Thanks for science club suggestions so far, we’ll look at them in more detail shortly.
@OrangeFish I think she made the right call on AP World. It is a ton of reading and note taking, huge time commitment. It was a huge challenge for my S17 and really the catalyst for him starting ADHD meds as he struggled with comprehension due to the volume. S19 doesn’t have those issues…it is the time management/distraction/daydreaming that gets in his way.
I am torn on whether French 4 is a good idea or not. It would show 2 years while in HS. In theory the level (3) is enough for most colleges but not having after freshman year will not look good and might be problematic for any UC since they toss out freshman year when looking at core and grades. As long as you are tracking her against your state schools requirements you should be ok. It is good that you have the 504 in place now as that will help you get accommodations for the SAT and ACT.
@eandesmom – thank you for the reassurance on AP World.The last thing she needs is an overwhelming amount of note taking.
We’re heading up to New England for two weeks this summer, partly for vacation and partly for some informal college campus touring. D plans to make a list of some schools she would like to visit to do a brief walk through of the campus. We’ve already visited some smaller schools in Massachusetts (Wheaton and Stonehill), and plan to visit a few more colleges, including some in Boston (where I went to grad school). My thought is to show her “what could be” so she has a more concrete sense of a goal. She is a visual person and my hope is seeing the campuses will help some of this “click” for her.
We already have SAT accommodations (YAY!) but I need to start putting together a packet for the ACT. D19 plans to spend part of this summer prepping for the ACT and PSAT. She took the PSAT 8/9 last fall (without accommodations) and did pretty well, so I’m hoping the summer math tutor will also help her with the ACT/PSAT prep work.
I hear your issues with French 4 and UC admissions. I think you are right on the French 4 necessity. Have you spoken with anyone in admissions yet? Yours cannot be the first instance of something like this.
Is it early to be prepping for ACT? I’m having our S19 take a practice test with the local Kaplan location but just for some practice. He’s took it a few times with Northwestern’s NUMATS program in middle school to qualify for classes in that program. I don’t think I would have him actually study for the test until next summer with a plan to take it for real early junior year.
@RightCoaster My DS16 and DS19 both participate in Science Club and Science Team which is like quiz bowl , but only emphasizes math and science.
@OrangeFish and @homerdog my plan is to have S19 do PSAT/SAT prep after we see how he does Sophomore year. We will do a diagnostic on both in Spring of Sophomore year and then do summer test prep for whichever seems better suited to him initially ACT or SAT. He may end up taking both as test taking is generally his strength but I’ll have a better feel once we see the initial PSAT results. He may do some summer Kaplan for the PSAT though but that’s it.
re: French 4, there is enough chatter on this on the 2017 thread that I am sure it’s needed if we want to consider UC schools for S19. At this point, he does but the GPA will need to change for that to be a reality. We will see!
That’s exactly our plan. Study a little PSAT this summer before the school gives it to the sophomores this fall. Only dabbling with ACT and only practice test with Kaplan. Not the real deal. Great idea to see PSAT versus his practice ACTs and then an idea of which is stronger for him…
@RightCoaster Have you considered ECs that are outside of school? My oldest daughter was in a local astronomy group.
@OrangeFish We are in VA too. UVA is out of reach for most kids~ only kids in the top 10 ever get admitted from our high school.
@eandesmom Thanks for the info on the homework app. I’m gonna check it out and suggest it to my DD’19.
@Dragonflygarden I have not looked into outside the school ECs, hadn’t really thought about it. My son is pretty social and likes to be involved in school activities. He likes to have friends joining him for ECs. I should check to see what is available though, thanks for tip.
@RightCoaster My son volunteered at the local Science Center with his Science Club. I don’t know if you have that option or not.
I was going to come in here and brag about my European travels, but now I feel I need to wake up kiddo and find out what her summer assignments are!! (Kidding guys!) I love the helpful hints and custom strategies…just emphasizes that every kid needs their own path.
We might have over traveled a bit…Nice, Marseille, Lake Como, Lauterbrunnen, Lyon, St. Etienne, London. Marseille was something else. I’d forgotten what it was like to encounter huge crowds of beer soaked, sweaty, singing Englishmen. DD was not happy in those moments.We avoided all the really bad fighting. (Google “England v Russia Euro 2016 Fights” for a taste!) The Russians brought fireworks into the stadium and one end dissolved into a stampede. The officials were so upset that they closed down all public transportation. 70,000 people exited the stadium and had to walk home. It was about 4 miles to our car and we kept getting lost…Truly an experience! A badge of honor for me… I’ll milk that night for as long as I can!!
