@wisteria100 yes and they were all A-. No As.
I emailed the science chair at the high school and emailed her the list of the grades. They were posted outside the teacherās door. Showed the grade the student had going into the final, the grade on the final, and then the semester grade. 10 of the 18 kids had a D or F on the final. Come on!
It does always boggle my mind the differences in schools! We have a great report as well thatās sent to colleges.
Classes at Dās school average about 450. About 5-10% each year go to Ivies; all the top schools are very well represented (the top LAC less so). Looking at the class distributions, less than 10% of the kids take Honors pre-calc. Everyone takes regular, and less than 20% of the kids get an A in regular. Not one kid in the last 3 years got an A in Honors Pre-Calc.
@NJWrestlingmom I know we arenāt the only school that doesnāt hand out a bunch of As. I just keep reading about grade inflation nationally and how schools need to lean on ACT and SAT scores because they see so many 4.0s. I just hope most AOās use enough nuance to understand the difference between schools. And sooooo many kids on CC seem to have perfect GPAs!
I often wonder if D would have been better off staying in our home district, where she most likely would be in all honors/AP classes with a higher GPA. But, sheās developing great habits at her school and I think, in the long run, sheās the better for it. Even if it means she wonāt be in the top 20%!
@homerdog my D definetly doesnāt have a perfect 4.0 GPA, she is struggling this year I think she is praying for Bās in English and College Chem. Everything she is doing Aās in. We still have about 5 weeks until the end of the quarter when she gets her next report card.
I donāt know if any kids at Sās school even apply to ivy or LAC. Everyone is trying to go to UT, TAMU, or Texas Tech.
@homerdog Well those grades do seem harsh. Could see that happening for AP Physics or another AP science, but not necessarily for honors earth science.
That strategy (looking at where others in the high school got into college) wouldnāt work here because so few students apply to anything other than our state schools, OOS schools of neighboring states (one of which gives a lot of financial aid), community colleges and a handful of nearby lower-ranking regional LACs . Our college fair was reflective of this reality (and a real disappointment to me and D. We stayed twenty minutes and left. ) We also donāt have Naviance.
Thereās often oneā¦maybe or twoā¦ in any given class (of under 200 students) who get into a well-known, highly selective private or OOS state school, and occasionally (but not necessarily every year) a tiny handful might go to go to t-40-100ish national LACs. One of our seniors just got into U Chicago ED (a real outlier, but heās from an immigrant family, so heās atypical from the usual local student, as thereās little cultural diversity here). Last year a student went to MIT for business, and another to Furman, and someone from the school across town was admitted to Yale (which made local news!) The year before, the community just up the road a bit had a student who went to Bowdoin.
I doubt any of these universities/LACs have ANY prior understanding of our local schools, let alone a relationship. But we may get a bit of a tip if the schools are trying to expand their socio-economic/cultural diversity. Our state is not underrepresented at these schools, but our region of the state surely is. So for us, itās a big guess where Dās chances are greatest.
^ I donāt want to imply that we rarely have strong or well-prepared students in our school. We do have them every year. But most go to the honors college of our flagship, or sometimes the #2 state school (which is sort of up-and-coming, with a different ambiance than the flagship).
I think Iāve mentioned here before that I went to Tulane a long time ago for undergrad. I think it would be a nice place for my daughter but Iām pretty irritated with the school right now
Tulane EA decisions came out this afternoon. So many kids with quality applications deferred in an attempt to get them to ED2. No one denied - everyone deferred. Only super high stat kids accepted. Kids with MUCH lower statistics accepted ED1 a couple of weeks ago.
I donāt like that game. I understand protecting yield and I understand wanting demonstrated interest, but what they are doing just doesnāt seem right. They are going to end up with super wealthy kids and EFC 0 kids and no one in between because the in between kids canāt financially gamble with ED1 or ED2.
Itās going to stink if it tops my Dās list next year because I hate to say no, but out of principle, I refuse to say yes to those tactics.
@2kids3dogs Vanderbilt does something a little like that too. They donāt have EA but, from our school, only accepted legacies and super high stat kids in ED (like super high 36 all rigor state champion in something high). Then, in RD they waitlisted everyone. Everyone! Even the other super high stat kids. And then you know what? All of the kids who took the waitlist spot and either flew down there to make their case or wrote letters saying they would definitely come if accepted, got off of the waitlist. Something like seven kids in the first week after the waitlist decision came out. Totally playing the yield card. Wanted to wait to see who would freak out and come begging for a spot before they offered any in RD.
