<p>I'm starting this thread for parents of this year's sophomores to discuss things like sophomore PSATs, junior year academic planning, etc. Feel free to introduce yourself and your child and hopefully we'll all get to know each other over the next few years.</p>
<p>I'm Carolyn, just finished the process with my daughter and will be re-starting next year with my sophomore son. He's a strong student who did well on the PSATs this year and so far the only things he wants from a college are, quote: "Cool people and philosophy, classics and neuroscience classes." That should narrow things right down, uh? :)</p>
<p>I ,too, have a sophomore son and just sent my daughter off to college this year. My son is a strong student who especially loves math and science. He has visited my daughter many times at Dartmouth College and enjoyed that atmosphere a lot. We also want to look at MIT which we know is very difficult to get into but may match his interests. He did take the PSAT's this past fall and got 77W, 78M, and 57CR. He took the AMC 12 last week.</p>
<p>I was hoping that I would still be excited and enthusiastic about going through the college process again. Fortunately, I am. CC certainly keeps us informed and interested. His average public high school is severely lacking in rpoviding him with that support.</p>
<p>Thanks for the invite, Carolyn. I'm a mom of a D who attends a rigorous public magnet school (one of top 20 in CA according to API scores). It's very competitive and has a good deal of grade deflation compared to the other two public high schools in the city, which makes it tricky when applying to UCs. </p>
<p>She's a year-round swimmer (club and high school) and hopes to compete in college though probably not strong enough for a scholarship (may be a hook for a Div 2 or 3 school though). She takes honors classes and is a solid B student. Her academic interests are still shaping up, but she mentions psychology/counseling as a possibility. She wants to stay in state, within a few hours drive from home and preferably near the coast. </p>
<p>We've not started with testing yet for her (I was in testing "recovery" this year, having spent the past year focused on getting 18-year-old S into college, so I sort of dropped the ball on the PSAT/PLAN sign-ups). </p>
<p>She's the complete opposite of her brainy, non-athletic, introspective brother, who applied to Cal, Davis, Chicago, Harvard, GW and Yale, so we'll be looking for an entirely different place for her.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread, Carolyn. First time posting, though I've been reading along for about a year. My sophomore S is all about robotics and engineering. Does well in his classes, also strong PSATs, and the college mail started here about a week ago.</p>
<p>Have a freshman D as well, so I guess I'll be around for awhile.</p>
<p>Skylandsmom, Welcome! Glad you decide to introduce yourself -- hopefully some other lurkers will follow your example. </p>
<p>Burlmom, sounds like your son has learned from watching his older sister go through the college process. I'm hoping my son has as well. </p>
<p>Momof2inca, my son and daughter are VERY different kids as well. Hopefully that will keep the college process interesting because my son will likely be taking a very different path than his sister. On the other hand, I learned from my daughter that a lot can change between sophomore and senior year, so you never know...</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread Carolyn. Your posts have really opened my eyes over the last few months, and it's been fun watching your daughter's journey!</p>
<p>My daughter did very well on ACT and fine on the PSAT (math needs work). Fortunately for her she has a very focused but relaxed attitude that serves her well on standardized tests. I hope she'll be able to strike a balance and keep the best of that character trait as the stakes get higher and she'll need to maybe work or prep a little more on the weak spots.</p>
<p>I think one challenge is going to be whether she will want to focus on music performance or not (violin). I know that keeping that option open is going to make the process exponentially more complex. So I'm sure I'll be spending lots of time on the new "Music Majors" board.</p>
<p>She's a great quirky kid who definitely marches to her own drum, and has STRONG opinions at the same time as she is incredibly empathetic and and open to all points of view. We have only been nibbling around the "what do you want" question...I probe too deeply and get immediate shut-down. So I'm letting her set the pace and the agenda. And actually, the mail starting to arrive is helping that process. Her Dad is a great cheerleader from the sidelines but pretty clueless about the process today, and how the world of college admissions has changed over the last 30 years. We will definitely be looking for merit schools as well as generous financial aid. So I will have the fun job of managing our whole family through this adventure!</p>
