We are looking into ACE for this upcoming year. It will be virtual so DS23 is not super jazzed about that. Not a fan of online learning. I have been told that quality of activities vary greatly between chapters but would love to hear more about your kid’s experience so far.
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My D23 is also taking AP Music Theory plus Symphonic Band, so 2 music periods a day – which she loves as it gives her a couple of “breaks” during the day from the rest of her pretty heavy course load.
The guidance around AP exams really seems to vary so much! At our local HS, any kid signed up for an AP class is expected to sit for the exam, period. They make quite a stink about it. As for whether credit or placement will be given at the college level, that also seems to vary widely on the school/program. As others have mentioned, a lot of colleges will not give AP credit for courses which they consider foundational to a particular major, but might grant placement, or elective credit otherwise.
For a junior, it seems like they might as well take the exam since they don’t know where they’re going to wind up and whether the credit might come into play at this point. For a senior, if you know that the college already committed to won’t give you credit, I could see skipping.
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As others have stated, it’s just not possible to know what the value of the AP exam will be. Most schools don’t take experience into account when determining courses for students. Some use AP/IB exam scores, and/or some use placement tests (or possibly, auditions). The only AP exam our D21 skipped was AP Lit because she was a senior who had already taken AP Lang, and she knew that her college wouldn’t give credit for both. Her friend wanted to skip the AP Lit exam as well, but her school offered credit for both, so she took it and received credit for both towards her English major. Until he knows where he’s going, what he’s majoring in, and what the school gives credit for, your son can’t know definitively if the exam will have “true benefit.”
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My DD took 3 AP’s last year. And due to a comedy of errors, we missed the registration for the exams. I later learned she didn’t want to take them anyway. All of her courses were cyber last year and were not good experiences with AP, only one live class a week and she felt like she was teaching herself AP Calculus. She is now at rigorous boarding a school that only offers a few AP’s. We are not too concerned about the not-testing as she has no idea what she wants to study in college yet anyway.
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The virtual year last year for our local ACE chapter was managed really well. They did a shorter year than typical, but they had occasional pickups of materials and they did some interesting things like engineering diagramming in a software package and mixing/pouring their own concrete forms. This year is in person here and they will be designing and building some sort of playhouse/playground equipment.
Our ACE chapter published the full list of meetings and activities in each one, so it’s easy to tell if the content will be engaging. I’d ask your ACE chapter for the same thing and see if the virtual activities are worth it and interesting for your S23.
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Hi everyone, it’s been awhile! September just flew by for me, three back to back trips including a whirling 4 days in Italy(!!!) as a surprise birthday present from my husband! Back to reality now lol.
Thing 1 & Thing 2 are still waiting on their scores from the Sept 11 ACT…I saw on facebook that some students in other parts of the country have received theirs…not sure when we will. They are scheduled to take the Oct 23 ACT as well and the PSAT at school also in Oct I believe.
Grades wise they are both doing fabulous…we’re about 7 weeks into the first 9 weeks grading period and straight A’s so far for both. Considering they both have all AP classes for core subjects and we’re full into marching band season I’m incredibly proud of them.
Still no real direction on possible colleges or majors lol…they don’t even want to talk about college tours at this point. I guess we’ll revisit this subject in the Spring 
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Jealous of Italy. We were supposed to go this past May for our honeymoon. Hoping for next year!
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It was fabulous! Zero crowds!
Hi everyone, new to the forum, and wanted to bond with other parents who will be in a perpetual panic induced haze until the last application is submitted - I know there is light at the end of this tunnel.
D23 Classes:
African American Studies Honors
AP Calc AB
AP US History
AP Lang
AP Research
Took 2 APs last year and got 4s on each test.
Rocky first two weeks with multiple clubs, color guard and testing but has leveled out the past two weeks.
Testing:
Kahn Academy and Tutoring twice a week through the summer, SAT on 8/28
and ACT on 9/11. Scores are all in and even though they are great will retake the ACT in the spring to try to superstore a point or 2 higher for better merit opportunities.
