Sweatpants?

Sweatpants - at least a certain kind - are a great solution to the first decision of the day: what to wear. Nike makes them without elastic at the bottom, which makes them look more like pants and less like you're on the way to workout. And with the deep side pockets, back pocket with velcro, and the heavyweight fabric you just look like you're wearing COMFORTABLE pants. 

They're also a good solution for your mood, because who doesn't feel better wearing sweats?

Sometimes you just get lucky...

But sometimes you just don't.

This is the first year of a new curriculum in our district, and so far we've heard from the teachers that they are using tests they haven't seen before.  What does that even mean? is what we're wondering, until we sit down with the test and begin to understand.

And not only that:  a new grading system, weighted grades on a 70/30 split, and a much-dreaded (by the teachers!) cumulative semester exam that will be 10% of our grade. This test is SO ominous, apparently, that we are encouraged not to miss ANY days of school so as not to lose our test waivers. (Which means a lot of us are showing up sick for school, including tests, but that's another post for another day.)

The good news? This will be the first year my class will NOT spend most of the second semester preparing for the four TAKS tests we've taken every year since the third grade.

I know someone who chose to go to a college that doesn't give grades, just some kind of annual evaluation by professors about strengths and weaknesses, growth and development, etc. He said he was tired of all the intensity and competition at his big, crowded high school. I understand, I really do.

What would I choose for myself if I could choose something completely different?

Classes smaller than 35-40,  for one thing; hallways that aren't so crowded that we experiment with one-way routes (like that works any better!); and no 45-minute classes with a 5-minute bell schedule. If I never hear another bell that will be just fine with me, or see another clock on the wall stopped at some impossible time.

It's still a little strange to think that now is the time when I can make a different choice about what I want next for myself.

Lessons from college visits

You don't know until you stand on the campus, eat in the cafeteria, and talk to some students.

Some colleges are just what you thought they'd be, but in my experience there are usually some surprises, not all deal-breakers, but some sure are.

One college I thought would be perfect turned out to feel like a small private high school, even though the campus wasn't all that small. It's just that the buildings, and all the rooms in the buildings, just felt small and kind of dark. I think it must have been all the big shady tress, but I just didn't like the feel. Great food, though. Gulag style dorms.

Another college I thought would be too big felt just right, a combination of the campus layout and the town it was in. I could see myself living there.

This is going to be tough, but try not to make your decision based on your tour guide, because their experiences may not be what you'll experience.  But I have to say that's really hard to do, because you wonder if all the students are like this one person, who may be annoying or just, well, not like you or your friends.

One of the whole points to going away to college is going away, right? Going away from your high school groups, whatever they were, and going away from your past in a lot of ways. Something new, different and even a little bit foreign might be a good thing. Right?

Senior. Like the sound. Now for the reality.

A class period off. Off campus privileges for lunch. Reserved parking space. Prom. All good, right?

College applications, essays, decisions, visits.

And then there's the work, the classes, the tests, the homework.

Pacing is all. Ok, sleep too. Maybe breakfast.

Finals!

This is it. My grades are good so far, just have to avoid blowing it at the end. You know the feeling.

What's great is that I've taken notes every single day in class, using my laptop which means I can organize and review pretty easily.

This is also where keeping on top of your reading pays off. Now I review information for the second or third time, not the first.

Time to order more pizza.

College, so many choices

Parameters

I'm trying to come up with some minimums and maximums for college size, based on the choices a lot of the college search programs ask you for.

Do I want a college that is smaller than my high school? (Will I ever see anyone I don't already know?)

Do I want a college where the football stadium holds more people than the population of the town where I live?

ACT or SAT. That is the question.

Or is it both? Neither?

April 14 is national ACT test day, and I'm taking it to see how my scores look. What's interesting is how many of my friends tell me that colleges want SAT, not ACT.

So I researched it, and found out that it's kind of a regional difference. Most of the midwest states have a tradition of taking ACT tests, but the east coast is all about the SAT.

