My son is taking tomorrow too - wants to improve on his 1440 score (690/750). He also has been using Khan Academy but did one $50 2 hour math session Wednesday night as a refresher. GL to your son and all others taking SAT tomorrow!
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My son is finishing off the year pretty strong and excited about being a senior soon. Iām starting to get emotional since he is my ābabyā and I know senior year will fly by, based on my experience with my daughter in 2018-2019. He is spending the month of July in Mexico, exactly as he did last year (staying with my husbandās cousins who speak very little English and doing advanced gymnastics-mostly in Spanish-at a nearby gymnastics center.) He is pretty fluent in Spanish already, but hopes to improve even more through full immersion. In August he will work to earn some extra money, but also focus on starting the college application process. Heās already starting to brainstorm college essay ideas but he signed up for a one-day class for the college essay on August 10, so hoping he can have a decent finished product by August 20th. He is asking 3 teachers (Anatomy, Math and Psychology) to write reference letters for him next week. He will verbally ask them but also hand them a cover letter formally asking for their letter of recommendation which has his resume attached. He has good relationships with all of them so hoping they will speak positively to his character, effort and success in their classes. He is hoping to have a final list of colleges by the end of August and will apply as early as possible but no later than mid-October, even if they donāt offer rolling admissions or EA. He just wants to enjoy his senior year! He is aiming to apply to 12-14 colleges. So far, these are the colleges on his list (in no particular order):
Northeastern
Case Western Reserve
Emory Atlanta (maybe)
Rollins
University of Buffalo
Buffalo State College
UMASS Boston
LeMoyne (Syracuse)
St. John Fisher (Rochester)
Macaulay Honors (maybe)with Hunter and City College as top choices
Some others he may visit or consider:
Fordham
UChicago
Northwestern
Loyola Chicago
DuPaul
Nova Southeastern
Temple
Pitt
Xavier (Ohio)
Miami Ohio
Hope all your kids have a productive summer of tours & application prep but can also squeeze in some fun!
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Thought Iād see if anyone here knowsā¦
On College Board, you can build a college list. There was some incentive to select at least 6 colleges and be entered into a scholarship drawing each month. My son selected āadd to favoritesā for 12 schools he is interested in. My question is: do the schools see that he selected them (that they are on his āwish listā) or do they get a notification? I wasnāt sure if this was just for his personal organization or something official that alerts each school. Just curious if and how the info is used (in other words, does he brace for a bunch of emails from those schools?) Thanks!
S23 and his rugby team will be playing for the state D1 championship tomorrow. They are playing a nationally ranked team so it should be a great experience either way!
After another few rough weeks (oh how this child loves to take out his anger on his stepdad and I), getting emails from 2 teachers telling me his attitude and work in class has been much improved is a positive and much needed.
He was at a 3.3 and Iām hoping he pulls it out and at least stays there. I donāt see it going up. This child does amazing work in class (so his teachers tell us) but he does not turn in āmindless, useless busy workā. Can I just go all gray now versus slowly over the next year?
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The calculators are definitely frustrating. And, if you have an older child in college be sure to run the calculator with and without that student. I did that for a couple schools and found that a school might be in the $40-$50k range w/ my older student in school but $80K+ (full pay) once he graduates. Maybe we could make the $40kish work but that would be a big surprise in year 3 if we hadnāt known they were factoring in siblingās college!
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@2plustrio - your kid is smart, talented and athletic. Heās going to find his way and make it through it. Heās got the goods.
My oldest daughter told me to her HS was a like a roller coaster, constantly up and down with so many highs and lows. And then her undergrad was more like a straight highway where she could make distance.
good luck at that state game! one more year.
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Iām so sorry to hear it. We had a similar situation here with a teacher who seemed to want to destroy the grades of the highest-ranked students. She felt she shouldnāt have to teach the honors math students and that they should get everything right the first time without any instruction. The school got rid of her but not before kiddo had a Cāand almost a D. New teacher hired. Kiddo could actually learn something and increased grade to an A.
Now, I am a-okay with this kid choosing the classes that they know donāt have terrible teachers even if itās not AP or the hardest class possible. Iām tired of dealing with bad teachers and their drama.
