@RightCoaster I’m not sure which month your child took the ACT but the Science section for Feb was widely complained about for being far harder/more confusing than normal. My daughter took a few practice tests as her way to prep and the only section she varies in a lot is science. I would print out a few practice tests and let him try a few sections so nothing is unfamiliar to him and he should probably do better.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I feel like it definitely was not a bad thing to not have the essays be adult level perfected for some of the top schools and scholarships. My son did not want many adults to read his and rejected numerous edits that he felt like would dilute his voice even though that voice was clearly immature. He did fix spelling and grammatical errors but other than that he changed very little. He did get very positive personal feedback from 2 admissions officers on his essays. 1 of those was a crazy UChicago prompt. The biggest tip we heard on countless college visits was not to repeat information from another part of the application that they really want to use the essay to get to know the person not the resume.
@dcplanner Thanks for the info. Hope I didn’t come across as questioning the merit of UDel.
D got 29 on ACT writing!! Yay! It was much better than I had expected. I was scared to see the score after reading all the error/rescore stories. Now she has to do something about that 23 math score…
@HiToWaMom …my D said the ACT online prep I purchased when I registered her was very very helpful…if not just for the sheer number of practice math problems for repetition. And that is a GREAT writing score!!!
Current state: sitting here trying to explain to my mom that the picture she saw on Facebook of her friends grand-daughter “signing” to play a sport at MIT does not mean she got an athletic “scholarship” to MIT.
I’m right, aren’t I? MIT doesn’t give athletic scholarships, correct?
@carachel2 Thank you for the study suggestion. I will look into that. I hear that math is the easiest subject to raise the score by the sheer practice. I suspect there is some psychological barrier preventing her from getting a better score. She believes she is not good at math and she is fulfilling her own prophesy.
@carachel2 Pretty sure MIT doesn’t give athletic scholarships. They are a D III school
@HiToWaMom – interesting comment about math being the easiest section to prep for. I know almost nothing about the ACT but found with SAT math, once one was at a certain level (say 700), increasing the score became a matter of no careless errors and a lenient curve. Writing was the subject that both of my boys found as the ‘quick hit’. A little time spent with the prep book went a long way.
Agree about MIT not offering $$ for athletics. Now, an athlete with financial need will receive the same FA package as anyone else with his same family finances, but no special pay for athletics.
MIT has nearly 30% of their students participating on varsity teams, but recruiting does not seem to operate the same way that it does among the Ivies or NESCACs. (We have many athletes recruited from our HS for many different sports. Our Naviance data is not very useful because of all the recruits. Varies by school, of course.)
What are the qualifications for the free trip to TAMU? Is it for TX residents? Might be interested in that school if my kiddo makes NM. It is one of the higher ranking NM scholarship schools.
In fact, it’s a point of pride for my daughter that she is going to write her own essays, thankyouverymuch, and will do so without input from any adults aside from (a) possibly and only maybe bouncing ideas off of them as she’s thinking about what precisely to write about, and (b) very light copyediting—but nothing for content or flow, please!—and checking for bonehead mistakes like spelling the name of the college wrong before it goes out. (And I had to bargain for b, mainly because messing up the its~it’s distinction, which she’s prone to doing, is my one and only spelling pet peeve.)
And if she doesn’t get into some particular college because of her essays, even knowing that for a couple schools on her list that she’ll definitely be competing against kids with heavy coaching and all, well, then she’ll have been rejected—but she’ll have been rejected on her own terms.
Sometimes you feel like you got this parenting thing right, you know?
So…a bit of a craptastic day for S17. Not only was he not excused from classes prior to AP Physics, he had a US history test in the class that he would have to leave early from for the AP test. The actual test, according to S, was not at all what his AP teacher had told them to focus on and review and practice. Only half of the class took the test and the teacher did not focus much on test prep at all, instead just going on with her own agenda and curriculum which allegedly is different, and S (rightly, he is working to keep his B) is more concerned with his grade in their then layering too much on test prep but boy, I wish I hadn’t paid for him to sit for it. Frustrating that the AP teachers aren’t focusing on the actual AP test! He then went straight into 4 hours of stage crew after school.
Picked him up, and as we were running and errand for crew supplies his beloved Trombone teacher calls and basically fired us. S has had to miss several lessons between spring break college tours and now tech. This happens each play season, fall and spring and is not new. But add in mid terms, test prep study groups and general course load S’s practing wasn’t up to par leading up to the missed lessons. He has been with this teacher since 6th grade, absolutely adores him and is a bit heartbroken. It may be salvageable, it may not be as in truth, the schedule conflicts especially if S gets a job will only continue and become worse and we do get where he is coming from (even if he’s incredibly difficult to get a hold of…doesn’t email or text, only wants calls in the am, no messages but then doesn’t answer the phone and…doesn’t like to reschedule). We were hoping for his help with a fall audition tape for schools that have music options for the non music major.
As S said, he gave him all the tools he needed but he liked being held accountable (even if he failed recently) and will miss him terribly, he just loves the guy as a person (was always giving S random DVD’s and books in shared areas of interest, we joked that he’d adopt S if he could). Apparently his teacher also “fired” another close friend of S’s, another talented trombone player with better discipline overall, which makes me wonder if he is best suited for HS Juniors and Senior non music majors as well, these kids have a lot going on. All of our music teachers are tough on rescheduling and I get it, some times we just have to eat it and that’s perfectly ok, I know what we signed up for. I had pushed S to own the calls and schedules and to an extent, I own putting it on him but at the same point in time…maybe it is time. Realistically S would have to miss through mid June as it is due to conflicts and there really isn’t a better day or time for it. Am hoping he could take him just for the summer at least but we will see. Very very sad all around though, he has been amazing for S.
