Good article, but tough to follow/implement.
So, do your kids have a full week or 2-3 days for Thanksgiving? We have a full week this year for the first time. DS and I plan to tour Caltech and Harvey Mudd on Monday and Tuesday. We would have scheduled UCLA, but they donāt have tours this week.
Question: D has become very passionate about biology this year and is really considering either a biology major or biomedical engineering. Honestly I see her more in the biomedical engineering aspect just because of the way she is thinking and processing the science of creating and inventing healthcare technology.
She is in the IB program and currently does not plan on taking calculus although it is my understanding her math (SL Math studies will do some calculus as part of the course of study. Her schedule for next year is locked in with the exception of one class and she really wants to fill it with a weighted duel credit āinto to biomedical engineeringā class that is offered at another school in the district. Will not having pre-calc hurt her in any way with an application to a state flagship or medium level competitive school?
@carachel2 If she will apply to any engineering schools that require the SAT Math 2 yes she will be hurt by not having Pre-Calc plus colleges will expect her to take Calc if she majors in engineering and without Pre-Calc I think it would be a struggle.
@carachel2 You can probably look on the course schedule website for your state flagship and other schools she is thinking about to see if they offer Precalculus. Our local UC does not; the lowest math course is Calculus 1. Also, taking precalculus in the freshman fall of a program would probably put her behind at least a semester, and might make it difficult to take Calculus 1 in winter or spring, since more sections for that are probably offered in fall.
Can you find a list of the topics covered in SL Math Studies vs. the topics normally covered in Precalculus? (Precalculus isnāt standardized, so there is a lot of variation.) Then, perhaps, she could self-study those topics that are not in the IB class via Khan Academy or something similar.
At this point in high school, I agree that most kids take at least through precalc. Definitely check with the colleges that youāre interested to see what the bio and bioengineering requirements are. I am surprised that the IB program didnāt push the math more. There is also the opportunity to take precalc in the summer at a local community college or university. I know kids who did that and got credit for it in their chosen college.
Hi all, Happy (almost) Thanksgiving.
DS and I toured Caltech on Monday and Harvey Mudd on Tuesday. DS will likely apply to both, though there were things he liked and things he didnāt about each.
At Caltech, we did the info session and a self tour. They didnāt have guided tours this week, but a math circle friend from our hometown gave a group of kids that were there for a math competition on Sunday a very thorough tour of the the dorms, including many quirky things. DS liked that the students seemed like āhis kind of peopleā and that there seemed to be research institutes for everything. (A whole building for artificial photosynthesis researchā¦) He loved the murals in the dorm hallways. He loves the idea of possibly being able to do undergrad research at JPL. He didnāt like the sort of extreme machismo about āI stayed up until 3 am doing problem sets,ā āOh, well, I stayed up until 4 amā¦ā and missing many morning classes. The workload sounds scary. He said most people at the cafeteria were eating breakfast foods at noon (but that was a Sunday).
One interesting thing at the Caltech information session. I havenāt gotten answers that agree on whether there is any advantage to taking >2 SAT Subject Tests if the 2 you already have are high scores in the area where the college wants them. DS has Math Level 2 and Physics with high scores from freshman year. He asked the adcom after the info session, who said he wouldnāt really see a difference between 2 and 5 subject tests if the 2 were 800s. And, he wouldnāt be concerned if the 2 tests were from freshman year, so long as they were high scores.
DS liked Harvey Mudd, too. Our main concerns are that it seems very small and we arenāt convinced about the level of physics research available there compared to UCs and research universities with large graduate student cohorts. DS is accustomed to being on a ~20,000 undergrad campus (though he hasnāt taken any 300-student classes yet). We had lunch in the Mudd cafeteria with a couple we know from 30 years ago when he was in the same physics PhD lab as DH. Heās a professor at Keck, and she works for Pitzer. Their daughter joined us for lunch; she in two majors at Scripps and Mudd that are similar to the majors DS is considering. We took the official Mudd tour and info session. The mom that we lunched with gave me a walking tour of the other Claremont colleges.
DS attended a Discrete Math class at Mudd, which was interesting for him, because he is also taking Discrete Math at our local community college. In fact, we had to be back home by 6:30 pm, so that he could attend that CC class, which was having a quiz. As it happens, they covered the same topic (trees & graphs) in both the Mudd and the CC class, so he could compare how they were covered. Although he likes his CC professor, he much preferred the proof-based approach at Mudd. He has been a little bored in the CC class. He was happy that after a few minutes of getting oriented to the topic, he was able to follow the lecture while still being challenged and felt heād be able to do the homework. He joked that heād be happy to drive out to Mudd just for the class. (Considering the distance and traffic, thatās a big NO from mom.)
