@OrangeFish - 37 and 40 for me. (A month from 41.) I am exhausted ALL the time.
@dfbdfb Our automatic has a stick rather than something on the steering wheel. I mainly drive our stick and when I drive the automatic I sometimes try to shift down through curves. Fortunately the lack of a clutch generally snaps me out of auto-pilot before I actually move the stick in the automatic and put the car in neutral. I havenāt stepped on the brake while trying to āchange gearsā in an automatic in years, but did have some alarming experiences with that when younger.
I had D21 at 36. I am saying hello to 50 next month!
Older parent here too. Although honestly, every single one of my college friends has kids the same ages and the vast majority of my kids friends parents are my age soā¦I donāt feel old. 50 (me) 52, H.
I had my kids (D16 and S19) at 25 and 29, which makes me a āyoungā mom where I live. I had plenty of energy when they were little, but I feel inordinately old at 44! D16 put a BUNCH of grey hairs on my head. S19 is shaping up to be an easier teen.
26&29 here when d19 & d21 were born. Iām average- ish where I live, I think. I donāt pay super close attention and am not great at guessing ages so I only know if people volunteer the info. Oddly, most people donāt 
So we are about a week in and 10th grade is going very well. Lots of homework but not crushing or frustrating. I feel like she made really good class selections for herself this year. So far anyway!
First child just shy of 35, second child just shy of 38, so by most peopleās standards old. My older son has always been wise and mature for his age. When he was 4 his K4 teacher told me that she could tell that he spent a lot of time with his grandparents because he had an āold soulā .I quickly pointed out that his grandparents are all deceased , he just has old parents .
Well, since weāre talking ages, all of our children were born during that slice of the year when my wife and I are the same numerically, so our kids range from being born when we were both 28 to when we were both 36. Judging from the responses so far, that seems to put us smack in the middle, no matter which of the four youāre talking about.
30 & 35 for me, which is fairly typical where I live. However H is 10 yr older than I am. People would often assume that he was the kidsā granddad. 
My hair is now mostly all gray so at least strangers donāt think heās MY dad. When he was all grey and I wasnāt, that happened every so often. Heās looks a little older than his age and I look a bit younger, so I guess it was understandable. Hmmm.
33,37,39 for me.
33,35. 100% gray, thank goodness for hair color! People rarely think I am remotely close to my age and I would prefer to keep it that way.
DS19 received his interim progress report on Thurs. Heās doing quite well. Only one B and that was an 89. Heās taking AP or Honors classes that are available, but is also taking some 2 classes that arenāt weighted. Iām very pleased with how heās doing early on, but realize that school is just beginning and things can was kill change .Thatās the good news.
Hereās the less than good news. When he received his progress report, they send an unofficial transcript home as well which includes GPA ( weighted and unweighted) , class size and rank. I was surprised to see that he has over 100 more students in his class than DS16 had. He has a 3.7 UWGPA and a 4.4 WGPA . With those stats his current rank places him in the 11th percentile. Add to that the grading scale has recently changed . Iām hoping that he can at least bump up to the 10 th percentile this year, but hopefully he will be able to close the gap to top 6% to qualify for great merit opportunities given by our state. Iām not feeling very hopeful.
@carolinamom2boys that stinks about the class size, etc. hopefully the rank does still change over the next year or so.
@carolinamom2boys I think itās impossible to know how their ranks turn out. Itās so dependent on how many honors/AP classes the tippy top take and if they can get As. We actually have kids who end up with a 6.0 on a 5.0 scale because they purposely do not take any non-honors at all. The only non-honors they have to take (Health), they take during the summer and itās pass/fail. Then, they only choose non-academic courses that offer honors (like band, or art) and wouldnāt do things like photography, etc. Those kids are insane and I"m guessing that their parents put them up to that sort of plan. Some of them even skip lunch in order to add another AP.
After that, we have many kids who take almost all honors (maybe 5 out of 6 classes each year) and maybe get a few Bs and hover around a 5.5 or 5.6 weighted. Each year, though, the percentage of those kids varies so you have no idea in any given year what percentile that puts them in. On the bright side, though, I"m sure those kids get the āmost rigorousā checked on their transcript by the GCs. We have about 700 kids per grade and Iām sure more than 70 end up around 5.6.
Iāve sometimes wondered if there are benefits to going to a less competitive high school but I think it all evens out. If we were at a less competitive place, maybe our kids would be in a higher percentile but the AOs get high school profiles so maybe being in the top 10 percent of one school is exactly the same as being the top 5 percent at another. If your state bases scholarships on percentiles, thatās rough! I hope there are other scholarships available since comparing class rank at different schools (even within the same state) is like comparing apples to oranges.
@homerdog My state is pretty generous with scholarships. He will be eligible for at least 5000.00 a year with the possibility of a 2500.00 additional STEM enhancement . My DS16 qualified for the highest scholarship at 7500.00 with 2500.00 STEM enhancement . Iām very appreciative of any funds. Itās early, weāll see what happens. Heās doing well this year so , he may move a little.
That is so awesome!!! When you say āthe stateā does that mean any state school will take those scholarships? Or any school at all? I donāt think IL has anything like this.
The scholarship is good at any accredited school in the state . Itās is funded by lottery funds. CC is pretty much free . With the state scholarships, merit from the college and departmental scholarships my DS16 is attending one of the stateās Honors Colleges almost free, just a few hundred dollars in fees. Thatās why my oldest son didnāt want to even pursue OOS colleges. He felt like he was leaving money on the table. Heās very happy with his choice and truly where he belongs.
Wow. Iām moving down to (North or South) Carolinaā¦where you are! Illinois is in such desperate shape financially and there is nothing like these scholarships for us. Sounds terrific.
South Carolina . We are very fortunate to have good choices of schools that many OOS students are eager to attend.
My Sās HS has a lot of high achieving students with crazy numbers of APs, but they donāt rank and they donāt report an unweighted GPA on the transcript (and we found that some schools do just take that weighted GPA as is). I think GPAs must top out at about 4.6. Honors classes are only offered in four core subjects and APs donāt really start until 11th grade for most students (AP World is officially the only one officially offered to sophomores)
I have mixed feelings about rank - an automatic scholarship would be a great motivator, but I also appreciate that I have two kids who are not competitive and try to remain oblivious to the pressure cooker atmosphere. S19 knows he may be interested in going to one of our in-state schools that is a tough admit for kids from this county, so he has a GPA goal in mind. However, heāll need to get there with a mix of regular, honors and AP classes and with several back-ups schools in mind.