alewife
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Posts posted by alewife
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On 12/31/2018 at 7:56 PM, Srtepe said:
Does anyone know if the PSAT qualifies as a standardized test for assessment purposes in Ohio? Have been googling and searching this site, but can’t find the answer anywhere. If not, is there a test recommendation for high schoolers, or should we just continue on with what we’ve been doing (the TerraNova)? This is my first year with a high schooler, so I’m a little unsure. Thanks so much!
Yes, I used the PSAT for my kids starting in middle school. The public school officials initially told me my kids needed to be in 11th grade to sit for the exam, but when I explained to them that I was using the PSAT as the nationally normed test to satisfy the state of Ohio homeschooling requirements, they let my kids sit for the exam.
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2 hours ago, Janeway said:
Son is taking classes labeled AP, but they are also offered at dual credit. It is through a school. He is also thinking of applying to a couple more competitive schools that require the SAT subject tests, which he is already registered for. Should he take the AP exams? Or forget them? This year, he will have 3 credits freshman English, 3 credits history, and 3 credits government. His AP class is American Literature. Should he be taking the AP exam for that?
If he is applying to competitive schools that practice holistic admissions, I would have him sit for the AP exams of the classes he is taking since an admissions office may question why an AP score is not listed for an AP class and then assume that the student scored poorly on the AP exam since a score was not listed. (There is no AP American Literature class though, so if the school is listing that class as "AP" I would question that with the school administration since that would be in violation of the College Board rules.)
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On 12/3/2018 at 12:37 PM, Luypie said:
I apologize, if the topic is not well related to this forum. I have been thinking a lot about this and thought I would ask for some advice.
I have a 7 year old boy who has been playing hockey and soccer, since he was 5. He plays hockey year around and plays soccer in the summer. He's an excellent skater with good speed. His skillset is above average. He seems to like hockey and soccer. He gets up at 6:00 in the morning to go to a session at 7:00 am. He doesn't complain a word about getting up early. He actually looks excited and gets ready to go. The problem comes, when it's game time. He doesn't actively participate in the game. He just skates around and doesn't go after the puck. It's painful to watch. I don't see any other kids doing it. All the other kids are going after the puck and trying to contribute, while he just circles around. He comes out and says his teammate was saying they lost because of him. Then, he becomes sad. Sometimes he says that "I'm horrible at this" or "I'm not a good player." I'm worried this is going to affect his self-esteem. Same thing happens in soccer. He runs around and doesn't go after the ball. He's not engaged in the game. Same thing. It's painful to watch.
We have had numerous discussions about team work and work ethics. We even started a reward system to motivate him. I ask him every season if he wants to sign up for next season. I secretly want him to say no, but his answer has been always yes. I thought it was a skill issue. We put him into group lessons in late spring and summer. His skill set is above average. I know he can do it, because, when they play 3 on 3 for whatever reason (short of players, etc), he is actively engaged and even does a hat trick (3 goals). Even in soccer, there was one game they had to play 3 on 3 and he was fine. I wonder if he doesn't like body contacts and wants to maintain his personal space in games. Maybe there are too many kids going after the puck, he doesn't want to be squeezed in there.
Next year, he is going to start a sparring session in Tae Kwon Do. I am hoping that it would help with this personal space issue.
I just want him to be able to enjoy sports and stay active. If he is not good at team sports, he can do individualized sports, like swimming or Taekwondo. I have no issue with it. The issue I'm having is that he wants to continue, yet he gets discouraged by negative comments from teammates and then it affects his confidence and self-esteem. I feel, as a parent, I should know how to guide him to make better choices and I wonder if I should guide him away from team sports.
When he first signed up for hockey, they had an education session for parents, which basically said that good kids will dominate the game at first and your kids may not enjoy it as much, but when they hit 10, they will get it. While this sounds very promising and positive, I haven't met anyone with similar experience yet. Does anyone have similar experience? Does it improve as they grow up? Once they are 10, do they start to get it and get better? Is it worth to continue, because he wants to, even if it affects his self esteem and confidence? Should I guide him into something else?
I had a similar experience with my daughter when she was that age, but the sport was basketball. She enjoyed the practices and the team drills, but during the game, she would not go after the ball. When we asked her about it, she told us that she felt bad taking the ball away from someone else. I wonder if your son has similar feelings?
