Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

[BadgerGirl84]

I just wanted to come out of lurking status.

My daughter is only 2, but I've been in Big Brothers Big Sisters for the past seven years matched to a wonderful young lady. She was 9 when we were matched and she turned 16 this summer. She wants to go to a state school in Wisconsin for college and wants to do something in the medical field--right now she says she wants to be a nurse or a doctor. I just like reading these posts to see where everyone is at with their college search, standardized testing, and college applications. I am not in any way trying to take on the role of my Little Sister's mother. However, her mom (and all relatives) are non-English speakers and have never gone to college. Any advice from me to my Little is always respected and appreciated. Luckily, she is in a great program though her high school designed to help out disadvantaged kids in getting into college. If she can get accepted into UW-Madison, she will get a full tuition scholarship through her high school program, but we aren't sure her grades will be good enough.

Hope no one minds a non-parent of a 2017 grad hanging around.

 

[bjscheel]

Busy Homecoming week here! Saturday morning DD helped decorate the junior class window...businesses on our town square let each class decorate a store window with the Homecoming theme and they will be judged. This year's theme is "Out of this World". DD painted the Earth on a blue yoga ball, and they have other planets hanging and a plastic alien...then Sunday they had to paint a banner for the school walls. They had black paper and DD sprayed some blue and purple paint and white splatters to look like galaxy for the background.

Then all week, there are themed dress-up days. Yesterday was a specific color for each class. Today is Senior Citizen day (DDs are not doing that one). Wednesday is formal, Thursday is Decades, Friday is Spirit (school colors). For decades day DD17 is taking advantage of her curly hair and doing the 80's with a side ponytail, windbreaker, bangles, leggings, and a denim skirt. DD14 is doing 1940's with an Agent Peggy Carter look. Do your schools do this sort of thing?

Pancake supper and Pep Rally on Thursday, game on Friday, dance on Saturday!

 

[bjscheel]

I just wanted to come out of lurking status.

My daughter is only 2, but I've been in Big Brothers Big Sisters for the past seven years matched to a wonderful young lady. She was 9 when we were matched and she turned 16 this summer. She wants to go to a state school in Wisconsin for college and wants to do something in the medical field--right now she says she wants to be a nurse or a doctor. I just like reading these posts to see where everyone is at with their college search, standardized testing, and college applications. I am not in any way trying to take on the role of my Little Sister's mother. However, her mom (and all relatives) are non-English speakers and have never gone to college. Any advice from me to my Little is always respected and appreciated. Luckily, she is in a great program though her high school designed to help out disadvantaged kids in getting into college. If she can get accepted into UW-Madison, she will get a full tuition scholarship through her high school program, but we aren't sure her grades will be good enough.

Hope no one minds a non-parent of a 2017 grad hanging around.

Welcome and good for you helping this family!

 

[bjscheel]

So DD has way too much math homework. She has college algebra and stats both in the same day, every other day, same teacher. Between those two classes she has several hours of homework so she does mostly just that from after school till bedtime on that class day, then more on the next evening if she didn't finish. No time for anything else. This is not going to be sustainable, especially during track season! She didn't try out for the play because of this homework. Fortunately her other classes have little or no homework.

Have you ever complained to a teacher about the amount of homework? Her classmate is the granddaughter of my former math teacher (who was the BEST teacher) and she agrees it is way too much.

 

[aprilgail]

So DD has way too much math homework. She has college algebra and stats both in the same day, every other day, same teacher. Between those two classes she has several hours of homework so she does mostly just that from after school till bedtime on that class day, then more on the next evening if she didn't finish. No time for anything else. This is not going to be sustainable, especially during track season! She didn't try out for the play because of this homework. Fortunately her other classes have little or no homework.

Have you ever complained to a teacher about the amount of homework? Her classmate is the granddaughter of my former math teacher (who was the BEST teacher) and she agrees it is way too much.

That has been my daughter for the past 3 years- she comes home from school and most nights has 6+ hours of homework. Can't even complain because the standard reply is "they are AP courses, if she can't handle that much homework she can drop down to regular classes" The worst class with homework is AP US History! That one has hours alone! She stopped doing the school plays because to much rehearsals and late nights. She does a club here or there after school plus after school tutorials (they have those 5 days a week after school) when tests are coming up. Most kids in sports can't do the AP classes.

The AP classes they had in 9th grade were the worst, there was SO much homework some nights the kids were up until 1am- I got so tired of her being tired! There were nights that I just said "ok that is enough just go to bed" and she would get up in the morning and finish it and I would take her into school late. A few times there was so much I would just let her stay home the next day and she would finish it all up and catch up on sleep.

