If your junior had a significant improvement in grade this year...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is my DD doomed? She had a horrible 9th grade. Hated the school socially - very difficult being a minority at her school. 10th grade B student and 11th A student. She is just more focused on the important things like getting into a good college. Her overall GPA is 3.4. She is a minority with 3 varsity sports (doesn't want to play in college - even if she could) and lots of community service and other activities. She missed the SAT because it was cancelled last minute. She will take it though. I can tell you she did not cheat!!! She didn't have the distractions of drama, etc.

Have her take the SAT and she will be fine. They are planning on giving it for free to all seniors in FCPS in October. It's the kids who had big improvements and then submit no scores that might raise some eyebrows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is my DD doomed? She had a horrible 9th grade. Hated the school socially - very difficult being a minority at her school. 10th grade B student and 11th A student. She is just more focused on the important things like getting into a good college. Her overall GPA is 3.4. She is a minority with 3 varsity sports (doesn't want to play in college - even if she could) and lots of community service and other activities. She missed the SAT because it was cancelled last minute. She will take it though. I can tell you she did not cheat!!! She didn't have the distractions of drama, etc.

PP here. Your DD is exactly the sort of kid I was talking about. She's an upward trajectory student. Should she be penalized because it happened during the pandemic? Are college admissions staff going to reject her because her A's occurred during the pandemic? No, no they will not. Regardless of SAT/ACT status.

This is the difference between some discussion board rando touting the hand-wavy concept, "Admissions is gonna penalize you!", and the reality that it's not apparent which student is upward-trajectory vs. cheating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is my DD doomed? She had a horrible 9th grade. Hated the school socially - very difficult being a minority at her school. 10th grade B student and 11th A student. She is just more focused on the important things like getting into a good college. Her overall GPA is 3.4. She is a minority with 3 varsity sports (doesn't want to play in college - even if she could) and lots of community service and other activities. She missed the SAT because it was cancelled last minute. She will take it though. I can tell you she did not cheat!!! She didn't have the distractions of drama, etc.

Any chance all of her extracurriculars are getting in the way of schoolwork and having that free time helped her focus on school? That would be my assumption if I were looking at her transcripts

[Anonymous]

Thank you! She is not the best standarized test taker but it will likely be okay. She is looking at state schools only in VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you! She is not the best standarized test taker but it will likely be okay. She is looking at state schools only in VA.

Is she studying for the SAT or ACT? Has she taken practice tests? Start now.

[Anonymous]

My child did much better with DL than in-person because there were no social distractions and she had far more time to devote to assignments. It’s pretty funny that some of you would attribute her good grades this year to “cheating.” 🙄

[Anonymous]

I think everyone has made good points, and it just clarifies to me that college admissions has become a total crap shoot for everyone -- students and admissions officers.

My DC (3.9 UW) took the ACT cold and made a 31. We're spending thousands to get him 1/1 tutoring that will probably bring that score up (he's in a good position to focus on improving in 1 or 2 areas), but what does that prove, other than that we have the $$ to spend & he has the time to do it this summer? Anyway, if his score doesn't come up, he'll apply to a few schools test optional & maybe his good grades will carry him across the line. Maybe not. My DC was in person at school all year, but he told me that cheating was widespread during the spring of 2020 when they were going to school remote. I also know a very bright, previously straight-A, kid who struggled and made their first D during remote learning. My kid may have an advantage, because he was able to participate in extracurricular activities last year, and he's applying from a "fly over" state and won't have as much competition, but, again, who knows?

All this means that admissions this year will not be transparent, much less "fair." It's very easy to argue that college admissions were never fair, but in a past, less competitive age, it seemed as though it was easier to check the box on a good GPA and test score and get into an excellent school. As for us, DC will apply to some "reaches," but has his eye on, and is showing interest in, a few schools with high admission rates that he would be happy to attend, and I think it will all be fine. However, I am incredibly cynical about the entire process.

