This is how our school does it- all sophomores and juniors take it in October at school.
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The PSAT NMSQT is in October. This is a test group for the new digital format.
Our school also offers the PSAT 9 and 10 in the spring.
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Did you get an email about it? I don’t think I saw anything but would love for my D to practice.
Did your S have his SAT class yet? What was his feedback?
Just curious - did you venture across and walked the Columbia U campus?
Glad your time in the Big Apple helped with the narrowing down options. That’s a win either way.
PS: “Which” Hudson River park appealed to you? The section near the Village? Glad you didn’t get run over by cyclists and roller bladers 
We didn’t end up walking the Columbia campus. She was tired from her intensive and turned down offers of boba, some delectable pastry place called the Hungarian (recommended by two Barnard students), and going to the Yumiko (schmancy dance leotards) store. If she had been in a different headspace, I would have suggested it; I really liked Barnard and the Barnard/Columbia relationship. As it was, we managed to find a subway car with a/c (which we didn’t have for the 15 stops going uptown–I called it our sauna treatment for the day) and headed to Penn Station to head back to NJ.
There’s more than one Hudson River Park? I walked it south until it ended (I thought) in Battery Park (and then kept going to the 9/11 memorial). Another day I walked north on it until I veered off to head to Central Park to read. My favorite part, though, is between Pier 40 and Pier 51 (I think that’s the #), although the Little Island area is sweet as well. I doubt I will ever live in NYC, but I really liked the Greenwich Village/West Village best of the neighborhoods I traversed.
Narrowing down is a win, I agree. I thought we were going to do more of the same by going to the Colleges that Change Lives tour last night, but she got totally overwhelmed in the college room, didn’t feel like she had any questions, and was getting more anxious the longer we stood there. I decided that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and said that if she didn’t want to be there, we could go. So, we did. Parenting is hard, people. Knowing when to push your kid (c’mon, let’s just talk to one person and then we can go if you don’t want to do more) vs heeding her cues (clearly not engaged, freaking out, and–to be fair–not super researched on these schools for fantastic questions) is challenging for me. My only win is that I think I managed to stay relatively neutral in my response to her. Another time, another place. We’ve got time to figure this out.
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It was an email invite a few weeks ago. Just got a confirmation he was selected to test it. He had his first tutoring class last night and said it was good, (with all the enthusiasm of a 16 year old boy). That’s all I got out of him.
Well - different sections with entirely different characteristics. The bike path runs north all the way to/past the George Washington Bridge. Up by Barnard it would be Riverside Park (if you had gone two blocks towards the River).
One can actually ride their bikes from the historic Fort Lee park on the Palisades (NJ side), across the GWB all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan, and back.
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I reached out to a family friend who’s a college counselor to start the process of him talking to my D from his experience. She’s been pretty hesitant about everything until today. After spending the day at the shore with friends she was tired and in her pjs sitting on the couch talking to me for more than just a couple of minutes. Once done chatting she wasn’t moving so I mentioned I messaged our friend and that we should watch a school video. She himmed and hawed for a minute, got some food but came back and sat down.
We watched the Prime college tour of U of Puget Sound. She was trying to not watch but kept looking up and after a few minutes watched the whole thing. She likes the west coast vibe and I think this school is a good fit if we can make it work financially. She actually asked what is the admission rate and really connected with the music major it featured when she said she majors in music but she’s getting so much more besides music. She also chuckled at the music ed student when he started with “howdy” it reminded us of her uncle who graduated from TX a&m plus he kind of looks like the guy. After she practically ran out the living room before I could start another one but was in a really good mood and said she’s going to see what students have to say about the school and not just the professional sales pitch. Our friend will get in touch after he’s back from vacation in a few weeks.
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Glad you liked Little Island! 
You may be the first person who I have ever heard rank Pier 40 as their favorite (it’s the big square one with park employee offices in front and playing fields on the water side). A lot of people use it for the fields, but it’s been in need of renovation for a decade.
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If you have any questions about UPS let me know. My daughter goes there and she’s a music major.
