My kid got out at 2:15 PM on Saturday. I finally parked the car and was literally walking over to give someone H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. I was angry. Door closed at 8 AM, finished checking people by like 9 AM and then held there to past 2 PM. One 10-minute break, one 5-minute break and two 2-minute breaks. Unbelievable.
SAT MC scores will be available on 9/6.
D21 got her schedule today and is freaking out. Somehow her late arrival was missed, and she managed to not have 1 person sheās friends with in any class OR lunch!! Oy. Waiting to hear back from the counselor.
We were really spoiled with S19 around as both he and S21 did XC. Practice is every day before school at 6am and S19 drove them. Well, S21 will not be eligible to test for his driverās license untilā¦ right after the season ends in November. So, hubby and I are on drop-off duty before heading to work.
I keep telling myself that by this time next year, Iāll be all āOUR BABY IS A SENIOR AND APPLYING TO COLLEGEā and to enjoy the early morning time in the car with him. Remembering that will help. And coffee. 
First day back for D21. She was scheduled to have shoulder surgery this Thursday so she could continue her fastpitch softball career as a catcher. However about a week ago we started to rethink the whole thing and decided against it. She isnāt really affected in activities of daily living and in fact she had been able to continue to hit and play positions that didnāt require the amount of throwing a catcher has to do. Plus she wasnāt planning on playing in college. She would be in a sling for 6 weeks and would most likely have to sleep in a recliner. Additionally from other folks we talked to the rehab from the surgery is difficult.
More importantly she has 4 AP classes and 2 honors this year so having her dealing with pain, trouble sleeping etc. in this most important Jr. year did not seem to make sense.
She is both disappointed and relieved. She spent lots of hours working on becoming a good catcher and she was going to make the varsity this year. She would also like to be able to thrown pain free. However, she is relieved because she was not looking forward to the pain, inconvenience and rehab.
Next up is PSAT in Octoberā¦
Ooh - @InfiniteWaves that is an early wake up call!
@burghdad Sounds like you guys made a good decision. Will she still try to play but in another position?
D21 is doing well, sheās happy with her classes ever since the principal helped her fix her schedule. She just signed up for her online spanish class yesterday so who knows how that will go.
We dropped D19 off at college this week, not sure how D21 is feeling about that yet since she spent the weekend at a friendās house. I donāt; think it will hit her right away but they are very close so I know it will be hard. She did say they have been snap chatting and testing a lot so that is nice.
@momtogkc Yes she will try to play 1B and LF where there is not as much throwing.
My D18 and D21 had a great summer together. It is funny how much closer they become as they grow older.
@momtogkc We dropped S19 off last week. S21 has been talking a big game about taking over the entire hall bathroom that theyāve been sharing. But I noticed that one of S19ās left-behind wall posters is now installed in S21ās room. Perhaps missing his big bro being around a bit more than he is letting on. They are close.
@InfiniteWaves Itās hard losing that extra chauffeur! Ours just left for college, too. So far our S21 doesnāt seem fazed by big brother being gone - thank heavens for texting, though. @burghdad, since she didnāt plan to continue catcher in college, sounds like a good decision since junior year is so tough, but Iām sure there will be some grieving.
S21 has already had the first 1-1/2 days absent - after a bout with pneumonia a few years ago, Every. Darn. Cold turns into a bronchial thing. Fortunately, there is lots of good communication with classmates and teachers, so hopefully he doesnāt fall behind. He really misses the discussions in his AP classes, though.
Loving all the updates.
Still waiting for school to start here on 9/3 and S21 is anxiously awaiting his schedule. I canāt believe they havenāt sent it yet! We got a preliminary one back in June just to confirm heās in classes he registered for but he wants to know his schedule. In the meantime, I was pleased that he decided to join the sound crew at our church (they run the audio/video during services) and has started training for that. He doesnāt do many extracurricular activities so nice to have him add something and this builds on his participation in theater tech (also sound crew) and a prior class in audio/video production. Also, got him registered for the Dec SAT test ā heāll be doing a class at school starting mid-Sept to prep for that test date.
In the meantime D23 does have her freshman schedule because they had orientation last week. She was relieved to learn one of her BFFs is in her āhouseā (freshman class is divided into 4 houses) and her homeroom. Sheās also been doing band camp for three weeks so sheās already making friends and getting used to the building so she doesnāt seem anxious about starting.
Wow. Nice to read all the updates. Been gone for a bit once they implemented this new layout. Got a tad frustrating so moved over to another online group which is also quite informative. D21 is now in her 3rd week of school. Already had a few quizzes and is loving everything. Says this year will be the best. Loves Honor Physics says favorite class (which is taught using the College Physic OpenStax text). Hummmā¦ school doesnāt offer AP level physics but reading what this text & class covers seems more than just a HS level honors class. Hopefully she will be OK since itās just Algebra based and the only Pre-req was the completion of Alg 2.
Iām hoping she will be OK come college application time hearing all your kids having so many AP classes. Our school limits students to 3 max (combo of honors/AP) and you just canāt go into a class like AP Chem without having Chem/H Chem first. I hope colleges really do only compare within each school.
