rzberrymom
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Posts posted by rzberrymom
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1 hour ago, mmasc said:
I’m not sure of something online that is timed like Khan, but you could go to the college board website and print just the no-calculator sections of 10 different SAT tests. Maybe you could just time those and do them as practice?? The answers and explanations are available as well. All free!
I *think* those are the same as the practice tests on Khan. She’s done about half of those and is saving the last few tests to do as one big, whole-test practice session. I guess there may not be anything more, unless I use old tests.
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23 minutes ago, fourisenough said:
she’s getting increasingly excited about one of her safeties
I’m realizing that this must be the key to having a calm, sane senior year—finding a safety that a kid can get excited about. I think we found one of those for my DD for next year, and I feel a weight lifted off both of us!!
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Anyone know of SAT prep that is similar to the timed mini sessions on Khan Academy? Unfortunately, you can’t use those mini sessions unless you do the whole lesson that proceeds it. But, we’ve narrowed down that my DD mainly needs practice at doing the math problems timed and under pressure, rather than reviewing all the actual math concepts. I think it’s mainly the no-calculator section that goes very fast.
I could go buy her a book and put together little sessions myself, but I thought I’d check just in case there is something online.
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4 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
CSU is dropping it
“In a move putting California’s public colleges at the forefront of the trend to drop standardized tests, the Cal State university system will eliminate SAT and ACT tests from its admission requirements.”
“As California goes, so goes the nation…”-
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She says her homeschool charter also gives a P/F for health and work study. Would those be considered academics and have a chance of being turned into C’s?
Although, it sounds like maybe it doesn’t come up as often as I thought.
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7 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
I will say though that our local private school has a very hard time placing kids into top UCs and much easier time placing them into top privates for the same reasons PSA kids have trouble.
You can get the exact numbers from that link SanDiegoMom posted above—we checked private schools all over the Bay Area, and the percentages admitted were much higher than the elite public schools I know of. After a while I stopped because it was making me feel ill…
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5 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:
@Roadrunner@Arcadia@rzberrymom and anyone else in CA -- I found some data that breaks down UC admissions by GPA by high school (along with other data like ethnicity, transfer gpa, etc) which I found interesting. It goes back to the 90's. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/admissions-source-school
I am pretty sure it is the UC weighted GPA too -- there were no GPA's over 4.25, which would be the highest possible with the way UC's weight them.
I think the most interesting thing is that it breaks it down (by school)between the average gpa of the applicants, of the admitted, and of the enrolled, and for some of the campuses the gpa of the enrolled was lower than of the admitted. Not by a lot overall, but it did make me realize that the schools will give their "admitted" student statistics instead of their enrolled statistics.
I saw that! One of those really helpful nuggets from otherwise crazy CC!!
My DD and I found it fascinating to look through—relatives go to one of the best public HS in the state, where the kids are in a horrific pressure cooker for 4 years, and only 8% of applicants from the school got into UCLA last year. At my local public school, which I thought was supposed to be pretty good, only 3% of applicants got into UCLA last year. At our local very expensive private school, the numbers that got into the selective UCs were 5-6 times higher than at our local public school. So much for equity.
Another thing I found helpful was figure 4 on this link: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may21/a1.pdf
I posted that on another thread, but basically it shows that about 83% of UCLA’s freshman admits last year and about 74% of Berkeley’s were ELC kids (eligibility in the local context), which doesn’t apply to anyone with a homeschool PSA. ELC used to be only the top 3% at each high school, but recently it’s gone up to 9% of each high school. And 84% of CA high schools are now ELC schools. When you also factor in the 9% that are UC-eligible state-wide (those that are not ELC) plus the huge number of out-of-state kids that they let in, it seems like there must be barely any room left.
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25 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:
And I've never heard 0 for the states that we've lived in but calculated as a C for academic courses.
You’re right, that’s what I meant. I’ve seen it mentioned that they calculate a P/F as a C, but I’ve never been able to figure out who does this. Is it something you only find out after the fact? Or can you find it on the schools’ websites?
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My DD placed into 300 level classes after homeschooling German for years, and I’m still worried about whether those junior level classes are really going to count for the foreign language requirement when she applies next year. I keep thinking we’re going to get caught on technicalities.
And I agree with Dmmetler’s kiddo—300 level was ALL about grammar. I remember my DD crying about her first essay because she got a C. The professor wrote something on it like, I see this every year, students who are fluent in speaking and reading but who don’t have nearly enough grammar. She had to work her tail off after that, going line by line on her essays to make sure the grammar was just right.
Maybe that’s where the placement test could be dinging your kiddo?