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Thank you! My D is woodwinds do you know anything about them? I’m not sure what your D’s instrument is. Does she perform frequently? How are the music theory type classes? Does she find time for other pursuits outside of music? I’m hoping to visit next spring break especially because it’ll still be dreary to remind my D of PNW winter weather, we’ve been visiting in summer for the past several years and haven’t been in the other seasons pretty much since school started. How has your D coped with the weather?
@citivas,
The pier itself is lackluster, but the area between Pier 40-51 is quite lovely. (And now that you’ve said this, I realize I was probably mentally thinking of Pier 2_ --that has the kids’ playground, mini-golf, skate park, etc) when I initially wrote this. I didn’t hang out at any pier, per se; I was usually at a bench or table around where Christopher St runs into Hudson River Park. But that whole area felt like part of a neighborhood(s), and people living their normal lives, whereas other areas of the city felt very different, and less to my liking. To each their own!
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2.5 weeks until the start of school for D25. She finished her last book for summer reading and now just has to complete that last assignment. Less than 3 weeks until SAT now too. Today she gets her official schedule (she just had a sneak peek earlier this summer) and starts her new job! It’s picture day later this week and she’ll get her yearbook from last school year. It’s going to be a busy week!
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Final junior year schedule.
ACT Skills and Strategies (1 semester)
Forensic Science
Accel Algebra 2
English 11
Anatomy and Physiology
AP Psychology
Art of Film (1 semester- counts as history credit)
Study Hall
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That actually sounds like a fun schedule. D25 is required to buy some ACT prep stuff for her AP Lang class so I guess they’re just going to cover that in her class. Her final schedule is:
AP Lang
Spanish 2
AP Calc AB
APUSH
Honors Physics
PTLW Biomedical science Medical interventions
Leadership (student council class, 1st semester)
Bible- Gospels (2nd semester)
She’s very happy with her locker location this year. Today is picture day and they also get their laptops back. School starts 2 weeks from today.
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Students actually use lockers?!
D25’s schedule is a bit much but she didn’t listen to me.
AP Lang
AP Spanish
AP Calc BC
AP Environmental Science
APUSH
Newspaper
Personal Finance/Graphic Design
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She basically puts her lunch in it in the morning and also her coat and soccer bag. She carries all of her books around in her backpack all day (weighs about 50 pounds, I don’t understand it.
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I think we’ve figured out D25’s schedule–for the first semester. TBD on the 2nd.
AP Lit
H Pre-Calc
DE US History
DE Social Psych
AP Bio
PE (Modern Dance)
I keep wondering if she should add her H Gov class and get it done with, but that’s probably the easiest class she’ll have next year, so I’m hesitant to add it. She’s maxed out on her Spanish options (took AP Span Lang in 9th and a DE Span Lit in 10th). Her school has some weird “life skills” requirements (2 years worth!), so I think she’ll try to finish them up with DE Positive Psych next term and another semester of PE. I’m not sure what the other class will be for DE–she could try to get physics done to lighten next year’s load? I think I might push for this if there’s a good physics prof available at a local school on the quarter system; it would be a pretty intense beginning to the term, but then she’d be done when she needs to study for AP tests. But I’ve read about many profs on Rate My Professor, and there aren’t too many great ones locally for physics, so we’ll see.
D25 started school this week. Had to be persistent to get her schedule right. She attends a rural public school and her counselor is clueless. I’m pretty sure I know more about college admissions than he does. Which is sad.
AP Lit - schedule conflict with Spanish 3 for the usual junior class of AP Lang. Same teacher for both and said teacher was actually the one that suggested AP Lit so she could also get the needed Spanish class! Her counselor had no viable solutions.
AP Chem
Spanish 3
Honors Pre Calculus
Newswriting
US History - couldn’t talk her into APUSH. She does two varsity sports so she thought it would be too much.
I saw a mention above about locker excitement. D25 was also very excited about getting a top row locker this year! It’s the little things! 
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Shes happy with it. She did her 3 years of Spanish already. Plus this summer she completed her phy ed in summer school along with a class called American Issues (which was her other credit for history this year).
Shes super excited about forensics, anatomy, and AP Psych as those are all her interests. Shes my solid 3.0 kid so allowing her to take what imterests her without too many AP courses is whats best for my kid.
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