jedwards-I posted a pretty thorough review of the HBCU’s we toured last summer. You could search for it, though I don’t know that you’re looking at such schools. It might be good to get a sense of what’s involved though, as we looked at small, large, public and private.
jyc-From our experience, they are special programs for students at or above a certain GPA, though at some colleges you need to apply to be accepted into the honors program even with the threshold met. Some of the schools we looked at offer special dorms and perks for honors students, along with additional requirements, such as taking additional classes, writing a thesis type paper for graduation, or even doing service work not required of others. At some, you get to choose your classes first. Sometimes there are VERY generous scholarships involved. It varies a lot, but you get the idea.
So long since I’ve updated! D1 graduated from college in May (yay!!!) and now is in the throes of med school application. D2 is taking organic chemistry over the summer due to Biochem being added to the MCAT (this will help her avoid the death trifecta of physics, biochem and orgo in the fall). Summer lab classes are horrible… basically a chapter a day and an exam a week… not a fun summer! Finally… D3 2017. She’s been driving a lot and will get her license next month. I will be very happy to be off the shuttle service. We have done one serious college visit, and she was happy with the portfolio review (she wants to be an animator), but doesn’t want to go to college there! We were supposed to go on a longer tour in June, but my middle came home from college with mono, and that took the trip out. So now we will have to go in the fall. She had a great academic year (has not taken the ACT or SAT yet… as they take it free at her school. I’ll let her take it for free, then re-take if needed). She’ll have AP English and Bio this year. So far she has great grades (all A’s except for 1 B in honors spanish which was a 92/93… so disappointing) but I think her GPA is still over a 4.0 because of AP world? Anyway, she could care less about grades because she is way more into her art. We are looking to enter some national contests this year and apply to Governor’s school. It’s been so different trying to figure out the art school world when my others were purely academic focused! D 2017 has been babysitting, dog sitting and creating art all summer. She’s heading to camp for 2 weeks, then school starts the week after she gets back. I CANNOT believe she’s going to be a junior.
DS17 is in a 4-year engineering program that had FIRST Robotics as a capstone project, so FIRST was only open to seniors. The team historically does well and goes to nationals. Last year, they added a different capstone project option intended to be spread out over the year. We were told that both capstone options would continue, at least for several years. DS was planning on the robotics track, which did tend to attract the higher math/programming kids. He’d been looking forward to being on the team since elementary school.
A few weeks ago (2 weeks after school ended), we all got an email that the engineering program was cancelling the robotics option immediately and “retiring” the team. Many people are sad and/or mad. This is most difficult for the Class of '16, which already had their schedules, and now all of them need to change to 3 required full-year courses between 7am and 5pm to stay in the program. Previously for kids intending to do the full year capstone, it was 2 courses and 1 late evening (5-9pm ish) year-round with some crunch time in the spring, For kids in robotics, fall was 1 course and 1 late evening and pretty much all available time in spring. Kids plan their high school classes and ECs around which option they want long in advance.
So, all the seniors need new schedules, and some can’t fit in courses they need to graduate or to make their fall schedule look rigorous for admissions. It is also difficult for seniors who have run out of math/science/etc and planned to take all but 3 classes at the local UC or CC. That will affect my son’s plans for senior year classes in a big way.
Anyway, the students complained to various authorities, but I don’t think anything will change. Hopefully they will grant significant scheduling flexibility to the seniors (and my son’s class next year). People from around the country are encouraging them to spin the team off as a club. I think that would be hard to do without the cooperation of the engineering program for facilities at least, and it would be nice to have some coordination of funding and mentor resources. However, it would be really tough for seniors to work on 2 capstone projects at once.
@Ynotgo – what a nightmare! I was worried that our school wouldn’t be able to hire a replacement Latin teacher but this is of far greater impact.
We have never been able to get a robotics team or club started at our HS, but we do manage to field #1 teams in the state in several sports, boys and girls. A matter of priorities…
Popping in to say hello. We had quite the busy and chaotic winter and spring. We’ve just now started to think about college for the Spykid. School starts before Labor Day this year and it already feels like summer is slipping away too fast!
Popping in too. Been awhile. Good to see you again, A99! After a summer of summer school, work, and wrestling camp, our S is heading to the fall, and the subject of colleges comes back to everyone’s mind. We’re doing a family drive trip from Chicago down to New Orleans next month, before school…and checking out a few more schools on the way. S seems to be showing some interest in Ole Miss, though that may be more about the stories his dad tells about Southern women. He’s not sure - few are at this age - but he’s leaning toward being a teacher, probably middle school, probably in a STEM subject (chem seems most likely). He won’t have the numbers for Tulane, but LSU might be an option too. Any other suggestions to check out as we snake along the Big Muddy?
@ericd1112 I’m not sure if you are headed to Texas at all but Sam Houston State has a great education program. Is Mizzou on your way? It might be worth a look. Some of my son’s friends have looked at it and liked it this summer.
My S has been gone all summer and we leave to pick him up next Wednesday. He starts back to school in August so he will only get a couple weeks before he goes back. Sigh…I can’t believe he is about to start junior year.