 

[bjscheel]

That's crazy. I wouldn't say that DD is in an "AP" class. We don't really have those, but when she was in 8th grade, they accelerated some students in math so that they would be one grade level ahead of the others. So she can't drop down from College Algebra to the typical junior math class as she already took that last year. Intro to Stats is 1st semester and then regular stats is 2nd semester so she is going to at least try to not have stats next semester. I would rather she had an art class since that is what she wants to pursue. She doesn't have time to draw at home anymore either.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Busy Homecoming week here! Saturday morning DD helped decorate the junior class window...businesses on our town square let each class decorate a store window with the Homecoming theme and they will be judged. This year's theme is "Out of this World". DD painted the Earth on a blue yoga ball, and they have other planets hanging and a plastic alien...then Sunday they had to paint a banner for the school walls. They had black paper and DD sprayed some blue and purple paint and white splatters to look like galaxy for the background.

Then all week, there are themed dress-up days. Yesterday was a specific color for each class. Today is Senior Citizen day (DDs are not doing that one). Wednesday is formal, Thursday is Decades, Friday is Spirit (school colors). For decades day DD17 is taking advantage of her curly hair and doing the 80's with a side ponytail, windbreaker, bangles, leggings, and a denim skirt. DD14 is doing 1940's with an Agent Peggy Carter look. Do your schools do this sort of thing?

Pancake supper and Pep Rally on Thursday, game on Friday, dance on Saturday!

DS's school is bringing back the homecoming parade that they stopped doing around 15 years ago. It is on the Wednesday before homecoming and ends at the school with food trucks and a DJ. It should be a great community event! They do the themed days- i forget what M-Th are, and then Friday has always traditionally been a school color assigned to 9, 10, 11 grades, and seniors wear togas. DD had a lot of fun with that last year as a senior. Friday is the football game- DS is on the team, and Saturday the dance.

So DD has way too much math homework. She has college algebra and stats both in the same day, every other day, same teacher. Between those two classes she has several hours of homework so she does mostly just that from after school till bedtime on that class day, then more on the next evening if she didn't finish. No time for anything else. This is not going to be sustainable, especially during track season! She didn't try out for the play because of this homework. Fortunately her other classes have little or no homework.

Have you ever complained to a teacher about the amount of homework? Her classmate is the granddaughter of my former math teacher (who was the BEST teacher) and she agrees it is way too much.

I have never seen DS struggle like he has this year. I posted about this on the first day of school. Since he is taking Calculus AB/BC, he has it every day instead of every other, and has hours of homework every single night. He is taking AP Physics as well and just bombed the first quiz. Before this year he was a straight A student and we barely ever saw him doing homework.

Side note but with DD away at college, DS7 now has to go to aftercare, and we are picking the boys up at 3 different places in the evenings, rushing to get dinner, activities, bath, bed...we are all just exhausted. I cannot wait until DS16 can drive!!!

 

[bjscheel]

Well I'm not going to be complaining about the homework load. DD said that these are classes for college credit and the college dictates what is to be done, not the teacher. Did not know that. I guess hence the name "College Algebra"! So, good I guess that she is getting some college credits done, and we will just power through. Hope we survive track season. By that time, it will be second semester and she may not take the second semester of Stats, so that will help.

It was a great Homecoming week, other than the fact that our football team lost the game 0-53. DD had fun at all the events and the dance. Coronation is always fun to watch- the kids do silly things as they are introduced. Her boyfriend was King last year, so he had to crown and sash the winners (we had a tie- 2 kings this year).

 

[bjscheel]

So what do your kids want to major in, in college? I have been doing some browsing on colleges and costs! What scares me a bit is that DD's obvious choice of major would be art, maybe graphic design. DD14 wants to major in theater

I come from a family of practical careers (farmer, nurse, electronics, accounting, beautician...) and these artsy majors make me nervous.

 

[robinb]

DD's high school also had a homecoming parade for the first time in years. Unfortunately, she had a home swim meet during the parade and the swim team could not participate . Good news is that they WON and my DD placed first and second in her individual events . The football team lost.

 

[aprilgail]

Well I'm not going to be complaining about the homework load. DD said that these are classes for college credit and the college dictates what is to be done, not the teacher. Did not know that. I guess hence the name "College Algebra"! So, good I guess that she is getting some college credits done, and we will just power through. Hope we survive track season. By that time, it will be second semester and she may not take the second semester of Stats, so that will help.

