alewife
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Posts posted by alewife
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My daughter will be heading to RPI in the fall. Prior to her initial visit, I read up on RPI on CC. After reading all of the comments about Troy, I would have cancelled the tour if it wasn't for the fact that RPI was right on our way to visiting our son at Williams and we had some time to kill. I am glad I didn't cancel the tour because my daughter loved the campus and RPI shot to the top of her list.
After visiting campus, my daughter, husband, and I walked downtown from campus and had lunch at one of the restaurants on the river. (I can't remember the name, but the local beer and food were very good , and it was very nice sitting on the outside deck overlooking the river.
We didn't explore all of Troy, but the area that we visited downtown didn't feel unsafe - it just felt a little rundown and neglected. Some of the buildings could have used a fresh coat of paint, etc. Having said that, I wouldn't want my daughter walking downtown at night by herself, but I wouldn't want her doing that anywhere.
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My kids enjoyed Lili Serbicki's AP English Language and AP English Literature classes. At the time they took their classes, Lili Serbicki taught with PAH. Now, she is at AIM Academy.
Good luck with your search.
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Wow, I had no idea this information was out there. I can go back every year to 2015 and run reports for my state. Each homeschooler's name, AP score, and AP ID is listed in the report. Is this a new feature this year? Or has this information been available for a number of years and I was just clueless?
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3 hours ago, Arcadia said:
PSAT, CLEP, AP, CSS Profile.
Not everyone takes those tests, either, and many schools don't require the CSS. How is the CB able to provide this adversity score for every applicant? Is the ACT providing some of the data?
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On 5/17/2019 at 9:57 AM, Roadrunner said:
So what about kids who opt to only take ACT? Their “adversity” won’t be considered?
I saw David Coleman interviewed on CNN this morning. He said that the adversity score will be provided to colleges for students who take the SAT or ACT. How is the College Board able to provide data for students who have never taken the SAT? Why are students prohibited from seeing their adversity number? How are colleges using this adversity number?
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42 minutes ago, Mom0012 said:
I don’t get that comment? In my family, who is all geographically local, we have one kid who is in the top 1%, one who is in the top 20% and 3 who are well below the 50th percentile. How does this reveal our economic background, which is the same?
Honestly, I’d like to believe it is just about the CB staying relevant, but it sounds like the information they provided actually had a substantial impact on outcomes last year at the 50 schools that used it.
The US News Rankings changed its methodology last year to include social mobility. In my opinion, this change is driving the CB's adversity score.
The 2019 U.S. News rankings are out today, and the rankings powerhouse is boasting that it has changed its methodology to take social mobility into account.
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6 minutes ago, Mom0012 said:
I just realized in my earlier post that I called it a diversity score (accidentally) instead of an adversity score, lol. I just saw where someone else did that on CC. It’s easy to do.
It looks like some are viewing it as a diversity score:
“The purpose is to get to race without using race,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce
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12 hours ago, Mom0012 said:
I *think* this is where we are crossing wires — when you apply to college, many colleges let you just input (self-report) your SAT score without submitting the original report from the CB. Then, if you are accepted and decide to go to the school, you then send the official report. So, I was wondering how this diversity score would be seen before admissions by colleges if students would not be self-reporting it (since they won’t even know what it is).
I agree, though, that colleges already have the data that is used to generate the adversity score. I am also sure that if they want access to the score generated by the CB, they will get it.
Just based on the article linked in the OP, it looks like the colleges can get access to the diversity score even if the college has a policy of permitting the students to self-report scores and only send official reports once they are accepted and decide to enroll.
Yale, a college that permits students to self-report test scores, was cited in the article:
Yale University was one of the schools that tried using the adversity scores as it worked to increase socioeconomic diversity on its campus. Jeremiah Quinlan, the school's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Wall Street Journal that Yale has nearly doubled the number of low-income students and those who are first in their families to attend college to about 20% of new students."This (adversity score) is literally affecting every application we look at," Quinlan told the Journal. "It has been a part of the success story to help diversify our freshman class."So the College Board is sharing information with colleges about the applicants without the applicants' knowledge or consent.How can Yale claim to be "need-blind" when this adversity score was used in evaluating every applicant?-
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On 5/5/2019 at 9:57 AM, Kareni said:
-- What led you to homeschool? I could write a book about what a disaster public school was for my kids and how thankful we all are that we began homeschooling when they were in elementary school.
