Anyone else’s kid have a horrible AP testing schedule coming up? 2 days next week my D has back to back exams with no lunch break, from 8-4. Yet the next 2 weeks she has 1 each. I don’t know how that even makes sense. Had she said something earlier I would have at least contacted her GC to see if there was a possibility of changing those 2 days. 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek what a great feeling you d has to help someone. You must be proud!
@itsgettingreal17 my D has 2 AP on Monday as well, 1 Thursday, 1 Friday and 1 the next week. The 2 in one day is a killer. Last year my other D’s friend had 2 in one day and the first one went a few minutes late and he missed the second one, the teacher wouldn’t let him in the room even though he was only 2 minutes late. He was able to do a makeup. There is already an AP exam schedule for next year. If you know the classes your D will take you can check to see when the exams the AP exams are.
@itsgettingreal17 That is rough. I hope your dd can finish the first one a few minutes early so she can have time to at least eat a granola bar or some crackers!
@greeny8 Thanks. I am. She has put a lot of pressure on herself bc she really wants to help this young lady bc she knows what it is like to need scholarship $$. She puts a lot of time in creating tutoring materials targeting exactly what she thinks she is missing. The student wanted her to focus on trig bc that is what she thought she needed. Dd realized that her needs were definitely different and has spent time reviewing alg and basic skills like ratios and helping her with test taking strategies. As they have been working, dd says that it is like all of a sudden she is understanding things that before she was only attempting to replicate. Yesterday she only missed 1 question in a 22 problem section.
It is exciting for dd bc this student must be talking about her bc she now has other kids wanting to hire her as a tutor. That made her feel really good about the effort she has put into this.
@itsgettingreal17 @greeny8 D has two on Monday-----at two different schools 10 minutes apart! Both AP coordinators know the situation so . She does write Environmental FRQs quite quickly; hopefully she’ll be allowed to leave the room early. Poor kid is going to have to shovel down some food in the car.
She also has one Thursday and then a nice break until the following Wednesday and Thursday, followed by her written Arabic final Friday!
S has two AP tests on Thursday. But his school is small and I think they’re in the same room so he can’t be late.
Son #2 got his ACT results back. 36! No more tests! Now we’ll have to see what colleges are within his reach. He’s not interested in Ivys or other hypercompetitive schools. He’s in a nationally ranked top STEM high school, but his GPA is on the lowish side (below 4 weighted, but the intense nature of the school is well known). I’m thinking I need to look for LACs that has good merit scholarships that will make it affordable compared with our state universities (VA).
Ds AP Macro just sent an email about the review session. From 10-5. On Mothers Day.
Congrats to your ds @NoVADad99 ! Refresh my memory–does he know what he’d like to study?
@carachel2 Seriously?
Thanks @WhereIsMyKindle. He’s kinda noncommittal about it right now. Since he’s in a STEM school, he’s interested in electronics. He was really into his electronics lab course. I think he’s more of the hands on type vice the theoretical. He’s also taking German for the past three years, and is applying for the Goethe Institute’s German Bridge Program that can lead to attending a German University. At this point, I think that’s still a long shot, but who knows.
I’m a new CC member, de-lurking to introduce myself. Thanks for all of the insights/info so far (going through the college search for the first time, I appreciate all of the advice!)
I have a DD19 and DS17 (DD is about to get her permit in June and DS has had his license since October … it took us many months to relax about him driving, but we are finally getting used to it).
DS17 is taking 3 AP classes: Chem, Calc AB/BC (will take BC test) & Statistics. He also took AP US Gov in the fall and will take that exam too. Thankfully his 4 tests are spread out over two weeks. Most AP teachers at our HS seem to adjust grades on AP practice tests so if the student scores in the 4 or 5 range on the practice test it tends to help rather than hurt their grade in the class.
DS is finishing Spanish 4 this year (at his HS they give credit for Spanish 1 if taken in middle school provided the student passes Spanish 2 freshman year). He could take AP Spanish next year but is opting to take other classes (mostly STEM classes as a dually enrolled student at local 4-year college). I really wanted him to take AP Spanish - it comes easily to him, the AP teacher really likes him and wants him to continue (and would be a great choice for letter writer), but DH is always reminding me that its best to let our son make these decisions for himself. At least I know that no one will look at his transcript and think he is slacking off senior year, LOL.
@262mom and other recently joined folks, Welcome to the thread!
@NoVADad99 wow, Congratulations! No more testing, what a relief!
I asked an engineer (phd) and was told Electrical Engineering program covers most fundamental engineering topics.
EE or Mechanical Engineering programs cover fundamentals and curriculum is uniform(?) across colleges.
He thinks that BME does not seem to have standard curriculum and varies by schools.
@NoVADad99 congrats on your sons ACT. He will have many wonderful choices!
@262mom welcome!! 
@NoVADad99 I’m sure you all have big smiles happening at your house! Congrats. Lots of choices and decisions in front of you for sure.
DD has 5 AP exams. Two of her classes are online through NCVPS, Calc BC and Human Geo. Her Calc teacher assigned 7 different practice sets for grades (not curved) and our wonderful Internet is not cooperating today.
