DD’18 just finished up her Cross Country season. She ended on a high note (made the ALL-STATE team). Four days later she got her first college recruitment letter. That is fun for her ego, but we had to tell her there is a big difference between getting a letter form a program and getting “recruited” in a manner that will affect the admissions process. We love that she is on the team because it gives her some close friends, promotes good health and is a solid extracurricular for her applications, but we are realistic regarding its effect on admissions.
Also: DD got the results of her practice SAT. There were math sections from the current SAT and from the new SAT. She did better on the current than the New. It is possible that she was just more fatigued, but it is something to watch out for the New SAT Math section may be more challenging.
@sonoran My S11 took AP Bio as a senior. It is a tough course with a lot of info to absorb. I’m sure your D will work through her difficulties and end up doing well. My D18 is taking AP Chemistry in the spring, and we’ve heard similar things about that class. I’ll probably be posting something very similar in February!
" 4.8w ( 3.7uw) 100/611 class rank." Wow, how depressing to average an A- and be considered below top 10%.
Colleges know when honors and AP classes are overweighted. 3.7 UW is pretty dang good if the coursework is the most difficult at the high school.
My son has 3.7 uw and 3.9 w, and does not have that rigorous a schedule, so it is making us difficult for us to target colleges. They also have fewer honors classes at his high school, so if you aren’t as many APs as possible, you can’t be in honors as they don’t have honors for three of the four sciences.
@suzy100 - Thanks! She was super proud! The book stayed in the top 10 for about five weeks then dropped off. Now it’s back again . . . maybe people holiday shopping?? Who knows!
@glido - I was recruited for track/XC and ended up running at a D1 school. Those letters are so much fun, aren’t they?! I started getting them freshman year and they continued all through school. I had no idea about the whole recruiting process whatsoever (first in family to go to four year college and for sure only athlete). When I got calls in July of my junior-senior summer, I was a bit overwhelmed as I didn’t know what to say/not to say. If your daughter has a good coach who has had kids go through this before, she might want to just sit down next year in the spring and talk about what is appropriate for her to say/ask/etc when coaches start calling. Also - if she wants to run in college, she should start completing the online recruitment forms for those schools once she has some pretty good times. If she’s still not under 20 minutes, I would wait, but if she is below 20 or better yet, below 19, she should fill out forms for schools she is interested in. Some schools assume that because you are in a certain location, they shouldn’t bother you (or perhaps they don’t cast their net too wide and they miss some people in other regions of the country). By filling out their recruitment form, it gives them the chance to know that your daughter is interested and that she has some proven talent. She can update the forms/send in a new one when she improves her times in track or xc next year. It keeps her on the radar and shows improvement as well!
Does anyone know if the results for this year’s PSAT will be available mid-December online as they have in the past or if there is a delay because it is the new test with new scoring?
They haven’t announce a delay yet but who knows? Scores are supposed to be emailed mid December this year. They are also supposed to email a code that you can plug into Khan to get instruction in the area student a weak in. I’m anxious to see how much work my son needs to do between now and the March SAT.
Yes! And it’s about time! It’s my understanding that they are sending the scores to the schools the day before they send them to the students. I’m so glad they are emailing them this year, last year our school did give the kids their scores until mid-January.
Thanks for the info. RoonilWazlib99 - that is very helpful. I thought she had to wait until JR year. She is in the mid- 18s for the 5K. She is faster than freshman year, so hopeful for some good times on the track this spring. ( I heard most coaches like to see the track times.) She likes XC more than track, but she has had some success in the 2-mile. There are 3 seniors with her in the top-7, so she sees what they are going through, but we have never been through the athletic recruiting ringer. I keep telling her that it is just one part of her application that may or may not impact the admissions decision. Just trying to get her to keep focused on her grades, so she will have options. Getting the PSAT score in December will give us a little more info. too. Thanks for the advice.
@glido - with times in the mid-18s for a 5k she will for sure be recruited. And yes, coaches like to see faster track times (no hills, mud, etc to contend with). My son actually plays soccer in the spring, but he is considering doing track this year. He saw what a difference it made for the other XC runners - those that did track dropped at least a minute, some two with a season of track. His first love is soccer, though.
