I completely understand you wanting her to get those life lessons from working but this is a specific period of time to help her college app and she will have the rest of her life to work, haha.
Also, many kids learn about responsibility from working in high school but I am going to venture to say based on everything you just listed that she has accomplished that she is already quite responsible! 
I don’t know A & M well. I might ask on that forum for more perspective. If she only has two years of the language, I would strongly encourage at least a third. It is possible that she will be fine either way, but I tend to think – what if this is the factor that keeps her from getting in? Will that be okay for her and for you?
I am pro kids working. Our approach is to encourage (require) a summer job. Is that an option?
My son is applying to that as well. It looks like a great camp! Hopefully his application is finished soon and we hear back quickly.
Very cool! We’re doing Operation Catapult second session, first one will run too close to his younger sister’s 8th grade graduation. Plus hopefully vaccines are prevalent in the population then as well. Fingers crossed for your son.
We’re still debating 1st or 2nd session. The first is right after school ends for the summer. It leaves more continuous weeks open, which makes other things easier to plan, but he’s not thrilled with no break from school to camp. He’s waiting on his teacher to finish up the recommendation so he can submit. Should be soon.
He listened to the chat about the camp last weekend and came away excited by it. He only listened to it because I made him, so this was a win, lol.
LOL, that’s great he came away from the chat excited. I did the same with S22, they had a similar chat a couple months ago. Gotta see what it’s about, right?!
Dropping in from the 2021 group (I also have two '19s.) IMHO, don’t take study hall. My recommendation would be a 3rd year of the same foreign language. Check requirements, but some schools DO require 3 years. Why close those doors?
DD’s high school has decided to give students a choice to take AP exams either online or with normal paper format in school. We can choose different formats for different exams, but we only have until 3/1 (Mon) to make the decision. There are some differences between the two formats. For the online version, students won’t be able to return to answered questions or move back-and-forth between unanswered questions
DD has 4 AP exams:
Calc BC: I am advising her to take it on paper. I can’t imagine typing out all the formulas.
AP Lang: online seems better since she can type faster with a keyboard than writing on paper
AP Bio: we are leaning online for the same reason as AP Lang
APUSH: the formats differ more. The online option does not allow choices of SAQs. There won’t be any LEQ. Instead students will do 2 extra SAQs. DD seems to lean towards online just for the reason of able to type out answers.
Any other families in the same situation? opinions on the above exam choices?
I’m hoping that all of staff will get vaccinated by mid April so we can get a couple of weeks in only for the in-person AP exam. The online one has too many barriers just to prevent cheating. Kids can’t got back to double check or change answers. That alone is not worth the online version for me. There’s no world where I take any test and not go back and review or change my answers some times.
Hi everyone! My youngest will be graduating with your kiddos and thought I’d join in this chat.
Also trying to figure out the in-person vs. on-line option for AP testing. She’ll be taking 4 tests and may do a combination, depending on the subject.
She took APUSH at home last year (1 LEQ) and did well, but she was fortunate and felt like she lucked out, getting the prompt that she did.
I have to say, that it was very stressful to do at home. The fear of the wi-fi going out, having a back-up “jet-pack” charged, having a back-up for the back-up…My husband left the house, but I stayed in the car with our dog in our driveway (no bark zone), to ward off any delivery drivers that may ring our doorbell during her test.
It’s still a little too fresh to completely laugh at our craziness, but I’m getting there! : )
Did she take any exams last year? If so, how did that go?
No AP here this year, but my son had 3 last year and it was stressful worrying about things like the internet,etc. as @2018_2022mom said. I emailed my other 2 kid’s teachers to tell them they would not be in their zooms at those times because of the AP testing. And my husband put himself in a work meeting on his calendar so he was not online either. In the end, it worked fine for us, but it was worrisome at the time!
Also, going between where he was writing his Lang essay and where the prompt and info was was a little tricky. Having a paper packet might have made that smoother in general.
Typing instead of handwriting an essay would be a huge benefit to me, so Lang and Bio make sense for that. I think for APUSH it would really depend on confident she is to be able to answer whatever SAQ is there instead of being able to choose her strongest.
Good luck choosing!
One thing I’ll add that my daughter mentioned in terms of making her decision re: AP test changes… she said that last year, a lot of kids reported having issues with uploading pictures of their work. I don’t know all of the specifics, but it was obviously done towards the end of the testing timeframe when their work was complete. The kids ran into some sort of glitch, the image wasn’t uploaded and it was GAME OVER for them.
Hopefully, this year will be different, but she is leaning towards doing AP CHEM in person, due to that concern.
My son just applied today for Operation Catapult… session 3! It looks so fun and such a nice alternative to more zoom classes. I hope it’s able to run!
DD took 2 AP exams last year and did well. For AP Euro, she liked the aspect of typing out her DBQ answer instead of writing on paper. For AP Chem, there was a stressful moment while she was submitting photo answer for her last question. It took quite a bit longer than submitting answer for her first one.
