Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 2)

It really is weird to marry and have baby with someone with that much age difference. Even at 51 I am so tired of this college process and how he will do it when he is 77?

So sorry that this happened so close to vaccination after managing almost a year without getting covid.

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I am sorry that this happened.

@evergreen5 100%! Our “safety and match” at some of in-state UCs seems iffy especially with test blind. I think UCLA would’ve been a stretch but I can imagine the increase.

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Same for my D21. Who knew?

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They’re not married - he didn’t want to get married. She lives with him, though. I don’t think the baby was expected, at least not by him. He had always been adamant about not wanting more kids and having a retirement where he could constantly travel and do things. I think this was a tactical move on her part quite frankly in order to secure her own future and finances. That being said, I do wish that baby well. Whatever the faults and issues of the parents, the baby is an innocent and deserves a nice life.

@GoldPenn, that is nuts regarding U of FL. What the heck? Students of history are going to look back and shake their heads about SO MANY THINGS.

And YES, @evergreen5, I am worried! This seems to be the most difficult year ever to have a kid apply to a highly selective college.

@janiewalker I’m with you in that you don’t have to go through that period of time all over again with a baby, etc. I hope however, for the sake of that baby, he sticks around. Especially if they’re married.

My ex husband and I are both remarried. I married someone about 10 years older, who’s kids are in their 30’s and have nothing to do with us, which is fine. My ex remarried someone who is his age but had never been married, so they wound up having 2 kids, even though at the time he didn’t want to have more. The age difference between our oldest and his youngest is 15 years. The difference between our youngest and their oldest 8. I’m so happy I wasn’t going through that phase again. At 50 who wants to have an 8 and 10 year old? Not me! My daughters like to babysit for them (they’re girls), my sons are not overly interested in them. They can be loud and whiny as girls are. But, they’re family and I’m sure they can’t imagine life without them now. Unfortunately for my kids, as much as they love their dad, there are plenty of things regarding them I think are complete oversights and he just doesn’t think about including them in. I don’t think it’s purposeful, he just doesn’t think about it and how it impacts them. They’re getting better about being direct about asking but not always. But bottom line is they all get along and I’m so happy that soon I will be an empty nester, free to visit my kids at school or elsewhere anytime I want, travel anytime I want (post covid), and live life.

It will all work out and you and your daughter(s) will come out great!!

Getting pregnant and not being married btw, wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do because it doesn’t secure her future and finances at all. If they’re not married and he dies, it’s not like she gets anything (unless he leaves it to her in a will), it would be split between all his heirs most likely. Anyway, don’t worry about it now, there isn’t anything you can do, and fortunately it’s not your problem, it’s his and who knows how long he’ll stick around, especially if he feels she trapped him.

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Same here. It’s been a really difficult semester for my S. I won’t get into the details but let’s all hope he pulls off Bs in his two hardest APs for mid-year report. Next semester he will need to step up from day 1 and learn the material in AP Physics independently as his teacher is apparently ineffective and the whole class is suffering. I think the teacher is frustrated too as he got stuck with the class when someone else left. He even just didn’t show one day of remote.

He’s got finals next week and is really burned out but hanging in there. It feels like there should be a break after since he worked a lot during the holidays. We aren’t allowed to travel anywhere for a getaway weekend right now. I don’t think he’ll care much about graduation but I hope he can take the April college tour trip. We had also hoped to visit closer schools Presidents Day weekend but we may still be under total lockdown then. It’s hard not to be able to promise something fun to look forward to. Just all study, all the time is what he sees in front of him. At least he won’t have any homework weekend after next. Working on the grit :muscle:

I read here on the forums that some schools aren’t even having final exams. I hope that colleges know of the differences in policies. Like someone said above, some teachers are handling things better than others. I did contact admin to make sure that the workload is spread more evenly in spring instead of the teachers all trying to catch up in the second half of the semester. It was nice application-wise but he and his AP level peers really paid for it after Thanksgiving.

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@NateandAllisMom I hope everything goes well for your son. I feel for him, and for the other students who have to deal with ineffective teachers. At the same time, I feel for a lot of teachers too - the ones who are doing their best, anyway. My daughter got behind in physics because of her own damn fault, so I don’t have much sympathy for her being completely stressed last week. For those teens who are doing all they can and don’t have great teacher support for whatever reason – well, that sucks.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am so tired of the stress that I hope my youngest only wants to apply to five schools or less, and all super safeties. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but one can dream.

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Thanks.

I cannot put all of the blame on his two teachers. In calc S had her before and knew her issues. He had two late assignments for which he received zeros. He didn’t go to some of her office hours which was key to success with her last year.