He liked the way Mudd described how dorm selection works. We both liked some of the things they mentioned about their intentional variations on the standard sequences for various subjects, including their reasons for teaching Special Relativity first, differences in intro to biology since everyone also takes the other sciences, and 3-or-so variations on Intro to CS depending on previous programming experience.
We had a fun trip otherwise, and went to the Griffith Observatory, Norton Simon Museum, Huntington Gardens, and downtown Pasadena in our spare time.
DH isnāt particularly enthused about either Caltech or Mudd for DS, so this seems to have motivated him to be willing to tour a couple of the UCs, at least.
Anybody else toured any colleges this week?
No college tours until winter break for us. School, work and family take up this week 
D 15 is home from college for the week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
I also recently toured Caltech, Mudd, USC, and UCLA with my daughter. She loved Mudd enough that she didnāt care that it was small. She didnāt like Caltech as much but it seemed more competitive and very guy oriented, if that makes sense, than she wants. She liked the research opportunities at UCLA but realizes it is too big for her. Didnāt like USC at all which is fine. My main worry about Mudd is that there is more of an emphasis on research and less push to get a job. For one of my kids who probably wants to do grad school no problem but the other I think would be better served getting a job. For my daughter who may major in engineering I worry that itās too broad and that employers look for more specific skills. Amazing school though for kids who really want to learn a lot.
Posted this elsewhere, but not much response. Any of your kids taking just the SAT, or just the ACT? Wondering, b/c my D got a good ACT score from the October test, and wondering if she should just be done with the standardized testing. Caveat being if she did really well on the PSAT and needs a confirming SAT score. I guess I just had it in my head that she would always do bothā¦
@2muchquan I think you just answered your own question if she needs it for National Merit she should take the SAT too. My D18 only took the SAT and never felt the need to take the ACT.
@2muchquan Both of my kids are ACT only. Itās funny because our school only had 1 NM this year and his SAT score and ACT are much lower than my S16 but he obviously did great on the PSAT. Our state has a high number for NM so we never bothered to do any prep for the PSAT. The schools where my kids are applying donāt seem to give $$ anyway for NM but some schools are very generous so it would be worthwhile for some to prep for the PSAT.
@dcplanner Yeah, with the changes to format of the PSAT, iām not sure weāll be able to even guess if sheās a semi-finalist. She did prep for the PSAT, but just on her own by doing practice tests over a few weekends. Weāll see in December what happens with her score and go from there. A couple of the schools weāre looking at, it would make a difference to be NMF. But it would really be nice if she didnāt have to take that SAT.
My S also took ACT in September and got his target score. Plan is to take SAT only if he becomes a NMSF. He didnāt prep for PSAT but thinks ACT prep helped and did well in official the practice test.
S took the SAT last May and scored high enough to qualify for NM if he aces the PSAT. Otherwise, he is going to take the ACT when the school district requires it and then see if he needs to take one of the tests again. He isnāt planning to apply to a super competitive school (wouldnāt suit his laid-back, type B personality), so his SAT is probably good enough for what he needs.
D attended a football game a FSU with quick tour of the campus on 11/21. We attended the open house at UF the next Monday. She is happy with both campuses (except she thought FSU had too much brick) even though they are quite different. We may go to the UMiami preview in February, but it looks like campus visits are wrapped up except for a possible follow up. She is definitely a grow where planted type.
I have heard over the weekend that competitive schools require 4 years of foreign language classes. My S is planning to do 3 yrs of Spanish only. He is in IB program and planning to do IB SL (considered level 4) only and do additional science class in senior year. I read other CC posts and there is no clear consensus on it. Some say Spanish lever 4 is considered 4th year Spanish but some say they look @ # of years, not course level. Any opinions/experience with this issue?
Once my older son finished Spanish 4 at the end of Jr year, he had my blessing to stop taking foreign language. The three years of middle school Spanish counted as Spanish 1, so the students enrolled in Spanish 2 in 9th grade. Now, there are others who will say that your son needs to continue to the highest level offered in his school, but I knew my son would never survive AP Spanish.
Most of the competitive schools D15 applied to preferred 4 years of a foreign language. It did not have to be 4 years of the same language however. It likely probably depends on the school if the preferred is ārequiredā or āconsideredā She did have 4 years of HS Spanish. She also was applying to small LACs, so I think having 4 years made a difference. S17 has 3 years of HS Spanish and is not planning to take more language. If your school has Naviance, look there at the school requirements to see what is required for language. Otherwise you will have to research at the school website for admissions requirements.
Thank you @CT1417 and @mtrosemom for your suggestions. My S also did Spanish in middle school. However his school offers IB Spanish HL, so he wonāt be doing the highest level offered. Does taking SAT II Spanish and scoring well compensate for not taking 4th year foreign language?