-- How was your child homeschooled in the high school years? (Did you use WTM as a guide? Did your child take out of the home, online classes, or college classes?) I didn't follow WTM because I didn't feel that it focused enough in my kids' areas of interest - namely math and science. They didn't take any college classes or participate in any co-ops. Most of their classes were home-brewed with one or two online classes thrown into the mix each year. My kids each had a favorite online class: My middle son, in addition to math and computers, loves to write and really loved the WTM online rhetoric classes with Thomas Hummel. My other two enjoyed their online AP Chemistry class with Mr. M. at ChemAdvantage.
-- What did your child do after graduating? What is your child doing now? My oldest son is graduating in a few weeks with a bachelor of science in math and computer science. He accepted a job offer last summer, so that definitely took a lot of the pressure off heading into his senior year. He has just recently signed a lease on his first apartment. (He will be rooming with one of his best friends from college who will also be working at the same company.) While his school doesn't have any type of honors designations on the diplomas, last time we were visiting him, he took us down the hallway where his picture will be hung after graduation for being named an Academic All-American. He credits his success in college to me homeschooling him, which as you can imagine, makes me very happy.
My middle child is in the midst of finals in his second year of college. He is at a liberal arts school known for its academic intensity, and has found that the college lives up to its reputation. He is majoring in math and computer science and enjoying the small classroom discussions and writing intensive classes. He loves his school, the professors, and his classmates. He was selected to be a junior advisor for next year and has been participating in training sessions all semester. He has had a rough year outside of the classroom: he suffered an injury in the fall and has been taking way too much Advil for my liking since to deal with the pain. He is scheduled for surgery on both hips when he gets home in a couple of weeks and had to rescind his summer internship and will be "stuck" at home in physical therapy instead.
My youngest is graduating from our homeschool this month and is heading off to college in the fall. I was really hoping that she would accept the offer and go to the same college that my middle child is at. But, despite my middle child's hard campaigning, she chose another college. While both of them will be 9+ hours from home, the good news is that they will only be about 45 minutes from each other, making drop offs and pick-ups a little easier. She is chomping at the bit to fly the coop and begin her college career.
Homeschooling was one of the best decisions we have ever made for our kids.
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6 hours ago, Sebastian (a lady) said:
(snip)
Around a third of college students say that they are struggling with depression and mental health. Athletics and academics could each be a full load on their own. Academics and working can put a heavy strain on students. Academics and ROTC or campus internships, or even just academics alone can be a heavy burden.
Again, I'm not attempting to point a finger at anyone, especially not parents with current or hopeful athletes. I just don't remember this kind of pressure being something that was talked about when my son was swimming with what is a highly ranked club. I considered, and still consider his coaches to have been people who cared about him deeply. But there was also a sense that good swimmers just work harder and juggle faster and more elegantly. I suspect that many other sports have a similar "suck it up" "pain makes you stronger" approach.
I will point a finger at some of the parents with current or hopeful athletes in my kids' sport. Some of these parents have completely lost their minds. These parents have forced their kids to play since the time they were able to hit a ball. They won't let their kids quit. The vast majority of these abusive parents are not interested in their kids turning pro or even a college scholarship - they are interested in admission to a T20 school. In my 15 years involved in the sport, I have seen many parent/child relationships damaged beyond repair.
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2 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:
DH had a sports scholarship at the big state U of a large state. One thing that I learned recently, they controlled what the athletes ate. They had their own cafeteria and their cards were programmed with their individualized food plan. If they tried to get something not on their meal plan, it wouldn't let them. It wasn't a problem for DH because he was on a 'gain weight' diet. So, he got as many carbs and calories as he wanted. But, other athletes grumbled. DH even had one coach of not-his-sport walk by and challenge what he was eating. DH did say that they could get steaks for breakfast. But, I found that level of control creepy.
My brother also had a sports scholarship at a big state U. In addition to the food monitoring, he was required to take the nutritional supplement creatine. I was shocked to see how much muscle mass he added on (and he was pretty big to begin with) when he came home for Thanksgiving his first semester. (I know studies say creatine is safe, but I would still worry about unknown long-term effects and would not be happy with not having a choice on whether or not to take it if one of my kids were in this situation.)