Your daughter can make contact at any time - most of the restrictions are for the college coaches, not the athletes. If she makes contact via email, they can respond via email. I do believe they are still not allowed to speak to her by phone, but if she is interested in running in college and has some colleges she is interested in, definitely have her submit her stats after this spring’s track season. And then she can follow up via email directly to the coach, giving them her information, letting them know she filled out the recruiting form, and giving more personal information that might tell why she is interested in their particular program.
Hi jcc, Thank you for your encouraging words, actually my DD dropped her AP bio, she is much more happy now. Hindsight we would have approached it differently had we known what we know now.
How did the fair go? Any interesting schools or programs? We’re finalizing a spring break tour through the southeast for our '18. His list of schools he wants to hit are: Georgia Tech, NC State, Duke, Virginia Tech, and UVA. He’s considering adding Johns Hopkins on there, but I don’t think it will make his list.
We skipped the college fair this fall. I took my older child (2014) when he was a sophomore and it was such a zoo that I didn’t think it was worth it. It’s for our whole school system (and our system is one of the largest in the country) and so big that it’s held at a shopping mall. It’s packed end to end with people and we didn’t learn anything new.
DS found it much better to just attend the presentations from individual colleges when they came to his high school and then narrow down the list from there since so many colleges send reps. In October alone this year there were 45 colleges that gave presentations.
We also went to the info sessions that colleges held in the local area if he couldn’t make the info session at his school.
That’s great that your school lets underclassmen go to the presentations! We had about 40 schools come in October, but freshmen and sophomores are only allowed to go if it is before school, after school, or during lunch. Juniors and seniors are excused from class to go anytime.
Our son has done a couple group presentations at hotels - one specifically engineering focused and one more general. We’ve never been to a college fair though.
For sports, it is very important that girls start the recruiting process early. Many are “done growing” and are not expected to improve tremendously therefore. If your daughter is a sophomore and playing varsity in any sport and interested in college sports, now is the time to have a talk about it. Boys are less likely to be recruited young except for football and national level athletes.
Our experience with my older son is that although he was pretty good, he wasn’t good enough for the few colleges that met both his academic standards and had his major. He could have easily played in college - if he wanted to be a business or liberal arts major at a decent but not top-ranked school. We wasted money going to camps for schools he ended up not being interested in. Luckily any timed/individual sport will not really require camps like team sports would.
We skipped S18’s college fair at the last minute. A few weeks ago we did the online College Board college finder tool together, and he found a list of colleges that had majors he is interested in. At least we have some kind of starting point, plus he sent his scores to three of the colleges for free for the November SAT.
My DS decided to go the DIII route for reasons similar to that articulated by @rhandco. DS was not quite up to the bar for big D1 programs and although he might have been able to cut it at smaller D1 programs, the time commitment would still have been the same. Coaches looked at him as if he had two heads when he mentioned he wanted to be an engineering major. They all said it would be quite challenging given time constraints.
So he elected to play DIII and it was the right choice. He is double majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering, doing well in school, and also playing well (he garnered all-conference honors this past week and was also named player of the week a couple of times). It’s still a pretty significant time commitment (20 hours a week for practices, meetings, games, travel for away games) but coaches are much more understanding if he has to miss a practice for a test or lab.
My S15 plays soccer. He still plays U20 with many college athletes in the summers. One of his teammates is doing well for the college I teach at.
With his academic accommodations, playing a sport seems like it would have been a bad idea in his specific case. He’s also very focused on doing a co-op for a summer and a semester - I have no idea how something like that would fit in with college sports.
I have ramped back the helicoptering necessary for many children to pursue sports at a high level, so he did almost nothing this semester, but will be doing music and sports again next semester, both of which were huge activities for him in HS.
My S18 can’t play sports due to a medical issue. We are worried about ECs, as he has very few, but also it is a bit of a relief not to be anxious about playing sports in college or not - just picking a college based on academic and personal fit will be hard enough for S18.
Did anyone get SAT scores back from November? I was shocked at the math percentile for my son, it seems like the math section must have been hard.
DD’18 has not yet gotten the PSAT scores back, but she has gotten a flood of mail from colleges, so we assume the colleges have gotten the reports. Her school gives them out to the students after exams in December, I think.