).

College credit depends on the college they are going to- most on my daughters list require you to get a 5 on the AP test or they don't accept the credits so far she has only gotten 4's- which for some schools is fine but not the ones she wants to go to! So its costing me 90.00 each for every AP course she takes and she may not even get credit for them.

So what do your kids want to major in, in college? I have been doing some browsing on colleges and costs! What scares me a bit is that DD's obvious choice of major would be art, maybe graphic design. DD14 wants to major in theater

I come from a family of practical careers (farmer, nurse, electronics, accounting, beautician...) and these artsy majors make me nervous.

My daughter wants to go into the science field and do stem cell research. That is her ultimate goal. She loves theater and acting but the chances of her making a living doing that are slim- she sees that now on how many auditions and things she has to go on before she gets a part- she went on 20 auditions before landing a part in a commercial.

 

[Poohforyou]

My daughter has a few ideas for a major. One is statistics - she loves math. She took AP stat last year and got a 5 on the exam. I'm sure that's helping to sway her. There aren't that many schools on the east coast in a city that offer that major so it's helped to narrow her choices. She wants to be in/very near an east coast city.

 

[aprilgail]

End first quarter is almost here already. SAT's coming up on Saturday! My daughter is taking them in Nov, Dec and Jan I believe. She wants to get 3 in before they change them in March. She took the PSAT's this month (they take them in 9,10 and 11 here) and said she worse on this than the past two because of the way they changed them with the common core math. She has been one year ahead of the common core math and its really not fair that they had it on the PSAT's when some kids were a year ahead of that and never learned it. She has put in for a few scholarships already that are open to Jr's and Sr's, hoping she gets something!

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

I'm new to this thread. Hi everyone! I have a DD junior in high school and a DS freshman in college. I feel like we just finished up with all the SAT, ACT, college visit and application stress and now I have to start it all over again! Junior year is stressful. DS got shingles in the spring of junior year due to all the stress. DD seems to be handling it ok so far, but things are just starting to heat up. She is in a dual enrollment program with her high school and the local community college. She'll graduate with her associates degree a couple of weeks before she gets her high school diploma. She works her tail off for her As and Bs, plays two varsity sports (volleyball & softball - team captain), has some volunteer and leadership positions in school, and will be inducted into National Honor Society on Wednesday. Yay!

She is pretty sure she wants to be an occupational therapist. She'll be doing an internship in a local practice this summer to make sure this is the right choice for her. We live in Virginia and James Madison University has a 5 year OT program (one of only 2 in our state, the other is at a private college). With her AA completed, she could finish the 5 year program in 4 years so JMU is her first choice school. If she goes elsewhere she'd have to get an undergrad degree and then do a 2 year masters program.

We are getting ready to sign her up for an SAT prep course now that volleyball season is over. I'd like her to take the old SAT a couple of times. She will also take the ACT because my son scored significantly higher on the ACT than the SAT (by a couple hundred points!). We have a few more colleges to visit, but she went with us on all DS's college visits and her high school program combines college visits with every field trip they have. She has seen a ton of schools, some more than once.

I am hoping that after all our visits are complete and her tests scores are in, she'll be comfortable applying to her chosen school early decision or early action. My son did EA and it was such a stress reliever. By early January he'd been accepted to his first choice school (University of Virginia). It made senior year a lot more fun!

Good luck to everyone! We will all get through it.

ETA: Just to share a little bit about college costs, here is what we pay per semester for UVA (a public university, in state tuition).

Per Semester
Tuition & Fees: $7300
Room & Board: $5300
Books: $600

Computer:$1400
(a one time expense, bought through the school program, guaranteed to last all 4 years)

Books are a total racket! It is hard to get them used or do rentals if your school has university specific books or requires online access codes. The online codes really burn me up. They don't come with used books or rentals and we couldn't by them separately. His Spanish book cost $226!!!!

DS's school is one of the more expensive public universities in our state. The costs can vary depending on the school. For example, George Mason University costs about $3000 less per year.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Well...I thought we had the whole SAT/ACT plan all worked out. The plan was to take a prep class starting tomorrow, take the Dec 5 SAT and the January 23 SAT and be done with the SAT. Than she'd take the ACT in the spring. From what I'd researched, colleges would be taking both the old SAT and new SAT for the class of 2017 applications. Now I just found out Virginia Tech, one of her top choice schools, will only accept the new SAT for class of 2017! Why the heck would they do that to these kids! It's a transition year and kids start prepping and taking these tests NOW! Making them wait until March is just crazy, especially if they started prepping over the summer and they want to take it more than once and they need to take some SAT subject tests and they are interested in Early Decision or Early Action. Va Tech is really jamming these kids up!