Iāll be very curious to see how many of those Tulane EA kids get in even if they donāt switch to ED2. I see this happening a lot and Iām glad D is our youngest since I feel like itās getting worse. If she likes any school that has ED, I feel like we have to consider it. S19 didnāt do any ED and ended up ok (but didnāt take his Vandy waitlist spot!). I always wonder if he would have gotten in if we had hustled down to Nashville. We never visited and he wasnāt interested enough to do that but his best friend did.
Also you may want to consider that Tulane may only really consider legacy in ED. I know Northwestern is like that.
Our West Texas Title 1 school is in a very gritty part of town in the out skirts of downtown. The kids that are zoned for this school for the most part do not go to college. The other kids attend the school because it is the academic magnet with IB program. There are 1-2 Ivy kids every year, Mostly Harvard but I have seen Penn before, then 1-4 kids to places like Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Rice and they rest state universities, with most being our local state school (Texas Tech)ā¦
9th grade bio, 10th chem, 11th studentās choice, 12th studentās choice. Physics is not required for graduation.
No Naviance in our school district eitherā¦Iād never even heard of it before joining CC!
Iām so glad we are on accelerated block scheduleā¦only 4 classes in a semester/term like collegeā¦We have two 9 week grading periods in a semesterā¦Final exams in December and youāre done! No having to worry about difficult teachers for the whole year. Next semester 4 new classes. Some classes like AP sciences (chem pe Biology) and fine arts (band/theater/orchestra) and athletics span both semesters.
Iām a little miffed at S21ā¦heās ending this semester with his first C ever in his entire school careerā¦79.3 is his final grade for AP Env Sci. I donāt know what got into him, he just never vibed with the teacher, didnāt like the class, had some bad luck with group projectsā¦I donāt know, I guess it is what it is. It has a 1.2 multiplier for his GPA since itās an AP class, and our district only uses weighted for class rank, I hope it doesnāt ping him too badlyā¦other 3 classes will be 2 Aās and 1 Bā¦one of the Aās being Dual Credit History which also has the 1.2 multiplier.
Iāve already told him spring semester will be crunch time, heās got to keep a firm hold on his class rank since in Texas itās make or break with its stupid top 10% for auto admits.
@Curiosa Four teachers in one semester??? Argh!
@homerdog Thatās awful on Earth Sciences. You are right, if a class has been well-taught and assessed, your midterm/final grade should be in line with the ongoing grades. And I have science/engineering degrees - in no college science class ever at my large state school did I have to read the book/learn the material on my own - there were lectures 3-4 times a week along with labs. Your schoolās philosophy is wacky.
@Momof3B Iām sorry about the C 
Well, the good news is SAT scores were out bright and early this morning!
The bad news is she went down 10 points - 20 in verbal but up 10 in math - which is good, which her verbal was so much higher.
Looks like some private tutoring for the June date and hoping math goes up!
@NJWrestlingmom will the school she is interested in let her take the highest from each time?
D went up 10 points, pretty even split between math/verbal. She never had a chance to prepare so really took it cold again, so I am not surprised that she didnāt score higher. Now she will prep and take them again, hopefully in the Spring, if it doesnāt interfere with dance competitions, if not she will do it in August, and hopefully be done.
We havenāt toured a lot of places yet, but her safety (Rowan in state) requires a 1310 superscore to apply to the honors college, so sheās 30 points short!
Right now Syracuse is her top pick, Naviance makes that pretty likely where she is now but we will need a lot of money to make that work, so the higher the better!
30 points hopefully is attainable. Good luck to her.
When I was looking at College Board and the required classes tab on the schools she is interested in, it should History recommended and Social Studies required. History is part of Social Studies here, she is currently in APUSH, so would History be 1 then and Social Studies only 3? And I assume it is US History, or is World History also considered History. So then it would be 2 each, our school splits World into 2 years, so 3 History? Am I over thinking this?
S got his first SAT score back this morning. Perfect score on RW and a 660 on the math. He is upset about his Math score.