Glad your D24 is on top of things. My D24 is an artist, very bright but just couldn’t care less about the subject and in no way will be a STEM major, so she just has to get through this and then her school does bio (or AP bio) next. My husband is a pharmacist but she doesn’t want to do anything extra at night. Thankfully, I think her young teacher is pretty good and is checking up on them a lot - using a lot of short quizzes and notebook checks. She whizzed through Honors Physics last year but had a super fun teacher and I don’t think they had many tests or covered all of the material. I feel like the honors track bar is lower at public school compared to what my S21 went through at private school except for this Chemistry class (that’s probably why it’s their one UC credit course).
@NateandAllisMom Thats right! Your S21 and D24 are on two different spectrum :). One thing my son’s AP Physics teacher did that was kinda cool was he had them watch his lecture as “homework” and then they do they actual homework in class so he can be there to answer questions. I wished the Chem teacher did that because it would really help them. When she teaches them; they just gobble it up.
That is a great approach, especially for such a difficult course!
We got our first college spam/junk mailer today informing us that our S24 was invited to a special interview process to see if he will qualify for scholarships. It seemed scammy to me so I tossed it.
I believe this technique is called the Flipped Classroom. It’s a great approach for some difficult topics. One of D24’s math teachers practiced it for a short time in middle school.
Thanks for the term! I wonder if I should bring this up to the AP Chem teacher to consider. When she’s had time to help, her instruction has been so amazing. During virtual schooling last year, some of my daughter’s freshman class teachers also did something similar.
YUP! I still remember back in the Stone Age when I got my financial aid package and I thought I was getting so much money until I realized that several thousand of it was “work study” 
I was in nursing school and there was very little time to do anything other than study and go to class and clinical after Freshman year.
Cornell and UC over there trying to single-handedly bring down the College Board (I have a love/hate relationship with them, but mainly hate relationship with them after the debacle my S21 went thru with AP testing hiccups two years ago). They’re suspending ACT/SAT for admissions for Fall 2022, 2023, and 2024 (our kids, if I did my math right). In three of their colleges, Cornell is out right not accepting scores while the other half are test-optional. I think if Cornell does this, the rest of the Ivies will follow. It’s too good of an opportunity to miss out with record-level applications and profit from app fees is my first reaction, but beyond that lens, the intent is good.
Our state schools went back to requiring test scores this year as most of the colleges just use a simple formula of minimum GPA and test score to give admission and not having the test scores also affected the State scholarships.
While I don’t completely like the test scores, im not sure GPA is a better measure anyway with all the non standardized measures different schools employ. Not to talk of the grade inflation taking place.
The UCs were test-blind this last year and they plan to be test-blind again this year. I have a small sampling, but among the kids I know who got into the UCs, I would’ve expected them to get in the ones they did even if their test scores were accepted. The ones that got regents, etc. (not my kid), I think they were all very deserving and I would’ve likely peg them to get selected for them. We will see with the UCs how this last batch of kids perform.
Did everyone in the US get PSAT testing today? I think our district all had PSAT testing at school for 10-11th graders. The kids were laughing at Tik Tok and Twitter (PSAT and SAT memes are my faves on twitter after the tests. They’re so funny once the kids give you context) today so I assume it’s a national execution? D24 went in cold turkey. She had a noble thought in trying to read the practice booklet but got slammed with homework and soccer, so cold turkey it was. She said she followed her brother’s advice about quantity/quality for PSAT and went through questions and read the passages relevant to the questions (I think she started with vocab and then went backwards) so by the time she got to main idea of the passage, she knew the gist of it w/o reading the whole thing. She went thru that entire section w/o reading the passages. This is going to backfire royally or she may be on to something :).
Our school offered the PSAT. We opted to wait until next year after S24 finishes geometry. He’s an ok test taker, but I didn’t want to put any stress on him. He will take it next fall.
Her strategy sounds interesting. Keep us posted if it works! Now going to look up SAT memes on Twitter 
My D had the PSAT. No prep, didn’t finish all the questions (not sure how much). She has tested extremely high for ELA, above average for math but California has not been testing for years. We’ll see. She’s had a hard reentry to in person so I told her just to do her best. Kid 2 I’m way more relaxed about this stuff.
Does anyone know if there is a break on the service hours for NHS due to the pandemic? My daughter has zero hours in high school.
