@MommaLue, thank you so much!
Best of fortune to your S21! Please come back when you’re free
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Thank you, @MommaLue. The advice is much appreciated. Best of luck to your S21.
It appears that merit scholarships for the HS class of 2021 at state schools has not been affected by budget issues. I wonder how next year will turn out for our kiddos in this regard.
Are your kids getting much in the way of college mail? My son is just totally overwhelmed by this process. Just doesn’t know where to start so he just does nothing. By this time with my D20 we had taken lots of tours so she had narrowed down what she was looking for. He doesn’t seem to want to look up schools on-line or do virtual tours. When he gets a cool piece of college mail he’ll at least take a look at it but we really haven’t received much so far. Most have just been letters. He’s signed up for mailing lists and has taken the PSAT with a decent score (over 1300). I know most people hate the marketing materials but my kids actually enjoy them.
No mail blitz for S22 here. That’s because his PSAT was postponed to January 26, and his November SAT was canceled. He’s off colleges’ radars. But we’ve got two specific schools as his targets, and he’s signed up for information from them.
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I wish we could send you ours. My S22 is getting a ton of mail, more than my D21, not sure why. He did do well on an SAT Subject test in Oct '19 so maybe that is it? But he requested no mail through College Board so it makes me wonder if they have other routes for mailing lists. He also did well on the PSAT and is signed up for the March SAT so it could be any of those. I wish it were more transparent or there was a way to unsubscribe from all. My son won’t look at them and he already pretty much has his list narrowed down.
So if there are schools you want him to look at, maybe sign him up, if you haven’t already? Or if you do a virtual tour, that will typically get you on the list.
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My D gets a fair bit of paper-mail via USPS. 95% of it goes in the garbage can on the way back from the mailbox.
The unsubscribe function seems to work fairly well for email.
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Just got an update from S22’s high school. They will not be administering the real PSAT Jan 26, because no in-person is allowed. They plan to offer an online practice one instead. Bummer.
On to the SAT in March, hoping that holds.
S22 is getting quite a lot of college mail, and as with @RichInPitt, we’re pretty much now recycling it instantly on arrival. S22 is increasingly focused on being in New York, so stuff like Macalester and Grinnell is of zero interest.
He’ll be taking the March SAT and just signed up for PrepScholar, which our D19 had great success with – she went from a 1300 to a 1490. I’m glad the program sets a study schedule with the student and then emails it to him and the parents, so everyone stays on track. His PSAT was quite solid, but I believe he has a good shot at a higher SAT score.
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Thanks for the mention of PreScholar. My D22 needs something like that. Her PSAT was not good (1040, actually went down from last year!) so I’m all up in a fret to get her to study. Which is difficult to do when she does school at home, and any friend she knows doesn’t really think about the SAT. If she was going to school as in normal times, I think the realness of the SAT would be there. She has a high GPA, but without a decent SAT score it doesn’t mean much. Do you get any referral credit if we sign up?
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Is it course selection time for your rising Senior?
S virtually met today with his school counselor and 35 other rising seniors (Hollywood Squares does course selection? lol ). He’s requested a computer networking course at another school; he’ll take the bus there so he’ll lose one period for transportation time. In addition, he’ll be taking Honors 12 English, AP Calc AB, AP Env Sci DE, US Govt Honors, and advanced orchestra.
Can’t quite wrap my head around that it’s senior year course selection time.
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It should be course selection time for us very soon too. 
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A high GPA actually means quite a bit. It’s more important than a test score in the admissions process. Even more these days.
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We just received an email that course selection will start soon, though not finalized until the first week of March.
I don’t think my D has realized that the one Physics C AP class and the one top-level, auditioned band class have met at the same period of the school day for the last 5 years and probably still will, so she’ll need to make a choice.
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I think course selection will start in early February here. Five classes are locked in because of IB. I’m pretty sure he will continue band too. That leaves one open spot for an elective. He’s considering AP computer science, AP Chinese, and auto repair.
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Good luck to your D, @jellybean5! Not sure about a referral credit—will look into it and DM you.
Haven’t heard anything about senior course selection yet and S22 just met with his adviser, so I imagine it’s not imminent.
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No word yet on course selection. May be in February. S22 has likely topped out in the Calculus progression (Calc AB), unless they add Calc BC next year. For math he’ll take AP Stats.
@RichInPitt I hope you’re right, but it didn’t seem that way when my D19 was going through this three years ago. For D19 there were over 230 kids with a GPA over 4.0 in her class in senior year, at her highly competitive HS. And she was only in the top 10%. D22 goes to a different HS, a public magnet w/ a class size of around 125. They don’t rank unless kid is in the top 6%, which means auto admit to U of Texas @ Austin, which is the flagship school in the system. So I have no idea how many kids have high GPAs, and how my kid stacks up to others in her class. It’s kind of frustrating. But it is what it is.
That doesn’t imply that it doesn’t mean much. Have you observed that a 2.5GPA and a 1550 SAT resulted in admission to elite schools? It hasn’t been my observation.
It may not sufficient, but it’s absolutely necessary.
True true. I am just having a little anxiety because D22 isn’t the greatest at standardized testing. I’m trying to drive the point into her at various angles, but I don’t want to her to shut down.
I’ve been watching the UT @ Austin acceptance situation on that forum board, it’s a mess. Their acceptance method is very stressful even for auto-admits. They have waves of acceptances for certain majors or groups that only get figured out by everybody chiming in, and others are left wondering if that means they aren’t getting in, etc. 
S22’s HS does not rank either, but we know he is tied for the highest GPA in a class of about 250 because he has all A’s and has taken the same AP and honors classes of the others in his class tied with him. There are probably 10-15 who are tied with him. But next year, in order to stay tied for the highest GPA, he’d have to take an AP elective he does not want to take. While being tied for the highest GPA would be nice, he would not be val or sal (which is decided by highest course average). We told him to take what he wants to take, rather than take a class he does not like just for GPA purposes.
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