@hello06 I think that the FAFSA rule is changing where you don’t get the sibling benefit. However, some schools will still take siblings into account. I know s21’s school does and that may be the only year we get a discount based on need. Just make sure the school follows that same route vs just going off the new fafsa rule.
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We downloaded “Try Harder!” to watch (Hubby went to Lowell). It follows a small subset of the senior class from 2017. After we watched it, my daughter and I 
agree we are glad we didn’t go to Lowell. It seems so stressful and a little toxic. And in the end, a % of kids who were meant to get into where they were meant to be got into where they were meant to go. And you could apply this across all high schools…so why put yourself in such a pressure cooker?! Anyway, that was our take. I was stressed watching it. But man, the AP teacher, Mr. Shapiro is the real deal. He seems to be who we all want our kids’ chem teachers to be. 
I teared up whenever he appeared! Not even my teacher!
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We downloaded “Try Harder!” to watch (Hubby went to Lowell). It follows a small subset of the senior class from 2017. After we watched it, my daughter and I
agree we are glad we didn’t go to Lowell. It seems so stressful and a little toxic. And in the end, a % of kids who were meant to get into where they were meant to be got into where they were meant to go. And you could apply this across all high schools…so why put yourself in such a pressure cooker?! Anyway, that was our take. I was stressed watching it. But man, the AP teacher, Mr. Shapiro is the real deal. He seems to be who we all want our kids’ chem teachers to be.
I teared up whenever he appeared! Not even my teacher!
I watched that, too! It was eye opening. I felt bad for all of those kids.
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D24 had robotics competition #2 today. Event was held at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, which is NOT near the main campus in Tempe. Polytechnic campus is near the Mesa airport. The competition itself was fun. She had a good time. Their team improved a lot compared to their 1st go at it 2 weeks ago.
But D24 said something that caught my attention and it made me go “Hmm…” and think of future college visits. She said, “Mom, this place is dead. It’s a ghost town. I do NOT want to go to a campus like this when I go to college. Besides, there’s nothing to do nearby.”
ASU has 4 campuses - main one in Tempe, the Polytechnic one in Mesa, one on the west side of town, and 1 downtown (which has a lot of medical majors like nursing). Polytechnic campus has some engineering majors, but not the main ones, and has random stuff like manufacturing, aviation, etc. ASU advertises that each of its campuses has dorms, dining commons, health & fitness centers, even honors dorms, etc. And yes, that is all true.
But the Polytechnic campus on this particular Saturday was a ghost town. Is this reflective of every weekend? I have no idea. But one thing’s for sure…there is NOTHING to do within walking distance of that campus. You’d totally need a car.
And heck, the student union didn’t even open until 11 am! No on campus dining available until 9 am, so good luck if you’re in the dorms and want to eat breakfast before then.
But it got me thinking about college campus tours that we’ll do at some point in the latter half of 11th grade. I can already tell that D24 is going to want a school where the entire student body doesn’t go home every weekend (i.e., commuter school). And she’s going to want a school that has SOMETHING to do on the weekend without access to a car…so schools with some sort of retail & dining strip of businesses within an easy walk of campus. And schools that have events occasionally on the weekends. You know, how sometimes, colleges will bring new-ish movies to campus and will show them for cheap in 1 of the big lecture halls. That sort of thing.
I was not expecting that today!
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What I felt particularly sad about was the kid who really wanted to go to UCLA, got rejected from UCLA, but got admitted to UCSD and UC Berkeley…and wanted to go to UCSD…that kid & his parents visited the AP Physics teacher who was on leave recuperating from a liver transplant and the teacher told the kid’s mom that UCSD for her son was really the better fit…and then because of intense parental pressure, the kid ended up going to UCB anyway. You could tell when his parents were helping him move into the dorms freshman year that he couldn’t wait to get a little bit of freedom.
Watching that made me very glad that we moved out of the SF Bay Area before we had kids.
Our school’s senior counselor talks a lot about finding the right “fit” for a student in terms of college…and “fit” does not necessarily = “go to a tippy top college.”
I thought Alvin was going to choose UCSD, too. I looked him up on LinkedIn. He looks like he is premed based on his resume. The gal, Rachel who chose Brown looks premed, too.
