My son has 1 merit scholarship that will cover total tuition at one school. Another school offered enough scholarship to bring him down to under 9k total COA (and is even cheaper than our in state options!)
Your son will likely do just fine! So many great schools out there!
I hate that the Common App has 10 spaces for ECs. Like, you can be well rounded without 10. But because it is built into the model, kids think they need a dozen ECs, which is sad.
I have one kid with one EC and one kid who would do all the things, so I’m not suggesting that some kids are not worthy of doing 10 well. I just think there should be more mindfulness about quality over quantity with college admissions.
I’m surprised college board is now doing AP Pre-calc. Seems like kids will just use that class for a GPA bump. Is Pre-calc really a class kids take in college?
What is the grading scale at your schools? We went to a visit at Hillsdale last week and they said they recalculate everyone’s GPA’s when they apply so that things are even. So it looks like when my d25 applies there her GPA will be recalculated to get rid of the one A- she has so her unweighted will be a 4.0. Our scale is 94-100 is an A and 90-93 an A- and so on. They do not give A+'s.
I took pre-calc in college back in the day. A long time ago though. I had only made it through algebra 2 in HS for a couple of reasons.
I actually would be thrilled if our high school decided to teach this AP class next year. S24 has always been in standard math but does very well. He is supposed to take pre calc next year and an AP pre calc would be prefect for him. He needs a bit more rigor in his schedule but a couple of the options his school offers have horrible teachers so he its refusing to take them 
I took Pre-Calc in high school and didn’t have to take any math in college. I was a nursing major and we only had to be proficient in Algebra. For some reason I thought that one would just take regular calculus in college (just skip pre-calc if you didn’t have it in high school).
D25 Junior year schedule
Newswriting - zero period before school
AP Lang
AP Chem
Honors Pre Calc - her school talked about AP Pre Calc but I think they couldn’t pull it off for next year. Honors Pre Calc is a UC designated honors class so it gets the gpa bump anyway
Spanish 3
US History - decided against APUSH for her sanity!
Symphonic Orchestra
Enough rigor, but not overwhelming with 2 varsity sports.
Anybody have plans for spring break? My D has back stage crew all day long for half of it but we are going to visit one college officially. She’s signed up for “music student for a day” at TCNJ. She gets to see what it’s like as a music student, has lunch with them, attend a class and bring her instrument. It’ll be her first real tour. She’s been to a few schools for events and has spent a good amount of time at Rowan for music activities but never had anything official where she’s actually thinking about a possibility for attending in the future. I get to go to a parent meeting in the morning and wait around until the end of the day. I figure I’ll walk the campus and check out the shops outside of it, weather dependent.
That sounds like a really fun opportunity/visit. We are just doing a family vacation for spring break this year. We toured 3 colleges this year and are now taking a break from it until fall. It’s soccer season so D25 is busy doing that along with all of the other spring things at school.
What are everyone’s plans for the SAT/ACT? As of now the plan is for D25 to take the SAT in August before the switch over to digital and then if needed take another SAT in 2024 after the switch. Probably do ACT in the spring.
My daughters school has them take ACT in school the first week of March junior year.
For spring break my daughter will follow big bro on tours to Baldwin Wallace, Jacksonville U, UNF, and Stetson.
I don’t know when she’ll take SAT/ACT. I do know that her school hosts it and she will take it whenever they do. She really just needs a good enough score for a teacher preparation program. She’s not the student who while very smart will throw herself into studying anything especially if it’s what I want. She does very well musically because she chooses it. When she was little her pediatrician said she has some ODD - obstinate defiant disorder. Not so much that she needs serious intervention but enough that I really have to pick my battles.
Maybe the SAT in June? Unlike the older siblings, C25 is in no hurry to take any standardized exams (despite being phenomenally good at them).
We’re doing the same thing. Hoping S25 will study over the summer!
My S2025 is taking the ACT with classmates at his school this month. He already has a 32.25 from last year and is hoping for a 34. He will then prep this summer with practice PSAT tests for the October PSAT.
How are you all feeling about the change in SAT to digital? My kid has to do iReady (computer-adaptive testing) for her school and hates it. She says it throws her because you can always tell when you got something wrong because the next question is really easy. (That particular one also makes you continue the test until you get 50% wrong, which makes everyone feel awful, but that’s a different point.) It makes me want to see if she could get a test done before it switches (and pray to be one and done), but she’s gone at dance intensives for six weeks this summer, and there’s no way she’ll be studying there. Maybe I’ll have her test on both informally and see if she does better on the ACT? Can someone refresh my memory which level the math goes through for each of them? I feel like people have said to me that the ACT’s content might be a bit easier than the SAT but there’s a lot more time pressure. Is that correct?
Back when I roamed with the dinosaurs, “everyone” in CA took the SAT and the ACT was more or less nonexistent to us.
I hadn’t really thought about the testing piece and timing; thanks for bringing it up!
My D25 really prefers written tests. We may look into getting an accommodation which would allow her to still take the paper ACT.
Mine, too. But she doesn’t qualify for an accommodation. It’s just a strong preference. Oh, crud, is the ACT digital, too? I hadn’t realized that. Ugh.
Since big bro is in college decision mode, I decided to create D25 her own college only email. I requested info from some schools she may want to look into already. This is how we got a few free college application waiver codes with her brother so hoping it will give us good luck again! She will be looking at “lesser known” schools that are not as academically competitive as her gpa hovers around 3.0.
I made one for my daughter too! I’ve been snooping through this forum way too long to make a rookie mistake like giving out her regular email. So far only the college board and TCNJ has it so far.