My brother definitely felt like the coaches owned him, especially since he was attending on an athletic scholarship. While the NCAA has set a limit on the maximum hours an athlete can spend each week, that regulation (at least when my brother played) is a joke as teams are easily able to get around the limit by holding "voluntary" practices and "voluntary" work-out sessions, etc. The team definitely came before the academics and when there was a conflict between the two, my brother had to miss the class.
My middle son went through the recruiting process a few years ago now. In my son's sport, the vast majority of the kids at my son's level play D1. My son determined early on in the recruiting process that even the level of time commitment needed at an Ivy (which is D1, but league restrictions make it less demanding than other D1 programs) was too much for him (Ivy coaches told him to plan on 4 hours a day). His friends (and their parents) were shocked that he elected to play for a D3 school, but it was the best choice for him. His college team spends 10 days in California each spring break, and all of the other matches when school is in session are on the weekends against opponents that are all in the same geographic area.
HIs experience hasn't been perfect, though. The facilities at his D3 school pale in comparison to what he would have had at a D1, which has been frustrating for him at times. But, he has time to conduct research with a professor, and next year he will also add being a junior advisor to the mix. Had he chosen D1, he would not have had time to fit these activities in and would not be able to double major in two STEM fields.
With a few exceptions, his friends who are playing for D1 teams are also having a great experience. None of them, however, are majoring in STEM fields.
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I posted this on the "30 days and waiting" thread, but thought I should also post it here as I always enjoyed reading this thread when my kids were younger. My D was offered admission to 7 out of the 8 schools on her list. This was my third and last time through the process. My D applied to more schools than my other two combined, mainly because I wanted her to have options between a liberal arts school and a tech school if she changed her mind about what she wanted over the span of senior year.
She was offered admissions to the following:
Grinnell (with merit)
Hamilton
Williams
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (with merit)
Rochester Institute of Technology (with merit)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (with merit)
Our state flagship (with merit)
I am 99.9% sure what her decision is going to be, and will come back to update this post when it is 100%.
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My D's waiting is over. Now she needs to make a final decision. I am 99.9% sure what her decision will be, but will be happy when she makes it official and we can move forward to the fun stuff - looking at dorm decor, something my boys had zero interest in doing.
This was my third and last time through the process. My D applied to more schools than my other two combined, mainly because I wanted her to have options between a liberal arts school and a tech school if she changed her mind about what she wanted over the span of senior year.
She was offered admissions to the following:
Grinnell (with merit)
Hamilton
Williams
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (with merit)
Rochester Institute of Technology (with merit)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (with merit)
Our state flagship (with merit)
She was deferred then denied at MIT.
Good luck to everyone still waiting!
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On 3/19/2019 at 6:49 PM, JennyD said:
My rising 9th grader is crazy for chemistry and I have been looking at the Chemistry Olympiad program. I also see that AoPS offers a ChemWOOT class to prepare.
Has anyone done this? If, so, any thoughts on what sort of high school science sequence would get a student ready to participate? We haven't really used textbooks or formal science curricula in middle school, although DS has wound up doing a lot of chemistry-related stuff.
My son advanced to the national round of the chemistry olympiad. I don't know if ChemWOOT was around then or not. He was taking AP Chemistry with ChemAdvantage the year he participated.
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24 minutes ago, kokotg said:
Thanks! He really does have great choices; I just wish someone would print out a list with all the rest of them that says either accepted, waitlisted, or denied by each one so he doesn't keep getting hit by them one by one. Rip off that bandaid!
Good luck today. Something that i haven't seen mentioned here in addition to all the factors already mentioned that go into admission at these schools is choice of major. Colleges are looking for diversification within a major in addition to overall school diversity. I am going through the process with my daughter right now. She has very high stats, but being a female interested in math and computer science has been a plus.
If you read the results on college confidential there are many schools that are offering substantially more merit money for females interested in computer science and math when compared to males with the same high stats.
The overwhelming majority of students at my son's school majoring in math are males. A female applying who is interested in math would have better odds of being admitted when compared to a male with the same academic profile.
When a college is building a class, so much of the process is beyond the applicant's control.