Is there any way your son can continue to participate in the practice sessions and lessons (which he seems to enjoy), but not play in the actual games until he is older?
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27 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:
While on the topic of board games, anyone have 2 player favorites? My physics ds is getting married in May and I would like to give him a fun, challenging 2 person strategy board game if any anyone has suggestions.
Congratulations to your son! My kids really like Ticket to Ride.
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1 minute ago, Janeway said:
I have been thinking about this. Did the NMSC come back and tell the student that was why he did not advance? If not, it could have been any number of factors. They consider everything from extracurriculars to recommendations and so on. Also, whether or not the kids have been taking challenging courses.
No, he didn't investigate why he didn't advance. His guidance counselor had forewarned him that the C might be a problem, so he wasn't surprised when he didn't move forward.
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On 12/10/2018 at 10:20 AM, mirabillis said:
So CB can go hang themselves.
With the brutal 10/24 curve, my son missed ONE in math ---> 710 and 3 in reading/writing ----> 710, equals 1420 (4 questions wrong total)
Last year he missed 13 total and got a 1400. RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!
ETA - last year missing 4 questions, he would have got a 1510. And would have been a National Merit Finalist. I could spit at them. (he figured it out - he would have had a 1500 on the normal date *fuming mad here*)
Just to highlight the disparity in difficulty between the 10/24 PSAT and the Dec SAT:
Dec SAT Math
One wrong in math = 790, while 5 wrong is a 720, and 6 wrong is a 700
Dec SAT EBRW
Missing 9 question total in EBRW was a 700.
I hope the National Merit Corp gets a lot of complaints about the 10/24 PSAT and takes some kind of action to try to remedy the College Board's screw up.
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5 hours ago, amsunshine said:
Was he the guy that had the bright idea to dumb down the SAT (it's newest form that came out in about 2015 or so)?
Yep.
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I wonder how much longer David Coleman will be running the show at the College Board? There has been one major screw up after another since he took over.
If I were in charge at National Merit Corporation, at this point, I would be speaking with the ACT folks to see if they could develop a PACT test to replace the PSAT. It appears that National Merit is already moving somewhat to the ACT since it will now accept an ACT score in lieu of an SAT score in the step a student takes to advance from semi-finalist to finalist status.
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3 minutes ago, Kassia said:
Yes, we must be in the same state. 🙂 The exemption from the ODE site is exactly what I sent our assistant superintendent. I am waiting to hear back from him.
I was in the exact opposite situation as you last year: I wanted my D to be able to take the SAT, but the school told me that as a homeschooler she couldn't. Once I cited the actual law, the school registered her for the test. I realize that there are a lot of rules and regulations that schools need to adhere to, however, it would be nice if school officials would either provide accurate information or admit that they don't know the answer.
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22 minutes ago, RootAnn said:
I checked Georgetown's website and could no longer find this requirement. Does it show up once you start the application process? I know they used to require it, but didn't see where they still do.
@alewife Here, they have make-up days for kids that were sick on the official state-wide testing day. (In fact, a handful of schools ended up using it so all the kids would take it again. Some schools were pilot programs for computer-run ACT testing and there were horrible glitches and irregularities-including kids from multiple rooms mingling together at break when some kids had already taken a specific section and others had not. Eveeyone retook with the paper version. The second make-up day was also used for sick kids from Day 1&2. A mess! Edited to add: it is a graduation requirement here. I don't know if you can substitute a regular testing day or a SAT equivalent as I'm not sure they've had time to iron out the kinks. Schools are "graded" on the SAT scores of their juniors.
I think I am in the same state as the OP. I think the difference between my state and where you live is that the schools here are not penalized if kids don't take the test. Here is the verbiage from the department of education website: "There are no consequences to a district or school report card if a student fails to take the ACT or SAT. "
My understanding is that the school has to offer either the ACT or SAT to all juniors free of charge, but there is no penalty if the student doesn't take the test. In addition, the Dept of Education has exempted some of the student body from taking the test. One of the exempted categories is kids who have already achieved a remediation free score on the SAT/ACT test. Here is the verbiage from the ODE website:
- A student who received a "remediation-free" score on the required nationally standardized assessment and has presented evidence of that fact to the student's district or school.
