I’m feeling a bit behind in the visiting colleges, but DD is so different from DS’14 that if feels like i learned nothing from the first time through this.
DD '17 got the scores from a practice ACT today and did well. She has strong scores and grades, so far, and at least possible interest in a special education career. Other than our state flagship, nearby state flagships, and Vanderbilt, I’m not sure where to start the visits. We’ll probably need some merit aid since and education degree can’t really support much student load debt.
I just wanted to say hello to my “old friends” on the 2017 thread. D’s “sunior year” began yesterday and she was very happy to be back in school (crazy kid). We’re both having dreams about ACT/SAT, online school and she was even dreaming about senior photos messing up her homework time! In another week or so she’ll be done with the online classes and “only” have school and college applications to do. She’s ASB VP this year with a good friend as president and her class rep being her best friend. They’ve already made some progress on their plan to increase school spirit.
The response we’ve gotten to her graduating early has been interesting. Most are excited for her and encouraging, but some people I know think we push our kids too fast and think it’s sad that anyone would be ok with their D or S leaving home earlier than they’re “supposed to”. My answer is that no one has ever pushed D anywhere except herself and our job is to support her. Hope everyone has a great year!
Hi all. I’m new to this thread. I found this site when my daughter was applying to independent middle schools and now she’s a high school junior! Crazy…where does the time go??
Just wanted to introduce myself. My daughter is a junior at our local public high school. She is class president since freshman year, and so far straight A’s in high school, with one AP class so far (she has 2 this year). Besides leadership, she is also involved in mock trial and a program called Culture Keepers. She has also done volunteer work and is planning to apply for internships and our city’s youth council.
We live in California and have toured schools in the LA area, including USC, UCLA, Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego and Claremont. She loved USC and UCLA and ruled out Claremont (too small) and liked the others. Her dream school is Columbia. We plan to go to the East Coast for spring break in April and tour Brown, Columbia, Barnard, NYU, Fordham, and Georgetown. She plans to major in political science (pre-law). We also plan to tour Stanford and Sonoma State at some point (day trips for us as they are close by).
She will take the PSAT again this year (her school has them take it as freshmen and sophomores for practice) and plans to take the ACT in the spring and then the SAT next fall. I plan to get her a tutor specifically for the math portions (that is her weakest area).
Hope to be active in this thread and share ideas about testing, college apps, etc.
Welcome to the 2017 thread, @MSHopeful! Is this is your first child to go through the college admission process? It can be a frustrating but exhilarating experience.
@sseamom - isn’t it amazing that acquaintances - and sometimes complete strangers - make value judgements on how other families handle education? People love to put a label on parents & kids who don’t conform to their idea of the norm. I have words for those folks, but they’re not CC appropriate.
After the first two days of school, Spykid made the pronouncement that junior year is going to kick his @ss. Yep. APUSH alone is a time sucker.
@Agentninetynine - Yes, this is my first child to go through college admissions. I have one other daughter who is only 9 and in 4th grade, so I’ll have to do it all over again in 7 years. LoL.
No school yesterday in So. Cal. Took my S to USC for a tour. Some quick observations. A nicer looking campus than I expected. Bigger too. Some impressive facilities. The film school complex looked like a studio backlot. The Music school was also impressive. A new Dance building is under construction. Another huge construction project will be ready in 2017 for our kids. 3,000 rooms, movie theaters, restaurants, and more. An enormous undertaking that takes up blocks. The academics that were presented were first rate. It was a very busy campus. The most bikes, skateboards, and scooters I have ever seen. The students looked very happy. My S was surprised and impressed. it feels like the perfect place to go to school. Big city, nice campus, great academics, spirit. Too bad it is so close to home.
New here. My D is interested in Visual Arts, and we did not visit any colleges yet. We will be going to a National Portfolio Day in November, but I was not planning to visit colleges until Summer 2016. Is that too late?
I don’t think it’s too late, but it depends on the kid. My daughter doesn’t even want to talk about college. The down side of visiting in summer is that you cannot feel the real campus with students in it.