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15 hours ago, Roadrunner said:
I don’t know. I would love to know because if it’s a dream school and I have an offer, at least we can figure out financial feasibility. I don’t care for the best offer. We just need it to be workable. I can’t imagine saying yes to a school without knowing how much it will cost us though.
If you have a typical financial situation - don't own your own business, don't have investment properties, etc- the schools' net price calculators are said to be very accurate.
If you are applying to a school that doesn't offer merit aid, in my opinion, you are not taking as much of a financial risk because your aid package will be the same whether you apply ED or Regular Decision (Obviously you won't be able to compare offers between schools)
My son applied ED to Williams. The aid package came along with the acceptance Had the numbers not been in line with what we were expecting, we would have been able to decline the offer
For my son ED was the right decision - The school was by far his top choice and since they don't offer merit aid, we knew that our cost of attendance was not going to be affected by applying ED
Had his top choice been a school that offers merit aid, in my opinion, ED would have been more risky from a financial standpoint since merit aid is typically used to entice top students to attend the school
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On 2/11/2019 at 2:16 PM, Meriwether said:
We are considering 3 options. 1) Self-study with a text with excellent explanations and a full answer key. Any recommendations? .
Larson has two free websites to support their textbooks: 1. CalcChat has worked out solutions to every odd numbered problem in the book. In addition, they have online tutors available to live chat with if additional help is needed. 2. CalcView has video lectures that cover the topics in each chapter. This approach was very successful in my house.
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On 1/26/2019 at 6:38 PM, GoodGrief1 said:
I would proceed with caution as far as dual enrollment with a kid who has an exceptionally full extracurricular schedule. You are giving up some flexibility and taking on the risk of grades that will not go away after graduation. If there are no other options for those sorts of classes, it might be your best choice, but it would never be my first choice for the student with many other commitments.
Fwiw, I agree 100% with this. My kids are at selective schools and did not have any dual enrollment classes on their transcripts because the classes would have interfered too much with their extracurriculars (research for my oldest and athletics for my middle kid)
They had a handful of online classes between them on their transcripts: PA Homeschoolers, WTMA, and Eimacs, but I am not sure how much weight those grades carried with admissions offices because they were all completed at home. They did, however, have a lot of outside validation in the form of SAT, SAT II's, AIME, and AP scores to back up the grades that were stated on the transcript.
I would choose the path that is going to provide your son with the best educational foundation. For us homeschoolers, I feel the test scores will carry far more weight than anything else and the adcoms are not going to care how your child went about learning the material, whether it be at home or DE.
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5 hours ago, daijobu said:
My daughter has had some positive things happen to her (an award and something else) since she submitted her common application. Do in include these in the common app mid year report? Or does the student report them to her schools directly? Would she email an admissions person or is there some other method?
There is also this question:
"Do you wish to update your original evaluation of this applicant?"
Would I include this new info in that field? Thanks!
This happened to my oldest 4 years ago. He included the awards in the mid-year report the schools wanted him to complete. As the guidance counselor, I did not mention them. Having said that, I don't think it would hurt to mention it as the guidance counselor, too.
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My kids don't take AP exams for their 12th grade AP classes if their colleges won't award credit for the class. Luckily, my kids have all known where they would be heading to college before they needed to register for the AP exams. Thanks to the latest money grab by the College Board, most of next year's seniors won't have the option to wait and see.
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4 hours ago, easypeasy said:
I forgot about the foreign language! That was the other class he could take at the CC - he could theoretically take four semesters there for Spanish. He's currently in high-school Spanish II. Can't believe I didn't write that down on my list.
I'll have to check the CC College Algebra continuation plan. I'm even more convinced, though, that we wouldn't do Calc at the CC. Right now he's in Pre-Calc. Of course, I will want him to do test-prep math his junior year.... so College Algebra + test prep math will probably be plenty for junior year.
Science... he just can't be bothered. It's too precise and too much memory (Chem and Bio) and too fussy for his liking. (funny, coming from a music kid, because I would describe music with ALL of those same adjectives... but what do I know? LoL!) When he DOES it, he does just fine and dandy. He started the year in AP Chemistry and actually really enjoyed the class itself for the challenge. Unfortunately, it took him all day, every day to just keep his head above water and not much else was getting done to either of our satisfaction. Some of the double-majors or gen-eds require at least 2 science classes, so ideally, he'd like to have those out of the way while still in high school so he can focus on music.
