@JanieWalker Having just gone through this with DD18, I will say that unless you are really gunning for so-called top universities there are plenty of places for good students. It’s like you hear on CC all the time - have a good, thoughtful list, including finances.
Looking back, I think my DD18 applied to mostly safeties and matches with one possible reach (a state school with a very competitive program). Our list was limited by two things: In-state and the program. She is going into nursing, and direct-admit programs can be limited depending on geography. She will go to that top program, but she was biting her nails about getting into the program (we knew she would get into the university).
There was one private university where she didn’t even bother - we felt she would be rejected based on stats alone. Maybe that was wrong, and perhaps we should have thrown an application there. Other schools she didn’t apply to because the M/F ratio was way out of proportion (yep, it’s a thing lol) or it was in the middle of nowhere for clinicals. She ended up applying to 7 places, but the school she is going to was always the top choice.
You’ll find the same thing, most likely. It’s one thing to get into a university, and another to get into the program there - this mostly affects engineering, nursing and the arts, where there are different criteria for university and program admissions. Many state schools have great reputations depending on the areas.
Once my second DD decides what she might want to study, we will go from there in terms of getting a preliminary list. It will likely be done the same way - in-state and program.
I know we are atypical in terms of stats here on CC, and I sometimes let that give me a complex over the years. But with one down and one to go, I’m a bit more relaxed and philosophical about the whole thing.
@JanieWalker - I’m with bearcatfan on being more relaxed and philosophical. My D16 landed just fine where she is, and I’m trying to not stress about the process. A lot can happen between now and the next 3 years when our kids apply to college. For now, I’m trying to encourage my S21 to focus on learning, having fun, and exploring things that he finds interesting. I recall reading something that will hopefully help in their favor, which is that there is a declining amount of kids who will apply to colleges, overall. No APs planned for sophomore year – they are not allowed to take them until junior year at his HS.
Hi there! Just joining this thread. My 2021 kid just brought home the class scheduling and really surprised me wanting to take a lot of honors classes. This last semester has been a hard one with depression and some C’s. But he decided to take AP World, pre-AP Algebra II, and pre-AP English II (wants to maybe try to test out of this). Other classes are French II, Jazz Band, Regular Band, and Chrmistry, I think. This kid has recently come out as trans (ftm) so we are adjusting and about to head to therapy for the depression. He is my most colorful and is also very artistic favoring 3D art. We were working out how to fit HS art classes in by maybe taking health and PE online later.
Last summer he went to Nature Camp as well as a leadership camp and marching band camp. This summer he is going to try out Rainbow Camp in Ontario. Looking forward to that.
As I sit 10 feet from D sitting at the dining room table doing homework, I am so incredible thankful she is only10 feet away. However I feel so weighed down with sorrow and grief. I can’t find the words for all the families affected. My heart is so broken…Squeeze em’ tight everyone!.
Had a good talk with S21 about ECs yesterday. He had been a three-season sports kid up until 8th grade. But one of the “I like being active and having fun” variety. Once it got really competitive, he stopped. And doing so was really hard on him. We got him into art classes which he really enjoyed. But he stopped those now that he is out of the “youth” classes. He does not want to do the adult classes.
So, he’s been in a bit of a holding pattern for a couple of years with nothing going on outside of school. He’s now been on college visits with S19. And he really liked some of the schools for himself. Yesterday, we talked about how those schools will want to see that he has interests and activities outside of classes. And that he has to get those going next school year.
He really wants to get back into sports. But not on the official high school teams. We are fortunate to have rec soccer and basketball leagues that he can play in through high school. He has decided that he’d like to do both. And he is going to join the art club at school.
I’ve been treading lightly. He is a self-motivated kid who needed some time to figure out what his interests actually are. He now understands that colleges want to see a well-rounded applicant. And that regular participation in a two-county high school aged rec basketball league can be 1) really fun and 2) just as cool from an EC perspective as the more competitive teams.
Man OH Man…The things we do for our kiddos…D and I have tickets to Hamilton in Houston Friday April 27th. We will leave Lubbock (West Texas) and drive 355 miles to Waco on Thurs April 28th after school. Spend the night then drive to Houston 185 miles away the next day for Hamilton…Then immediately drive 267 miles to Frisco (Dallas metro) after the show so she can compete in the state tournament of Academic Octathlon Saturday morning. I will then spend the night with my sister then drive back 320 miles back to Lubbock on Sunday. D will come back with the team after the competition. Think I will have to have a cooler full of energy drinks while she sleeps in the back seat…
The perks of being a single mom., living in BFE…and having a fantastic kid
Its almost March already so our family planning the summer. D21 is applying to one selective academic summer program and has access to a possible research opportunity at the local flagship through a friend who teaches there. However, it is in engineering in which he has no current interest. My wife really wants to push him into the research program which would take up the majority of his summer.
D21’s plan if the academic program doesn’t pan out is to take an online health course to satisfy an elective and play in summer league basketball with his high school team and travel with his club team as well. All of this will be scheduled around our summer vacation.
My inclination is to let him do what he wants as he has worked hard this school year. The wife really wants him in the research project over his objections.
What do you guys think?
What is your kids plans for the summer?
Do you let them relax during the summer or is it time to pursue prestigous ECs?
At this age I would not force them into doing something. I might spend some time telling them why I thought it was a good idea but ultimately I would let them decide unless it was something harmful and/or they were behind and needed to do something to catch-up.
S21 is waiting to hear if he will be selected for the NSLI-Y summer program. He is a bit young so not sure what the chances are to get it but we hope to find out in a week. If that falls through there are two other competitive programs he is interested in but the fallback is to get a summer job, study chemistry (he will take AP Chem next year and has not had a chemistry course yet) and attend his high school soccer practices.
