Thanks! The Fiske guide came, and it was VERY helpful. Thanks hive mind for that suggestion! It is somewhat like that book I remember when I was looking at colleges (in the stone age). I think have more of an idea now where to start, although obviously it’s not MY college experience. It was also reassuring to see that although there are a lot of schools that are VERY competitive, there are lots of others that aren’t quite so much. Sometimes when you look on these boards it seems crazy! Everybody has 12 APs, an unweighted 3.9 GPA, was president of their class and volunteered 50 hours a week. LOL.
My husband and I encouraged our son to sign up for AP seminar this year to help him with that “intellectual curiosity.” Supposedly, it focuses on research and public speaking, and then next year there is a deeper dive into a topic. We’re hoping he can find something he feels passionately about…other than Youtube. Can I ask how he took a “deep dive?” I mean, I assume schools want to see you’ve DONE something with that learning. Right?
He started growing endangered plants from seeds, networked with others online and shared care information, went on a podcast. It wasn’t really a ton of time. It was a very specific plant variety. I think having something different and outside the typical high school stuff is valuable.
FYI the newest edition of the Fiske Guide doesn’t have the test scores but that is available elsewhere.
We did both because we got some tours in before covid hit too. We found we could gather the info we sought about about culture and vibe from message boards, mailers, website, and talking to people we knew it was just that piece about conceptualizing size or understanding what is meant by “college town” etc that she just had trouble with until we started to see a number of places where she could start to distinguish between them and put together the aspects that made her more comfortable even if they weren’t the exact schools on her list. Her list evolved a lot from what she thought she wanted initially and this was the biggest reason (which is totally understandable).
Here is a website that lets you see how many degrees in any major were granted by different schools. It’s on Jon Boekenstedt’s blog. He’s the Enrollment Manager for Oregon State, and writes varies things about admissions. The interface is a little cumbersome, but if you’re into data it’s probably a rabbit hole you will enjoy…
We still have one more week before D starts school, but I know many others have started back already. I just want to wish all of our 2024 kids a great sophomore ( how did that happen already?!) year!
Good luck to all the kiddos! For the CA kids, UC a-g GPA counts now :). My daughter is in week 3 of school now. Everyone is doing a great job masking. One teacher wore a mask gaitor and she said, “He’s a science teacher. I question street creds of someone wearing a neck gaitor to defend against COVID.” . AP Chem teacher’s approach is interesting. Still not as organized and I’ve had to refer to me college Chem book to teach my daughter, who then teaches her friends every night. AP World is still a ton of work. I remember my son complaining back then. Same teacher who still doesn’t teach. But bless my daughter who’s done with homework by 4pm on Sunday’s while big brother would start homework ar 4pm Sundays. She’s juggling homework and comp soccer. Air quality has been bad hear so practices were canceled for a few days, which was a relief for her with extra homework capacity. Tomorrow we take off to move S21 into Brown. I feel so mentality overwhelmed with one so done with college admission while the other one is just now ramping up for the next few years to apply.
Here we go, sophomore year! School starts this week but preseason for athletics started last week so we are in the mindset already. We started to talk to S24 about colleges this summer and is interested but we also told him to focus on enjoying this year in HS and not to worry about it too much.
D24 started three weeks ago. Very good mask wearing, one warning about a few cases in school, but no widespread quarantine. Bigger problem for us is the smoke right now. It moved lunches indoors which is probably the biggest risk during the day.
We didn’t for S21, but this time around we are exploring some help with the college admissions process. We hope D24 will respond better to their services than when dad says ‘but someone on this blog I read said you should start your outline early in the summer’
@parentkeith since we live in the same area, I can totally relate! The smoke has been so bad. I do t even think they moved lunch indoors. Our football games were canceled last weekend due to COVID positive cases across the freshman to varsity teams. D24 misses virtual school. She said high school has way too many people and she misses sleeping til 7:50am for 8am classes
My D24 is having a hard time emotionally adjusting to the longer school days and harder classes. She’s on the block schedule and during the pandemic the teachers were told to take it easy. She also had a first year math teacher last year who was not good so even the review is proving difficult for her. Kind of paying for all that freedom and down time they enjoyed last year. Lots of screen time and personal liberty. She’s super smart and capable but having a hard time kicking into gear. Some of her theater group is doing the play as a course but she needs to take enough core classes for UC A-G if she doesn’t want to do summer school.