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1 minute ago, Arcadia said:
I have no idea about the P/F thing. However, local colleges are well aware that some public high schools were giving out P/F for Spring 2020 to Spring 2021. My friend’s public school junior studied at home from March 2020 to June 2021.
Specifically for UCs https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/response-covid-19.html
”How will UC calculate my GPA if I received Pass/No Pass (Credit/No Credit) grades in some A-G courses?
UC will continue to calculate the GPA for admission purposes using all A-G courses passed with letter grades in grades 10 and 11, including summer terms following grades 9, 10 and 11. Pass (P) or Credit (CR) grades earned in spring 2020 through summer 2021 will meet A-G subject requirements but will not be calculated in the GPA. Extra points in honors-level coursework will continue to be capped at 8 semesters of honors points in A-G courses completed with letter grades of A, B and C in grades 10 and 11.”
I believe the homeschool charter uses P/F for PE and work study specifically so that it doesn’t screw up the UC GPA (not the UC capped, but the unweighted and weighted). So I know we’re ok there.
But, I wasn’t sure how to figure out which private schools may give her a zero for the P/F grades. I’ve seen it mentioned here several times but could never figure it out.
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One thing I haven’t been able to figure out for the life of me. I’ve seen folks on here mention that some universities count a P/F grade as a 0. How do you figure out which universities do that???
I put my junior in a homeschool charter this year so that she could apply as a public school kid, it’s been pretty fantastic, but they do use P/F for PE, work study, and I think maybe a few electives.
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29 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
The May and June SAT dates would have results out in time for college applications. My junior has a decent SAT score to fall back on and is taking the June SAT. That is the best timing for him as AP exams would be done and dual enrollment classes exams are in late June.
She’s not a natural test taker, so I think she’d have to prepare for months. When she took the PSAT, she did really well on the verbal, but she approached the math like it was AOPS—she sat there reasoning through everything and taking forever.
If I could do things all over again, I think I would have used the Aleks SAT math program and had her do one lesson per week over the last year or more.
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4 hours ago, Eos said:
2) If you have need, do not let them apply to colleges that offer to meet need at less than what you can afford, unless you know they will qualify for excellent merit. Big Future at the College Board website has a cost button for each college, on which is listed the percentage of need each college meets. I only learned to do this after oldest visited and fell in love with a school that meets just 67% of need. He chose to take loans knowing he would be earning a solid salary afterwards, but I don't believe at 18 or 19 they can really have informed choice. This was my mistake as I didn't have any friends who homeschooled high school and didn't know how to find advice. There are many smart posters on here who focus on merit aid and less on need-based. I have been much more deliberate in helping current junior with test prep as we will have less need with only one kid at home and will need more merit aid this time around.
I really wish I had understood merit aid earlier. Once the UC campuses got rid of all standardized tests for good, my DD chose to focus on her DE classes, her ECs and her job, rather than slog through days and days of test prep. It made sense to me at the time, since she could use transferring as her back-up plan.
But then she fell for a few schools that have high merit aid. I didn’t understand until recently that one of the reasons the schools give merit aid is because the kids’ high standardized test scores boost the schools’ rankings. We thought maybe her weighted GPA and accomplishments would help, but now we see that it would likely be a waste of time and effort. Live and learn.
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59 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
I just think the process is overwhelming. mine won’t even look at college mail. He is just like @Arcadia’s DS - “anywhere, a college” is what we get.
I also think his way of dealing with stress is to pretend it’s not happening, sort of like an ostrich with his head in the sand.
We are looking at UC essays and finding them stupid, repetitive, and absolute waste of time. Worst kind of essay topics we have seen. And they want four of them! AggggggHave you guys read the John Dewis essay I linked to above? It’s completely worth the read. Don’t worry about the stupid prompts!
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“If I were a college admissions director, I would only have one prompt: “Spend six hundred fifty words telling us something about yourself that no other applicant could possibly tell us about himself or herself.”
If you just start writing, by the time you look up, you will discover you have in fact responded to one of the actual prompts. Often it’s one you never would have chosen.
Colleges want the prompts to help you say something personal, but the problem is that they are written for a general audience, and therefore sound general, and inspire essays that are general. A college can’t very well ask, “Harry, where did you get that scar on your forehead?” But that’s what they’re hoping you’ll write about.
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32 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
A good friend’s elder child was rejected by the child’s first choice which was UCLA years ago. She and her husband are entering their current junior in all the engineering related competitions they know of since 9th grade to build up their youngest child’s awards portfolio. This child’s first choice is UCB because the child wants to be nearer home. Her husband, who works in one of the big tech, volunteers for all this child’s competitions. Competition for college applications is really going crazy here with parents helping whatever way they can to make their kids application stand out. We passed by RSM and AOPS academy while grocery shopping and some parents are already stressed over their middle school age kids.
