@stencils my D20 is also a dancer and a STEM girl (mostly math). No musical talent that I can discern though (let’s just say that Broadway will NOT be giving its regards to her).
@lilmom D20 has also been on several campuses informally. She has been on a couple of official tours and declared them to be totally useless. She is starting to have older friends at colleges who have invited her to stay with them which, she says, should provide a much more realistic view of the schools. I think she may have a point.
My D20 went on one college tour in Freshman year. It is a local school and she is planning to go to a camp there this summer so she wanted to get a feel for the place. It was a good experience for her and she wants the school to be on her list when she eventually starts compiling one.
D20 went along on several tours when D17 was looking. She was only in 7th and 8th grade at the time, so she wasn’t paying much attention other than to notice that every tour guide walks backwards, and every campus tour brags about their quidditch team, blue light safety phones, and brand new climbing wall.
She’s been on the RIT campus many times to watch women’s hockey games and for RITs excellent annual ImagineRIT festival – a campus-wide science fair with professors and students creating 100s of interactive displays/exhibits.
We know a tour guide at one large university who is home for the summer. She and DD had a lively and hilarious conversation about talking while walking backwards and pointing.
same here @VickiSoCal. our kids have a lot in common so I am always glad to see your updates…as well as those of all the other 2020s! The good news at our house is that student has finally discovered some ambition for higher grades and is asking to continue with math tutor for next year. I think the light bulb is starting to flicker on inside student’s (hard) head…
@janiemiranda I didn’t realize the prepscholar site was blocked on here on CC for links. If you google “schools that require all sat scores” it’s the first link.
Just got an official transcript in snail mail, and was surprised to see Drama listed with A- even though we always thought it was an A+ (school loop still shows that). I know it’s not a critical subject or grade, but I guess will contact the school in August to double-check. I thought the two computer systems were linked, but apparently not…
@typiCAmom I know at D’s school the computer systems are not linked. Why this is so, I couldn’t tell you. Something similar happened to Little Tutu but the discrepancy was caught before final grades were sent.
@stencils Thanks for the list. When my older D was applying, we were told by some of those schools that they want all scores, even if you weren’t planning on submitting that test. In other words, if you took the SAT and ACT and aced one, they want all scores from both anyway. It was an eye opening moment for us since we were always told, take them both and use whichever one you do better on.
Also, at least a few years ago this was true, some of those schools did allow you to select which subject tests to send. I don’t remember if she was allowed to chose specific scores, or had to send all scores for that test. It may have had to do with the subject tests being optional at the time.
@MuggleMom yes my older daughter ran in that too. She did well on both ACT and SAT, but the ACT score was stronger. In most cases, she just sent the ACT. But for a school that wanted SAT subject tests and required “all scores” meant they got the SAT scores as well.
hey - questions for you all. you’d think with 2 kids in college now i’d know these things, but i dont!
so . . . are kids supposed to take HS chemistry and biology and physics before taking AP chem and AP bio AP physics? Is it hard to jump right into those AP courses first ? And will a school count those AP classes for credit once a similar non-AP class has already been taken?
Look at you high school course book it should show what the prerequiste classes need are.
From our school’s course book:
AP Chem Prerequisite: Successful completion of Algebra II and Chemistry I PreAP or Chemistry I with an ‘A’ semester average.
AP Bio - Prerequisite: Successful completion of Biology I Pre-AP or Biology I with teacher recommendation; Chemistry I; and Algebra II
AP Physics 1/2 - Prerequisite: Successful completion of Chemistry and concurrent enrollment or successful completion of Pre-Calculus
AP Physics C - Prerequisite: Successful completion of AP Physics 1 & 2 (formerly AP Physics B) and concurrent enrollment or successful completion of AP Calculus required
@bgbg4us Our high school typically does a honors before the AP version of sciences. This is not true for other types of classes but this is how things work for science. Students get credit for both the honors and the AP as separate classes. That being said, my son was given permission to skip honors physics and go straight to AP so while there are rules, they can be broken.
Our school requires Honors courses to be taken before for bio, and chemistry. But not physics. The first physics course is AP physics 1 (it is a year long course at our school).
My DS18 is a pre-med science kid who wanted to take all of the math and science APs before finishing HS. I was concerned about him getting in over his head and overloaded, so we really focused on what was recommended as far as prerequisites. This is what we ended up with:
Freshman: Algebra II, Honors Bio
Sophomore: Precal, Honors Chem, AP Physics 1
Junior: AP Calc AB, AP Stats, AP Bio, Anatomy
Senior: AP Calc BC, AP Chem, AP Env Sci
This sequence worked very well for him. He took AP Physics first since the only recommended prerequisite was Algebra II. AP Bio recommended a HS biology and a HS chemistry course first, so that is what he did. Never felt like he wasn’t prepared. He may have been capable of speeding up the sequence, but we didn’t see the point, since he would have just ran out of courses to take by his senior year.