The school has had a trickle of Covid case announcements but everyone is masked and my D is vaccinated.
Anyone feel like even though they are sophomores, it kind of feels like freshman year, with a lot of firsts? I just dropped S24 off at his first HS football game. Hopeful for a more normal year.
I agree. It only doesn’t feel like it’s the first year because my daughter has a soccer season last spring and got to actually go on campus for tryouts and games.
Imagine what sophomores in college feel like! My son moved in as a first year so I had questions but on the parent forum, so many sophomore parents had similar questions. Brown had convocation for Class of 2025 and after my son walked thru, they actually had the Class of 2024 walk thru the gate because they never got to do it.
When we dropped our freshman son off at UT Austin, it was the first time any of us had been on campus. I was talking to a coworker yesterday, and he’s delivering his sophomore daughter to UC Irvine next week and it will be both of their first time on campus. Kind of crazy.
Even though we did have in-person school last year, we are calling them 2nd year freshmen. So much is still new and so many who chose virtual last year are back this year.
We just finished week 3. I think only 1 email of a positive case. Not bad. Mask wearing is pretty decent they tell me.
D24 first time in person going to school this year. She is happy to see all her friends at the school. Running between classrooms with mask is quite an excercise to say the least.
How are your students preparing for PSAT? Its on Oct 13th here. Appreciate any pointers to quality practice tests.
@MomOfCornellAlum I’m going to have my D24 going into the PSAT cold turkey. I have to ask her if the school will have PSAT. She took a version in 8th grade just to try it and did okay for the 8th grade version. I think all the studying will take place this upcoming summer since junior PSAT is when it counts for national merit. It worked well with S21, so I’m trying to replicate and pace it out. She only has one potential school where the PSAT junior would matter and that’s USC where they do give $ to National Merit if you get in. This is her first year of in-person high school and with AP classes that the school offers so I told her to focus on her course work this year and have fun with her friends. I have a feeling she may be an ACT kid like her brother so she may not do a ton of prep for PSAT since this summer is going to be test prep summer.
PSAT is optional here. I can’t decide if I should have her take it or not. I’m sure she’ll study/review next summer for the 11th grade version and she’ll take the PSAT 10 in the spring. So this would be just cold and for extra practice.
For PSAT, cold turkey here too. Mine also took the 8/9 last year, I think >1300. Plan is to prep next summer for fall junior SAT and PSAT, two birds/one stone. I imagine he could possibly be in range for NM on next year’s PSAT if he preps hard, but I’m not really going to worry about that - I’ll be more concerned w/SAT. For this year’s PSAT, at most, I’ll have him take a glance at a practice test for format and timing. I am already getting the sense that he will have limited patience w/ playing the game of college admissions and there’s no need to press at this point.
Can I ask how he took a “deep dive?” I mean, I assume schools want to see you’ve DONE something with that learning. Right?
. AP Chem teacher’s approach is interesting. Still not as organized and I’ve had to refer to me college Chem book to teach my daughter, who then teaches her friends every night. AP World is still a ton of work. I remember my son complaining back then. Same teacher who still doesn’t teach. But bless my daughter who’s done with homework by 4pm on Sunday’s while big brother would start homework ar 4pm Sundays. She’s juggling homework and comp soccer. Air quality has been bad hear so practices were canceled for a few days, which was a relief for her with extra homework capacity. Tomorrow we take off to move S21 into Brown. I feel so mentality overwhelmed with one so done with college admission while the other one is just now ramping up for the next few years to apply.