Unbelievable…
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We’re on this path too. I feel kind of overwhelmed because her 11th grade DE course load is really intense, so how in the world are we going to find time to do tours! I wish we had taken care of this last year. But, she has done a ton of online tours, and those have been surprisingly helpful at narrowing things down (such as when a certain west coast private school had four students talking mainly about the weather and using ‘like’ every other word).
She also has a super fun and jam-packed summer planned, so she’s been trying to knock out some of the essays before then. To get started, we read Hack the College Essay, which was super helpful! We also read How to Prepare a Standout College Application, which was less mind-blowing than Hack, but still very helpful with all the details.
The hardest thing we’re finding is what in the world is a safety school anymore. She’d rather not go too far from home, but we’re in CA, everything is so impacted and there are no guarantees anymore. She has lots of reaches and good matches, but no good safeties.
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2 hours ago, madteaparty said:
As tempted as I am to say “all’s well that ends well”, even with his great results, there is no doubt in my mind with selective schools and selective programs, and unless you are in a particular category, there is a homeschooling burden/drag that occurs. Absolutely. I wish people were more open about this, though to be honest if someone had told me I would not have believed them.
Yes, I so so wish we could be more open and honest about this on this site. We do homeschoolers a disservice by downplaying the very real dilemma for CA kids.
I also think things have changed in the last few years, since standardized tests were eliminated and ELC became king here. I wonder how many of the anecdotes I read on here are still the case. And again, I only mean at the selective campuses—I know there is still room for us at the campuses that admit 90% of applicants.
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16 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
@rzberrymomalso I was told you might not need to complete igetc if you are transferring for science.
Yes, the school of chemistry IGETC at Berkeley has much less on the list than the IGETC for the school of letters and sciences. So hopefully my kiddo can track down more possibilities like that.
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7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
Our backup plan is to apply as a transfer student for Spring 2023.
This is my DD’s back-up plan too—the transfer acceptance rates are often 3-4 times higher!!!! She’s just annoyed that the IGETC transfer requirements are different from the A-G stuff she’s done, so her DE classes won’t all work for the transfer. Your son did it the right way!
I know there’s lots of anecdotal talk on these boards about how possible it is for homeschooled kids to get into the UCs, but I think the deck is REALLY stacked against homeschoolers at the highly selective campuses. At UCLA last year, 83% of the freshman admits were ELC, which leaves out anyone with a homeschool PSA. And then there are the kids that qualify by being the top 9% state-wide, which also doesn’t include those with PSAs. And then there are the HUGE numbers of out-of-state kids admitted. There’s barely any room at all left at the selective UCs! Maybe at UC Merced, where they only fill about 24% of the class using ELC. Figure 4 here is what gave me pause: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may21/a1.pdf
There’s no way I’m playing this game with my younger kiddo. I think we’ll just focus on IGETC and try to enjoy the high school years.
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6 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
DS17 is still waiting and exasperated that the deadline for state universities (UC &CSU) to inform the applicants is April 1st. My husband is more anxious than him since neither of us attended colleges in US.
Our nephew is doing the UC waiting game now too. I believe UCLA and Irvine are expected to come out tomorrow afternoon, and UCB and one other (UCSD??) are expected to come out next week.
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17 hours ago, Kassia said:
same with my kids- my youngest actually started as a freshman with 85 credits with all the perks above. The best was upper level access to priority scheduling. She started scheduling as an honors senior in her second year. Ds3 did the same.
This is fascinating—is this common, to give upper division kids a higher priority registration? I’ve been hoping my DD’s 70+ units of DE credit would help with getting into an honors college at a state U so that she’d have priority registration, but I never considered that the units themselves might do the same thing!
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Thanks so much everybody! I’ll give Patty Paper and the MOEMS problems a try.
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Can a kid work through the AOPS Pre-Algebra book at the same time as working through their Intro to Geometry book? I’m thinking of spending maybe 2 weeks on the pre-algebra and then switching to the geometry. My DD adores geometry, and so I hate to make her wait two more years to get to it.
Reason I ask is because AOPS has a ‘Are you ready for this book’ questionnaire, and they definitely want you to have mastered algebra first: https://data.artofproblemsolving.com//products/diagnostics/introduction-geometry-pretest.pdf
Is there a good reason for that? Or could we do them concurrently?
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21 minutes ago, JanetC said:
Look at your entire state system, not just the biggest couple of campuses. Depending on your state, there could be a hidden gem in there somewhere at a smaller or medium-sized campus.
We’re in California, so they’re all huge. 😞
SAT prep that is similar to the timed mini sessions at Khan Academy?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Thank you so much!!