Following up on Missouri recommendations above. Mizzou is an amazing deal for out of state students. They make it easy and encourage out of staters to become residents and get in state tuition after one year. The biggest requirement is spending the summer in Columbia. Sophomore year you pay in state rate which is around 10k. They are also generous with freshman year merit money to bridge the gap in that first year of oos tuition. I think this deal is one of the best values in education of you are oos. Big ten college experience, nice campus, good school. Just thought I would share
@ericd1112, perhaps check out Rhodes College in Memphis if your S isn’t adamantly against a small school. It’s on the way, about an hour north of Ole Miss, and Memphis makes for a fun stop on the way from Chicago to NOLA. Rhodes has sometimes been called “a small Tulane,” as they are similar in lots of ways, except for size. Even if your S doesn’t have the numbers for Tulane, he may for Rhodes. Student stats are comparable, but Rhodes has a higher admit rate.
I’ve been in such denial about college for Spykid. We were on it early for his sister, but that was mostly due in part to her eagerness and the fact that she was going to be gone the summer after junior year. He’ll take the PSAT in October and then either the ACT or SAT in November or December, so we won’t have any testing numbers for quite awhile.
Agent99,
You are well ahead of the game. Most people usually test in spring of Jr. year and Fall of Snr. This year will be different for some. If you want the old SAT, must be complete by January. There are 4 opportunities for that. You are so far ahead…And second time thru should be more relaxed. By now you know there are many choices for all kids…
I decided that D should just take the ACT and bypass the whole old SAT/new SAT decision. She’ll be taking an ACT prep class in August and then taking the September ACT. That gives her plenty of time to retake, and since she’ll be taking the PSAT at school in October, if she does well on that she can take the new SAT in March instead.
With my older D, I found it was helpful to have those test results in hand by spring (she took the January and March SATs) so as to have a better idea which schools were realistic.
S had taken the ACT and SAT. He is finished with testing except for subject tests if he wants to be. Although he’s thinking of retaking the old SAT one more time to bring up his reading a bit.
We’ve done some local college visits this summer. He tagged along with his older brothers when they went on their visits, so we are done with that, too.
Hopefully, now he can concentrate on his academics junior year without those distractions. He wants to do well this year so that he can apply early with a strong application next summer.
His older sibs head back to college soon after a nice summer with everyone home.
S took the old SAT in May and the Math 2 subject test in June. He rocked the Math 2 test and did pretty well on the SAT. I doubt he wants to take the old SAT again as he is a math and science kid. Now he is kind-of studying for the PSAT. He may take the new SAT depending on his PSAT scores, and his Jr. class takes the ACT in February or March as part of new district requirements. After that he should be done. He has started looking at tech schools for computer science/programming.
S took the SAT on June 20. Well, that is he took about 2/3 of the test on June 6, but then the power went out. He wasn’t feeling all that well on June 20 and was grumpy about the essay topic. His resulting score is fine for the UCs, probably even for Berkeley so long as he doesn’t decide to switch from Physics to some sort of engineering/computer science. But, it isn’t as high as he got on practice tests or would need for reachy STEM schools. So, the current plan is:
– Figure out whether he could crush the ACT by taking a practice test or the Princeton Review’s free test that’s supposed to tell whether you are better at the SAT or ACT.
– Prep for the new PSAT, mostly with the CollegeBoard / Khan materials.
– Probably take another SAT or the ACT in November or December. The UCs don’t allow score choice, so there is some incentive to take the SAT again, I think.
He has two great SAT II test scores (Math 2 and Physics). I’ve gotten advice that differs on whether having >2 good SAT II scores is better for reachy schools. Sometime, he’ll take the sample tests for Chemistry and Literature from the big book of sample subject tests to see how he’d do on those. Or, biology would be possible at the end of this school year.
I’m curious as to why your kids took the tests in their sophomore year. Is this school sponsored? Max’s mother is an SAT prep tutor and reading specialist. Everything she’s read, along with the few articles I’ve skimmed, makes it sound as if the new SAT is substantially different and difficult. I think Spykid will stick with the ACT for now.
Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I think mine would like to have the testing out of the way early so that he doesn’t need to worry about it. I think he would test early even if the SAT weren’t changing. He was happy to have 2 SAT II tests taken and out of the way at the end of freshman year.
The kids in his engineering program are encouraged to “frontload” classes to get them out of the way before senior year with its time-consuming capstone projects (now just one project, grrr). So, that frontloading idea carries over into testing for some kids, I think.
Same here as far as the SAT II goes. S finished precalc and the Math 2 test is pretty much precalc and lower math. He will be taking Calc 1/2 next year and he didn’t want to “forget” the lower math. He will take the Physics 2 test in spring 2016 after his advanced physics class. As far as taking the SAT early, he did that because he saw his sister (a 2015er) being so busy her junior year that she had trouble fitting the SAT into her schedule (she was definitely more of a SAT kid than an ACT kid). He will be very busy with his robotics come November or sooner, and that could last through April. For him, it didn’t hurt to take the test in May. I also think it showed him that he really did need to study some for the test. He did well, but he knows he could have done better. I will say he is enjoying the Khan Academy SAT study modules a lot more than the book study guides. He’s a computer-geared kid.