@Ivylege my D23’s biggest EC is karate. She’s been doing it since age 7, and is at the karate school 5-6 days a week. At her age and as a black belt, she is also an assistant teacher and a do-whatever-the-senseis-ask-you-expert (even cleaning the bathrooms, ha)!
At school, she is in several clubs, but they don’t take nearly as much time as karate (art club, French club, anime club,…and one other club that she doesn’t particularly like but goes because she is supporting a friend who has to go - I don’t think that particular activity is going to last long term for D23, though)! She is working on starting 2-3 other clubs, but that seems to be a long process at her school.
Outside of organized activities, her absolute passion is watching and reading all things k-pop (Korean pop music) related…lots of fun and 9th grader shrieks and giggles as a result of that activity. ?
@Ivylege my Freshman S23 twins are both in Marching Band…that EC takes up pretty much all their time in the late summer and fall! With the Spring semester starting, one has debate this term, we’ll see how he likes it. The other is looking for some science related EC’s and/or club at school or possibly something over the summer he can get involved in and is also joining StuCo.
Twin 1 wants to major in aerospace engineering, and wants to get his private pilots license. My husband is a commercial pilot and a FAA flight instructor, he’s going to be giving our son flight instruction and ground school starting this spring.
My freshman S23 is in basketball and band this year. Next year, he will be dropping band and looking to join Robotics or coding/computer science clubs. Not sure if he will pursue anything else. He didn’t have a stellar first semester but I am still happy with it considering his first year in band and basketball consumed a lot of his time (7 classes - 4 As, 2 Bs and 1 C (English)). In his defense, he really hasn’t had good English teachers in middle school and has been exclaiming how good his teacher is this year - says he is really learning a lot from her. We had an IEP meeting for his ADD and executive functioning issues, and the teachers are really pleased with his participation and eagerness to learn. Fingers (and toes) crossed for improvement!
Question - are any 23s showing an interest already in prep courses for SAT/ACT tests? My son has asked to do prep courses over the summer.
@JaceyK Neither D14 nor D19 took an SAT prep course so it’s not something I’ve thought about for S23. Both girls self-studied and took lots of practice exams under timed conditions. In any event, I will wait to see how he does on the PSAT 10 next spring before making a decision.
@Ivylege S23 is involved in varsity tennis, ice hockey, baseball, and band. He is considering running for student council this spring, his big brother was very active in student leadership, and is rubbing off on him. He may end up being a recruited athlete in baseball, but who really knows, he doesn’t turn 15 until the end of June.
School started back up today, and we have 5 days until finals. Fun stuff!!
S23 is in basketball, robotics, and jazz band. Up until now, the balance has been fine. The problem is they are entering build season for robotics. He has basketball practice or a game M-F, and on game days he is required to stay for the varsity game. That means he is sometimes at the school 7 am-8 pm. While this is usually fine, robotics will start meeting several times a week so things could get hairy. Basketball ends late February so hopefully the crazy schedule will only be temporary.
Once spring season rolls around he plans to do rugby, but the commitment is much less than basketball (I hope!).
@JaceyK
S23 is not interested in SAT/ACT prep yet. D20 was just accepted to her ED school, so I’m still recovering from dealing with her search/application process. S23 got an intimate view of the college application grind from her, and I think he is trying to delay thinking about it a bit longer!
We will probably wait until summer Soph year. D20 did a Princeton Review in-person (8 weeks, I think) course after disappointing first SAT and ACT scores. It turned out to be a complete waste. Her scores barely improved. She said the course was so unhelpful that we didn’t even bother to take PR up on their “score improvement guarantee” and go again. Instead, I talked to friends who had great success with a one-on-one tutor so we hired him for ACT prep. He was fabulous! He identified her strengths and weaknesses, and devised a plan around that. Her ACT score improved several points, and hit her target. It was worth every penny!
This time, we will go straight to the private tutor for S23 if he needs it.
Hi! My first time here, I’ve been spending more time on the class of 2021 group because I have an S21 in addition to D23. On the EC question…D23 does marching band and symphonic band and had been fencing for a few years but took a break to make time for band and then tried winter track. She didn’t like track – and had a lot of trouble balancing the practice times + class work so she’s dropping track and will go back to 2x a week fencing practice and just make time to run on her own.
Freshman year has been really challenging, esp. getting off to a rough start because band was a lot on top of taking the highest level classes in all subjects. I’ve been encouraging her to drop down in at least one subject after this semester but she’s convinced she can handle it without the daily track practices. So, holding my tongue for now. Keep reminding myself S23 had a really bad freshman year but turned it around and is now a nearly straight-A student. Still, if she has a C in Intensified Algebra 2/Trig at this end of this semester, we’re having a serious talk w/ the teacher about switching her to regular Algebra 2!
@JESmom Another fencing parent here! My D17 fenced from middle school on, and is now fencing a college team. If you think your D23 has any interest in fencing beyond HS and has questions, let me know! There’s a great board here on CC for college fencing recruiting as well.