I know I shouldn’t say this but the girl who worked at the ice cream shop (it’s down the street from my in-laws) who applied to all reaches (she did get into ucla) was so arrogant. I knew she wouldn’t get into those Ivies. It was the most typical set up. And I felt so much for that homeless kid. But he got into Stanford. I wanted to jump into my screen to hug him. “I care! Call me! I’m rooting for you!” Argh. Those poor kids.
Spanish Language Schools:
There are language schools in many Spanish-speaking countries. And many of those are affiliated with US colleges to grant college credit (but you need to verify in advance, of course.) And each school has specific universities they partner with. Usually to get the college credit, you have to go for 2 weeks or more. We’re just doing it for a week during Spring Break so no college credit this trip. But that’s also irrelevant for us since my son is a senior (all apps already in) and my daughter will be doing IB HL Spanish so she’ll probably get credit already for any transfer credits she’d get from another university. But it would be very beneficial for anyone not taking AP or IB HL Spanish to get the credit and the GPA bump on their application. Classes are pretty universally ~4 hours in the morning with afternoons off for sightseeing or day-trips. Most schools have additional optional conversation practice, cooking classes, culture classes, etc just for extra Spanish immersion. The schools almost always have host families you can stay with. They will typically feed you breakfast and dinner as part of your boarding price. Lunch will be on your own.
This trip we’re doing on our own. We’re renting a VRBO.
I was a Spanish major in college (SDSU) and did a couple of Spring trips through extended studies to get some of my conversation classes (there was no “study abroad office” back then at SDSU, though there is now.) The classes through the school work the same way as described above - the school just partners with a language institute, students fly down, stay with a family arranged through the institute, take morning classes, sightsee/day trips in the afternoons and weekends. The institute sends the grades (almost always an A if the students puts in reasonable effort and show up to class) and attendance info to the university. It’a an awesome way to get language class credits.
When I was in college both of my trips were to San Jose. This time I wanted to go to a beach community. I chose CPI in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica, but there are other schools that are good. CPI also has schools in other towns in CR.
Let me know if there’s anything I didn’t cover if you’ve got questions.
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I really liked Alvin and the kid who got into Stanford. And also the kid who ended up going to the junior college which guarantees admittance to transfer to Emory.
The girl who worked at the ice cream shop…my impression of her was that she was just sheltered and kind of ignorant. Sheltered in terms of all she ever heard most of the time in her peer group and from her parents was an echo chamber of “check off all of these boxes and do all of these things and you are a shoe in to a Top 20 school.” It was a hard dose of reality to her when she realized that she got in to almost none of those schools.
She also didn’t really know WHY she wanted to go to all of those east coast schools other than “they have good reputations and my parents & friends said I should go there.” I thought she seemed, overall, a little depressed. It was sad to watch.
I have compassion for all of the kids in the documentary. From various interviews, it appears that the filmmakers had followed many more students than the 5 they ended up focusing on via the editing process. Additionally, filmmaker Debbie Lum had indicated that she was originally interested in following “Tiger Moms” and then moved to “Tiger Cubs.” So it is interesting that the UCLA student’s parents were not in the documentary.
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Hmmm, hadn’t heard of that show. May need to watch it.
Since folks are posting their kids’ junior year class schedules:
IB English HL 1
US History
Math*: Geometry /or/ Adv Algebra with Financial Applications
Tennis PE
IB Spanish HL1
AP Comp Sci Principles
She’s in AP Engl Lang now and has decided she wants to be an English major.
She has to do a second PE class for graduation and is on the JV tennis team. Only kids on the tennis team are allowed to choose tennis PE. I intentionally saved it for her junior year to reduce the junior-year stress and to ensure her 6th period class (which they miss regularly for tennis matches) is just tennis. Missing chemistry and math a lot this fall was tough.
She is a year ahead of grade-level in Spanish. Oddly enough, our area doesn’t offer languages in middle school. My son had to do Spanish 1 online before his junior year because he’d delayed starting and needed 3 years of it. She opted to take it with him before her 9th grade year. So her advantage is that she got to take Spanish 3 before going into the IB Spanish HL class. Most of the IB Spanish students at their school come in from Spanish 2.
AP Comp Sci Principles is just because her brother loved it, the teacher was his favorite teacher who has been lobbying to get Beth to take it too, and her best friend is going to take it.
