Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 1)

@2ndthreekids We are in-state for UC and I 100% agree with you about kids having been rejected to those schools. We had valedictorian with great extras and 1500 SATs get waitlisted at waitlisted and not even considered for Irvine. Last year it seemed like so many got into UCI and Berkeley from our school, so who knows.

S21 applied to all but Merced, Riverside, and Santa Cruz. His GPA is 4.4 but unweighted is 3.86 so it’s mediocre for the UCLA and Berkeley of the world. Didn’t help that all Hai required reg senior classes were taken first quarter (we went 3 classes per quarter), so the 4.0 lowered his gpa. Net, his ACT would’ve helped him. I’m hopefully that they would now read essays. His essays are solid and he has great extracurriculars. Tons of deep and broad service and leadership but he seems normal. Didn’t invent anything or win some national robotics competition (he’s not studying engr. LOL). Who knows. I think Brown/ED was super reach, too. Likely, he will get into UC Irvine but who knows.

Anyone else get that email today from Davidson featuring authors Jeff Selingo & Melissa Korn via zoom talking about college admissions?

@purplemama No. Is there anything good to share? I listened to the author’s audiobook a few weeks ago. It was fascinating but disconcerting to learn students move from the accept to reject pile and back again.

yes. I’ve seen Selingo on so many zooms and read his book so we won’t watch this one though.

@GoldPenn It’s this Monday. We will join in. I know Selingo was here on CC, but I don’t believe I’ve heard Melissa Korn speak. I think it is interesting that a school is sponsoring or giving them a platform, so I am definitely curious. I will report back if anything interesting.

S21 just got an acceptance and one of our state schools just reduced high stats scholarships by $4k each year $16K over the course of 4 years… Hope this is not a trend.

@TVBingeWatcher2 and @GoldPenn , I am so sorry for your losses. I hope both of you and your teens are doing as well as possible considering the very sad events.

I got caught up on this thread this morning – a huge congratulations to all those teens with acceptances! So very exciting!

I get extremely anxious sometimes and need to avoid stress for the sake of my mental health (and therefore the sake of my teens’ mental health). I had to stay off these boards for a while because I thought D21’s dual credit professor who gave her low B grades on her papers and midterm with seemingly no reason would completely tank all her applications by giving D21 a C as a final grade this semester. She is a straight-A student, she’s published, she has had three other dual credit English courses with high As, one of her LOR is from a college English professor, and I’ve read the things she submitted for this course (after she received her grades) and could see nothing wrong with them (and I am a published author, both mainstream and academic).

D21 asked this professor if she could set up a Zoom meeting to go over her work, and if she could record it so she could refer to it later if she forgot any of his comments. He agreed. They met, and she asked specific questions…it turns out the secret to getting As on his papers and tests is not to just answer the question, but to do the absolute maximum…so if he says the paper should be 2-3 pages, 2 1/2 pages might get you a B but never an A, and 3 full pages makes it possible to get an A. D21 was respectful and spoke with the professor for almost an hour. She told me at the end he said he was impressed that she set up the meeting and that she had not once asked for points to be added back to her paper/test, but just asked how she could improve. They had a bit of small talk at the end and she feels a lot better about everything. So now she knows the secret to getting As in that class, and we both have hopes that her grades will improve now, and I am not nearly as stressed worrying that all her hard work and efforts might be done in first-semester senior year by a professor who grades with no apparent logic. She currently has an 86 in the class, and I no longer fear she will end up with less than a B (and a B would be fine, it would be her only one). She can still get an A now that she knows what he wants. But again, a B would be fine and would not hurt her application.

Also, D23 turned into a hormonal teenage wreck a few weeks back because…I don’t know…she doesn’t like the paint on her walls?? Doesn’t take much these days (hooray for teenage hormones). None of that is helping with the anxiety. Working on it. Very much wish edibles were for general adult sale in my state.

Life is very busy. D21 is trying to finish up the UC app but, as I predicted, her fall schedule is too busy for her to be able to do quality work on applications (which is why she did all the Common App stuff over the summer). We’ll see if she actually finishes the apps.

D21 was just contacted by a local organization that wants her to speak to their teens regarding her main extracurricular, so that’s cool. Someone we know who interviews for one of her lotto schools reached out unsolicited and asked if he could send an informal letter or make an informal call to admissions on her behalf since he knows the admissions folks and since he has been following her progress in her extracurricular since she was very small. That was kind of him, and she said sure. Don’t know if that kind of thing will move the needle at all, but he insisted it would not hurt, and admissions will know his recommendation was unsolicited.

D21 has not yet been contacted for interviews at the few schools where she can not just schedule an interview herself. Hopefully, she will get interviews, but if not, oh well.

@JanieWalker Thanks for sharing all of the good news about your daughter and I am impressed by her initiative and professionalism in meeting with that professor. Self-advocacy will serve her well as she transitions to college.

There is some good news at our house as well - all EA apps have been submitted! Five down, five to go. All interviews that are under her control are done. Let the waiting game begin!

I am also so grateful that there is hope on the vaccine front and I can imagine that something resembling an in-person fall semester might happen for our kids. A tiny part of me even hopes that graduation ceremonies might take place this spring.