If it were me, I would just phone my D in sick that day. I see no advantage to taking this test, but I do see a potential downside: The student has a bad testing day, ends up with a lower score on her record, and discovers that her college of choice requires all scores to be submitted.
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16 hours ago, Kassia said:
Yes, we were told it's state mandated and the state pays for it. We may have found something that would allow her to skip the test. I sent the information to the assistant superintendent and am hoping this works.
What would happen if your D was sick on test day and unable to attend school?
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I don't know how anyone can have any idea what the curve will be for the December SAT because scores have not yet been released.
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It is absolutely ridiculous that the College Board was not able to develop two tests that had a similar level of difficulty. This test should be screening for more than simply who can make the least amount of careless mistakes. These kids deserved better than this. Yet another huge fail by the College Board.
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1 hour ago, Janeway said:
His overall GPA will still be high enough for finalist. He has all A's until this semester, where he has 3 low grades for this semester. His overall GPA for his first 17 credits is just above 3.8. So the semester with 3 half credits with low grades won't bring his overall GPA down. Now, if he keeps this up, it is a problem. But not one semester of half his grades being like this. His other 4 classes are all solid As.
As others have said, letter grades matter, not just the gpa. One of my tutoring students a few years ago had a near perfect PSAT score, but had a C on his report card and didn't advance to finalist status.
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Thanks, Quill and RootAnn! Now I can see the signatures.
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On 12/9/2018 at 1:07 AM, moonflower said:
Oh, I had thousands of posts on the old forums, but lost the account.
The same thing happened to me with the change-over. I had to create a completely new user name. Since the change-over, I am also unable to see signature lines, too, and have no idea why?
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15 hours ago, madteaparty said:
I'm totally being a busybody because I don't have a high school athlete. But someone told me this and I ran over here to do a sanity check as it sounds off. Apparently this freshman i high school (so, they have not finished the first semester of high school yet) already committed to a college. Can this be true? The sport is baseball, if that matters.
In my experience, it can be true. However, as others have stated, it is a verbal agreement between the two parties at that point. A lot can happen between freshman year and when the student signs the National Letter of Intent (in senior year) or gets an official notification of admission to the college: the player may suffer a serious injury, the coach may leave the school, the player may not obtain the necessary test scores, etc.
The NCAA is also trying to crack down on the sports that typically recruit at the beginning of the high school years and has implemented some new guidelines that the schools must follow. However, one can usually find loopholes...
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The new SAT is even worse than the old SAT in distinguishing between the top percentiles of test takers. It is a shame that a competition that needs to distinguish at the high end of the testing population is using such a blunt instrument as the SAT.
I realize that there are some colleges where being a National Merit Semi-finalist results in a large financial scholarship. However, many of these same colleges also offer automatic large merit awards for high SAT/ACT scores.
Other than these few schools who court NMSF (and the financial incentives offered by these schools seem to decrease every admissions cycle), this competition, ime, is not a big deal: colleges don't seem to care, nor do employers. It is the SAT and ACT scores that colleges care about, and while some employers have asked my college kid for his Math SAT score, not one employer has ever asked him if he was a NMS.
Good luck to all of your kids taking the SAT or ACT and tell them not to be discouraged if they ended up making a careless error on a poorly designed test and end up not advancing in the National Merit competition.
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1 hour ago, Sebastian (a lady) said:
Without going through the coordinator's guides I'm going g to guess that the space between students might be different for AP and SAT.
There have been cases where AP scores for an exam or a school's whole swathe of exams was cancelled because they didn't use one of the allowed seating arrangements.
I think that College Board doesn't see it's goal as certifying mastery of material or even the excellence and rigor of the course taught by a high school teacher at college level. I think there is a goal of molding content, scope and sequence (not only of AP but of courses leading g to it), course availability, and access.
The AP model just fits our situation less and less well.
I agree. If the CB did care about mastery of material, many of the public schools in my area would not be able to continue to use the AP designation year after year when their students are unable to score higher than a 2 on the exam.
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8 hours ago, Roadrunner said:
Do schools usually pay for AP exams? In our district the school picks up all the costs. I find it improper for CB to be appropriating public funds under the guise of a penalty.