He was also very distracted by all of the political stuff I know and we’ve had some serious talks about that being a time suck.

He fell behind in an elective but that teacher was busy doing the school’s IT for the first half of the semester and then assigning massive catch up work. I feel badly for that teacher. The school has students doing remote in China and other countries and went back & forth remote and in person.

Honestly some of the culmination was due to the teachers but some was burn out and distraction. I’ll be happy for him to get a fresh start on spring semester. He’s a good natured kid so should bounce back with some relief.

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My son’s AP Physics C teacher is somewhat useless, so he has found his own resources to use to study for tests and the AP Exam. He mainly finds videos online of other teachers/professors at colleges teaching the content and studies that way. It seems to have helped him with Mechanics. Not sure how it will go this semester with E&M which seems to be much harder for my kids for whatever reason.

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On another topic, I’ve been looking for news about the RD round but it seems pretty quiet. I’m really curious about the numbers and make up of applications.

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I kind of don’t want to know. My knowing won’t change anything for my teen who has already applied. Maybe after she hopefully gets in to her ED2 choice (fingers crossed) or a few match schools, I’ll want to know out of curiosity. Right now I am just happy planning my own solo vacation this summer. It’s going to be me, the moose, maybe a bear or two, and a nice campsite far from the college admissions process.

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I feel for your S and all of those with similar situations (burnout, inconsistent teacher or learning demands, unpredictability, etc.) I honestly admire all of them for doing the best they can. I tell my S repeatedly that I can’t imagine how hard it is to be motivated with all what is going on locally, state wise and nationally. It’s a lot for all of us adults and we at least have more developed coping mechanisms in place and greater sense of control overall than 17 year olds, etc.

S has one online class with FLVS and it’s pretty much teach yourself Calc. But he has risen to the occasion more than we anticipated. (He’s actually brought his B up to an A now that college apps and essays are no longer competing for his time and attention.)

He is frustrated by his peers though bc they continue to make self centered decisions about socializing, etc. They keep inviting him to go out to eat, bowl, etc and he is like, “Why do they keep doing these things and why do they keep asking me when I’m going to tell them ‘No’, but it still hurts to not be with them?”

Oh and he spontaneously announced a (like I inferred and posted yesterday) that he doesn’t care nor want to walk at graduation. I assumed as much and he confirmed it. I told him whatever he ultimately decides I will support.

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E&.M by its very nature is more difficult than mechanics. It was my hardest class in HS, and that’s coming from a STEM major in college.

@GoldPenn Interesting. So, the teachers must be present in their lecture hall, but do the students? At our HS, Friday’s are remote for all of our HS students. However, I believe the teachers instruct from their classrooms.

That’s reassuring. My oldest I know completely checked out, my next two I think just didn’t pay attention at all and only got 2’s on the AP. One only needed a 3 and she would have been done with all science in College. Now she is stuck taking Geology next semester. Lucky for her that her program changed their requirements this year and it could be any science. It originally was 2 sciences in the same field, so she was going to have to take a second Physics course to go with Mechanics, but it could have been a basic one since she’s in Business not Stem. The other one had to retake E&M and took it last summer, turned out to be all asynchronous, a total ripoff because it had to be a real college approved by her University and was really expensive, but thank god that basic E&M foundation helped her. Who knows with this one but I guess depending where he winds up, he will know what he needs and which courses he will want to focus on since he has to take 4 of them and they may not all count. But Physics is a huge time suck in college too with the lab so that’s something to consider.

The other problem this year is we’ve been 100% remote and earliest they will return is April and only to ehybrid so by then seniors are basically done and AP tests are soon thereafter and who knows how much of a disadvantage, if any, these kids will be compared to kids that have been in person most if all year?

If you do not mind me asking, if they got a 2 on the AP exam, what was the score in the class itself?

@srparent15 You and I appear to be living parallel lives to some degree (and are on many of the same threads). My daughter wants to study Psych and was a 95 student in her AP Psych class but got a 2 on the AP exam. That was her first online AP exam, and she had an issue entering the required statement about cheating. After 3 devices and 3 browsers, she was finally to enter/submit the statement. She was so distraught the first 30 minutes of the exam, she totally botched it, and will now have to take the class all over again in college (though I suspect it will help boost her GPA).

I think AP’s this year will be another disaster this year. I’m not sure of this statement’s accuracy, but apparently, the college board said they expect students to test based on the content required in prior years. Yet, some teachers have a hard time getting through all of the content in this remote environment.

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The statement is 100% accurate, other than the announced change to AP Physics 1. The exams will also be the full 3 hours.

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