Parents of the HS Class of 2023 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
541

Our school district is offering 3 options (We’re in North Texas/DFW Suburb:

-In Person, with safety precautions according to current Health Dept regulations (right now level orange meaning mandatory masks, distancing, one way entries/exits, no water fountain usage, grab n go lunch only etc

-Virtual- Online learning taught by school district teacher, some live instruction, some recorded, not all courses will be offered though (several AP classes and electives didn’t make the cut

-Virtual Plus- Online learning as above with the option to come to campus during the day for middle/high school students for electives and classes and UIL categories that cannot be taught online (fine arts, athletics, career center courses, many AP classes, especially the sciences)

School was supposed to start Aug 12, has been pushed back to Aug 19. 25 minutes have been added to the school day to 1)allow the district to “bank” additional time in case of a state wide shutdown (all students would go virtual then) so that the we don’t have to push into June to make up and 2) gives the high schools especially extra time to rework passing between classes in hallways so that they are staggered. Have you seen a Texas 5A/6A high school during pass periods lol?!?!

There has been so much tension and animosity in our community over back to school decisions. I’ve never witnessed this much division. There are 55,000+ students in our district from all walks of life and socioeconomic backgrounds…none of this is going please everyone.

I had someone tell me the other day that if I decide to let my kids go back to in person learning on campus, I’ll be responsible for the deaths of teachers. Thanks.

S21’s Band Leadership Camp started this week, albeit VERY abbreviated and under VERY different circumstances. No more than 15 in a group, they divided them into 3 different cohorts…all in different parts of the building. They are only meeting together from 7:45-11:00 then meet virtually with the directors via Zoom from 1:00-3:00. Mandatory masks when walking in or out of school and temp checks. Masks can be taken off when on the field, brass section is spaced 10 feet apart. The entire 280 member band will not practice together in one place for a few months most likely. When general band camp for all starts on the 27th, they will still have the same protocols, rotating groups of 15 will arrive at different times to work with the directors.

I’m glad S23 twins at least had the experience of a normal marching season last year…it’s bittersweet because they know what they will be missing out on this year but fingers crossed that things will be back to normal their junior and senior years.

Marching competitions and any away football games are off the table. Our district will instead host non competitive exhibitions for our 5 district high schools only to put on a community performance that can be streamed.

Our 9 minute competition show that the band kids would have normally learned has been chopped to 4 minutes.

542

I have a DS that is HS Class of 21 and wanted to post some advice that I think many of the 21’ers wish they would have had when their kids were the age of yours. The advice is simply to have your kid prepare and take the SAT/ACT (this assumes that these orgs do not soon fold given the move to TO) in tenth grade (assuming they are able to schedule an exam).

I have been surprised at the number of kids that were waiting to take the SAT/ACT until late in their junior years and many of them had taken or want to take one of the exams cold just to see where they were. Obviously given Covid, this has left many with either one sitting that has a bad score or no tests at all and uncertainty as to if they can ever take it. Khan Academy (and Reddit) has actual old exams so there is no need to take an official test to see where you are.

Also, start preparing early. IMO if your kid is not performing well on the SAT, it is not going to be harmful to them to study. Khan Academy has a nice program that kids can time doing and it is free. DS studied about 30 mins to an hour most days over the summer by just answering old SAT questions on KhanAcademy and took the SAT just before school started in tenth grade.

Good luck!

543

As a mom of an S21 also, I wholeheartedly agree with the above advice!! I will be starting my S23 twins on SAT prep MUCH SOONER now after living this testing debacle nightmare with my rising senior. We’re going to go ahead and enroll the twins in a SAT test prep center that is popular in our area in January.

544

As far as the SAT goes your child should have had what is traditionally covered in Algebra 2 before taking an official SAT as the math covers up through those items. Also if you think your child will be taking MATH 2 Subject test you should look to take that right after having pre-calc as that covers up through pre-calc.

Regarding the Reading section that can be tricky and will fluctuate a lot depending on your child but in general the older, more educated and especially better critical analysis skills will reflect as a higher score

545

My S23 took the ACT in February mainly because my D25 was taking it for Duke TIP and she didn’t want to go alone. I’m glad he did as we now can see where he needs to focus (he also took it in 7th grade). It was encouraging also to him that he already is in the range for many schools… gives him a goal to shoot higher. Much more encouraging than his AP World History Exam… ugh. He was disappointed as he though he aced it. However I was mildly optimistic as writing is not his forte… had it been more than one prompt I think he would have done better. Oh well, onward.