PSAT hashtag on Twitter was always my favorite moments with S21 after these tests. Our routine would consist of him telling me moments he remembered. Then I would go on Twitter and chuckle. I would send him screenshots, which he would expand context for me and we would crack up.
We did the same thing today and my daughter said she now gets why s21 and I would laugh so much afterwards. You don’t even need to know all the context. Just the fact that your kids are cracking up while they try to explain it to you is music to the ears. I really cherish these moments. They are still so innocent til they all get crabby once college apps come around 
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@NateandAllisMom I think NHS service hour requirements may vary regionally. We don’t have NHS (we have California Scholar Federation/CFS basically) but a friend who’s in the Bay Area where they have NHS shared that the students had virtual oppty that counted but if they couldn’t find the roles, NHs would put health and safety above all and would waive the requirement. I’m not sure if this was if the students already had hours.
I’ll look into this. Last summer her usual volunteer gig wasn’t happening and opportunities are limited for in person. The high school said 20 hours but I think they were just recycling an old email text probably.
Hi! I’ve been lurking for a while and you guys are great!
I’m a bit confused about some basics: For starters, how many classes are your kids taking? Does it look bad if they have a study hall? (and a lunch - the school doesn’t schedule classes during lunch as many clubs meet then.)
Also, our school only allows sophmores to take 1 AP (AP World). I keep hearing that colleges evaluate applicants based on what was available at their school, but to my knowledge this information isn’t disclosed by the school to potential colleges, so how do they even know this information?
I’m also confused about the NHS service hour question. I’m in NYS so that might be the difference, but I was told that NHS is only for Juniors and Seniors and any service hours before junior year wouldn’t count towards the 20 hr. requirement. Can anyone confirm or deny? My son has been volunteering for about a year but we haven’t been getting anything signed because we have no specific hour requirement yet.
Thanks!
@HotSauceFan I don’t have a specific answer for you, but colleges look at course rigor. Regarding AP classes, etc., when your child applies to college, the colleges ask the counselor to submit a school report. I asked my counselor for a copy of the annual school report they send to colleges. Ours lists out average GPA, average number of AP classes students take, how many AP classes they offer, if the area had access to SAT/ACT testing or if everything was canceled for the year (applicable during COVID). They also list academies available at our school, demographic, etc. I believe ours had something along the line of students aren’t allowed to take AP freshman year and some AP classes have prereq’s. I felt that gave the colleges context about S21 when he applied. So, assuming Study Hall is separate from lunch because I can’t imagine any colleges punishing students for having a lunch period, Study Hall may be frowned upon because that could’ve been a full period for your child to take a class. D24 takes 6 classes each semester (really a year since at this grade, all the classes are year-long), a normal schedule. They have zero period, but I don’t let me my kids take those since we value sleep and they have sports that run late on practice days. That didn’t impact S21 who didn’t take zero period at 7am. They did take summer school PE, Health, World GEO required by the district (not by our UC system) to free up space for them to take their academy classes, which are elective classes that take up a slot all four years.
For volunteer activities, I would ask the volunteer coordinator you guys have to document annual service hours. We don’t have NHS at our school, but there is volunteer requirements that have been suspended due to COVID. I still have my daughter secure a written document for her volunteer work last year and this year.
I am also new to the forum and have been lurking. In regards to how does a college know what is allowed in your school. Many schools in our area share something called " School Profile" and as part of this they share information to colleges. This includes the number of kids getting a GPA example: 9% of kids get 4.0 GPA, also details on all AP courses offered and restrictions on taking AP, AVG SAT score for the kids and so on. I think this is what colleges use to know some of this information. I am in CA.
At our HS APs (with very rare exception - usually kids who are super advanced with math) are only available to juniors and seniors. That doesn’t keep high performing kids from being accepted to top schools (including Ivies) every year. I wouldn’t worry about a lack of AP classes for underclassmen. In terms of NHS, at our HS (MA) service hours are only accepted in the calendar year of a student’s nomination. Most kids do it the summer before junior year. Not sure if this is true of all schools or just ours.
Hi Everyone,
I have been in lurking mode for a few weeks now. We have a S24 and are doing this for the first time so have a lot to learn about the college admissions and high school stuff. Both by H and I did our schooling out of US so the whole high school process has been an interesting experience.
Welcome!! All questions are valuable to all of us or we’ve asked them before if we are parents of older kids. I learned a ton from the parents on here with S21. Even if we did go to school here, it’s so different now!