Agree VT concerned me when I read about lay offs and restructuring of majors. EDIT: I thought you all were talking about Vermont not VA
Also, do we know if 2025ās are a larger or smaller class this year? Our school district has a senior class that is larger by 20% over last year.
@creaky in our district a homeschooled kid sometimes participate in elective courses, sports and ecs. There is a minimum number of classes they need to enroll in. So my guess is someone has seen the kid otherwise it must be a typo.
I think this is true. However, the nominations by the state education officer add quite a few as well. Iām curious about how the whole process works. I first read that, in the end, only 1 girl and 1 boy are selected from each state. But last year, there were 2 girls and 2 boys from CA (aside from the students selected for the other categories). So, there must be a bigger initial pool selected in CA, I would think.
@purplemama ā are you talking about Virginia Tech or Vermont? Just checking. I hadnāt heard about layoffs and restructuring of majors at Virginia Tech but maybe I missed it. Thanks for any info!
I donāt know how to post a link, but I googled it under Presidential Scholars. The top 20 boys/girls scores is how they set the score cut-off, then other groups can nominate kids, then they get 500 semi finalists, then more stuff happens to narrow it all down but I stopped reading. All I know is none of my kids were one!
It does say on the website that they figure the cutoff for the first 40 and then anyone else who has that score also gets nominatedā¦ so Iām thinking if the cutoff falls at 1580, all kids who score that or above get a nomination. We are in MA and definitely have more than 40 too.
@GetCollege19 Iāve wondered this as well, but also have heard there are a lot of schools that are doing Pass/Fail with grades again this year, so what do colleges do about that?
Our school didnāt have pass/fail last spring or this year at all. The only change to our grades last spring was that the state mandated that grades from q3 to q4 could not be lowered. So, whatever a student had for q3 they could not do any worse for their final grade than that. That actually helped the lowest kids since they had the biggest room for improvement and could vastly improve their grades, Kids already at the top who had like an A- or B+ had less room to go up and couldnāt really go up that much because there were few new assignments given since schools were closed for a few weeks initially plus spring break, and they closed early and had no finals. So if you had an A you were in the best shape, and if you were a bottom feeder and cared about an opportunity to go from a C or D all the way to a B or higher it was easy. But regardless, everyone wouldāve preferred to go in person.
Second semester, no changes to grades at all other than students who would have received a D or F instead earned an Incomplete and have to make up work to earn a C I think. Otherwise no accommodations were given. I donāt know if kids at the top did better, the same, or worse. Other than how my own kid did.
Our high school kids had regular grading scale this last semester and I think grades were pretty much distributed as expected for most kids. D21 did well even though the rigor was still tough (I could compare it to S19 since itās almost all of the same classes and even some of the same teachers.) She had to work hard for her grades. D is very organized and self motivated and that was even more important this time since they were mostly virtual. Kids who struggled with online classes really saw drops in their GPAs. I tutor math and some of my students were struggling way more than usual. So, I would say a certain type of student was able to hold it together and still do well but the kids who really needed to be in school had a rough go of it.
Hi all! Congratulations to all of the acceptances this week - things are really starting to move now. D was deferred from Richmond and accepted to Boulder. Boulder has been her top choice all along, but now that she got in she says she is not ready to commit 100%. I know it is still her favorite and she says she is sure she will end up there but it is scary to make the decision. D19 did the same thing but I thought D21 would be different. The first person she face timed was her sisterās BFF who goes to Boulder and not her sister so I think that is a good sign.
Oh, and if any of you remember the store of D21ās friend who I was helping with her college stuff, the one who was afraid she wouldnāt get in to any college, she is now at 1 rejection (ED big reach), 1 deferral and four acceptances including Boulder!! I am so excited for her. We donāt know how the finances will work out yet but what a great confidence boost.
Out of curiosity I just looked at the Presidential Scholar thing and we had the same situation with a kid nobody has heard of. I will have to look in the yearbook later but I have five girls here right now and none of them have heard of one of the people.
@homerdog Thanks for the insight! I wondered and thought that too but wasnāt sure. This kid (my 4th) is in the same Senior courseload as my other 3, but it doesnāt seem like heās had to do as much work as they had and hasnāt stayed up all hours like they used to. But, he has never been like that, so I didnāt now if it was that those teachers werenāt assigning as much, or if it was still just him. His grades didnāt change from any prior semester, so also hard to know and itās not like I was going to go up to someone and say āhey, what are your kidās grades?ā. Heās my chill baby. It has made me worry that he wouldnāt be prepared for AP Exams but he let me know last week that he is ready and reviews regularly and to back off!!! So, I guess I will and youāve helped reinforce that as well, so thanks!
Kids in our district could chose either 1) a letter grade based on either grade as of when they ended in-person or through end of year or 2) pass/fail.
Iām surprised more colleges arenāt asking for 7th semester grades, or, maybe that is exactly why there seems to be more deferrals and less acceptances right now.
I think it must be difficult for AOs this year because first applicant may have full set of grades + test scores + numerous ECs Freshman-Jr year before COVID (and maybe a number of them could continue post COVID in some form). Second applicant may not have full set of grades due to different district policies for COVID + be TO + maybe was just starting to get into ECs or their ECs were impacted by COVID (and wrote in COVID impact box they planned to do XYZ but couldnāt because of COVID).
How do you compare the two? It seems it would be easier to say yes on the first one with the ācompleteā picture and I say āI need more time and informationā on the second student. D21 is like first case and has received no deferrals nor rejections and the remaining one hasnāt released any decisions yet.
I know it is still her favorite and she says she is sure she will end up there but it is scary to make the decision. D19 did the same thing but I thought D21 would be different. The first person she face timed was her sisterās BFF who goes to Boulder and not her sister so I think that is a good sign. 