@BingeWatcher Oh man, I hate projects that require meeting outside of school! Like our kids aren’t busy enough, trying to figure out when they can all get together at once is near impossible.
@BingeWatcher Ugh. Me too. No teacher should assign group projects that require time out of school. Our S19 had a project last year with four other kids and they had to each write out their EC schedules to show the teacher that there was absolutely NO overlapping free time (unless she expected them to start work on the project after 10:00pm!). Even weekends couldn’t work. In the end, she gave the class more time in class to do the project and the kids met just once…at 8:00 on a Sunday night.
Group projects definitely need in-school time. My S’s school is strongly oriented to collaborative projects but the time is built into the day, including a good block of study-hall time to work together.
D has been watching YouTube videos on how to breath during 8 minute debate speeches…Yes…she is THAT ANAL…
@BingeWatcher that’s so cool! I didn’t even know such a thing existed!
BingeWatcher - what type of debate does your D do? My S is doing debate this spring.
@carson2 it is called “CX” all I know is it is 2 people debating against 2 people. Her teacher found the case for her and now she is spending about 8-9 hours a week on it by herself. But once all the work is done on it. You use that case for all your debates. She is required to attend 5 debates including UIL. We live in West Texas, so all her debates are at least 2 hours away.
Wow, D21 got asked to Homecoming two weeks before the dance. Her date asked her by bringing her an In/Out burger and a drink. And gave her money to buy 2 tickets. I like this guy.
@sushiritto Aww, that is so cute!
Ugh - hate group projects at home. They are so hard to coordinate and somehow I feel like they always end up at my house!
We spent last weekend on a college trip for D19 but the whole family went. We were in upstate NY and VT and looked at Hobart William Smith College, St Lawrence University and UVM (I have descriptions of the visits on the 2019 thread.) We had D21 come on the tours with us while DH and S23 just hung out. We figured we may not get that far north again soon so D21 might as well see the schools now. She hadn’t been on a tour yet and was pleasantly surprised with how much she liked the schools - she couldn’t believe how pretty they were! I am glad we brought her though because she decided she would not want to go to school in such a cold place, she likes to be outside too much and can’t handle the idea of staying indoors for 6 months a year! She is such a beach girl!
School is going well so far. She had a mini meltdown last night over a current even podcast summary she had to do but I sat down with her to help her find the right kind of podcast and it all worked out. We are still trying to figure out if she will be able to do soccer along with musical theater. Theater takes up so much time after school that most people say you have to pick just one. I am hoping there is a way to balance it since she would only be trying out for the freshman team, not varsity or anything.
Hey, @momtogkc , Hobart & William Smith is in my neck of the woods! I don’t live there now, but I am from the Finger Lakes region. Beautiful campus. My DD21 was dragged to a lot of colleges this summer. I don’t know that anything stuck, except she said the other day she’s glad that’s over. 
@bearcatfan I went to SLU and had visited friends at Hobart when I was in college. I didn’t remember it being so pretty! They have done a lot of construction around campus too but everything blends together nicely. They have a brand new arts center but we only got to go in the lobby. I wish we had more time to spend in that area - it was very pretty and there were ton of things I wanted to see and do.
We just got back from the first leg of Octathlon completion against local schools and I got to peek at D’s lunch partner…OMG, I think I have a crush on him. 
He is adorable with his small plaid print, button up and bow tie, boyfriend jeans that were cuffed and boat shoes… and cute short hair and glasses.
Meanwhile, D continues to have the roll out of bed look as her signature…
It has been quiet around here lately! Did your kids take the PSAT this week? D did and she came home very frustrated. She said it wasn’t very hard but they didn’t remind her to bring a calculator so she had to do all of the math on paper. 
Oh well - I guess that is why it is a practice for the real thing - I bet she will never forget her calculator again!
Other than that things are going well. Our quarter end today. As of yesterday she had all As but a very low A in AP Environmental. She had a test in that class yesterday so is worried that it will bring her down.
My D wanted to take the PSAT, but I told her that it makes no sense for her. She’s not ready and she’ll be much better prepared as a sophomore with her freshman year “under her belt.”