Sigh. Oh well, maybe it’s an essay topic. LOL! According to the essay summary tool link, based on S’s current list, he has 14 to write! That makes me cringe right there.
The one silver lining of the day (aside from the USH test being very easy) was a later phone call from a family friend that plays in a local well known community band (big band). All adults. S guest played there for a major gig last spring when they were short on trombones and managed amazingly well learning a ridiculous amount of music in a very compressed time. The friend called out of the blue to invite him to a week long jazz camp this summer, complete with a scholarship and transportation.
That helped a bit.
@HiToWaMom great job on the writing score. I have to admit the scoring fiasco’s recently had made me feel better about S’s writing score of 26, not that any of his schools seem to need it now (though some did for this years class). Of course it only matters if schools superscore as the 26 is on his Sept test and overall the Dec one is a tad better but the writing is lower.
There is a great local tutor if you want to explore that for math, I can PM you. My S’s issue isn’t the math itself, it’s the timing. ADHD boy really struggles to finish on time but his accuracy is very good for what he does get done. Frustrating though and I’m not sure the June test will be any better unless at some level the classwork has helped enough to compensate for the timing a bit. We’ve yet to figure out a practice test and review schedule, yet another thing that was conflicting with Trombone.
@eandesmom—Yeah, I feel for you. It’s hard when a music teacher your kid really likes ends it. In our case my daughter’s teacher dropped out of music teaching entirely (her yoga business, which she’d started as a side project a few years ago, was making more money and taking up progressively more of her time), so not quite the same situation, but still quite less than fun.
@eandesmom how unfortunate for your son that his teacher did that. But the camp scholarship is awesome.
I don’t understand why a teacher would schedule a test in the middle of AP exams. Makes no sense. These kids have enough pressure
@HiToWaMom great writing score. We are still waiting for my D’s score but not really caring or putting any weight on it. It always seemed the colleges didn’t put too much weight on the writing scores anyway.
@eandesmom Sorry for the challenging day! At least today will be better!
26 & 29 scores are excellent scores. Until schools can figure out how to evaluate the Writing, those are very good a safe IMO.
I am not going to be helping my D with her essays either, but only because I’m an engineer, so I’m incapable. She usually asks me to look at her assignments, but I don’t often have anything helpful to add.
May the Fourth be with you all today!
@2muchquan …“won’t be helping her with her essays because I’m an engineer.”
SAME at our house. “Dad, if I need a spreadsheet with a six sigma analysis of my production time I’ll come to you…but I think I’ve got the essay part under control.” 
@dfbdfb “rejected on her own terms”. I couldn’t agree more. S will write his own. He will have some help editing but I fully expect him to reject most suggestions from me. He may accept more from his counselor but the reality is the only reason he will have one at all, is that he is being a test case for someone who wants to become a paid counselor. And, if it removes me as prime nagger…that’s not a bad thing. Luckily for S, the content is never his issue, it really is grammar and at times, tone.
We had a similar situation with S19’s beloved piano teacher (gotta love a teacher that will create and hand score an ability appropriate version of a video game music score for your child). She had to quit to go take care of her parents in Japan. Luckily it didn’t last as long as she thought it would and 3 months later she was back in business. We’d been so devastated by the loss we hadn’t found a new one yet so it worked out.
As for S17, the reality is he has a conflict on each lesson day until 6/18. I cannot blame the teacher at all, but it is still a loss. I’ve mapped out some possible reschedules but no matter what he will miss all of May with no way to make it up based on available options. We will see what can be done. I adore the teacher but he can be a bit immature/ temperamental (not to mention impossible to get a hold of which makes things considerably more difficult) and then calms down. It really would be nice if he could hang in there one more year.
@greeny8 S was the only kid impacted by the USH test conflicting with AP Physics 1. The other kids taking the test were either seniors, in APUSH or in a different USH class. He did have to leave class early but was able to finish without issues. He would have been able to make it up but it is just one more thing to reschedule so I am glad it worked out. It is very unfortunate on the trombone teacher but we do understand where he is coming from, it’s just a large personal loss for S and I do hope he will at least consider taking him back for the summer. I suspect the teacher (not always
@2muchquan I can live with the 26 (and not sure any of his schools even care though several say the look at it if provided) but if it’s not a school that superscores, at the moment they will see a 24 based on the better of his 2 results. Hopefully June will improve, although at the moment I am not terribly optimistic as the time available for practice and review is very limited as the school musical time committment hits harder as soon as AP test are over.
The other silver lining from yesterday besides the possible camp and scholarship is I got pulled over for failure to yield (totally valid, thought it was a green arrow in the dedicated turn lane for some reason even though I drive that spot all the time). Cop let me off without even looking at my license saying “we all have brain farts”. I am thinking the 2 15 year olds in the car and local sticker on my back window helped, it’s a relatively small suburb. Very grateful for that one!
Well, I guess I have fell behind again. What about writing essays for college applications? My S was just planning on writing one and using it for most colleges. We are still trying to gather us recommendation letters from teachers. That itself has been a task. He is applying to most State universities and being #1 in his class I hope there is not an issue with getting in. I may need to do some more research on things. :-t
@Tgirlfriend, I hope that works for your son! We found with D15 that not all schools had the same prompts, so she ended up having to write three unique essays and then adapt them as needed. With State schools (hopefully), this wont be an issue. S will also be applying to mainly state schools and doesn’t want to write a “bazillion” essays.
“Brain fart”. Love it.
@eandesmom, sorry to hear about the situation with your son’s music teacher. I hope you are able to work out a compromise so they can continue working together for one more year.