Taking PSAT on 10/13 only because school is paying for kids with above 3.6 GPAs, UNC system does not give out merit for finalist any longer.
College Plans:
Major: Business – Operations/Management/Supply Chain
State: In State NC or GA
College Visits Completed this summer:
UNC Charlotte
NC A& T
NC State
University of Georgia
None of my friends have done any of this yet for their c/o 23 kids.
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Thats awesome she has it narrowed down so much. My son is still in the “I don’t have much clue” category.
Thanks a lot!
@nkwatts Welcome! You sound like you’re pretty savvy already, but as I’ve discovered on this my second go-round through the process, there’s always more madness to come. 
My D23 is hanging in there pretty well for these first few weeks. We just had “back to school night” where the parents get to walk their kid’s schedule and spend 10 minutes or so in each classroom meeting the teachers. In a stroke of luck, the one teacher D23 is not crazy about (precalc) is getting replaced starting Monday (for reasons unknown) and the teacher taking over the class has a much better reputation, so whew!
D23 is pretty well settled in on some flavor of computer science or engineering for a major at this point, so the next couple of years are really going to be about finding programs that will give her the best fit and have the kind of collaborative environment she’s looking for. I hope we can start visiting some schools in person soon!
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Thank You for the welcome!
Thanks for the advice and I love the word “pointy” which describes her scores perfectly. She’s a good math student and is currently taking AP Calc AB and most likely AP Stats next year. She’s gotten all A’s in her advanced math classes but just doesn’t seem to grasp the techniques needed to take the math portions of her SAT or ACT. I guess we will see what the PSAT brings since she already feels a sense of relief with a 33. She would like a 34 but realizes it’s not critical for the majority of schools she’s interested in
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Thing 1 and Thing 2 got their Sept 11 ACT scores in…this mama is not happy. The scores do not in any way match up to their grades/class rank in my opinion. I’ve also dropped $$$ on test prep since Spring of sophomore year which I know they haven’t taken seriously. This test was meant to be a benchmark, (their first time taking it), and we are in the middle of a marching band season so I know they are very busy and overextended. Do I stay quiet for now and wait until after football/marching season is over to have them start concentrating on the ACT/SAT?
I hate standardized tests, and under normal circumstances wouldn’t care what they scored but we are chasing merit here…with 3 kids in college at the same time (S21 & S23 twins) we need them to do well on these tests 
Wait.
It took 2 driving tickets and a fender bender all in 1 week for me to realize my kid truly was overwhelmed and was at his breaking point.
How high do they need for merit? Are their affordable options without merit?
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There are affordable options without merit…they would have to stay at home and commute though, they would be okay with that and all our local schools in the DFW area (UTD, UNT, UTA) are all true safeties since they are in the top 5/6% of their class, they have auto admit. We could probably cash flow the balances for tuition only after they take out the federal stafford loans if there is no room/board involved. Nothing wrong with any of these schools, I just want them to live up to their full potential and not leave out any options.
Last resort for us would be to sell one of our rental properties that is paid off and use that for their college (husband is not keen on this option since it’s a part of our retirement portfolio, but I would
be okay with doing that since we bought it as a short term investment and we did discuss possibly earmarking it for the twins’ at the time of purchase).
We shall see where the chips fall. I’m going to back off on test nagging for now and let them concentrate on getting through marching season. They really are doing great grades wise so I shouldn’t really complain, right?
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It is like running a marathon - pacing and timing is more than half the battle.
In my experience, the most valuable test prep was taking multiple proctored timed practice tests. Test prep companies often offer them for free. My kids did one test/month for 3-4 mos before the scored exams.
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If they’re doing great GPA-wise and in the middle of their band season, I’d let them run through that before trying to have them focus on test prep. Hopefully getting this first result that was not what was hoped for will make it real to them that they can’t just blow off prep, but trying to pile that on top of what they’re already juggling might be counterproductive. They’re still early in junior year, there’s plenty of opportunities for testing left. Hang in there!
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Welcome, and your D looks like she’s cruising 
Are you looking at any privates in NC/GA?