I think the ECs start to matter more next year but if they can do something constructive this summer, so much the better. Good luck!!
I tried to get DD to take summer chemistry course so she could do AP Chem or AP Bio next year but she balked. She is a fast pitch softball player so 10 weeks of her summer (mine as well) is tied up with Friday to Sunday tournaments in various places in Ohio, NY, and PA. Then we are going to Europe for 2 weeks before my DD18 is off to her college of choice with is yet to be decided.
@burghdad We might be making a mistake but S21 is taking AP Chem next year and has not had a chemistry course yet…the plan is to make some time this summer to either study what’s available on KhanAcademy or find some other online material for chemistry.
@yearstogo our school will not allow them to take any ap science clas until the complete both bio and Chem honors class unless they take community college summer class and pass a school test.
I tried to get her to take the Chem but she was reluctant and I didn’t want to force her.
@burghdad Our school has the same prereq but son asked, and was granted, permission to skip the honors chemistry. He does plan to self-study this summer.
Our high school requires honors Chem before AP Chem and honors Bio before AP Bio. The honors classes are so hard that they usually scare the kids away from taking the AP version! LOL.
It does make it tough for the super science student. They have to double up on honors science classes in order to have room for the APs. Probably only 5-6 kids take more than one AP science class at our high school (out of 750 or so) since the honors-type kids usually take honors bio, then honors Chem, then honors physics and then choose one AP science class for senior year.
(cross posting this from the 2019 page - since my D21 participated I thought I would post it here too)
I’ve spent the last two days watching our local high school students protest gun violence and unsafe schools. Several local schools staged walk outs and I was able to go to both of them.
On Tuesday one of the town high schools (not ours) was planning a silent memorial in their school courtyard. Apparently work got around that some of the kids thought they should plan a walk out where they were just going to walk outside of the school gates for a little bit. Somehow that turned into hundreds of students deciding pretty much on the spot to walk all the way to Parkland to the Stoneman Douglas school to pay their respects. My friend and I heard about it on Facebook and decided to drive out there to bring them water. Along the way we decided to grab food too and we ended up bringing 6 cases of water, 13 pizzas and tons of cookies. I have never seen anybody so excited for pizza! These kids were amazing - they were not prepared for their almost 12 mile walk - I saw kids in flip flops, sweatpants (it was very hot and sunny), girls in tight jeans and long leggings and many were still carrying their heavy backpacks. It took them over 4 hours to get there but most of them made it the whole way despite being super sweaty, sunburnt and blistered.
Yesterday two of the other local high schools (including ours) also did walk outs and they walked to City Hall. The schools called the night before and asked the kids not to do it but they were determined to do something to really show how they are feeling. The farthest away school came first, they walked 8 1/2 miles and did a 17 minute moment of silence in the parking lot. Then some middle schoolers showed up followed by about 1,500 kids from our high school including D19 and D21. There were even three girls from NYC who were here on spring break - they heard about what the kids were doing, made signs and joined the march about half way through! I loved seeing the first school get so excited when our high school showed up - usually the other town schools are rivals of course but yesterday they were cheering and hugging each other. There were tons of signs and chants and several people stood up and spoke to the crowd. Some of our high school administrators ended up joining the kids including the principal who walked the 2.5 miles even though she is injured and using a crutch!! They did not sanction the event but I guess they decided it was better to join in and support the kids in the end.
@dronedad, we don’t ‘make’ our kids do too much in the summer. S18 will be lifeguarding and doing summer dive team, plus getting ready to leave for college :(( D21 will volunteer one day and work one day, plus a summer reading program their school encourages and AP work. Goof off the rest of the time. S23 will goof all summer!
Wanted to post this here since I don’t want to name the college - there is a thread elsewhere about college tours and if I was willing to name the school, I’d post this there…but maybe you folks will get a kick out of it.
My kids are young but they enjoy trying to figure out where they will be in the future. We live in an area with about two billion colleges all within a couple hours of each other, so we have already done a couple of college info sessions and tours. My girls enjoy this and it keeps them motivated in terms of shooting for high grades. It’s nice to take a look at the potential possibilities when it’s a low stress time of life.
Yesterday we took a college tour of X University. The info session was outstanding…and then our impression of the college was completely ruined by what had to be the worst student tour guide ever. This guy did not know the answers to anything about different aspects of the school (though he did talk a lot about how much money the laundry machines required), he complained multiple times about the campus food, he made fun of an entire group of students for living in an area that was farther off from campus (not in a good way - he actually insulted them), he said the college students there hated the student tour groups because we just got in their way and they didn’t want to see high school kids anymore, he talked about how he had been admitted even though his high school GPA was really low and his SAT scores were awful, and he talked about how he had already changed his major three or four times but still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do (I think he was a junior). His speech was chock-full of “likes” and “you knows,” and he looked like he had rolled out of bed five minutes before the tour.
This is a highly ranked school…maybe they are trying to lower the number of prospective students so they don’t have to go through so many applications next year, lol?
It was so odd because the info session was outstanding. They need to do a better job at choosing their tour guides!
Wow, @JanieWalker ! (Coming out of lurkdom on this thread…I’m pretty active on CC … but not here yet, though I have a D21.) Maybe you should contact the school to give a little feedback about this tour guide! Maybe not, since it’s not in your interest to do so…still, do you think your girls would ever be interested in this school despite the bad tour? Your’e lucky to have so many choices nearby.
@inthegarden, yes my younger one seems interested though she has years to go before applying and therefore has plenty of time to change her mind - I told my girls that if either decided they might want to apply that we would come back and do another tour (with someone else!). We all enjoyed the info session and the school has an excellent academic reputation.
