Yes, that’s how it came up. It was the one except to a long list of big public schools that does require the SAT.
Our district has a near 30% admission rate as an OOS public high school to UF. I haven’t looked at the Naviance data yet though.
I am frustrated about the immaturity that it was fine to go if we were going to visit Disney World just a few months ago, but now Florida is “the South.” There was no mention of academic content. I find reductive, simplistic stereotypes not useful and may have an especially strong response when I hear my otherwise progressive kid making them. But I hear the feedback that this is her journey. It is still frustrating to hear stereotypes and not substance be a reason to ignore entire portions of the country, especially when this is the exploration time.
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I don’t see how it’s immature to acknowledge that life at college is much more than academic experiences, though?
(And in all seriousness, look at the legal and policy pressures Florida—or wherever—colleges are being placed under, and remember that it’s not you who would have to live with them, it’s your “otherwise progressive kid”. Cuts to the list have to be made based on something, right?)
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My kid is a white male and he has said he will not go to school anywhere in the South if he can help it and I support that. Especially since we want to get out of Texas as soon as possible. Partly because of politics and partly because it feels like the South is being burned to a crisp.
He got his Oct 7th SAT scores back and thankfully he did well enough he won’t ever have to take it again. That is a load off!
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SAT score went up 10 points (to 1310) from his sophomore year. I warned him that if he didn’t study, his score probably wouldn’t increase much. He was on the hoping and wishing plan. LOL
Had our Calvin University visit today. She said she still wants to apply but it is the bottom of her list. D25 said it seemed like the admissions team was “trying too hard” and seemed “fake”. The campus didn’t seem well thought out really, and things were kind of just smushed together. The buildings were all pretty close together, but it was also easy to get lost. Felt almost claustrophobic to me.
They do have a LOT of extracurriculars. If we had stayed later, we would have been able to see a theater production, a swim meet, a volleyball game, a hockey game or some other things. The living-learning communities and cohorts seemed intriguing and a good way to get to know a core group of people. They also seem to have a lot of good (paid) research opportunities for all majors.
The cafeteria was not good. They have 2 main dining halls and they had us go to the less liked one so hopefully the other options are better.
Grand Rapids itself has just about everything you might want or need, including free weed and you could smell it everywhere.
I think a lot of people would like Calvin but it moved down on her list.
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Even Disney might secretly wish they had options 
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I kind of get what you are saying, but there is a big difference between living somewhere 4 years and visiting for a week. I live in a place not quite Florida, but the local part of my state where I live would fit right in there.
My kids, the girls in particular, want no part of living here as adults. I don’t blame them. I don’t want them living here when they are of childbearing age, because it’s potentially not safe given their medical histories, I’ll leave it at that to avoid drifting too far into politics. I love it here and planned on dying in this house. But the venomous politics have made it not worth it to stay. I’m waiting to see where my kids settle, then I’m following.
Besides the 4 years, most schools have a student population that is disproportionately local. I know so many people in my town who planned on being here for 4 years only, but met a local guy or girl in college who they eventually married who wasn’t leaving so they didn’t either.
That’s a long response to saying I totally get where your daughter is coming from. And you need to eliminate all but 20 colleges max, probably more like 5-10. So a dumb reason is still a way to narrow the list.
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We visited Wash U today, even though it isn’t on d25’s list. She may be getting tired of visits.
Will you give a rundown of your thoughts? It’s loosely on D25’s list. If she can get in, I think it would be a good fit for her, but I’m basing this off what I’ve read; we haven’t visited.
I would also be interested in hearing what it is like. I’ve been to St Louis and I’ve been to Mizzou, but had never really heard of Wash U until a few years ago.
Wash U is great. One of the nicest campuses and dorms we’ve seen. It has the benefits of the city without seeming like an urban school. Not on D25’s list because it’s 15 minutes from home and it isn’t known for environmental studies. She seems to prefer LACs too.
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In case anyone else has been trying to register, we were finally able to sign my daughter up for the March and May digital SAT just now. I think it’s been available for a couple of days now. Not sure. I last checked earlier this week.
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So, my kid finally got to take the PSAT on 10-26. The administration was highly disorganized, largely, I believe, due to the fact that the primary test administrator for the school is new in her position this year, and only added to by the fact that it was the first digital administration. Some kids apparently were given a “ticket” that had their last name printed in both the first & last name fields, so they couldn’t even begin the test (and the school made them stay in the testing room, rather than allowing them to return to normal class schedule, and they’ll have to take it again at another date or something?). The “ticket” had some sort of complicated registration code which 1/2 identified the student, and 1/2 identified the school site, and then there were 2 other codes which needed to be entered at different parts of the “starting flow” (which, um, were held by some teacher who wasn’t present in the room, so the main proctor announcing codes had to text to that person to get the codes, etc. – this is definitely local disorganization). I pointed out to my kid that when I took it (and most years up until now), they would have gotten a paper bubble answer sheet that had those other 2 codes hard printed onto them, most likely. So, they’d only have needed to fill out that first number on their ticket, in previous years.
Anyway, our PSAT ordeal is over, although other folks may still be continuing on the quest…
That certainly would have been a really bad test taking day!
I’m getting really impatient waiting for the PSAT results. Hopefully they really do come out on Nov 6 like I"m anticipating.
I did just sign D25 up for the March SAT. Hopefully that will be the last one she has to take!
We decided to give one more go in December but also anxiously awaiting the PSAT.
So C25 took the ACT today, found it unnecessarily long.
The main reaction to it was “Why ask all these questions about geometry I don’t care about? Just ask me for some derivatives or something interesting!”
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S25 felt really good about PSAT and said math was super easy. Perhaps this means he may have not done so well on the first section and received the easier second section. As for the ACT yesterday, despite having extended time he didn’t finish 11 questions on the science section and had to just bubble in answers. Trying to remain calm, since he still has the SAT next weekend. We will see how it shakes out and then he can retake whichever test he felt more comfortable with, if needed.
Wow I’m sorry, that is really disheartening!
It’s about par for the course from public schools, in general. They’re trying to serve such a broad swath of humanity, they’re dealing with kids who are homeless through no fault of their own, trying to feed them, and help them focus on a future which has broken their parents, all the way up through kids whose parents hope for them to get into a good college. So, yeah, kids at the ends of that broad curve are going to get short shrift, but at least I can help my kid figure things out, so I get why the district spends more effort on the kids whose parents can’t.
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