But the report is about how admissions officers acknowledge that they do favor students who take calculus and how many of them acknowledge it's a problem. They quote one admissions officer as saying, " “We consider what is available to a student. No penalty if calculus is not offered.” (emphasis mine). Those are just a couple of examples. Certainly kids can get into highly selective colleges without calculus, but the prevailing wisdom right now among both high school counselors and college admissions officers is that students applying to these colleges are expected to take calculus if it's available to them. I watched my kid with a 4.0UW/1550 and multiple university or AP classes in every core subject get waitlisted at 8 schools. If my 10th grader wants to have a good shot at those same schools, I'm not going to tell them, "no one will care if you don't take calculus" because all evidence is that that's simply not the case, whether I think it should be or not.

I think they do consider it...like nearly everyone at a very selective engineering school will come in with calculus. But the conventional wisdom is that calculus is the harder class than statistics, so when admissions departments are evaluating rigor, students who took calculus are seen as taking the more challenging course load. And, I mean, that's reinforced at the high school level. Students who don't do well in pre-calc are recommended for stats instead of calculus. So then when you're trying to make distinctions between a bunch of kids with near perfect grades and test scores, course selection is another thing you look at closely. Honestly, I'm not even sure what the solution is. Maybe it will fix itself because birth rates are going to start to be less favorable for highly selective colleges soon! ETA: I guess making AP Stats harder is one possibility. But I don't know enough about AP stats to know if that's feasible or not.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/02/14/does-calculus-count-too-much-admissions Calculus absolutely counts too much for admissions. My calculus teacher husband agrees, too. I absolutely believe that my current 10th grader who's probably headed toward some kind of humanities major would be better served by stats than calculus senior year, and yet I'll probably encourage him to take calculus anyway because if he wants to go out of state for college he'll need the excellent need based aid that only highly selective colleges offer, so he'll need to make himself as competitive as possible for those schools (and I'm reasonably sure he can handle calculus fine, particularly with a live-in math tutor on call). So I'm glad to see that some colleges are rethinking this, but it's still a problem that can't be solved by a handful of admissions departments acting alone.

I remember when it all started thinking bleakly that the worst case scenario was that covid was around forever and we keep getting it and people just stopped expecting to live past 70. I assumed I was being paranoid at the time.

DH did; he's on an immunosuppressant, so he had his third dose in August and then a booster 5 months later, as soon as he was eligible (so I guess technically he had 3 doses and then one booster. but 4 shots total). They haven't approved second boosters for the general population yet, have they?

I live in a state that's never had a mask mandate (some cities have had/do have them, but not mine). I will say that in my immediate area, most people still mask indoors, and exactly how many is directly correlated to how bad cases are at the moment; it's ranged from maybe 30% when cases are very low to maybe 80% when cases are high. Last summer we traveled all over the northeast and midwest and were often the only people wearing masks inside unless it was a museum or whatever that was still requiring them.At the time our youngest was still unvaccinated, and I always figured we'd reevaluate once he was vaccinated. But then we got about a day and a half between him being vaccinated and omicron hitting, so we still haven't had a chance to reevaluate. I don't really mind wearing masks inside and I also don't mind not getting sick (with covid or anything else), so I'm in no rush.

My son always sends them. I think it's almost never a bad idea to send a thank you note.

Yes, I don't quite understand the program's strategy (maybe it was "let's get this out of the way before classes start"?) He took another rapid test today, and that was negative, too, so I'm guessing it was a case of him having a very mild case and clearing it quickly. Or the tests they're using, including the PCRs, are suspect. The only positive was on a test he brought from home. He's supposed to go to classes tomorrow, but at that point it will be 6 days since his first symptoms, and he's had 2 negative tests since the one positive. I feel bad for the asymptomatic roommate who's having to quarantine alone, though.

He had a PCR test the day after the positive rapid test. It came back negative, but one of his roommates (who had a negative rapid test the same day as his positive) was positive, so now DS and the other negative roommate are in a hotel while the positive roommate quarantines for 7 days. It all seems a little silly; everyone in the program (small; it's only 35 kids total) has been exposed to everyone else multiple times and a bunch of them have tested positive; it seems to me like it would make more sense to tell all of them to stay home and do a week of classes online.

DS who's in Budapest for the semester woke up with a slightly sore throat and a stuffy nose earlier in the week, tested negative twice on rapid tests, but just tested positive on a 3rd rapid test (first one where he swabbed his throat; the other two were saliva tests that his program gave him). He almost didn't test again because he says he feels completely fine now, but apparently I talked him into it. Vaxxed and boosted (in November); local numbers are very high right now in Budapest--they got their omicron wave a little later than the US did and might or might not be peaking right about now. Also his program put everyone on a train together and took them on a wine tasting excursion last weekend, and, shockingly, now there are a bunch of positives. Anyway, unless symptoms come back, it looks like it was around 24 hours of a mild sore throat and a little bit of a stuffy nose for him; he described it as like "the most mild cold I've ever had."

