Just made it through the college process with my oldest - D17 was successfully moved in to college a few weeks ago and so far, so good. She is a more conscientious student than S19, so my experience this time around is going to be different, hence, it appears he belongs squarely in this thread.
Before this thread was started, I mostly lurked on the 2017 version of the same thread, both because I felt a little more comfortable there with D17’s stats (though her GPA was good, test scores were a little above average and she was not applying to top schools), and because I was gleaning information for when S19’s search started, since he falls in here best.
A little information about S19 - he’s a mostly low A/mid-high B student, but is only taking CP courses. I would love for him to take a few honors classes and perhaps a couple of APs, but the rules at his school are that he must have 93 or above in the preceding course to be allowed to move up to honors or AP. And of course, with most of his classes, he’s just below that line and then a few definitely down in the B range. The only honors course he is taking is Spanish 3. He’s never been a super hard worker academically, always thinking a B was good enough so not really putting too much effort in despite us telling him we knew he could do better if he tried harder (most of the time). It wasn’t until after freshman year that he really started to listen to us, especially when he saw D17 going through the college application process last year. We also got a really nice email from his religion teacher at the end of sophomore year, a class he had like an 85 in. Unbeknownst to us, he had been going to her for extra help - her email told us that he was very respectful, put forth a ton of effort, separated himself from friends in class so as not to be distracted, etc. She said he and she had had many talks about what is important in life, etc and that she wanted us to know that his grade was not reflective of his efforts and that that would get him much further in life and that we should be very proud of him. The email was so nice it made me cry! Anyway, this was sort of eye opening as we had no idea he was “struggling” but that did make me consider something else that worried me a little…his standardized test scores/PSATs, etc.
Anyone else have a kid who has test anxiety? S19’s scores are very low. Like low enough that at one point I wondered if something was wrong. My younger son has a mild LD, but S19 has never shown any signs. Aside from a fluke semester in middle school where he had a C in math, he’s always been an A/B student. His standardized test scores in elem school were always average/above average but his entrance exam for h.s. was ridiculously low. His guidance counselor mentioned perhaps he has test anxiety. When I saw his PSAT scores, I wondered if maybe she was right. He told me that he does have a hard time concentrating with the reading portions, and that he gets nervous about finishing in time. He took an SAT class over the summer, but I’m thinking perhaps he needs to see someone who might specialize in test anxiety before he takes his first SAT or ACT. Has anyone else here had to do this with any of your kids?
In terms of colleges he’s interested in, S19 is a three sport athlete. While he could almost definitely play D3 in one (lacrosse), he has no interest in doing so, which has surprised his coaches, teammates and their parents after he’s played on this club team since 4th grade. One of the other sports he kind of fell into as a freshman when he was playing one fall sport, but got asked to play a different sport to fill in for an injured player and they realized he had talent (he ended up playing both sports that season - stressful for a new high schooler!). He is now focusing on possibly getting recruited for that new sport. But we are totally novices at this, and recruiting for this sport is different than it would have been for lacrosse, which we were much more familiar with. So, that might be a possible hook for him, but we certainly aren’t counting on it.
Being an athlete and hugely into watching sports as well, he initially expressed interest in attending a school that has a D1 competitive football team but so far, has not expressed interest in one that would even be attainable (this is assuming he didn’t choose a different school based on getting recruited). For instance, he’d love to attend USC but #1) he’d never get in with his grades/stats and #2) there is no way we could afford it. He likes a few SEC schools, but I really think he needs to be in a smaller school. He would love to go to a service academy (dh is a grad from one) but again, his grades/stats are not high enough so his only hope would be to get recruited and most likely do a year of prep school. But then again, I’d worry he’d really struggle academically. I know well what it’s like as we are very involved with the service academy dh went to. With that said, he’s also very interested in ROTC.
So a lot for us to consider here and the process will not at all be similar to D17. On the bright side, I’m a little bit more knowledgeable now and getting a better head start than with D17!
I won’t be surprised if our kids end up with some schools overlapping but I’ll know more once we get farther into physics this year!