@JanieWalker hope things get less stressful now. Great job by your D. You have some company. My S is getting beat up in AP Calc and in danger of getting his first C. The teacher is let’s say - very high strung - very smart but inappropriately emotional and not effectively delivering the material (consensus). She can be helpful in office hours but it’s much harder during remote to get attention. Other kids dropped the class or are struggling but she is not grading on the curve apparently to simulate a college experience. Right now my son is working hard but feeling down about it. If he doubles down on self-study I hope he can pull a B. It’s been tough with the hail Mary ACT and all of the college essays in the mix this fall, so might be a little better going forward with the holiday breaks coming up. Bummer of a senior year so far.

One more short essay to do this weekend before he can break before a few RD reaches. S now has 10 apps in. Proud of him.

I’m so grateful to some friends with S20 who told me last year that they knew classmates who got into Stanford and not UCSB or UCSD. Thank goodness it’s been on the radar for us and that’s one reason we are applying to so many other schools. As I’ve said before I think it’s a total crap shoot and I felt very disappointed to learn that you have to include your gross income on the application even if you don’t want any aid or waivers.

DS got his ACT score yesterday (he had been trying to sit for the ACT since March) and made a 36. He has already submitted 14 applications and he quickly updated his scores at all of the schools that accept them this year, which I think was every college/uni except CalTech.

He would love to get into either CalTech or MIT and he expects to hear mid-December on those. If he gets into either, he will not submit any addl apps and just wait and see his final list, but if rejected at both he has about 5 more he wants to submit. Although he has a good selection already and I would not be surprised if he decides to just go with what he has submitted.

He has put in a lot of work on the essays and applications and happily this process is almost over.

Ugh, I am so sorry about your son’s teacher. It is not fair to work so hard and then have this one last giant stress right at the last minute.

Has your son tried some online resources for AP Calc? I don’t have any specific ones to recommend, but maybe one of the free online sites? AP Practice Exams dot com has a ton of free pdfs, maybe that would be helpful? Or something else online?

Thank you @JanieWalker. The teacher assigned some of the AP site work and videos to the class, so he’s done some of that. I have the Princeton workbook and he needs to do more in there I think. He tried Professor Leonard but that didn’t work well for him for some reason. He thinks he doesn’t have time, but he just needs to dig deep. I have to admit too that he was very distracted too by the election chaos.

Definitely. My sibling works at a HS in Georgia and the GC told her apps to UGA and GT are up and about half of them aren’t submitting test scores even though most have scores.

It’ll be tough for schools to decide with TO, spring junior grades being a hodgepodge, and ECs being cancelled/limited.

I hope he is able to get what he needs. The election distracted us too, and D21 is starting to feel burnt out with everything. I keep telling her she just has to make it until December 15, then she gets a break…and if she wants to let a bit of senioritis happen second semester and get a couple of Bs in the high school classes and let her sister take over the bulk of some of her extracurricular stuff during spring 2021 (they share duties in their main EC) then fine, she could use a more relaxed semester before college starts.

Tell your son it’s just five more weeks til the end of the semester - he can do it!

My D has only 2 more applications to go with a total of 3 essays and she is just running out of steam. I don’t think seeing the light at the end of tunnel for applications is helping her, and with school work really increasing she is just a bit overwhelmed. Additionally her school is likely going back to all virtual in the next 2 weeks which she is bummed about.

Congratulations to all whose kids have gotten amazing scores! And to those who have acceptances already!!

Does anybody think that with SAT/ACT being test optional that schools might look at AP scores more this year? I’m actually not sure if they really looked at them in the past to be honest, but my D seemed to think that her AP scores would be helpful to her overall application so she has been reporting them. Curious others thoughts on this.

I agree that is likely the case. Plus more kids applying widely because of so much uncertainty.

Since I’m in Northern VA, we normally have a lot of UVA applicants. Just looked at Naviance and it shows almost as many reporting applying at this point as was the total last year (and I think this year’s class is smaller). Interestingly, UVA says they don’t have quotas. But for the past 5 years they have accepted 48-50 every year, regardless of how many applied. So, yeah, pretty clear they have a quota for our school. S21 did apply EA but I don’t expect him to get in.

Congrats to all who are getting acceptances! Still waiting here. And, he’s working to get the JMU app and UDel Honors app in by Sunday. After that we’re down to just VT, due 12/1.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I’m still wondering how somewhat sketchy grades, but with rigor and sufficient test scores, will fare against the half of applicants without scores, but higher grades. I wonder what portion of test-optional apps have top grades and rigor - I was assuming a large portion.

Fellow parents of 18 year olds or almost 18 year olds - when your child turns (ed) 18 did you have them get an advanced directive and power of attorney. We are in the process of making some changes to will/trusts and just realized that when kids are 18 and most likely living away from home, should they have these documents - as morbid as it feels?

Maybe it will matter what the GC and teacher recs say? That could help a student with a little bit lower GPA if the recs are super positive about the student’s participation and leadership in the classroom. One of D21’s recs is coming from a science teacher who gave her a B, one of the few that she has. This teacher reached out to D and asked if she could write her a rec. So that grade, per se, won’t necessarily be what matters. What should matter is what that teacher has to say about her. Hopefully, your S has similar support!

We just had S19 sign a health care power of attorney at his doctor’s office here at home and then he also signed one at Bowdoin (even though we use private health care). He hasn’t done an advanced directive. We need to get back to our trust but we’ve been lazy.