Students taking the SAT on Saturday should consider taking a practice test while wearing a mask. May sound like a small thing but it could help.
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Hey all. Popping in to say hi, I havenāt been around much. This is my D22ās spring break week, we should be having fun, but Iāve been busy trying to help said kid figure out what she should major in. Also, freaking out about the SAT which is going to be administered in school on 3/24. I bug her about studying for the SAT, but she gets annoyed when I do that, so itās that kind of problem. I offered her a deal, that if she does well enough on this test in March that she doesnāt have to take it again, Iāll give her that amount of money ($70?, IDK). She gets motivated by stuff like that, lol. Anyway, if she takes it now, doesnāt do as well as she wants and has to take it again, itās not a big deal. I figure she can take it in the early June sitting. Iām just going to have to let her do it her way. She hasnāt done a practice SAT yet, I should suggest it to her for later this week.
Registered for 3 AP exams, yāall reminded me of what a nightmare that was last year. I kind of forgot. D22 wants to take them online, and her APUSH teacher is telling them to take it at home too.
We did our first Zoom campus tour yesterday, I hoped that would be a kick in the rear to study for the SAT. It worked, kind of. The students who ran the tour were great, it was pretty interesting. We actually toured this school, University of Texas in Austin, three years ago for my D19, so at least D22 has actually toured. D22 went on a lot of college tours back then, so glad we got to do it in person then!
D22 wants to stay close-ish to home, which would be great. D19 is OOS and itās honestly a PITA. It would be so much easier to be able to drive there and back instead of the logistics of flying and moving things, storage, etc.
Question: I should actually know the answer, but I donāt remember. When do these kids ask teachers for letters of recommendation? Is it soon, in the spring, or in the fall? 
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Good idea.
Hi welcome back, what a different world than your D19 search! The timing for asking for recs tend to vary by teacher and by school - our large public school will not allow requests before the first day of school in the fall. And then it is important to do so ASAP because the popular junior year teachers can put caps on how many they will do. But I imagine maybe at smaller/private schools, they might ask earlierā¦?
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My daughter is asking her teachers about recommendations at the end of this school year.
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Same here for my S22. (My D19 asked in May of Junior year.)
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What is the NCAA clearinghouse?
Yeah I think asking before the end of this school year is reasonable for my Dās school. They can always say to ask again in the fall if the time is not ācorrectā I guess. D19 went to a large public, D22 goes to a public magnet w/ only 125 kids per cohort/grade. So whatever D19 did isnāt necessarily what D22 can do, so Iām usually questioning myself.
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My son has kept his Aās, but has given a decidedly unenthusiastic academic performance so far this year. Heās afraid his current teachers would return his level of effort on any recommendations, lol. He is going to wait until next year to get his recs.
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Wise to think fresh for each kid. My kids go to the same school but I can see already how different this process is going to be for my S22 vs my D21. Such different kids!
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Students have to be certified with the NCAA Clearinghouse to be able to play at the D1 or D2 level in college. It determines your academic eligibility to play in college (2.3 gpa) and insures that the player is an amateur. It costs $90 to register. No official recruiting activities can take place until the Clearinghouse certifies the student athlete.
Found a random website that gives a good overview:
S22 found the practice test scores were pretty well lined up with the real thing. He scored at the top end of what practice tests were showing. I think maybe he was just slightly more focused on the real test so eliminated silly mistakes. But when you look at each section and the range of scores on practice tests, the real score was near the upper end of that range. Good luck to your daughter!
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How do they decide which teacher to ask? Should he pick someone who teaches a STEM class if heās leaning STEM? Does it always have to be a teacher of a class heās in? His coach for robotics wrote him a rec for the Rose Hulman camp and said heād be happy to write for colleges too. He is a teacher at the high school and S22 had him in 9th, but not since. He does interact with him many times a week for robotics though.
As long as her grades fall within the average range for admission, her swimming will be a plus as the coach can support her application. It doesnāt hurt to fill out the recruiting formsā¦you never know what might come of them! Thereās also good info over in the athletic recruiting section of CC.
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The advice I have heard about recommender selection is that it should be a core academic teacher from junior year and then from those they should pick the teachers they think will rave about them the most.
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Hi Iām a hs 21 student and I thought I could answer your questions! I recommend that he ask teachers that know him well. These letters are supposed to shine a light on some great things about the student and provide another lens for colleges to use when reviewing an application. I used letters from teachers that I had had multiple times.
He should also try and get teachers that teach core subjects like math, english, history, etc.
One of the schools I applied to actually emailed me and told me that the teacher rec I had submitted might not be a good choice because they wanted letters from core class teachers and I had one from an elective teacher. I did still get in but better safe than sorry usually.
You also donāt have to use letters from teachers a student has currently. One of my letters was from a past teacher that Iād had my sophomore year.
There is a spot on the Common App that allows you to submit rec letters from people like coaches, other teachers, clergy, etc. So your student may want to submit it there instead.
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Thanks! That all makes sense and Iāve probably read that somewhere too, lol.
S22 is going to talk with UC Irvine and Skidmore in addition to NYU, Syracuse and Cooper Union at tonightās college fair. I hope he engages actively and something strikes his interest. While he assures us heās taking the process seriously, heās just not a college-search enthusiast. Heās been mentioning NYU for months but had never once looked at the website until last night, for example. Iām not really worried about it, itās just a different attitude. But heāll need to ramp up his activity soon.
Heās pretty blasĆ© about Saturdayās SAT ā said he has plenty of time to take it again. And he doesnāt seem to care much that he didnāt get a lot out of PrepScholar. As you said, @Luanne, I hope his score will be at the upper end of his practice range. It would be nice for the SAT to be a boost for him even in the test-optional world, rather than a waste of time.
He chose his courses for next school year. AP Statistics, AP Human Geography, an honors English class called Stranger in a Strange Land (which I believe is thematic, not just studying that book), an engineering elective that should be helpful if he decides to pursue architecture (he took one sophomore year as well), and honors psychology. Stats rather than calc wonāt help with architecture applications, but calc isnāt a strict prerequisite. Heād have to take it in college, though. Anyway, I hope itāll be a stimulating schedule for him ā always good to remember that learning and growth are the goal, and college will in some ways take care of itself. Heāll get in somewhere that will give him a good education and a good start.
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Can you share a link to that college fair?
As for recs, I was on a college panel at our high school with a few college AOās (including Northeastern and Clemson among others). They said that normally they would want junior year teacher recs but because this is such a strange year for many students, they would be okay with sophomore year recs as well if you felt those teachers knew your student better.
S22 will be taking the SAT this weekend as well. It will be his second time. He wants to raise his score about 70-80 points, as he was not satisfied with the first one. Weāll see. Heās quite confident, as usual.
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