@HedgePig if she likes Bryn Mawr, has she visited Mount Holyoke and Smith?
@annamom No she hasn’t. She’s talked about Smith but doesn’t seem that interested, although a couple of kids from her school (which is small) have gone there. Mount Holyoke hasn’t come up for discussion. We might look into that.
The October ACT scores are in - I said this elsewhere, but my D is such a conundrum. She got a 27. Broken down, she got a 35 in English, 32 in reading, 22 in science and 20 in math. It’s like half her brain is on steroids and the other half never fully formed.
@Gatormama I’m just a lurker on this thread, but I wanted to let you know that my older D had ACT scores that were similarly skewed. The SAT was no better. Her reading SAT was 200 points higher than math, even after several retakes ( the reading score kept going up, the math score never budged). She was very successful in college admissions. At three of the 6 schools she was accepted to her math score was below their 25%. One of those schools even gave her 15k in merit. It’s almost like they just ignored the math score. I think so many kids are lopsided the other way that they are looking for some students with very strong English skills to balance it out.
@Gatormama My D is slightly similar but with the SAT. 110 point split between EBRW and math.
What’s her future major?
@me29034 That’s nice to hear about your D’s success with a split like that.
For many good ranking LACs D is below the 25th %ile in math and above the 75%ile in reading. I have not encouraged apps because I was concerned about the $$, but I have wondered if she would be accepted. I also would anticipate problems should she get in since she wants to study science. She’d have to take math classes with a lot of kids with math in the 700s.
What was your D’s major?
My D applied as an English major. She was really undecided but wanted to play to her strengths in admissions. She is now a sophomore and will be taking her first math class at college next term - business calc. I’m a bit nervous about how that will go but she is confident, plus her boyfriend is an engineer so he should be able to help her. I would be very worried if she actually had to take the calc for science majors, which is a different (and harder) course at her school.
@MACmiracle @me29034 My daughter’s got a similar lopsided ACT; scored 36 on English and Reading, 25 on math. Composite 31. She’s somewhat undecided, but thinking Environmental science and/or English. She also wants to play to her strengths, so for any match or reach schools she applied/is applying as an English major. Her safeties she put bio or environmental, and if there was an option, English as a minor.
Very interesting application strategies @me29034 and @taverngirl .
Wow. I had never thought of doing that.
My D just submitted an app and surprised me by choosing philosophy as a minor. I can’t see her choosing English but I can really see her studying philosophy. And if she winds up going to a Catholic college, she’ll double major in theology if she can manage it.
If I weren’t worried about job prospects I might encourage those options more. I think it will sort itself out.
For those of you with kids who have big gaps in verbal and math scores, are grades similarly skewed? Way back in the mists of time my math grades were way below my grades in everything else (D/F as opposed to A/B). Somehow my SAT and ACT scores were pretty close to the same. The biggest difference was 3 points on the ACT. S16 made D’s in English but scored a 720 on the CR section of the SAT. That tells me that tests and academic performance can really be different animals. I got a B in the only undergraduate math class I took, BTW, and a B+ when I took stats in grad school. It wasn’t until I took the GRE that I saw much of a difference between verbal and quantitative on a standardized test.
@mstomper , My D has followed the honors track in English, foreign language, and theology, but not in math and science. That was our choice because she was technically placed into honors math and science. But I had homeschooled her before high school and she always was decent in math but worked very slowly. Her SAT math tutor said she can really do all the math; the issue is speed. She gets A’s in math and even got an award in math and science despite not being in honors.
That’s really interesting about you son’s difference in SAT score and grades.
@MACmiracle, I think the tests do favor fast workers. I worked backwards on the math portions of standardized tests, eliminating obviously wrong answers. I was good at telling what the answer wasn’t, not so good at telling what it was.
My kid gets easy As in every English/history type class. She barely opens the book. Her teachers tell us time and again that she could get A+s if she actually tried. But as I’ve said many times, she figures out what she has to do to coast, and does exactly that.