<p>My best guess at this point is that she will probably want: mid-size or larger, urban (access to major arts and culture). Great language, English and humanities programs. Top notch music with ideally both B.Mus and B.A. so she can keep her options open. Socio-economic, geoegraphical and cultural diversity. Probably northeast, mid-atlantic or midwest. (we are in upstate NY). </p>
<p>Things that will probably turn her off: a campus culture that's uber-preppy or where the Greek scene is a major factor, all girls-school (she's done that since pre-k), too rural (unless very near a major city).</p>
<p>Now this is my best guess today; let's see how it actually turns out in two years!</p>
<p>Yes, a lot can happen between sophomore and senior year. Are any of your kids thinking of prepping for the SAT yet? Are you thinking of a class or maybe xiggis method? When do you plan on visiting schools with them?</p>
<p>Soph D, A to A+ student in honors and AP classes (Low B so far in honors math). Perfectionistic. She was dissappointed with high 11's (M & CR) in PSAT. Ballet is main EC, but more recently adding modern and voice. Serious dancer year round (complete with summer intensives). Loves science. Completely undecided about life ambitions.</p>
<p>Hi everyone, my oldest child is a sophomore, so this is my first time at the college review process. My D, who is very much into math and science, actually scored higher on her PSAT CR than math(go figure!) Overall percentile was 98%. The unsolicited college letters have already started arriving, including letters from Brown, Swarthmore, Caltech and Williams. She will start by requesting further info from these colleges, as at this point she has not yet focused on where she may want to apply. </p>
<p>Here I go again.. middle child's a sophmore.. does not want to talk about college until next year, can't blame him. My oldest daughter goes to Wesleyan Univ. I don't think that would be a good match for him, he is interested in different things.. business, comp sci, art. Probably wants a bigger school although not gigantic and does not want to have loans when he graduates. Our HS does not recommend Soph's taking PSAT's so he didn't. He'll take is first SAT II this year in History, basically a 90 student taking Ap and Honors. Is involved in many clubs.. debate, art, community service, campus congress, photography and track. A very well adjusted and easy going type kid. Looking forward to looking at schools again. I'm sure the 21 that we saw previously with my daughter is not anything he'd be interested in, but we shall see. </p>
<p>I guess we'll be spending the next 2 years together! Looking forward to speaking to you all.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I've been following the story of your S since you first asked about CTY a couple years ago. He reminds me a bit of my S (except I think I recall that yours is athletic). I still remember you writing about overhearing him talking in ancient Greek late one night to a girl he met at CTY and the resulting huge phone bill. :) He sounds like a great kid, and combined with your incredible knowledge of colleges, that should make the process a VERY interesting one for your family! </p>
<p>Burlmom, those are great PSAT scores! Congrats to your S.</p>
<p>Skyland's mom, welcome!</p>
<p>Orchestramom, as a mom also with a "quirky" and very opinionated kid (my college freshman S), I can so totally relate. And in his sophomore year of h.s. he insisted he wasn't even going to go to college! So at least your D is looking at the mail and talking to you about it! Welcome to CC, you will get fantastic advice and help here.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread Carolyn! My sophmore S has gotten serious this year. He has a mentor/tutor who is going to be doing a version of the Xiggi method with him as did not do well on the PSAT (mid 60's I think). He's at a rigorous small Prep school (70 in his class). He is the type of student who really has to work at getting good grades. His GPA is about 3.9. He is a talented XCountry runner (will be Captain of the team next year) and will be running his second Marathon in March. He has 300+ hours of community service and has done a lot of Spanish language immersion programs. His interest is History and Sports Management. His dream would be to attend UT or UNCCH but either of those seems unlikely. I think he's interested in a big school #1 because of the sports and team spirit and #2 because he has been in a small Preschool-12 school his whole life. His school is a feeder school for USC but he has an aversion to USC (Longhorn fan).</p>
<p>My son will probably prep a bit for the PSATs next year, as he was just one point away from the NSM cutoff for our state this year. He's pretty self-motivated and was chargrined that he missed the NSM cutoff (even though it wouldn't matter), so I expect he'll be very unlike my daughter and use the Xiggi method on his own.</p>
<p>My daughter worked with a private tutor to get her math scores up, and also took a Princeton Review type class through a local university. The private tutoring made a huge difference for her, the class was pretty useless, but she started off much lower than my son did on the PSATs.</p>