I am sending our school district an email and asking to see if we can try out the College Board AP exam application on our computer before making a binding decision which format we want to go with.
Thank you all for your input.
My son had 5 AP exams he took online last year. They were two parts (two uploads). Did all the system prep. We all got offline to free up the bandwidth for him. First exam no prob. Third to fifth exams, no problem. Clearly, system issues didn’t exist with our computers. The second exam Physics, however, he was able to upload the first answer but couldn’t upload the second one with 5 minutes remaining. We recorded the entire event as he desperately tried everything, only to see the clock wind down. He also contacted them ASAP and also sent to his teacher with time stamp just in case.
If that was your child and if you’ve ever taken AP yourself, let alone physics, you know how aggravating it can be. I had never been so angry at the way CB handled it. Their excuses, their lack of empathy. My son was not the only kid that had this problem and as you saw kids report their issues, you just had to hurt for them. I told my son not to retake it because I know I personally wouldn’t want to subject myself to torture for AP physics twice. Luckily, he got a 3 from the one answer he was able to submit. That’s good enough for many of the colleges he’s apply to. Depending on where he gets in this year, we may just skip the exams all together if they’re digital only for his school. Just not worth it.
I am so sorry that happened to him and to you! What a nightmare!
I think it was such a mistake for them to throw together something so quickly last year. And then to be so rigid about it.
Hopefully he gets in where he wants and this can become a “funny” story in…20-30 years!
I am so sorry about what happened to your son with the AP test. CB definitely did not test their software well last year.
Christinelin, that was exactly our experience with daughter #2 (also an engineer!) down to the Discover card 
My husband also cosigned a very small car loan for her so she could build credit that way (she could have paid cash, but needed the credit.) Our oldest did have student loans, though she was never an authorized user on our credit card, and she ended up with excellent credit.
Re: APs, our neighborhood school limits them too in the early years. None freshmen year, and one soph year. My daughter would have done two this year, but then we switched to homeschool, and she has only done one. I’m looking at a potential senior year schedule though, and it could be heavy on the APs.
@kcdia11 , D22 is interested in Cornell, but it would be a serious reach for her. The virtual visit was nice, but have not seen it in person.
@sfSTEM Congrats to your son on the summer program! I do think most schools will be test optional next year, for better or for worse. It’s unfortunate for the students for whom testing is a strength. D22 is scheduled for May here, but it will be her second sitting. May is such a busy month typically between APs and end of school events, but probably not as intense this year, so that will help.
@songbirdmama We will cross our fingers that your daughter gets her test! I think the odds are in your favor! Test optional would have been a distinct disadvantage for my D16, so I understand the nerves.
@vistajay I think you are right on with your assessment about what might end up to be important for our '22 applicants. Essays will likely take on exceptional importance this year as well. They are always significant, but even more so now.
@O_Munroe (coming from the perspective of having seen two of mine through selective college apps, one in engineering, but not entirely sure how competitive A&M engineering admission is), my opinion is that if working is not entirely necessary, I’d probably opt to have her do a third year of a language and the AP Comp Sci. There are a lot of variables though, and it depends on what kind of job we are talking about. I definitely would not do study hall.
@stepclap To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what options our neighborhood school is offering yet! They are just getting back in the building in two weeks for the first time this year. I think I’d prefer in-person for my daughter, as hers will be AP Lit. She did just okay during last year’s virtual APUSH exam. Your idea of “try before you buy” is a good one!
For anyone who remembers my ankle saga, I should be back on my feet next week, hallelujah! D22 finished up ski season and, much to my surprise, has decided to play spring soccer. She has not played soccer for, oh, probably 7 or 8 years. I’m pleased, as it should allow her to meet some different people and mix up her social life a bit. She is still homeschooling, but does all her sports with the neighborhood school team. Her German class is with the school too, and they go back in two weeks for the final quarter. Should be interesting to see how “in-person” plays out. Oh, and she decided to quit the coffee shop job after seven months there. They seemed sorry to see her go and gave her a little send off with parting gifts! That was nice. She is hoping to shadow a PT this summer, and has her little jewelry business that she wants to spend more time on.
Side note, my D16 is in the middle of grad school application season and it is SO weird to be totally hands off there, lol.
S22 heard from Rose-Hulman for Catapult today. He is excited to be accepted! I’m so glad we found something that looks so fun and meaningful and in-person. We’ll do a Purdue tour on the way down, most likely. He ended up picking session 2, just to have some time after school gets out to relax a bit.
He is also signed up to be a Leadership Intern (Camp Counselor) at Camp Invention in our town. It is also set to run in-person in July. He’s done that before, plus 3 years of Intern-in-Training, and attended it for most of elementary school.
I’m so excited that summer may look much better than it did last year.
Very cool, congrats! Our boys will be in the same Catapult session. My S22 wants to do something with computer science, sounds like a Python project. We’re in California, we will fly out a few days early. Would like a Rose-Hulman campus tour.