S24 is in the same boat. It was a shock for him to get several B’s this report card since he has maintained all A’s till now. His course load is about 3X heavier than last year though and he hopes to get the hang of it while balancing the sports. I keep telling him its fine and normal.
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Yes same with S24 things have come relatively easy until now and he is trying to figure out the right balance on how to do things and ask for help as needed (does not come easily to him). Asking for help is an important lesson and so I am trying to look at this as a positive.
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This is also their first real normal year in high school. The idea that they are having some issues balancing full schedules and intense academics is not surprising. My S wanted to add a sport and decided that it was just not possible between his courseload and music program.
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I’m glad she thought it went well! My daughter took it again Saturday as well. She thought it went well and seemed easier than the Aug test.
I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it but my S22 took it at that se school in Nov 22 and there were definitely fewer there this weekend. No line to get in, parking lot was pretty empty, etc.
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THere were limited schools who offered the august sat by us and it filled a month before the date and the places was PACKED! Maybe this is a less popular date?
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I think August is “last chance” for many seniors hoping for score by Early Action/Decision dates. But November is too early for many juniors to be thinking about it yet.
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In our area all centers are fully booked 1 to 2 days after the registration opens. For august we had to travel 50 miles to take the exam and October 1 we were luck to get close by. I see the same in our 50 mile radius. You would think it would be easier to get seat as the CA publics are test blind (UC’s and CSU) the number of people taking it would be low. Our school informed that 95% of the the kids still took the SAT or ACT. Based on the data out from the last 2 years the college counsellors do say that if interested in T50 especially the privates than scores can help so most kids here do take the test.
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That makes sense, surprising so few schools offer it by us (nyc suburbs).
So S has been concentrating on small LACs that will cost a fortune but I just got an email that an amazing teacher for his instrument will be starting at Alabama in fall of 2023. Wonder if I can convince him to take a look, school would be basically free! I am guessing absolutely not!
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That would be great to get Free education. My S24 would start of as no for Alabama. He specifically said no Alabama, Oklahoma as an example when we were discussing location for college. He did Say Alabama has a good sports team 
.
But if it is really free and has a good program for what you are looking for then makes sense to consider if seriously.
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My son is a freshman in engineering at Alabama. Practically free worked for us. He’s enjoying classes, although they are kind of a repeat from high school this semester. But that’s okay and not a bad start to college. Next semester will have new stuff. He came in with an amazing amount of credits too so will either get his masters or a double major it a minor or two as well. He’s in the marching band which he absolutely loves! At this point he’s pretty happy with his choice. His first choice had been Rose Hulman but it was really out of our price range. He considered Michigan but really doesn’t love cold and kids try out weekly to be in the halftime show for band, which was a negative.
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That sounds amazing!
same here
It’s pretty nice! He has 100% of his Gen Ed classes covered from AP and IB classes. He decided to start at calc 1 to be sure he know it after missing so much of 10th-12th grade math. He’s in honors and doing well. But he did a little happy dance on the last day of English class in May. Lol. He will likely take a few extra classes for fun/enrichment but it’s nice knowing he has a lot of flexibility. And he knows we can now help if he does a study abroad, or with his first apartment or house, or whatever. While we aren’t just writing him a big check, he knows his college money is still his.
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My first post on CC 
Been watching CC forums for last few weeks especially the class of 22/23 threads and trying to understand other parents experiences with the college planning/prep process. I am grateful for everyone especially long timers who are posting on these forums and advising first timers like us 
DD24 goes to a competitive high school in NJ. She has set herself a high bar in terms of her GPA and SAT goals and trying her best to be in the top 20% in her grade. All her classes are either honors, APs or DCC which makes it stressful to keep up with the grades throughout the year.
Looking forward to sharing our experiences as we navigate the college journey for the first time
Will be posting our experiences
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Communications Major? What can one do with this? I know these days many students pick a major and can easily go to grad school to do what they “really want to do” and in undergrad many just randomly pick a major of interest. But I am curious where a communications major tends to lead. Any communications majors here, and if so, what did you end up doing with it? S24 is all over the place and I am curious as he has also mentioned communications (in addition to sport management, criminal justice and business 
).
