wow! Good luck to him!
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Itās starting to get real, yāall. Yesterday on the drive home from school, D24 said that 2 of the 11th graders are graduating at the end of this school year (their school does give you the option to do this, but most kids opt to stick around for 12th grade). Thatās when I realized, āOMG, that could be her. Holy cow.ā
Thankfully, she said, āI want to stay for 12th grade and graduate like normal with all of my friends.ā Thank goodness! Haha!
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Yes I know kids who graduate after 11th. One of them went on in college with no gaps the other kids decided to take a gap year after 1st year of college as he felt like it. I feel personally would like my kids to do 12th grade in high school. Whats the hurry 
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Wow that a heavy load. Good luck.
Did tours of 2 schools this past week, which helped D24 start to see what she really wants in a college. The college search process is getting real, and Iām not sure that Iām ready for it.
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We did some schools back in April when we had a window of opportunity- was great to help him realize the setting type he preferred, but I was definitely in a bit of a weird mood the whole time, feeling like I canāt believe we are at this stage already 
He is my oldest and then I have a D26.
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We did two college visits this summer, one where he was at a summer program and one that was planned. Definitely helped figure out what he wants and now we can narrow down his choices and do more visits over the course of the next year. So different than what we experienced with S21!
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Anyone here have a football player (or other fall athlete who has crazy practices all day, every day until the season is over)?
D24 starts football on 8/19 (pre-season) and they practice 6:30 am-3 daily including weekends until the season starts officially. Then they practice every day after school, have FNL (V) plus Sat morning games (JV) and many practices added weekends.
Trying to figure out when exactly he should take the SAT/ACT. He absolutely needs a prep class but wonāt have time to even think about that until winter b/c of football. Curious what your fall/winter athletes are doing.
so this is totally unhelpful but that is why my S did it over the summer. He goes to school every saturday (this year 10-6) and has to practice 2 hours every day in addition to HW. Could he take it in March when the season is over or June? Did he take a practice test? There are tons of practice tests on reddit with answer keys so you can see how he would do with nothing and plan from there.
I have 2 Fall sport kids. The plan was for D22 to take March SAT. However, Covid cancellations threw a wrench in that plan so she took in May(APs weāre postponed to June in 2021). With D24 we are shooting for March.
For college apps, your son will want to have done the bulk of the work over the summer before Football season kicks in to full gear. D22 was very thankful she had done a lot of the work before having to also balance sport and school.
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We are doing work with tutor for several weeks - because itās more tailored than a class, you can get away with less time. I think itāll be 6 weeks total/ once a week. That will be done by school start. Weāll do another refresh session with tutor in spring and then take it in June.
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This is what my son is doing, and practice questions as homework and a few full practice exams.
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D24 is still waiting for the background check process to complete for the hospital volunteer thing. Itās taking forever.
Choir started up again this week. D24 and everybody else in her choir have an opportunity to audition for this national honor choir, which sings at a big convention in Cincinnati in Feb. D24 is totally not interested because, as she put it, āWhy in the world would I want to go to Cincinnati, Ohio? Bleh.ā Ok, well, I tried. LOL. Teenagers.
Sheās continuing with SAT prep on Khan Academy.
Robotics club started up again yesterday. 2 of her friends are on her team. Thereās 2 teams of 6 kids. D26 is in the club, too, but on the other teamā¦which I think will be good for D26 (getting out of her sisterās shadow).
D24 & I are going to the āColleges That Change Livesā college fair in town on Wed of this week. Should be interesting. Iām interested in hearing what College of Wooster has to say.
D24ās school on Naviance has published dates for on campus admissions officers visits from some colleges. Iām going to make D24 attend the UofA and NAU ones. Other ones I saw were:
- Binghamton University - out of our price range and too far to get to, so not going to bother.
- Univ of Richmond - too expensive
- Pitzer College - much closer to us than east coast schools, but this, too, is out because too expensive
- Muhlenberg College - meh. Itās in PA. Hard to get to.
- Univ of Rochester - meh. Itās in NY and weāre in AZ. Hard to get to.
- Bowdoin College - itās in Maine. Forget it.
- Wabash College - men-only, so this oneās out.
- George Washington Univ - too expensive
- Hofstra Univ - in NYC. Just room & board is insane (almost $20k). And D24 doesnāt have high enough grades to earn 1 of their full tuition scholarships, so this oneās out. no point in having D24 go to the info session.
- Haverford College - too hard to get into and too expensive
- Occidental College - too expensive
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute - too expensive + D24 not interested in comp sci/engineering
- RPI - same as above
- Babson College - too expensive
Ha!!! we are on the east coast and all of these schools are ones that are easy to get to and ones that have been on the list, most have come off too but for different reasons, we were supposed to visit Haverford last week but I dont think my S would have been comfortable with their politics, Bowdoin is the only one still in contention but there are ones closer and similar. We are leaving in a few hours to take S21 back to school in NC and will possibly visit Davidson before coming back. Looks like a great target/low reach that has a music scholarship that will bring down COA.
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Our excitement this week is finishing up SAT prep. Seems that the tutors we have been using have not been that helpful and S is a little burned out. Found someone else for a few last minute sessions who is more helpful! Fingers crossed but looking at the SAT ranges for the last cycle, seems that test optional will be the way to go for most of our kids.
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Had some temporary 11th grade class schedule drama over the past couple of days. D24 was told that she needed a 7th class this year in order to have enough credits for graduation. When she signed up for AP Music Theory, we thought that it could count as the AP elective that she needed + also count as a fine art class. Turns out, we were incorrect on that. School is giving D24 a 1 semester credit for her choir hours submitted last year (i.e., independent study) and will also give her a 1 semester credit for the same this year. She doesnāt get enough hours of instruction over 1 academic year for them to be able to count it as 1 yearās worth of a fine art.
All of this means that D24 does NOT have to take an additional class this year and weāre glad of that.
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My son went to a SAT boot camp and it improved his score a bit but not as much. He refuses a 1:1 tutor sigh :(. So our compromise if that we will let him prep for August SAT and if his method does not work then he will use tutor for the second go.
In regards to the SAT scores this cycle I am told last two cycles where we have data were almost all schools were test optional but things may change as more schools go to going to require the scores may start going down. Previously I had heard that if you are at 50% or above for a school submit but I am now hearing if you are around 25% also we should submit so who knows how things will go in the next two cycles.
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My D is struggling with SAT prep too. We signed her up for 1 on 1 tutoring, but sheās not really engaging in it. Sigh. You can lead a horse to water , but you canāt make them drinkā¦ lol.
Iām starting to wonder if this one needs a gap year.
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Gap years are great! In fact, I took 6 of them in a row 
Started my first full time job the week after HS graduation, did lots of volunteer work, and supported spouse through grad school. Started college at 23. I absolutely kicked ass in college! Would have absolutely flunked out had I gone at 18.
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Tell me more about the SAT/ACT prep your kids are doing. S24 def needs a prep either with a tutor 1:1 or a class. His PSAT was only 1090 so really needs to get that score up. He canāt do much of anything until December when fall sports are over. Curious if you did a b not camp, weekly group class, on-line, or 1:1 and what you think. Thanks.