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Wowzers. State champs! Hes thrilled! Now lets see what he can do with his grades in a week as school ends june 9th.
Then its weight lifting, football, and musical rehearsals. He wants to start picking up hours at his old job too.
He has 2 official in person college tours set for this month. A big state public and a small LAC. Hopefully this will get his brain truly looking at things he notices and likes.
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Yes, because we got an email from one stating they saw my DD (21) started her application.
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D23 just submitted her first college application!
Well, sort of. Montclair State is one of her safeties, and they have a sort of preapplication that opens up for a window mid-April to mid-June (i.e., while New Jersey juniors are still in school), where a HS junior can apply for admission based on 9th and 10th grade grades plus those from, per the email, āat least two marking periodsā in 11th grade. Well, grades are only issued on a semester basis here, but the academic year ended in May, so she waited til final grades posted and submitted that.
The result of the preapplication is an early admission decision contingent on completing the Common App later, but a preadmit offer comes with both an application fee waiver and a merit aid offer, all from an exceptionally short application. So those will be nice to have in her back pocket.
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Does anyone know what the essay prompts are for the Common App and Apply Texas applications? I see the ones for the last cycle, but wasnāt sure if they were using same prompts for the next cycle.
This is going to be the hardest summer for our kids with all the applications, essays, etc. I am having to remind my son that yes, itās summer butā¦ lol
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Common App Essay prompts are staying the same.
Havenāt looked into AppyTexas yetā¦Iām hoping to avoid it all together with the twins since all the schools theyāre applying to are now on CommonApp except for TAMUā¦.I keep hearing and reading that TAMU is joining CommonApp for this fall, but it hasnāt happened yet.
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Thank you! Yeah, heās applying to maybe 3-4 Texas schools (not UT or TAMU).
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My kid who missed PSAT was told he could take SAT and counselor will send it to College Board for National Merit Scholarship consideration. He was told by his counselor that he needs 1480 in SAT to move to next round. CA cut off is 221, does anyone know how SAT scores translate to PSAT?
Also, he got his transcript and all 9th grade classes are CR only. They didnāt provide any letter grades(he got Aās in all years from 6-11th). How does it impact Cal Poly SLO Admissions(wants to apply for CS or Aeronautics, still deciding) which considers 9th grade numbers also. His 10-12 GPA is 4.4737(W) and 4.00(UW) and 9-12 is 4.3214(W), 4.000(UW).
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Wow, your student is on the ball. Itās nice to have the first one done, then itās not so intimidating. I told my kid she can take the month of June off, then we start prepping in July with act prep
And also formulating essay topics etc. we will see how it goes but all the best to the rising seniors.
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Thank you. He took his first SAT on June 4th and confident that he would score around 1520(Fingers crossed). He doesnāt want to take ACT and our state CA public colleges donāt consider SAT/ACT scores anymore.
Heās not taking any time off and working 3 jobs this summer as a Life Guard/Swim Instructor. He wants to save money for college 
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1480 will be roughly the commended cutoff for PSAT (207). 221 is 730/740 or 750/730 (math/English) out of 760/760. So out of 800/800 on the SAT that would be 1550-1560 or a touch higher given itās nearly a year later (remember english gets twice the weighting of math in NMF selection indices). My S23 who barely scraped a 207 PSAT with 750/660 got a 1510 (800/710) on his practice SAT (with no prep). My older two who were both commended and well short of the NMF cutoff in CA (IIRC 210 and 214) got 1540 SAT/35 ACT respectively.
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I use a variety of sites to learn more about colleges. That cv site recently updated their chancing percentages.
According to them, right now S23 may only apply to 1 school that is not considered an academic safety. If he chooses music, nothing is a real safety. And money of course makes all chancing fly out of the window.
Anyone elseās kid not really looking for reaches?
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Aside from the feeling that everything arts-related makes applying a reach, as you implied, my D23 isnāt really trying for reaches. (That is, she should be able to get into all of the colleges on her list, but affordability and program admission is the big question.)
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My DS just told today that he wants to stay in CA. His dream colllege is Cal Poly SLO. He has good grades, ECs but with this year results, nothing seems like a match and i think all good/decent colleges should be considered reaches.
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