DS took the ACT today. He thought he did well. He had to guess on some of the math questions and he thought he knew the answers on the other sections including science .He said he was glad he took it. While I’m sure he probably got questions wrong I am hoping that his score is good enough that we don’t have to bother with the SAT again. [-O<
Unbelievable. DS is taking APUSH next year. His first essay is due tomorrow. Why even have summer at all…
@MichiganGeorgia – how is that allowed? That is not right! I know that our HS assigns summer AP & Honors HW but it is not due until the first day of class in late August.
Son started his internship today. Trying to remind myself that the daily commuting costs are still less than any camp or class he could be taking instead.
This is the first summer I am not paying for any camps or classes for both kids. DS has a paid internship (although just a small stipend and I am still paying for his lunches at work). DD is on an oversea exchange with a scholarship.
@CT1417 - I’m not sure why it’s allowed. But he has 2 more assignments due in APUSH and 2 in AP lang this summer before school starts. The really bad part about it is that they don’t get any feedback until they get back to school so he will have no idea if he is writing the essays the way the teachers want them…
S got his drivers license Friday. Whoo-hoo! I am still not comfortable with him on the freeway going to places he is unfamiliar with, but now he can drive himself to golf and the-Kwon-do. Once he has been a solo drive for a while I may let him go to the robotics lab at the local U where he wants to intern. If he doesn’t start that this summer, he can when school starts in fall.
@mtrosemom Congrats to your DS on the license!
How’s summer going? DS is loving working in a lab at the local UC. He’s got several projects the professor has asked him to work on. He gets to work with ablation lasers and mirror actuators and will likely get to create a simulation to run on a supercomputer. A lot of the work is computer-related, and his programming skills are coming in handy. I predict he will not be happy about cutting back on lab hours to go back to school in the fall.
He’s also taking a geology class this summer. It sounds fun, though it will move fast to cover the subject in 6 weeks. They have a field trip to the local mountains scheduled, and today the lab section walked down to the beach to look at erosion and deposition.
No summer assignments from the high school here. He got a tentative list of classes from the school, which pretty much matched what he’d requested, but it’s not a guarantee that the classes won’t conflict in what periods they are offered, and we probably won’t know about problems like that until August.
He took the SAT on June 20–a makeup test because their power went out on June 6. I don’t know when those scores will be released. Do your kids who took the SAT I or SAT II on June 6 get their scores tomorrow?
SAT scores from the June 6 test were released today. S aced his math SAT II. So proud and relieved. @Ynotgo, you’re actually lucky your S took the test on an alternate date given that the printing company screwed up the times allotted for a couple of sections on the June 6 SAT. It typically takes 3 weeks for the College Board to release scores.
My D is so busy I don’t know how she manages. School ended on the 16th, and on the 18th she started a 2-week post school session in which you can do extra work to raise your grades. Since she’s planning to apply to college NEXT year, she wants her GPA to be as high as possible. She’s also in the midst of organizing a program for minority students and is planning two workshops in late July. There’s planning the sessions, finding speakers and assistants, writing the curriculum, getting food donated, making posters…I can’t even keep up with it all. Saturday is a fundraiser for her speech team, then a week later she starts a one-week college course at one of our flagships. After that, the workshops, then a trip to FL for the National Urban League Summit. Oh, and two online courses so she’ll have the 4 credits in LA and SS to graduate. Driving is probably not going to happen anytime soon.
A quick question on SAT II Math…
Hello, I am a newbie here and just found the class of 2017 parent thread. If I may I wanted to ask a very basic question. Forgive me if it is so basic. (I have an only child and have little experience)
My son does not like math and tends to score worse than he was actually capable of. His math grade is not bad but the test scores have been not so good. (PSAT and ACT practice). I was wondering if it would be kind of a ‘must’ to take the SAT II Math test and submit it for the college application. Any input is welcomed!
Hi @jyc1230, welcome!
It depends on where he might be applying and in what major. Here’s a good list of which colleges require what SAT II tests: http://blog.prepscholar.com/complete-list-of-colleges-that-require-sat-subject-tests
If he is not planning on a math-heavy major, I think chances are good that he won’t need a Math subject tests.
@Ynotgo, thank you so much for your warm welcoming and advice. My child is not likely to become a STEM major. He is more into language, economics/business or communications majors.
By briefly looking into the list you provided, I guess my child does not seem to have to take the Math ii unless he chooses specific majors such as engineering.
Yes welcome @jyc1230! Always nice to have new “faces”. My S is a STEM kid so he will also take the Physics subject test. Since you S is not a STEM kid, look at what his strong subjects are. He can take one of the language tests, English, history, etc. The only advise is to check with the schools that he may be targeting if you have those lists yet and make sure that they do not recommend a science subject test. D15s school choices were a mix of whether they required the subject tests or not. She took the math and bio E/M tests even though she is very good in English. There are many choices and your S should be able to find a test that matches his skills. Note that the list in the link is very good, it does not have all of the schools that may be of interest. I didn’t see many public schools there.
@mtrosemom, thank you so much for your warm comment. My son will check with the schools once he has the prospective college list. He hasn’t got one yet and I guess it will be available after he takes the PSAT.
I was somehow told that University of California schools require 3 SAT subject tests but according to the link that @Ynotgo provided, it seems that it depends on school and I guess my original info wasn’t correct. :-S
My daughter took English, World History, and US History for the SAT subject tests. No math or science. She still got in a selective school.
We just got back from our first big state university tour. We toured the University of Utah and were pleasantly surprised by all of the options offered. My S is determined to go out of state and is staying in Utah for a summer program so we checked it out. For the parents of all the STEM kids on this board, they have an amazing computer engineering program. Out of staters can become residents while they are attending and can pay in state tuition after freshman year. They are also part of the western undergraduate exchange program. They allow for double majors and take all AP credit with a 3 or above. They have a beautiful honors college residence and various living learning communities for other interests. It is a big, spread out campus but it isn’t mixed into the city so it is a separate campus. There is a train system that will take you into Salt Lake City so restaurants and grocery stores are easily accessible. There is a separate honors tour which we plan to do when we go back to pick up our S. All in all, it is a beautiful campus with lots of options.
Thanks for the review @jedwards70. S wants to stay west for college and is interested in computer science. We will have to add UU to our list. FWIW, I went there for grad school and there was no train to town. We walked. It really wasn’t that far 
You’re welcome @mtrosemom. It looks like it is growing by leaps and bounds. I’ll post more reviews when we tour other schools. I love hearing about school tours so if if any 2017ers could post reviews, I’d read them.
Our family went to a talk by Malala Yousafzai yesterday. She’s a very brave and impressive girl. I was also struck by the normality of her being a kid who plays Candy Crush, doesn’t always get along with her little brothers, and thinks her mom is too strict. She’s Class of 2017 and mentioned liking Oxford, because people always ask high school kids where they want to go to college. The interviewer joked that maybe she should work on beefing up the awards section of her college applications. She seemed more concerned that her high school in England requires some number of hours of work experience that she needed to fit in somehow. Talking to world leaders doesn’t count? I’m sure all the top universities would want her, though there was a bag search to get in to the talk and security visibly positioned next to the stage, and that isn’t a normal thing for our town.
@jedwards70, What is ‘honors’ college or honors college tour? I heard some people specifically use the word ‘honors’ and didn’t quite understand the meaning. Is it a specific program in colleges?