Welcome @Isichitiu. The summer of 2016 should be fine for school visits. But you should probably visit in the beginning of summer so your D can have her list firmed up before the start of her senior year. We visited most schools with D15 before July before her senior year because she started working on her common app and other college stuff for some rolling admission schools late summer. My suggestion, having just gone through all of this, is have them get as many essays done early as possible and apply early to the schools that offer EA or rolling admissions. That left her time to complete additional essays for scholarships that some of the schools offered. Of course, It will probably kill both S and me to get him to be proactive in anything related to the college application process :))
Thank you for your advice @mtrosemom , My D17 is my oldest child so I have no experience with college admissions. I went to college outside US, so this is all new for me. My daughter wants a BFA, and I find that it is very different than applying for a BS or BA. I did not think about EA or rolling admissions, so this advice is very appreciated !
My S spent the summer in Salt Lake City and loved living at the University of Utah. I can’t get him to even look at other schools now. My biggest concern is that it seems like it might be a big commuter school and I’m worried he would have a hard time meeting new people since he will be an out of state student. I think there is a parent here that went to the U so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. We will definitely be visiting our state flagship schools but I think he wants to get his testing finish before he focuses on visits.
@jedwards, I was a grad student at the UofU (admittedly years ago) and I didn’t see the school as a commuter school. First off, it is big enough that even if some of the kids do commute, there will be plenty on campus to meet new people and find his group. As a grad student, most of my peers were from out of state, so the state “culture” didn’t affect me as it might undergrads. I think that the effects of the Church might create more of an impact than the commuter effect. The Church can be closed to outsiders, and some activities (not school based ones) might be closed to outsiders, making the community seem somewhat exclusionary. I think that there are a lot of out of state kids attending the U (look up the stats) and not all locals are immersed in Church culture, so your S would be able to thrive. I loved the outdoor life at the U and learned to ski there.
@MichiganGeorgia that’s awesome! I have a feeling my DDs scores will be similar (she always tests lower in math on standardized tests and great on English/Reading. Congrats to your DS!
Ok here goes. Guess it’s time. My son (my oldest) is a junior, taking the SAT for the first time today so it seemed appropriate to start really jumping in to the college thought and search process. He didn’t prep much for this test but I do have him signed up for an SAT PREP before he retakes it in December. I’m hoping he does well on the current test and doesn’t need to take the new test but we will see. Son is a strong student, 4.0 UW GPA and has a variety of EC (drama, music, sports, ROTC). He’s not sure what he wants to major in so that’s making this tough. He is very good in math but isn’t sure he wants to go down that route, likes science but not life sciences. I’ve encouraged him to take some different classes this year to expand his exposure to different things. I’m hoping to visit a few schools this fall to let him start thinking about what type of environment he’d like to be in. Once we get his SAT scores back I think we will have a better idea of what schools May be interested in him. Glad to join you all in this journey!
@Collegecue - My son is taking the SAT today too. He took the one in June but college board threw out 2 sections so he is using this as a free retest. The juniors are kind of in a bind with the SAT changing. Good Luck!
Welcome @Collegecue. My S took the SAT in May and well enough for now. We will wait to see what he scores on the PSAT to decide whether he should try the old SAT again, wait for the new SAT, or just go to the ACT (so confusing). He is probably more of an ACT or new SAT kid. He really shines in math and science but not so much in English arts. He took the Math 2 SAT subject test in June (luckily it was the subject test so it was “counted”) and aced that test. =D> Juniors in his school district takes the ACT as part of statewide testing in March.
Our D17 has become a D16 by taking summer courses and is graduating this year, but I still pop in from time to time. Her school does “school day SAT” which will be on Oct. 14, so we’ll see then if we’ll go with the SAT or ACT. Her ACT was good enough to make her top choice affordable for us, but it won’t be a full ride-she doesn’t get the scores almost every kid on CC seems to have. But ACT is popular where she is looking at schools, though not locally-we had to drive an hour for a testing site as the two closer ones were full. Anyway, good luck to all your kiddos!
I’m worried about the SAT/ACT tests because DS just never seems to get the scores on standardized tests that you would expect. He came home form the SAT today and said he thought it was easy. I guess that could be very good…or very bad. LOL! I just want to help him through this process without it becoming about me.