Nice is still one of my favorite places. Need to go back and do it properly! Lake Como was so beautiful. The food was excellent even at the little cigarette shop where we bought breakfast. All the little towns are so well kept and it seems all Italians love it for their own holidays. Switzerland was gorgeous, but it rained most of the time. You could see the clouds forming mid-mountain. I ate all the cheese fondue I could ever want!! Lyon was surprising - totally awesome to be a visitor. They have a lovely pedestrian-only old town, Roman ruins, Belle Epoque era buildings and lots of soccer. The games we went to were all fun and nothing scary happened. Lots of singing “God Save the Queen” St Etienne and London are a blur - we didn’t get a chance to go to sleep and traveled for 36 hours straight. I have never been so tired !!!
Back home and very happy to be in my own bed again!
@RightCoaster we have friends who have done the same as @carolinamom2boys although it was independent volunteering and have leveraged it into a job later on in HS. In that case the child made “new” friends through his EC interest which is never a bad thing.
@2019hope oh what a lovely lovely trip! Well except for the England v Russia euro fight. You won’t forget it. I will never forget a HS band trip, in Italy (Florence) when Italy won the world cup. It was insane and we only saw the game on TV in our hotel! My only other funny soccer story is also in Florence. H and I went to a Firezne v Roma game, seated on the Firenze side. I was wearing Roma colors (not realizing of course). NOT good!
I love love love Lake Como. 
@homerdog It’s way too early to do serious ACT studying. My D19 will be taking the PSAT this fall (not the PSAT 10), just so she can have experience taking tests under real conditions and to see how far she progressed from last year’s PSAT. The good thing about the PSAT is that it is not reported, so if she does bad, it doesn’t effect her chances at getting into college.
Real prep begins the summer after the Sophomore year, in preparation for the PSAT that actually counts.
The good thing about my daughter taking the PSAT as a ninth grader is that 1) she realized she can’t go into a test like that cold; and 2) she was extremely disappointed in her scores, so she actually started doing some minor test prep afterwards and knows she will be taking her junior year PSAT seriously.
We have a psat book left over from son17 so I am going to have son19 review it this summer and maybe have him take a home based practice test before the fall ( maybe on a rainy day?). It can’t hurt to have them review it a bit, but certainly no intense studying/prep going on here.
Is the PSAT 10 different from the “real” PSAT? I guess it doesn’t matter since the school will administer the PSAT 10 automatically. S19 took the PSAT 8/9 and got a fairly high score (1250 out of 1420, but didn’t have a calculator for the calculator portion of the math). I guess maybe he’ll prep for the real PSAT before junior year if his score is in the ballpark.
S19 probably won’t take either the SAT or the ACT until maybe March/April of junior year. I always wonder why freshman and sophomores take it, but I guess I don’t have a kid who feels he needs a perfect score.
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I challenged my d19 to an SAT challenge this morning. I beat her on the reading/writing but she crushed me on the math. She beat me by 50 points overall. Not bad for her first time ever taking it.
@eh1234 – some students take the SAT early for placement in summer programs such as CTY and TIP.
In D19’s case, she is trying out accommodations (for the PSAT and SAT – not the ACT yet) as she has been “burned once” in not having necessary accommodations in place for testing.
@eh1234 The PSAT 10 is the easier version of the PSAT. The PSAT assumes Algebra 2 while PSAT 10 doesn’t.
http://blog.prepscholar.com/should-you-take-the-psat-10-or-psat-nmsqt
Which one to take isn’t really that important, because neither test counts for anything to sophomores. Personally, I prefer my daughter to take the real one. She got a “terrible” score on it as a freshman (91st percentile). But she also didn’t own a calculator and was only 2 months into geometry. The benefit of the “bad” score (her words, not mine), is that she now realizes she’ll have to prepare for the test if she wants National Merit Scholar.
I was surprised at how little the NMFs scholarships were at quite a few schools. They make it sound like lots of full rides and sizable scholarships, but quite a few schools require you list their school as your first choice to qualify. My friend was a finalist and only offered 2500.00 scholarship.
I think the kids should take as many tests as they feel comfortable taking. My older son doesn’t mind taking them, and he has gotten better at them with more practice. If you have a kid that really doesn’t like to study/prep at home for the sat/act then really the only way to get used to how they work is to take them multiple times.
Most kids in our school take the psat as a sophomore and again as jr in prep for the real things.
Some kids hate standardized testing though. I can see why they might wait until late Jr year for everything.
Some kids are also really good at standardized testing and test prep and can bang out a great score on their 1st attempt. If I had a kid got that got a very high score on either test in one sitting, I’d tell them that enough is enough and go focus on other things