He starts sophomore year off August 12th with in-person classes (masks required at school) with Alg II/Trig, Honors Chem, AP USHistory, Honors English, Honors Spanish II, Art II and then Health/Drivers Ed (biggest waste of school time ever IMO). All honors classes are prep to begin the full IB Program next year. Our state athletic association announced the greenlight for fall sports, so we are really hoping for some semblance of swim meets to see what damage is done to his times during his lessened training schedule.

546

And another benefit to @yearstogo’s suggestion is that if all goes well you can end up with a lot less test anxiety later on. My D17 took the ACT and SAT spring of her sophomore year, and thought she’d biffed the ACT but got a 32. (Her SAT score was much closer to the median.) With that score she called it one-and-done, and we didn’t have to worry about it ever again.

547

Good idea about taking the ACT sophomore year. My S23 is not as motivated or academic as some of the kids here but he will be taking high enough levels of courses to take the tests this school year. His junior year is likely to be pretty intense so would be one less thing to worry about and would help to set us up for about where he is at when starting to truly look at college options.

548

My D23 is actually scheduled to take it in August (not that it’s likely to happen given how COVID is trending where we are). There is a summer program she wants to have as an option next year (learning Korean in residence at a local college), and they require the SAT to participate, so that was the motivation (though I was thinking, also, that she would be less stressed and anxious about it junior year if she’d already taken it before). She did the PSAT last year for the same reason - just an opportunity to try it with zero stakes so it won’t be such a big deal when she takes it in her junior year. I doubt she’d get a one-and-done score, but as we found with S21 this year, it can be helpful to have a score on hand, even if it was only meant to be a baseline score that you thought you’ve have a chance to improve upon…he took it in October of his junior year for the first time ever (never sat for a PSAT 8/9 or regular PSAT or ACT…just started with the SAT in his junior Fall) and has been unable to get another sitting (predicting his Aug date will be cancelled). That score which wasn’t really meant to be his score might hurt him at his two reachier schools, but it will actually be just fine for the rest of the schools on his list, I think - not fantastic, but fine, and at this point, we’re happy to have it.

549

So many students have had their SAT and ACT test dates cancelled that I don’t think one lower score in this time frame will hurt. Colleges are already discounting the COVID era score ( and applicants with no scores) For the Class of '23 there will be more options to sit for tests. Keep practicing.

550

I have a '18, ‘21 and’ 23. We use Google docs but have a slightly different approach. We have three tabs, under 20% acceptance, 20-40% and 40%. Reach, goal and secure. There are columns that categorize based on many common stats. We color code each tab based on preference. It’s worked really well for D21. It’s so important to have balance in our list, we look for 30%, 40%, 30% between the 3 buckets.

551

I read about an interview with Bill Gates and his push to ramp up vaccine production facilities - he is estimating best-case scenario back to normal in fall 2022. He was very specific about the time frame - so many months for development, then testing, then facilities getting up to speed, then distribution, then actually administering the vaccine to, what, close to 8 billion people - and he figures fall 2022. Everything thinking “oh, we’ll be back to normal next spring” - uh huh, nope.

So, I gotta say, and I know lots of us have kids in other years, that the 2023 cohort is in about the best possible position to get through the pandemic and still have some normalcy. I was just talking about this last night with D19 and S23.

D19 got her traditional HS graduation, with all the attendant tradition and memories and emotion, and by 2023, I’m hoping, there will be the same in-person tradition and memories for both her college graduation and S23’s high school graduation.

Of course, the years in between will be unique, to say the least. But, to try to be positive, they are learning some seriously adult-level life lessons about disappointment and patience and working with what you’ve got.

552

Interesting. The class of 2023 is going to have to have a ton of very unique and interesting ECs on their college applications, since many of the traditional sports etc. can’t happen during a pandemic. There’s always having a job as an essential worker (grocery store, etc.), but many parents (including my kids’ dad) are not going to want their kids working jobs in high-risk situations.

553

Agree with this. My kid was in the musical last fall & is in a virtual theater summer camp right now. He wasn’t going to pursue it professionally, but he loves it for the sheer fun of it, and it’s putting a crimp in his ECs, for sure. Sports kids in the same boat.

That said, the professional world is changing rapidly, and in many careers, remote work is going to be allowed, even encouraged, going forward.

So they’re getting a jump on those skills, at least!