Work in PR
Technical Writer
Marketing (non-numbers jobs)
HR
Communications Director/Manager/staffer (In my experience, most all corporations over 60 employees have some sort of communications department)
And a lot of other things.
The problem with a Communications degree comes when a student graduates with a lower-than-average GPA, does no internships (paid or unpaid, on-campus or professionally,) and puts no effort into projects for Comm classes. That student will graduate unprepared to enter the communications workforce, and risk spending their early “career” bouncing around from one lower-paid non-Communications job to another before realizing a career in communications is not going to happen.
That’s no different than a lot of non-STEM majors and soft-sciences like Poly-Sci, Psychology, Sociology, Biology, etc. Students who just coast along in such majors might end up in the sales room at any random company. Which for some kids turns out to be the perfect type of career.
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What are your plans for college visits this year? We were able to do a few last year during our April break which gave him an idea of what he likes. He has a list now and while there is no way we can see all of them, we are hoping to do some of the ones he thinks he really likes. I was thinking SMU/TCU/possibly UT Austin (huge reach for him) sometime in Jan or March. I would need to pull him out of school for this visit.
February break we will be on vacation in FL so he will see U Miami on that trip. April break we are hoping to do a Clemson/Alabama/Auburn and possibly UGA tour. I am feeling weird about pulling him from school for the Texas school visits but there is no other time to do it where he won’t miss school and I want to make sure there are students on campus during a regular semester session so he gets a real idea of the campus feel. He is telling me there are excused absences for college related activities. I think it is the fact that I am a school nurse (not in S24 district) who happens to be working with the district attendance team to tackle chronic absenteeism that is making this hard for me 
Is it the norm these days to miss a few days of school for college visits? The other issue is with fall sports it was impossible to do visits when we had days off from school (athletes cannot miss practice) and he will be in the same boat fall 2023. Many of his schools open applications in August and he is hoping to get the ball rolling on applications as soon as he can. It would be nice to know ahead of time if there are schools he wants to cross off the list based on a visit so he can concentrate on possibly finding alternatives.
Anyway, I know I am rambling, I am just curious what others are thinking/have planned and if I just need to get over it and plan a trip knowing he will be missing some school. He of course is more than happy to miss school
I do know that our school gives excused absences for school visits, we were going to do this in the fall for the top one or two schools so S can meet with important people right before the ED application goes in.
We have used the weird school breaks that our school has and are planning on going to a warm weather school during February break (Nashville) and then will go to a few Northeast schools during spring break (april). It is frustrating to spend our vacation time around this but at least Nashville should be a nice place to visit and S21 will meet us there for a few days. I continue to remind myself that S21 did all of this with zero college visits and a single post acceptance visit and it all worked out!
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I think it’s fine to miss school to fit in college tours.
We haven’t had to do that for DS2022 and DD2024.
DS did not tour 7 of the 19 colleges he applied to, as some of them were Reaches and the thought is to visit if/after he’s accepted.
While DS was very STEM focused, DD is undecided and not particularly in love with any college.
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Since we are chasing merit (and financial aid for some colleges), I made a list of many many colleges and ran all the NPCs.
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The ones that weren’t crazy full-price expensive, I scheduled tours.
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I scheduled tours to big colleges and small colleges so she can get a feel of what she’d like. I scheduled our tours for OPEN HOUSEs, when the college puts out their best marketing tactics.
DD really liked Syracuse Open House on a beautiful day, with all the free food and swags.
Her list is narrowing down to 9 solid options (3 Reach, 4 Targets, 2 Likelies). We have about 2-3 more tours, but we’re not in a rush for those.
Unlike her brother, there are no crazy Ivies/T10 on her list, but still just as challenging for her portfolio.
Good luck.
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