parent income. Be very careful.

3714

There is a great program (inexpensive at $100 for one week of day camp) for introduction to pharmacy at OSU, called “Pills, Potions and Poisons”. Not sure if they are still accepting applications for this summer though.

http://www.pharmacy.ohio-state.edu/outreach/program-overview

3715

@BigPapiofthree

We did not apply ED to any schools, only Rolling and EA.

However, when we ran the NPCs for schools spring '15 of D16’s junior year, I was doing estimates, based on 2014 income.

2015 was looking to be a better year than 2014, with profit-sharing & a newly restructured bonus program at H’s job, but we wouldn’t know for sure until January of 2016 (when 2015 is paid out). Then, in November of 2015, two projects fell in my lap. If these projects stuck around, it would bump up 2016’s income even more. And, importantly, these projects could disappear as quickly as they popped up.

I had to go back and run all those NPCs again, with highest income scenarios entered. It wasn’t going to hit her freshman year in college as badly as sophomore through senior years. Freshman year, we have two in college. The income bump, if it hits, won’t be until her sophomore year, and then we are back to one in college.

That meets 100% need school that was a stretch but doable, looking at freshman year only? Completely off the table now. Everyone’s big picture finances are different, but it was enough of a difference that it was a deal breaker for us.

The calculators are largely income-driven. I always recommend looking at the four year net COA, not just the single first year, and run some what-ifs through the calculator.

For us, we needed to find big merit aid, to get our net COA below our EFC and also to protect us against major changes in a need-based package.

Good luck!

3716

Thanks to all who gave feedback on AP practice tests being used as exam grades. I found this interesting thread where AP Physics I teachers are discussing how they approach this issue in their classes.

http://jacobsphysics.blogspot.com/2014/04/ap-physics-1-and-2-what-raw-score-will.html

A lot of good information like the “Texas curve” and official practice test available only to teachers.

At this point if guess - it is what it is - the teacher is doing her best to prep the students to get a qualifying score on the exam.

3717

@CaucAsianDad One of the reasons I, as a homeschooling parent, subject my syllabi/course plans to College Board scrutiny is to get my hands on those official released and practice exams!

3718

@CA1543 wrote “whose kid is taking foreign language as a senior for a total of 4 or 5 yrs of foreign lang.”

D1 took 3 years of spanish and was done by the end of her sophomore year. She’s doing stem in college so made the executive decision to load up on machine languages vs romance languages, lol.

D2 is currently in Latin 2 and plans to go all the way through IB Latin her senior year. She really likes the class, and she’ll probably do something not stem so it’s probably a good idea.

@BigPapiofthree wrote “Thoughts on trying ED when you are need qualified?” I’d also ask that question over on the financial aid forum-they are really, really smart over there. Not that we’re not smart here, just that they specialize in the financial questions and have provided some really amazing answers.

The mom bird is still on the nest, and we’re doing our best to resist peeking at it and scaring her off. :slight_smile:

I just paid for my four summer classes for college-ouch. On the upside, it looks like not only did I pass Spanish, I got an A! I think the final must have been curved or something.

D2 is taking driver’s ed over the summer and it took me about an hour of looking at all our google calendars to find four days that actually worked for her this summer (and me-I’ll be driving her). She’s going to be bummed-it starts the day after school gets out and goes from 9:30-5:30.

3719

@MotherOfDragons great job on your A in Spanish!!! And happy the mommy bird is back

So happy my D17 is my youngest and we do not have to teach any more kids how to drive. We live in Florida and they get their permit at 15 and license at 16. I taught both my girls. Stressful times but now that my youngest had has her license for 8 months and she drives to school and everywhere in between, I’m pretty comfortable when she leaves the house. However I still have her text me when she gets to her destination

3720

Congrats @MotherOfDragons, that’s quite an accomplishment!

And, I’m with you @greeny8, it’s awesome to get the kid driving…or at least get them a license. I can’t believe D17 has been driving for over a year now…until I look at the insurance bill! We have one more to go (D20) in the driving department, but I think she’ll be more confident than D17 was, and will learn quickly (plus, let’s be honest…she’s been practice-driving for years already :wink: ).