Dang, I spent the entire day on FAFSA stuff and didn’t see the news of the day. Lovely. 
Attended a FAFSA workshop at our daughter’s school last night. First 30 families in the computer room. All done and submitted! 2 more applications to go. Getting signed up for auditions next.
DD has expressed an interest in taking the SAT again. I know we are running out of time, so I need to decide, but I just keep thinking it is a waste of time & money.
She has a very good score,1280, and it took a few tries to get that. I really doubt she could get anything high enough to qualify for any huge merit awards, which is what she would need to consider anything other than our IS publics.
Did you all hit the point where you just said enough, and went with what they already had? or plan on them taking another shot at upping their scores?
@lisabees Was just wondering if you’ve heard of Luther College in Iowa? They have the Paideia program, kind of a classics/ethics/philosophy core that also includes some Norse lit/history.
http://www.luther.edu/paideia/
@Kardinalschnitt how long have you been overseas? So your kids go to an American school there? Was just wondering about feasibility of attending college where you live now?
@laralei as long as your DD has expressed the desire AND she has studied some more then I would sign her up to take it again. But if she is going in cold having, not done any additional studying I would tend to agree with you that is will not be worth the time and money. At our house we tend to call it a day after 3 tries.
There was a particular school that was my D’s second choice that a slight bump in test score would get her full tuition. Even after she was sure she wanted another school she kept testing through spring to get that scholarship. She finally hit her number and was ecstatic, then the merit award letter arrived. The institution had decided to drop the standardized test score as part of the requirement, she was welcome to the full tuition scholarship. 
@mommdc I, personally, haven’t lived in the States for any extended amount of time since I was 20. Dd18 was born in her father’s country and started moving every 1-4 years at age 2. She has lived in 8 countries (!). This is our fourth school year at our current location. DD18 attends the local American school while dd23 attends the local French school.
Dd had a very traumatic experience in her native school system (both abroad and in the country) and totally refuses to have anything to do with it, the people, the culture, the country – and even the language to some extent (speaks it only with her father and grandparents).
She has B2 level in the local language here, so technically she qualifies to study here, but she doesn’t feel confident enough to pursue secondary education in it. There are no English-taught bachelors in this country.
Of course, attending school in Scotland, Ireland or NL, as an EU citizen, would cost a fraction of what it does in the US. And that frustrates me.
Her thing right now is that she is looking for a permanent home. She wants to go to college and never (never!) move again. And she wants to experience US culture, up-close, once-and-for-all, in all the nitty-gritty. What can I say? We subjected her to this nomadic childhood; the least we can do is support her desire to settle down somewhere.
On a side note, we got a really nice letter from the mayor of Ames, IA (addressed to the family!). I thought that was a nice touch.
My D said no more after the last SAT, which was her third.
Her verbal score has always been consistently high on all PSATs and SATs, but it nosedived on the last test to the extent that I wondered if it could have been a bubbling error.
She is just done and she has no time to prepare.
She has a very nice score and I’m glad for that. She is not trying for schools that are tough admits. Even if she keeps the reaches on her list, I almost think her ECs and leadership will be what tips the scales in a positive direction, and a bump in scores won’t help much.
@Kardinalschnitt yes, I understand your desire to support your D’s wishes to study in the US.
Has she ever looked into studying in Canada? I thought there were some schools there that gave tuition discounts if you spoke French. And the culture might be similar enough to America.
@mommdc Yes, we have. The discount is for French citizens who wish to study in Quebec (I’ve been trying to be vague but I give up!). The only two viable schools for her would be Concordia or Bishop’s since she would prefer to study in English. Bishops’s seems like a terrible fit, culturally, for her. Concordia in Montreal seems like it would excite her. I really don’t know why it didn’t catch her interest as I know she would just love the city. I haven’t pushed it. It used to be a better deal as French citizens got in-province fees; now it’s non-Quebec fees, wihich isn’t quite as interesting.
We’ve run some NPCs on U Alberta, Dalhousie and Mount Allison (for flight), I believe, and they really aren’t that much less (if at all) than our choices in the US.
We’ve also considered Switzerland as she is a citizen there, as well, and would be automatically admitted to most schools – except the technical schools that have entrance exams (which are the ones she wanted, actually). But the living expenses…Plus, she has never lived there. She keeps saying she does not want to be a foreigner wherever she goes. She really just wants to go to the States and not stand out, which she doesn’t realize isn’t at all possible with her background and quirky English!
I’ve been wondering if my son should take he ACT once more. But he got the exact same score twice, which was the same score he got on the practice exam before many hours of private tutoring. So I didn’t see the point. Now I’m more aware of how merit awards work.
Half my comment was eaten. His favorite school now is expensive but does give some merit aid. ED acceptance is 83% which seems like a good chance. Goes way down to 36% for RD. Really not sure, it’s going to be hard to decide what to do. Public so much cheaper but best schools he could get into and wants to attend are big. Not the best for him.
In the meantime, my spouse is super busy this fall and has little additional bandwidth, leaving me to mostly deal with the college stuff. I’m stressing out.
@persimmony As many people say around here, he might find the SAT easier. I think my dd would do better on the ACT but it’s offered much less frequently and at a different location, so I never signed her up.
DD has SAT coming up on Saturday. We’re planning on get up earlier and going out for a (very) early breakfast, hoping she’ll be more awake this time. I’m still stunned that she could have been that sleepy and still done so decently! I really hope that if she’s more alert she can grab those 40 points she needs to move up to the next level of merit aid.
@persimmony If your ds is accepted but the aid doesn’t work out and you can prove you can’t afford it then you can get out of ED obligation – as far as I’ve understood.
It’s very good advice to try the alternate test. Some kids do get different results and the schools she applied to look at whichever test paints them in the best light. That was how my D finally hit the required number, by switching to the other test which she was a better fit for. I wish we had figured that our sooner.
Well, I stressed to her the importance of prepping for the last one. Luckily, her brother was home from college and I had him sit down and explain some of the math to her. Her score did go up in math.
Reading/writing score actually went down. I know she did not study for it like she should have; she said she could just retake it. (attitude annoyed me!)
IF she takes it again, I doubt very much if it will get any higher. Between PSAT’s and SAT exams she was consistently scoring around 1200, so the last 1280 was a huge boost for her.
I think if it was just shy of some really huge awards, it would be worth retaking, but it isn’t, so I think we will just call it a day as well.
@laralei a 1280 is great!
@Kardinalschnitt I am confident your D will find her place!
https://www.iup.edu/admissions/honors/typical-student/
@laralei your D should apply to Cook Honors College at IUP
@mommdc I agree, the 1280 is a very good score.
I actually just finished the FAFSA for DS and DD. I did put IUP down. IUP is frowned upon in her HS, but I told her she needs to look at it & the Honors program.
I know IUP was charging per credit, don’t know if that is still the case, or total cost, but still felt it is worth looking at.