APES is Monday and they only had 60 actual days of class and she feels like she learned nothing. She has 6 AP exams under her belt so she knows what to expect. She feels completely unprepared for that exam. Not sure she’s feeling great about Calc either.
Somehow she ended up with 5 morning sessions spread out over both weeks so at least there is that.
I will be ecstatic when this is over. No more AP classes for her. Hubby got transferred again so DD is going to graduate after fall which limits her class choices greatly. Colleges she is considering don’t really care so she will do that but still start college in the fall.
Most people here are such AP veterans, you will all think D and I are goofballs for our recent distress over AP Chem. It’s her first AP class and the first time she made a B (last semester) in a STEM class. She’s been hanging on to a low B this semester. Her chem final was last Thursday and AP test coming up on Monday. We were both really confused by the scheduling, especially with a month to go in school. On Thursday she was very upset with how poorly she felt she’d done on the final. It turned out the final was an old AP and even though her percentage seemed incredibly low (maybe 60-ish), it corresponded to a 4 on the AP test. She’s such a literalist though that she still has some lingering worry her final will be counted as a “D”! The scheduling makes sense to me as the final was being used for AP test prep. I’m not sure if that’s normal but it does make sense.
I do think I wasted money paying for the test unfortunately as she says she doesn’t want to skip out of any chem classes at college due to that being a weaker area.
@Agentninetynine
Thanks for sharing all that useful info from your admissions game. I hope the adcoms who review my D’s app will appreciate overcoming hardships in EC’s. She’s been trying all year to start a club (for kids with mental/cognitive/learning differences and their allies, similar to a GSA), but has not yet been successful in finding enough members. She has very few EC’s and I’ve been telling her to put that club on her app anyway because it does represent a lot of hard work. I’ve always felt that essays and LoR’s must be very important to smaller schools and am heartened to see this is the case. I feel like D will be pretty strong in these areas.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek
Big kudos to your D for putting so much effort into her tutoring – how amazing for her student to have such a great tutor! My oldest (D11) called the other day and said “Can you believe I tutored someone in math?!” and I said “No!” She has a ld in which one of the diagnosing factors is verbal ability much higher than math/spatial ability. She subbed as a tutor for a kid with the same not very common ld and apparently did a great job.
@262mom
Welcome! I found CC and the class of '11 parents when my oldest D was a junior and it was amazing to find so much knowledge and a great community in one place. Her GC was AWFUL, I was clueless, and CC really saved the day. I’m in a similar boat to you with having a D17 and S18 (will be weird next spring going over acceptances/rejections and doing search/selection at the same time…) My D is also going to be doing some concurrent enrollment classes next year. She’s a STEM girl, but all three of her HS classes will be adv or AP STEM so she is only looking at humanities type college classes.
@eandesmom
My D is also not wanting to do interviews or one-on-one’s at this time, but you may want to rethink sitting in on a class. D had a great experience the two times she did this (and I was invited to sit in as well – yay!) We both felt it really gave her a good sense of what the students were like in a class setting and how she might feel taking classes there. She also got a chance to briefly chat with the profs on a casual basis without the pressure of a scheduled meeting. We were really disappointed that two of her scheduled class sits at other schools were cancelled – very bad luck.
@NoVADad99 congrats!!! So exciting, he should have lots of options.
I am amazed (and slightly ill) at some of the AP test volumes your kids are taking. Something to be said for a less rigorous schedule, we only have 2, a week apart and I am grateful for that.
@NoVADad99 That’s gotta be a good feeling knowing that he’s done with testing! We are hoping to be done as well, but we’re still waiting for his April ACT results to post. DS is also taking the SAT next Saturday as well in case he qualifies for national merit. Is your son at Thomas Jefferson? I know what you mean about the impact on the GPA as my DS also attends a nationally ranked top STEM school. He has a decent GPA but it would definitely be much higher at his local high school! Can’t beat the education he’s getting though. He will be well prepared for college. No ivy chasing for us either, but thankfully our state flagship’s compsci program is very strong, and that’s what DS would like to major in.
Are there particular schools that heavily recruit students from your son’s school? Look carefully at those schools as I’ve found that they tend to accept at much higher rates (even kids with lower GPA’s) and give a LOT more merit $$ to kids at from ds’s school than the local high schools. The college and academic counsellors have forged really tight relationships with these schools and I’m sure your son’s school has similar relationships with colleges and uni’s in your area too.
His brother was also from the same school (yes, it’s TJHSST). He was NMF and received the Presidential scholarship from UA. Alas he wanted to go to Olin so that’s where he ended up. The younger one has no interest at Olin, but is looking at UA with interest. He’s near the cutoff for the NMSF for last year. Keeping our fingers crossed. I’ve also suggested Temple and my wife suggested WPI.
@NoVADad99 36?! Congrats to your S!
@26mom Welcome to the other side! Sounds like you’re a pro.
@carachel2 that stinks about the review session! May is a crazy month!
Is CSS EFC usually higher than FAFSA EFC?