554

I agree with taking the SAT early if you have the math although sophomore year seems a bit too early given how much growth can happen especially on the verbal side. But definitely plan for the first test no later than Fall of Junior year. I went to a college information session at a local U when my S21 was a sophomore and the person doing the testing session advised that – said all the private school students (who have strong college advising) show up for test prep the summer before junior year to get the first test in during Fall and then the public school students show up in the Spring. So, thankfully, we took their advice and S21 got a good score last December so he actually is one of the few with a good SAT score going into applications. He’d have liked to try again and had been registered for June but given all the cancellations and how hard it is just to register he decided to not even bother with a 2nd test.

D23 is excited because her sleepaway camp figured out how to do a small, social distanced camp just for the 15 year olds for whom this is the last year they can do it, 16 kids only. So she leaves for that in a week and a half. In the meantime she has to cram to finish up her summer school class before she goes.

555

@JanieWalker - we are hearing daily about the lack of school ECs in our neck of the world coming up. They aren’t going to be happening. Every time I think about not being a sheep - encouraging my kid follow a new EC, learn something new, practice something - I come up with blanks or dead ends because of Covid.

So to everyone on this thread - what are your kids doing that are ECs during Covid times?

I’d love to hear what your kids love to do, while learning new things while being covid-acceptable as ECs. Seriously.

My D is keeping busy somewhat – (start an instagram and Etsy selling account? done it. ) She’s tinkering on piano; playing the Uke, taking photos, but they are just for fun; she won’t be winning awards or anything.

My S20’s main ECs would all be non acceptable - and he had a very eclectic and beloved EC besides his two sports (a huge haunted house with 10 friends for 500+ in our hood every year.) ; but not doable in Covid. . . . She wanted to carry on that tradition, but can’t. She wanted to have neighborhood dance camps; can’t. Or start a little-girl Bday party business; but can’t. so many dead ends!

I’m just feeling at a loss as to how to encourage her; when the things she likes to do are social and not as much solo. So - if anyone has any idea; or just is good with having their kids not staying busy – please share.

556

Currently my S23 is doing: football (still semi going on here with weight lifting), voice lessons, band (marching band camp still happened although very modified and reduced hours), working at a restaurant, working on his dads farm, and doing some volunteer hours I guess with his dad on a horse farm and with rescue dogs. He tinkers with guitar and piano but thats only for fun. And he took 2 summer classes through the high school (both are required courses to graduate and he just did them in the summer to open up his schedule later on for classes hes more interested in).

(But hes at like a 3.5-3.7 gpa range. He could possibly get free tuition at a FACHEX school but hes say no to all of them pretty much right now and we all know TE program is a crap shoot that his grades wont have him competitive enough for most likely.)

557

My D23 has kept up instrument lessons even though band can’t perform. She does creative writing and goes to the gym. She wants to start a hiking club when school starts. The school had a hiking club but she said it had just been three senior girls who’ve now graduated. Seems like a good thing for social distanced times.

558

EC are very limited in my area. Both twins are continuing with their music lessons, marching band will not happen in the Fall and a little hope for the Spring. Regular band will be virtual (which was a disaster last Spring) and GT orchestra is probably going to be canceled (they are trying to do on-line master classes or something).

Both boys are involved in competitive academic clubs which should translate well to on-line. One twin has started doing on-line competitive programming competitions and the other has expanded an on-line business to the point that we may open a Ross IRA for him.

In the area kids who feel comfortable are volunteering outside, others are offering on-line tutoring to younger kids. Some limited sports training is going on, but the state and county keep pushing back any decisions. I can’t see football happening in the fall, but maybe golf or something else.

559

True but unpopular on College Confidential: Extracurriculars mean precisely bupkis to all but a very, very few colleges (and even for them, it’s more of a tiebreaker than anything else, and only a weak one at that) and a even fewer scholarships.

560

@bgbg4us I think the key is to find a way to continue the same interests and extracurriculars, but outside or virtually. For example, my daughters’ sports practice is now outside. How long that can continue as we get into winter, when temps up here are regularly below zero, I don’t know. I think D21 and D23 and going to have to teach their coach how to use Zoom, lol. Either that or only the truly hardcore will continue to go (their coach would totally hold practice outdoors in three feet of snow, he’s that kind of guy, but I’m not sure parents would like that). D23 wanted to join the math club at the cc she will attend this year. I expect it will now be virtual, so she can still join. Volunteering gets tricky, though. Outside volunteer work is good for now…but D23’s usual indoor volunteer position during winter can’t happen, and we haven’t figured out a way for her to continue to do the same kind of thing but virtually yet. Not sure about D23’s usual winter job, either. There are other jobs to be had, but her dad doesn’t want her to be an essential worker (he is terrified of getting COVID through her if she works indoors for long periods of time).