Math is a constant struggle. She got a B in freshman year, a B last year, and is behind the 8-ball this year b/c of a horrific sub in Geom - now we’re paying $$ we don’t have for a tutor, just to get that back up to where there’s at least a steady B.
Science, same struggle - C in freshman year, B last year, and she’ll get an A this year (env. sci.) because she likes the subject matter and it’s pretty much verbal skills, not stem skills.
We are refusing to let her major in English. That was my major. It’s essentially useless unless you want to teach, and she doesn’t. I went to grad school to get a career.
And yes, I know English is supposedly desirable because employers like to see critical thinking skills and writing skills are prized, blah blah blah, but sorry, I’m here to tell you that writing for a living will suck your soul dry and stomp on it and we want better for her. Starving in a Paris garret is romantic when you’re 18, but a sure path to alcoholism when you’re 45 and still eking out a miserable existence.
What do you do with an English degree straight out of college? Not much. There’s got to be something else to steer you. English minor is fine. Not a major.
But the idea of putting it down as a major going in is an interesting gambit. I’ll have to think about that one. The danger is that she likes it and refuses to stop. Ugh.
Environmental studies is a possibility. Environmental science, notsomuch - the science courses are not easy and I know already how she’d do.
I guess there’s always history/Chinese/English that she can cobble together into something the State Department would like. I keep pushing the idea of a civil service career – 20 years and you’re out with a pension and the rest of your life to do something frivolous like write. 
I am no expert but I think @blossom posts here often about employers hiring humanities majors and that they are sought after.
Science majors unless it is engineering, often need a grad degree, same with psychology.
Dear @Gatormama, thank you for the morning laugh! - Sincerely, a fellow English major.
@MACmiracle I homeschooled my daughter as well, through 7th grade. Probably no surprise that math isn’t my strong suit either, lol.
@Gatormama not sure what my daughter will actually major in as she’s applying to all LACs and won’t have to declare until sophomore year. There is a possibility of law or teaching (at the college level) so English would work for either of those. Hoping she finds a good career path once she’s there.
@mstomper my daughter finds math/science more difficult, but by putting in a lot of effort her math grades are good. She’s actually finding precalc a breeze this year. Science is her most difficult subject and where she tends to get her Bs.
My daughter has the same split on the ACT. Super high English and Reading and low math and science. She gets low A’s in honors classes in school. Her tutor said she can do the problems but is just slow. Very frustrating for her.
@Gatormama I think you are confusing civil service with military service. There is no retirement with pension after 20 years in civil service. But you are on track with government jobs for English majors. I know a few different English majors who are very happy civil servants for a wide variety of departments.
@taverngirl , I was relentless with math as a homeschooling mom. It’s actually amazing that she still likes math. I recognized some issues early on in math, like a great conceptual reasoning but no memory for facts. So I chose a program with a lot of review and we did every problem, everyday, even if it took three hours, through eight grade, with me scribing most of the time due to visual-motor weaknesses.
In eighth grade, she had a rough transition to using a textbook with small print. She was misreading problems. She was having regular vision checks and had perfect vision, but I took her back to the eye doctor because I could not explain what was going on. He did some specialized tests which showed her eye muscles weren’t working well. She was sent to a specialist who does vision therapy for further evaluation and after three months of therapy, she was like a different kid when it came to math. She was faster, more independent, and didn’t make mistakes. Her reading comprehension improved significantly, too. I am really glad we did that before high school. But her eye muscles still focus a bit slowly.
I feel like I’ve run into other families who have had math weaknesses along with visual weaknesses.
You’re awesome @Gatormama 
You should do a “scared straight” tour for english majors; I’ll make sure my S18 signs up! ;))
I have some friends/acquaintances who did ok with english ranging from doctor/pharmacist/teacher/prof… but all needed grad work regardless. We resigned ourselves to that fate hence the reason we’re looking to control costs in undergrad.
Re: skewed scores, the prof mentioned above has been working at a top 20 research inst for the past couple of decades, but I believe there was a ~300 pt spread between verbal and math scores… It can pay to be pointy too I guess.