Not yet (that we know of; we have the usual couple of suspicious illnesses in our pandemic history), but two of my kid are off to play wind instruments at district honor band this weekend so we'll see! Numbers are finally going down pretty sharply locally, so better now than a few weeks ago. My husband has been teaching high school in person since fall 2020 and has avoided it, but he wears good masks and never has to take them off around other people (unlike the students who have to eat together). I have a friend whose daughter had an exposure (masked) at work and was paid to stay home for 5 days. It's funny because my husband would literally never go to school if they were doing that here; he gets exposure notifications several times a week lately.

I'll jump in. My 11th grader will be my only high schooler next year! weird. Right now we're thinking: Math: finish Algebra 2 at home first semester (he's on sort of weird math schedule, and is finishing geometry and about to start algebra 2 right now); dual enrollment pre-calc 2nd semester Science: something dual enrollment. I'd like for him to take physics, but the web of prereqs means he can't until he does pre-calc, so he'll take something geology based (he's already done chemistry and bio); I think there's one on climate and one on landforms. He might take both, depending on how the first one goes History: AP World at home Spanish: dual enrollment English: AP lang...I've done AP lit with 2 kids now, but this will be my first try at lang; he's my most likely to be an English major kid, so the plan is this for 11th and then lit in 12th Electives: AP art history at home. something at our home school co-op--maybe art? whatever they have that he's interested in. Extracurriculars: piano lessons, French horn lessons and playing with local youth symphony (it's possible he'll audition for another group, too), this year he did Shakespeare in the park with a local theater group--hoping he'll be able to do that again, too.

Thanks! Ugh--that was such a cruddy year to be senior! Glad it worked out so well 🙂 I know that he's really in a decent position in that he's had online lessons with all of his potential professors, so in that way he's a lot more familiar with his schools than his brother was when he applied for non-music schools.

I'm freaking out about potential April visits, too. He was supposed to see everywhere when we traveled for auditions, and now three of them have ended up virtual so far--all places he's never seen in person. We have a Natchez Trace road trip all booked for spring break, because I was counting on him already having seen everywhere, but if he gets in much of anywhere else then that's probably turning into a college visit trip. I thought about literally making a flowchart the other night, trying to figure out all the different scenarios: if he's admitted to School A, that will knock School B out of contention, so we don't need to see it, etc. The most complicated possibility is if he gets in everywhere except his top choice; then there really won't be a clear frontrunner, and we might need to make a lot of visits.

Ugh--I'm sorry! It's so rough out there these days. Fingers crossed for RD, but it's great that she already has good options.

Here's a major hospital system in my area. I notice they've just started breaking down by whether people have been boosted or not, which makes the difference even more stark:

Here are the relative risks in CT (https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Coronavirus/CTDPHCOVID19summary01272022.pdf😞 Compared to being vaccinated, being unvaccinated currently has the following relative risk: 3 Times higher risk of being infected with COVID-19 13 Times higher risk of dying from COVID-19 8 Times higher risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 ETA: oops...I see this has already been posted!

DS accepted to the clarinet studio at Columbus State University/Schwob School of Music. He got his academic acceptance to the college months ago, but he wouldn't be interested in it aside from the music school, so this is what he was waiting for.

The estimate is 99.9% omicron now.

This isn't the after 5 days CDC thing, though--this is people coming to work the same day they test positive if they don't have symptoms.

They're doing the same thing with teachers in Georgia (though not in my husband's district so far, at least)

Good news: DS thinks his Oberlin audition went well! Bad news: the clarinet prof sent him 3 new essay questions to answer afterwards (stuff along the lines of career goals, accomplishments, etc). He's already answered SO MANY questions for Oberlin! Surprise college essays are not very nice, IMHO. AND Peabody/Johns Hopkins sent him an e-mail saying his audition is scheduled for the 22nd, even though it's said on the website for months that clarinet auditions are on the 21st, and we already have plane tickets based on that. ARGH. Peabody has been a consistent PITA for assorted reasons, and I'm about ready to dump them off the list.

congratulations!

yikes--that's a late EA to wait for! Good luck to your DD on that and the RD round! Not looking forward to March myself after our last go round...but at least this time I have some evidence that it will all work out for the best, one way or the other.

I guess a lot of people are either all done hearing from schools already or have a lull between applications being due and decisions coming out in March...but we're just hitting the busiest season with music kid. We were supposed to leave today for Oberlin and Vanderbilt auditions, but instead he'll do Oberlin online Thursday (eek!) and Vanderbilt got pushed back. So Oberlin this week, Vanderbilt video due a week and a half later followed by a virtual interview with sight reading on the 11th, I think. Bard virtual audition middle of Feb and then so far he's still supposed to be going to in person auditions at Baldwin Wallace and Peabody/Johns Hopkins Presidents Day weekend. Whew! I'm currently fretting worrying that he's going to wake up with covid for the Oberlin audition after returning to in-person rehearsals Sunday and Monday. But I guess even in a non-pandemic year plenty of kids have to deal with poorly timed illnesses for auditions, especially since they all happen in the dead of winter. At least there's no chance of a blizzard messing up our travel for the first round since they all went virtual!