D’s freshman year at a big public school seems to be going well so far. Whereas D18 seems to be feeling the weight of homework, college applications and all the college essays.
@sushiritto Our school district makes kids from 8th-10th grade take the PSAT. (then 11th grade, the year it matters, it is optional - strange) Last year I let D stay home on PSAT day, no reason for her to take it in 8th grade if she was worried about it. This year she didn’t care so she went to school - I would have been happy to let her stay home again though and just use next year as her practice.
@momtogkc the local school district offers the PSAT to sophomores. I assume we would have to request it for freshman, but for my D, I’d like her to have a full year of school experience with her honors science, English and math classes before attempting the test.
And we could always take a free PSAT/SAT that’s administered for free every weekend at our local test prep company in our town, if we were so inclined. The test can be prepped for. My older daughter made big jumps from Sophomore to Junior PSAT and then to the May SAT her Junior year. The May SAT test was the largest leap because she actually prepped for it.
Hello all, D took the PSAT8/9 as she did last year. Our school district pays for all kids to take it 8th and 9th and the real PSAT in 10, and then anyone who has a SI 160 or above the school district will pay for them to take it in 11th. Others can take it but they must pay.
Well, Debate is kicking D’s butt big time. She ramped up her prep time on it 15 hours a week
She has to be at school at 4:50 AM for the long drive Midland for her first completion. I pick her up at school at 11:30pm.
she has 3 different rounds with each one being 1 to 1.5 hours. She will be beyond drained I pick her up.
In other news…She absolutely loves her Academic Octathlon class, the 3 teachers who teach it are the IB Humanities
teachers…
Today one of the said teachers pulled her out of her 8th period to ask D to take a a new transfer student under her wing. . The teacher saw D and the new boy have 3 classes together. Then the spent the rest of the period just talking about school and life in general . A really relaxed conversation. D was so excited when I picked her up. She said, “Mom Ms. Moore really likes me”
Well it’s been a while since I’ve visited this site. So very busy. Well D21 quarter ended a week ago and she just received her report card. All A’s however a few of them are A- The school says no matter if the A was 90% or 99% it’s still a 4.0 but “some” colleges may recalculate. How do we know which ones would and how? Would her 4.0 now be a 3.7. Lovely…
Hi everyone! I have a S18 and a D21. D21 has been doing pretty well, but since my S18 is short on ECs, I’m worried about my D21’s ECs!
About the GPA question, yes, I know some colleges recalculate GPAs, especially in order to get an academic GPA. I know the Ivy I attended does. And sometimes they completely leave out freshman year!
IMHO, it is what it is, and I think other than trying to convince your D21 to work harder, it shouldn’t be a dealkiller to have a few A- grades. I know that at my children’s HS, they do exact calculations at the end of the year, so if my D21 had an A- in a class and it was a 92, three 93 grades and similar midterm and final exam grades would bring the final grade up. And I believe final grades are all most colleges see, except for senior year.
Hello! I am new to CC and was visiting for my D20 and realized that the parent thread there was already 75 pages, so perhaps I should check out the thread for my S21. It should be an interesting journey with 2 back to back. My daughter is very focused and independent (and yet another dancer! She’s currently in the throes of Nutcracker so up to 22 hours a week of dancing and going through way too many pointe shoes!) But this thread is about my son. His schedule:
PreIB/Honors English 9
PreIB/Honors World History
PreIB/Honors Biology
Honors PreCalcus
PreIB/Honors Spanish 2
App Development
Software Development
PE
It’s crazy to me that they have 8 classes. He’ll need to decide next year if he wants to stay on the IB track or switch to AP. I doubt he’ll stay IB as he’s very math and science oriented and it will limit his flexibility. Both of the programming electives are just semester long. He’ll switch to a required Health class and a study hall next semester. Hopefully that will help with the homework load when the swim and robotics seasons start. He’s a pretty serious swimmer and is also involved with a very intense FRC robotics teams. I’ll be curious how that will work when the build season begins.
So far he’s managed the transition to high school pretty well - he’s very young for the grade, so my biggest concern was the organizational challenges - particularly with 8 classes.