Comments | aelf: Another Year

aelf

Another Year

Aug 22, 2020 16:11

It's almost time for Zoë to start school, her senior year. She's not as excited about it as she would be in a normal world, because her school has adjusted a lot of the pomp and circumstance to make it safer ( Read more... )

Comments 10

holliemke August 23 2020, 16:35:53 UTC

We live in such a crazy world right now. I think the hardest part is not knowing when or if things will ever be the same. Good luck to all of you.

aelf August 26 2020, 20:13:06 UTC

Yeah, not knowing makes everything that much harder. We can adapt to change. Adapting to the unknown is more challenging. I hope things are going well for you!

moshah August 24 2020, 21:28:10 UTC

Senior year!! Wow. Our oldest is hitting 5th grade. I'm aware that I'm going to blink and we're going to be where you are sooner rather than later. Daunting to think about.

I feel badly for her, to hit Senior year in COVID. Crossing my fingers that by next Spring she can partake in some of those activities, especially surrounding graduation.

aelf August 26 2020, 20:15:47 UTC

5th grade's a big year! Good luck!
It all passes a lot more quickly than you'd think.

reedrover August 24 2020, 21:33:10 UTC

I'm glad Mike's job is doing ok, and I am crossing my fingers for you.

Good luck to Zoe. Her class list looks awesome. I hope that she can continue to find drive and motivation to keep moving on college applications somehow. If not, then maybe a gap year is going to be a default rather than an option.

aelf August 26 2020, 20:22:14 UTC

The 2021's are in a special kind of challenge. A lot of the 2020's deferred, so there'll be fewer spaces for the 2021's. And typically kids apply and get accepted before they do a gap year. But if the 2021's wait, they'll be competing with the 2022's, so still in a more competitive than typical environment.

She should be able to get into a college. Towson's not where she wants to go, but I can't imagine them rejecting her; she's got decent stats. I don't anticipate UMD accepting anyone who's not a phenom without an SAT score, and I don't expect out of state colleges to want out of staters without SATs (if I were an in-stater, I'd be arguing those colleges need to be accepting the instate kids who are struggling for spaces).

reedrover August 26 2020, 20:46:26 UTC

A class list like that and you are saying she's NOT a phenom? She is amazing!

https://www.collegelifetoday.com/tips/organizing/college-not-requiring-sat/

aelf August 30 2020, 21:27:57 UTC

She's slightly above average at her school. Top 3rd I'd guess, probably in the bottom 3rd of the top 3rd. (The school officially doesn't rank, so it's a guess based on who's made honor roll over the years, who she's been in classes with, who's made the various honor societies).

Fortunately a lot of schools are going test optional for this batch of kids. Hopefully a lot of them stick with it - my daughter has friends who've been doing SAT prep seriously since middle school. That's ridiculous and should not be what colleges encourage. You get what you test for.

cz_unit October 28 2020, 17:51:57 UTC

Hey!

Didn't see this on DW and I don't get here often. But if she still hasn't been able to do the SATs it's really way better to just go to CCBC to get the 100 and 200 stuff, then transfer right into UM using the transfer alliance. Dylan did it and did get accepted by College Park but we went to UMBC because their housing situation was beyond stupid. Now he's graduating with BS CS and all is well :-)

*hugs* Miss you and your family. Burgerfest2021 will be an orgy of fun!

aelf November 1 2020, 19:47:35 UTC

Heya!

Zoe wants to be a dentist, which unfortunately makes CC a hard choice. A lot of dental schools still don't accept science classes from a community college. It doesn't make sense for her to do CC for 2 years only to then have 3-4 years worth of science classes she'd still need to take at UMD. It's a shame, because the classes I've taken at CCBC Catonsville have been every bit as good as the classes I've taken at UMBC and UMUC (whatever it's called now).

We'll see if she doesn't get into her two top choices, or it looks like next year might be more online stuff, because online is awful for her and there's no point in taking lab sciences if you can't actually do lab science. (I'm thankful her school's doing hybrid, I have no idea how the kids doing distance-only are managing their lab science classes!)

Miss seeing you as well! I am hopeful that by 2021 we've got some sanity and a vaccine and this'll be moving into a rear view mirror to become one of our "walked uphill both ways" old-fogey stories!