@EGHopeful They really do compare within schools. They also get an information sheet for each school that lists out how many APs they offer, how many students are allowed to take and other information like that. Some schools post the information sheets online, I asked our Guidance Counselor and she gave me the sheet.
@EGHopeful As for AP science courses, our kids also cannot take the AP level until they take the honors equivalent first. What that means in practice is that most of them only get to one AP science course senior year. Only the more pointy science kids would take two AP science courses senior year but that means that they have to forgo either foreign language or social studies for senior year which, for most elite universities, is a no no. S19 only took one science AP. D21 will do the same. Our honors science classes are HARD and I think they alone prep the kids pretty well for college science.
Well, D had her first junior year breakdown Friday night. Iāve heard junior year is the absolute worst for emotions/stress, etc and it looks like it might be some truth to the rumor.
Admittedly, it was a crazy week - she had to be (back) at school until @9:00 or at work until @10:30p every single day. She came home from a party on Friday night and got her work schedule for next week and she just lost it. She was hoping to have Monday (Labor Day) off so she could go to the local Six Flags and ended up having to work. She didnāt ask for it off, but she doesnāt usually work on Mondays (obviously other kids did ask for it off), so she was really bummed and a lot of āwoe is meā followed.
Her classes seem OK in the grand scheme of things, I think it was just a really busy extra-curricular week which gave her an enormous time crunch.
She was actually really good on Saturday even though she was quite busy from about 10:00am to 10:00pm. Today - sheās got nothing on the agenda. Sheāll probably sleep half the day !
@3kids2dogs The stress of junior year is real. D has been stressing that her ADD meds are no longer working and she feels she is spinning her wheels in the evening while she is trying to study which further stresses her out as she feels she is wasting time and getting behind (she really is not behind but she sets unrealistic goals for herself) . Took her to the DRā¦ Dr thinks she anxiety is the real reason she canāt focus. So starting on low dose of Lexapro to see if this helps. She studies most every day now. The work load is so much more than 10th grade.
@homerdog Thanks so much! This has stressed me out so much over the last year. But her school is just so amazing I just couldnāt pull her out for that reason alone. Thanks everyone for the feedback and reassurance. Boy did I need that.
Nice to read all the updates. I am not checking in as much as I used to because I find I get too easily stressed about things now that itās junior year, and D21 doesnāt get stressed unless I am stressed.
This will be her second week of her three in-person college classes. Sheās had low Aās on the assignments thus far and she is adjusting to the faster learning pace and stricter grading policies. She loves it though. This is her first year taking classes for credit in-person, and she loves the group discussions and conversation. She likes her professors and enjoys getting to know all the people from all different backgrounds.
She also has three online APs through PA Homeschoolers and she feels good about them, though those courses are more time-consuming than the college workload so far.
Mainly the challenge this semester will be time management. Sheās in a competitive sport that takes up a lot of time, plus she is extremely involved in another sport that takes usually the equivalent of a full day every week. Then there is volunteering and her Girl Scout Gold Award which sheās trying to finish up, plus other little extracurricular things and then trying to fit in some fun time with friends each week. I used to be adamant about her getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night, but I donāt see that happening on a consistent basis this semester. 
If she can manage this semester well with the three college classes and the APs, then sheāll do fine next semester. If not, then Iāll reduce her courseload in January (two college courses instead of three).
Oh yeah, and then there are college visits to fit in - trying to revisit one or two a month. Not yet sure thatāll be possible, weāll see.
Good luck to everyone. Deep breaths and all that. I think next year will actually be a lot easier. I hope to have her complete most of the college application stuff over the summer, and her most difficult courses will likely already be out of the way, so if she can get through this year with good grades then sheāll be almost home-free. She wonāt slack off during 12th grade, but I think most of the stress will be over.
Anyway, again, cheers to all the teens out there and their supportive parents. Deep breaths. Iām rambling, sorry!
S21 is totally bummed out as today is the last day of summer vacay. Junior year officially starts tomorrow. A bunch of his classmates have already dropped APUSH based on the summer work alone. He is one of the nine left standing. He knows itās going to be a tough year but heās ready.
I keep reminding him that he chose his schedule wisely. S21 is literally following in S19ās (and my!) footsteps. Opting to play to strengths in order to keep grades up. Heās doing honors/AP humanities and college prep level math/science. Like his mom and brother before him, honors/AP everything would be a recipe for disaster. This approach proved super successful for S19 so S21 is feeling positive as he is targeting similar colleges.
On a really positive note, he was named captain of the XC team and hit a new personal record at the first meet last week.
Wishing all of our 21ers a great junior year! They got this! 
Week two of school almost done for us! Already had our first sleep through the alarm morning this morning. Anyone else on pins and needles waiting for their kid to check the CollegeBoard portal for SAT scores today? The August test was the first attempt for D21 and I am so looking forward to knowing these scores at least as a benchmark for merit aid possibilitiesā¦
OMG @mm5678 āScores Pending. Call us if you donāt have your scores in 3 weeksā AAGGGHHHHHH!!! Killing me!!!
Today is day 2 of school - D21 already freaking out over pre-calc. Apparently the teacher gave a scary speech to start the year and has her frazzled already! Ugh.