Now I'm not sure what to do...maybe she will just take the ACT and skip the SAT entirely.

Anyone else dealing with this?

 

[dancemonkey]

This is a tough call. Some colleges aren't even looking at test scores anymore. Here's my theory as of two years ago. There are so many qualified kids. If you look at two kids on paper and they come up equal they can use a higher test score to determine who they choose. Honestly I'm not sure how colleges determine how to put their classes together. I'm not a fan of tests I'd have your child take both and see where they fall out. We're in the middle of the whole acceptance thing now. Very stressful! Good luck and enjoy the ride.

 

[Poohforyou]

Well...I thought we had the whole SAT/ACT plan all worked out. The plan was to take a prep class starting tomorrow, take the Dec 5 SAT and the January 23 SAT and be done with the SAT. Than she'd take the ACT in the spring. From what I'd researched, colleges would be taking both the old SAT and new SAT for the class of 2017 applications. Now I just found out Virginia Tech, one of her top choice schools, will only accept the new SAT for class of 2017! Why the heck would they do that to these kids! It's a transition year and kids start prepping and taking these tests NOW! Making them wait until March is just crazy, especially if they started prepping over the summer and they want to take it more than once and they need to take some SAT subject tests and they are interested in Early Decision or Early Action. Va Tech is really jamming these kids up!

Now I'm not sure what to do...maybe she will just take the ACT and skip the SAT entirely.

Anyone else dealing with this?

Where did you find out the info on your dd's top choice not taking the current SAT? My dd took it in October and got amazing scores - thank goodness since tutoring cost $$$$. She's done as far as we're concerned but your post has me concerned. We were told by the hs guidance office that schools would accept the old and new format.

I feel for all of you with kids having a rough year. That was dd last year. So far things are off to a very good start. She has more AP classes than last year but is managing things much better and has more reasonable teachers. She got accepted into national honor society which made her very happy.

 

[aprilgail]

Well...I thought we had the whole SAT/ACT plan all worked out. The plan was to take a prep class starting tomorrow, take the Dec 5 SAT and the January 23 SAT and be done with the SAT. Than she'd take the ACT in the spring. From what I'd researched, colleges would be taking both the old SAT and new SAT for the class of 2017 applications. Now I just found out Virginia Tech, one of her top choice schools, will only accept the new SAT for class of 2017! Why the heck would they do that to these kids! It's a transition year and kids start prepping and taking these tests NOW! Making them wait until March is just crazy, especially if they started prepping over the summer and they want to take it more than once and they need to take some SAT subject tests and they are interested in Early Decision or Early Action. Va Tech is really jamming these kids up!

Now I'm not sure what to do...maybe she will just take the ACT and skip the SAT entirely.

Anyone else dealing with this?

That stinks! My daughter did the SAT prep in Sept and Oct and took the test last month, got her scores back today and she will be taking the SAT2's in Dec and the SAT's again in Jan and the ACT in April- that's the plan so far. She may want to try the new SAT in March since there is no essay on it and the essay is her weakest part. Our school has pushed up financial aid night next year from Jan to Sept since FAFSA has to be filled out in Oct next year.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

DS is taking the SAT next week. I didn't sign him up for December ACT and now it looks like his next chance will be April and June, which will surely be a problem with baseball. He also just brought home the bill for the AP tests- $92 each this year!

I found this blog post on the SAT issue for the Class of 2017 and it seems as though VT's position is rare. Lucky for DS, it's also on his list, so it looks like he will be taking it again in the Spring unless he crosses it off. The author called many schools and reached a consensus that everyone would be accepting the old one, and then someone does mention VT in the comments.

http://blog.prepscholar.com/will-co...s-of-2017-or-2018-30-plus-schools-interviewed

 

[bjscheel]

I'm planning on DD taking ACT in February. There is not a lot of emphasis on SAT around here, so I don't think she'll do that. Next week she's taking a "Compass" test at the community college in order to be able to sign up for online classes or classes that give college credit.

My freshman DD is also taking the Compass and the ACT at the same time as her older sister for TAG. The thought just occurred to me, I wonder what will happen if DD14 scores better than DD17!? I don't think DD17 will really have a problem with it but it will be interesting.