As for my S23, his ECs are band, parkour, and drama. He was a lead in most of the school plays and musicals in middle school, and is just starting with practice for the spring musical.
I’d be shocked if S23 proactively asked to do PSAT prep, but we’ll have him do some this summer so before they do a practice run PSAT next year.
@stencils Thanks! I think she would like to be part of a casual fencing club when she goes to college but is not super competitive with it and highly unlikely to be recruited for it.
On the PSAT/SAT prep… no interest as of now in the PSAT prep. Definitely not for the 10th grade one. I doubt she’ll be in range for National Merit since the cut off is usually so high here. But, if she surprises us and does really well on 10th grade and she wants to do something to prep for 11th grade, we’d do that. S21 did a Princeton Review prep class for SAT and ended up getting a 1490, putting him well above what he needs for his first choice, Virginia Tech. So, D23 will probably do the same. He took a class offered at our HS but it’s in Fall and might not work with her Marching Band schedule so we might have to pay more for a class away from the HS. Our approach was to do the class first, see how they do on the SAT and then invest in focused tutoring if wanted to work on specific issues before taking again. Since, at least right now, she wants to go to William & Mary, she’s going to need really strong scores. (Can you tell we live in Virginia )
so today, I was chill.
I let D23 drop an honors class this semester, and she is taking a “TA” period with one of her teachers. I didn’t want her to do it; but . . . it was not a core class; she did NOT like the teacher or the subject, and it was a sophomore level class that she was wrongly placed in. (and that’s why the school let her drop this full year class at semester.) I’m hoping this all turns out fine. She seemed happy about it all when she left . . . anyway - hope your kids enjoy their semester!
First day of the new semester! S23 twins are much more relaxed with this semester‘s schedule as they have different classes…last term It turned out they were in EVERY.SINGLE.CLASS.TOGETHER lol. Since we’re on accelerated block schedule they only have 4 classes a semester…both are in band and AP Bio which are year long so it forced them into the same Pre AP English & Pre AP Geometry…this semester one moved into a higher band and the other is starting Latin so they are only in 2 classes together (AP Bio & AP Human Geo)…glad they get a breather and break from being the “Twins”…I can’t believe they’re half way through their first year of high school…time just flies!
@momof3B My son’s schedule stays the same - thank goodness. He can start this semester fresh now that band is over. But I am still treading this semester with caution - told my son that he needed to keep an 80 or higher in all of his classes this semester in order to be exempt from finals in May. Reiterated that every semester is a restart but that it builds on the GPA he created last Fall - encouraged him to make that semester a baseline and to build on it doing better and better. I’m hoping that gives him a personal challenge to work on. I wish our schools allowed the 9th/10th graders to take AP classes. They don’t start until junior year.
@JaceyK I’m having that same convo with the twins and S21…new term/fresh start but building on what you did previously! The goal is to have an upwards trend and improve. Our district doesn’t release class rank until after the first 9 week grading period of Sophomore year so freshman don’t know where they stand class rank wise…they don’t want 9th graders obsessing over their GPAs…but it ends up happening anyway lol.
I was a little apprehensive about the twins taking 2 AP classes right off the bat this year (the Max allowed for 9th graders) but they have done great in AP Bio thus far…they both finished the fall term with an 89 as their final grade…I was very happy for them considering it was marching band season as well…they took it like champs and did great!
@Momof3B - did your sons have regular biology before AP? That sounds like such a hard class - its good to hear they are keeping up. ** so marching band. yeah - we’ve done that! In fact, I had 2 kids at 2 different HSs at the same time who competed against each other; and that was crazy. I will always emphasize with families in marching band! it is such a good thing.
@bgbg4us no, our district doesn’t have a prerequisite for AP Bio…it’s open to freshman straight out of middle school, but they make it a year long class spanning both semesters whereas every other class is just 18 weeks/one semester since we have accelerated block. Our schedules are set up like college…only 4 classes a term, two 9 week grading periods in a semester.
For AP Bio, all of the fall semester plus the first 9 weeks of spring semester is content, lab and course work. The second 9 weeks of spring semester is dedicated to AP Exam prep.
My S21 didn’t take AP Bio as he knew he wasn’t interested in pursuing a STEM career path so he stuck with PreAp Bio (what we call Honors level).
And ya…marching band…gah! All 3 of my boys are in (sousa/tuba, baritone/euphonium, melaphone/French Horn) and I also got roped into being on the Band Booster executive committee lol, it’s a complete family life lifestyle choice lol. My kids love it though, it’s taught them so much about discipline and multi tasking and an added bonus…don’t have to worry about where they are on Friday nights
@Momof3B yes to the Friday nights! D23 has karate on Friday nights from ~5:30 to ~10:00 PM. She is with a community of friends and with senseis who have known her since she was 7. Couldn’t ask for anything better!
)