I think the entire thing is a money grab. Kids should be able to decide closer to the exam if they feel they are ready to take and have a choice to opt out. Sometimes best of intentions don’t pan out. Maybe the class is too hard, maybe the teacher isn’t good, maybe a lot has happened at home. Whatever the reason, kids may not feel prepared and ready for the exam, and moving registration deadline so far out adds more stress. And now those penalty fees really make me look elsewhere for options. DE seems so much more appealing.
The kids in my area pay for the AP exams. I think it is unusual for a school to pay for these tests.
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16 minutes ago, Penelope said:
From the College Board:
”Exams canceled after this deadline and by the spring course orders and fall order changes deadline will incur a cancellation fee of $40 per exam. The original exam fee will be removed from the invoice. This fee won’t apply to exams originally ordered for students who transfer out of the school.”
So it is not additional, it is $40 that you won’t be refunded if you cancel. They already have late exam administrations for all exams for cases of sickness or other emergencies.
Ok, so it is not as bad as I had interpreted the policy to be. I thought it meant that the student had to pay an additional $40. So now, if you have to cancel, the CB is going to keep a little less than half of the testing fee. Still not ideal, but not as ridiculous as I thought.
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3 minutes ago, RootAnn said:
What happens if a school has a kid move away? Who pays the $40?
Do you think the school would put someone else in that student's place? Do they have to assign names to the tests in the fall under the new setup? What would happen if they stuck a substitute in to take the test (under the original kid's name if they had to name them)? Imagine the crazy that might follow . . .
If they don't assign names, would this open up a slot for another student to be able to take the test if one of the original kids had moved or got sick at the last minute? Either way is a bit crazy.
I would think that they would have to assign names at registration, otherwise, it would be very difficult to enforce the $40 penalty. My guess is that if a student didn't end up taking the AP exam he had already paid for, he would be solely responsible for paying the additional $40 penalty.
This fee for be relatively easy for both the school and College Board to enforce: For those students who would like to send their AP score report to their intended college, the CB would not send the report until all fees were paid. If the student didn't want to send an AP report anywhere, the high school could refuse to send a final transcript to his college until the fees to the CB were paid.
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I know that the College Board would like us to believe that registering earlier for the AP exam makes the students more invested in the class, but I wonder if that is really true. From what I have seen at least in my area, kids are invested in the grade that they receive in the AP class, not the actual AP exam score. My public school has had a policy for at least as long as I have been involved in AP testing with my kids (so 10 years now) that every student must sit for the AP exam in order to receive a final grade in the AP class. I believe that the school has this policy because a school's rating depends on how many AP exams its students take each year (the actual scores are not used in these national rankings nor are the exam scores used when factoring in the final letter grade awarded for the class.).
This new policy of requiring early registration and then charging an additional $40 fee for not sitting for the exam that was already paid for, in my opinion, does nothing but add to the coffers of the College Board. I really see zero benefit to the student.
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4 hours ago, Farrar said:
The CLEP is definitely not seen as positively as AP's are. They're not accepted for credit everywhere, I'm pretty sure. Of course, neither are AP's.
Charging for missing the exam is just absurd. Framing it as if it's for the student's own good is downright offensive. Not that I expect anything else from the College Board.
Plus considering the College Board's pilot program just was implemented at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year (less than 3 months ago), it is quite impressive that the College Board has already been able to draw conclusion that,
"Schools have found, and we’ve verified in our pilot, that having a meaningful stake in the year-end goal of the AP Exam encourages students to persist through a challenging class, do their best work, and take advantage of the opportunities they have earned."
I wonder if this same team that was able to miraculously verify results of a pilot that began a few weeks ago was also the team responsible for devising the SAT/ACT concordance tables for the new SAT-- the concordance tables that the ACT refused to endorse for lack of reliable data, but the colleges still used when evaluating applicants and awarding merit awards, and the College Board later revised when actual data proved the original tables to be wrong. Many students in the Class of 2018 lost thousands of dollars in merit awards due to those faulty concordance tables.
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A judge has ruled that kids accused of cheating have the legal right to sue the ACT
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
This link was posted on College Confidential:
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/2019/01/sorry-act-kids-accused-of-cheating-can-now-sue-you-nj-judge-says.html
A judge has sided with a New Jersey teenager accused of cheating on the ACT exams, saying a clause test-takers must sign giving up their rights to sue the testing company is “unconscionable” and “void as against public policy."
It's about time.