<p>If my son's PSAT scores next year are in range with this year's, I'll probably push him to sit for the SATs in January before he forgets all of his Algebra II/Trig/Geometry. That would give him another sitting in March if necessary. I learned with my daughter that May and June are not great for taking the SATs because of AP tests, finals, and SAT IIs, so I'd like to get things over with before then if possible. Having all of the tests out of the way before fall was very good for my daughter: one less stress factor during senior year.</p>
<p>As for college visits - since my son, like my daughter, wants to look at schools in all sorts of Godforsaken places, we'll probably start late next fall in order to fit them all in.</p>
<p>Kyedor,
You may already have these links, as I've posted them here before, but since you mentioned sports management, here are two good links that list sports management programs:</p>
<p>I also have a Sophomore. I have to admit that I'm a little burned out at the moment trying to get my Senior to a decision. He's getting there but it's becoming more of an uphill climb that I (or he) anticipated. But I digress...</p>
<p>Sophomore D, doing very well in school. Her HS is a suburban competitive HS, they just changed to a weighted GPA which I cannot get used to but UW around a 3.8. She doesn't know what she wants to do but knows that it will be in the math or science field, I suspect that it will be more math than science but we'll see. Maybe engineering, maybe math, maybe physics.</p>
<p>She runs cross country, could be good if she trained. Plays the flute pretty well but not interested in a music degree. Quirky, not comfortable in the preppy HS but working on it.</p>
<p>Her PSAT did not go as well as we would have liked. Better on math than CR or W, will study over the summer.</p>
<p>I don't want to think about her and college until I get the first one somewhere, but glad to participate.</p>
<p>Our middle son is a sophomore. Probably will be ranked top 1% of our rural public school. Did very well on PSATS (70 reading, 80 math, 78 writing). He plays alto sax in the band and is on the JV baseball team.</p>
<p>So far, we are looking at the UCs, USC and researching other schools that might give substantial merit/need based aid for a student with his stats.</p>
<p>He reminds me a bit of my S (except I think I recall that yours is athletic).>></p>
<p>Momof2Inca, He is an enigma when it comes to sports. He was always kind of a non-athletic type until he surprised us by going out for freshman football last year. He was bumped up from JV to Varsity this year, and did very well. But, he's decided that he doesn't want to play again next year --- he just finds the 30+ hours a week required year round by our football program too stressful and he'd rather spend the time doing other things. He told me that if he <em>loved</em> football, he'd play again, but he doesn't <em>love</em> it enough to do so. He's been getting a lot of pressure from the coaches, but so far he's been sticking to his decision (which we support by the way).</p>
<p>In the meantime, he's just discovered a new love -- drama! He's doing set design for our school's spring musical and is having a blast. He's also busy playing drums in a garage band, writing poetry and musical lyrics, collecting antique books, and yes, reading ancient Greek poetry to his possee of female admirers, so I suspect football is not going to be revived no matter how much the coaches push. :)</p>
<p>Hi all, and thanks for starting this thread, Carolyn. It will be an honor to go through this process with all of you. I cant believe its time to start thinking about colleges again! I guess this has been my year off: My older D is a soph at Wash U, a transfer after a first-year false start. So we went through the application process two years in a row. Hoping to get it right the first time with kid #2. I have learned so much along the way, a good deal of it from reading these boards.</p>
<p>Anyway, my HS sophomore son is academically talented and also a very talented musician. Based, I assume, on his PSAT scores, the college letters are filling the mailbox. At this point, he is utterly indifferent to the whole thing, and Im not pressing him to engage. Too early for him to have to think about it, but of course not too early for me to be absorbed just a little! The only things I can say with fair certainty now are that hell want excellent math and science, excellent music with opportunities for non-majors to get private lessons and participate in chamber music at high levels, and a very strong Jewish community.</p>
<p>Thank you Carolyn for posting these links, I've printed them out now. We already know that his huge reachy reach will be UT (cousin's go there and he has visited many times). We live in CA but have a house in TX so residency could possibly come into play. He's also interested in the Ohio University program but that's so far <em>sob</em>. I'm already afraid he may be one of those kids who have such a wonderful HS experience and have a let down in college (yes I'm a worrywart). His HS does a college tour back east when they are juniors. I wish they would focus on other areas of the country but I guess we will do that ourselves. Each family trip we take we try and visit a college (informally).</p>