College websites tell a different story:  they'll take either one, and some of them don't care if you take neither.

What's more important is to take a look at something called "common data set" for each college (Google it for each college; it's faster) which shows the most recent scores for the students accepted to that college, 25%-75%, along with what percentage took ACT or SAT.

It's one way to see if that's a college where you might fit in, data wise.

Spring Break; Road Trip!

The time is not here yet for spring break craziness - first I have to get into a college from which I can flee for spring break... in two years. Crazy, right? But there you have it - the life of a high school junior on track to go to college...somewhere.

Do I want small and private, a liberal arts college? Or do I want a big public university with some serious athletics for fun? How small? How big?

So this week we've covered both ends, small and large. Dorms, cafeteria food, walking tours... it's all a confusing blur, but I have figured out this much:  what's right for my friends doesn't appeal to me, and I'm just hoping I'll know it when I see it.

I guess this means I need more college visits. Which means more road trips.

Announcements and why they matter

At our school, which is very large and crowded (5A now), the announcements every morning can be easily confused with white noise and static on a bad radio. I know they are saying words, in English, but it's just that I can't quite hear them over the sounds of everyone moving around, talking, getting out their books, etc.

I know there are lots and lots of posters taped up on the walls in most of the hallways. The problem is that the halls are so packed with kids trying to get to class in the 5 minutes we've got, pretty much shoulder to shoulder and wall to wall. It's so crowded that last year the principal decided we needed one-way halls for traffic flow - not kidding.

I realize that our advisory teachers are supposed to pass along important information about things like major deadlines.

Except, that's not always how it works, and the reason that matters is that the deadlines are the deadlines. Hard fact, but true.

I just missed something very important:  the deadline to apply for National Honor Society, for which I qualified. The announcement the day before was in a newsletter emailed late on the day before the final deadline, and by the time I read my email it was the morning after the deadline. I explained and asked nicely, but the deadline was the deadline.

The only thing that could make this worse was that I realized I missed it last year too. Same thing:  I qualified.

Too bad that National Junior Honor Society membership back in middle school doesn't count for anything. Neither does membership in the spring of my senior year, well after college applications are done.

A deadline is a deadline. Not my favorite lesson.

Big class, tough lesson

My AP English class has 39 people in it. The teacher has 200 AP English students total. She told us at the beginning of the year that she'd never had this many, and what it meant was that she didn't have the time to write comments on our papers. (I know, right?) She said she would try to use examples to explain in general. She also said that there wouldn't be any projects or extra credit or anything but essays and AP multiple choice tests, less to grade for so many students.

What this REALLY means is that this has been an unbelievably tough year, just really hard and frustrating. I took the course because I've always taken Pre-AP English and earned good grades, A's and B's no problem. I also wanted to take the class because I keep hearing how important writing is in college and I wanted to make sure my skills were what they needed to be.

But that's not how it's working out. I feel like I keep making the same mistakes over and over. Actually, I think I really am making the same mistakes over and over.

I don't know if this means I shouldn't have taken AP English this year. My teacher is great, just really really busy. It's hard to get in to see her. I've started working with a tutor, and she's been great too.

Did you know that on a lot of the AP English III multiple choice questions that there are usually two answers that are right, only one is more right than the other?

And did you know that one of the most important things you can do is study vocabulary, literary terms, etc. ? I learned this when I bought an AP exam prep book, and started using the vocabulary lists. Amazing.

Also, do yourself a favor and search for the websites that other AP teachers create across the country for their students. Some of them are making awesome use of the internet for homework essays. I found several that had students take turns writing essays then critiquing and re-writing after the teacher added some comments, all viewable to the whole class. That was their homework, all online.

What I do know is that it's going to be my grade, my transcript, my GPA - and that's the reality. It's made me think a lot about college, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be in huge classes with a couple hundred people. I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure about that.