So you're counting each college semester as a full high school credit. I keep reading different POVs for that (the website for our CC says that each semester counts as a half-credit for high school... BUT when we enrolled dd for concurrent enrollment last year, the people enrolling her said the opposite and insisted that each class would be a full high school credit. So even the CC can't agree with itself! )
If each class is a full high-school credit, that makes things a lot easier to navigate. Because, as it is, if each is a half-credit, he'll have to be in a lot of classes (we usually like to hover around 6-7 high school credits) to look like he's taking a "full load." But that many classes won't give him that freedom we're seeking!
Maybe:
Junior Year:
Semester 1: Comp I, College Algebra, Spanish I
Semester 2: Comp II, Spanish II
also, AP Music Theory + Test-prep Math at home
CLEP: American Government summer between soph and junior year
Senior Year:
AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, AP Calc AB, Comparative Politics at home
first semester: a Literature class, Spanish III
second semester: as little as possible...
Just a couple of thoughts...Your son won't have the math background necessary for AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism. If your son wants to take a calc-based physics course, imo, I would have him take AP Physics C- Mechanics. (Even that course, I think, is tough without having a calculus foundation going into the course, but it is doable.)
Also keep in mind that the first semester of senior year can be crazy busy with college application essays for some kids, depending on how many schools the student has on the list. With that in mind, you may want to structure the year so the first semester is lighter than the second semester.
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16 hours ago, Mom0012 said:
My dd will be starting the application process this summer. I understand that early decision applications are binding. Does this mean that you can only apply ED to a school that you can afford to pay full freight to? What if it is a school that fully meets need and based on their online calculator, we can afford it? Is it still risky? Is there any way to get a better grasp on the actual costs prior to applying?
No, ED is not only for the families that can pay full freight. If the school is your child's top choice, and if the school's online calculator provides a number that you are comfortable paying, then applying ED may give your child a boost with admissions. If your child is accepted, but the cost of attendance turns out to be different than what the school's online calculator indicated, you would be able to get out of the ED contract.
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3 hours ago, crazyforlatin said:
If a student has taken biology, physics, chem in middle school, and will take courses are not usually part of the common sequence at traditional high schools, courses as anatomy, marine bio, astronomy, organic chem, and college physics (DE), will this be a problem during the college application time? I know high school level science courses taken in middle school are not counted on a high school transcript.
ETA: Instead of taking AP Bio or AP Chem or AP Physics, will it appear on the transcript that the student is weaker in STEM who goes sideways into other science subjects?
Fwiw, I included science courses taken in middle school on the high school transcript. This approach was not ( has not been) a problem for any of my three kids.
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1 hour ago, Lanny said:
Thank you for everything you wrote, including the comments above! Very interesting.
I told my DD about this thread. Here, we hear on the radio (when my wife has it on a certain local station) commercials for a local company that claims to help people get visas to live/work in other countries. Canada, Australia, possibly the USA also. When I hear them, I react, sadly, because obviously the company is making $ or would not be able to continue paying for radio commercials. But, I wonder, what percentage of their clients actually receive a visa that permits them to live and work in one of those countries. And, I wonder, if the client had applied, without using a company like that, if they would have received the visa. The company is making money. Many of their clients are wasting their time and money. From what I understand after reading upthread, it is common, possibly even necessary, for those interested in an Athletic Scholarship, to use one of these agencies to "market" them to colleges and universities.
Whether or not the girl in question has the Academic stats and the Athletic Stats seems to be quite questionable.
It definitely is not necessary to hire an agency in order to secure an athletic scholarship. However, just like some families hire a college consultant to assist with the college application process, some families hire a sports agency to assist with athletic recruiting.
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Is high input, low output possible for honors credit?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I think each homeschool should decide what counts as honors level for their individual homeschool. The criteria for honors designation can then be described in the homeschool profile (if one is submitted with the college applications).
Fwiw, I didn't use the honors designation at all on my kids' transcripts. despite the fact that many of their courses used college textbooks. I did have a blurb in the homeschool profile that stated that none of the courses was designated as "honors" because I felt the designation was only meaningful in a traditional school setting when the choice of a less rigorous class was also available. Based on other parent reports on CC, I don't think the lack of an honors designation resulted in less merit awards at colleges that offer merit.