<*> The reason for the weird range in math is because her school had her go from Algebra 1 straight to Algebra 2+. She needs to do Geometry still. If my son gets into Cal Poly SLO this year, my daughter wants the option to apply and be competitive (luckily, applying as an English major increases those odds. DS is applying as a Comp Sci major.) So if DS doesn’t get into SLO, she’s going to opt for Geometry during the school year. If he does get in, she’ll do Geometry with SVHS (online) and do the advanced algebra class next year because it counts as higher-level math for Cal Poly SLO (has Algebra 2 as a prerequisite.)
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We don’t know S24’s exact schedule yet. He’s definitely taking AP Spanish in 11th grade. He’s also taking the Pre-Calc class in 11th grade that feeds into AP Calc AB in 12th grade.
Science will probably be Physics. English might be AP but S has to apply/ask for teacher’s recommendation.
That leaves History. It’s his worst subject. He took US last year and is taking World this year (no AP history courses are offered till 11th grade). Originally, I was going to push S to take AP World, but now I’m beginning to think that he’s right to want to take Economics and Government.
Yes! The kid who is at Emory is this oddball (for the school) liberal arts kid and his parents were Lowell alums, too! And he got a full ride! His mom seemed cool.
Alvin’s mom, the one who gave the Brown interviewer the Lunar New Year red envelope. OMG. I almost died. I also wanted to strangle her. Also, they were at R&G Lounge and they didn’t order the crab (it’s know. For the crab dish)!!
I’m going to show it to D24’s friends the next time we can safely get together. We watched it with DH and it was distracting because he kept pointing out to us his own Lowell memory. Of course, they are all sad because they are prob mourning the resignation of Justice S. Breyer this week. One less Lowell alum in high places soon.
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@s318830 It’s a documentary called “Try Harder!” and I think you can rent it on all the major streaming platforms. I watched it on Apple TV.
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My S is still having a huge science debate. He is doing well but not great in a very difficult honors chemistry class with an almost A. I am sure it will be an A by the end of the year. Our school requires honors science classes before AP. He can’t decide if he takes AP chem next year to keep the info fresh since it does not appear to be hugely harder than his current class or take honors physics next year to finish it all out and then an AP science class senior year. I guess this is a question for the guidance counselor. His history teacher gave the class the APUSH is scary talk to the class and scared him. I am sure he will be recommended and take it, it is funny how some school all kids take all APs possible and ours only about 40 out of the class of 300 take APUSH.
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The one advantage of taking a rigorous physics course in junior year is that it gives the student an idea of whether he’ll (because S) like engineering or not, which will help with refining the application process. Most engineers take progressively harder math and physics courses in their first three terms. Unfortunately, our school does not allow kids the ability to take a rigorous physics course until senior year.
So my S is definitely not going to be an engineering major. May be premed or environmental science but much more likely to be a humanities major (he told me today that he is going to try and take Greek and Latin in college, omg). Physics is only to make sure that he has all three sciences in HS since as freshman they take a physical science class along with biology that I dont think counts.
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I think S22 will take the following:
APUSH
AP lang
AP Spanish
AP physics 1
Honors pre-calc (no AP math courses until senior year for most kids)
PE
Elective TBD
Will be curious to see how he does with it. He’s never gotten less than A in any class and he isn’t exactly killing himself. I think he’s in for a rude awakening in terms of the amount of time he’ll need to put in to maintain his grades.
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Where were you able to download it from ? I would love to watch it.
It’s okay to take either one, especially if he will take one or the other in high school. Either way, colleges will see what the course and planned courses are senior year since they input that on the application. For a UC app, if it applies, you could strategize and pick the class that will likely yield an A junior year.
D24 is opting for that and the science class her friends are choosing to take. She’s not opting for the crazies like S21 and is only taking once AP sci class next year vs two. He took Physics and Bio. She’s doubling on math with AP Calc AB and AP Stat because she likes the two Stat teachers and pretty much anything to get a chance to get her fave teacher again next year for Stat.
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@coastal2024 I downloaded mine on iTunes. You can rent or buy the download. I bought it to support an APA filmmaker and it was $14.99. You can download it on Amazon Prime Video, too, I believe. I didn’t check Hulu because I can’t remember our password.