However, if this continues, I do think this process will take some of the shine off of many schools who used to be perceived as the "golden ticket." As the high school seniors of the early 2020's and onward attend college and graduate, what will be their perception of people who attended those schools? That they got in on merit and hard work, or that they just pulled the winning lottery ticket? These schools used to base their standing on the perception (whether real or not) that they admitted the "best of the best." This thread proves that there is quite a bit of disagreement about whether that is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone has made good points, and it just clarifies to me that college admissions has become a total crap shoot for everyone -- students and admissions officers.

My DC (3.9 UW) took the ACT cold and made a 31. We're spending thousands to get him 1/1 tutoring that will probably bring that score up (he's in a good position to focus on improving in 1 or 2 areas), but what does that prove, other than that we have the $$ to spend & he has the time to do it this summer? Anyway, if his score doesn't come up, he'll apply to a few schools test optional & maybe his good grades will carry him across the line. Maybe not. My DC was in person at school all year, but he told me that cheating was widespread during the spring of 2020 when they were going to school remote. I also know a very bright, previously straight-A, kid who struggled and made their first D during remote learning. My kid may have an advantage, because he was able to participate in extracurricular activities last year, and he's applying from a "fly over" state and won't have as much competition, but, again, who knows?

All this means that admissions this year will not be transparent, much less "fair." It's very easy to argue that college admissions were never fair, but in a past, less competitive age, it seemed as though it was easier to check the box on a good GPA and test score and get into an excellent school. As for us, DC will apply to some "reaches," but has his eye on, and is showing interest in, a few schools with high admission rates that he would be happy to attend, and I think it will all be fine. However, I am incredibly cynical about the entire process.

However, if this continues, I do think this process will take some of the shine off of many schools who used to be perceived as the "golden ticket." As the high school seniors of the early 2020's and onward attend college and graduate, what will be their perception of people who attended those schools? That they got in on merit and hard work, or that they just pulled the winning lottery ticket? These schools used to base their standing on the perception (whether real or not) that they admitted the "best of the best." This thread proves that there is quite a bit of disagreement about whether that is true.

Any kid that got to school in person last year is at a huge advantage.

[Anonymous]

There was a TON of remote cheating, much of it done by parents. We were guilty of that.

My kid was trying to make it through honors pre-calc with two 45 minutes of Zoom instruction per week (but same tests as always). The kids were basically left to self-teach the material. So my husband started teaching our kid for hours each week and they did
the homework and tests in tandem. For us, it was more important that my kid learn the material (which wasn't being taught) then any ethics about the cheating. The school sunk that ship when they decided not to teach.

I thought we were alone in this and then I talked to friends in the class and they were all doing the same thing. I feel horrible for kids who did not have mom or dad instructing them for 10+ hours a week but the bottom line
was that I 1) wanted my kid to learn the math and 2) didn't want his/her grades to tank because the school was not providing any instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a TON of remote cheating, much of it done by parents. We were guilty of that.

My kid was trying to make it through honors pre-calc with two 45 minutes of Zoom instruction per week (but same tests as always). The kids were basically left to self-teach the material. So my husband started teaching our kid for hours each week and they did
the homework and tests in tandem. For us, it was more important that my kid learn the material (which wasn't being taught) then any ethics about the cheating. The school sunk that ship when they decided not to teach.

I thought we were alone in this and then I talked to friends in the class and they were all doing the same thing. I feel horrible for kids who did not have mom or dad instructing them for 10+ hours a week but the bottom line
was that I 1) wanted my kid to learn the math and 2) didn't want his/her grades to tank because the school was not providing any instruction.

This was us except I never went past algebra 2 in HS and can’t help him. The school said there was no extra help available. The counselor said the only option was to retake the class he took the year prior and got an A in. So now he has a D and his life course is forever altered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a TON of remote cheating, much of it done by parents. We were guilty of that.

My kid was trying to make it through honors pre-calc with two 45 minutes of Zoom instruction per week (but same tests as always). The kids were basically left to self-teach the material. So my husband started teaching our kid for hours each week and they did
the homework and tests in tandem. For us, it was more important that my kid learn the material (which wasn't being taught) then any ethics about the cheating. The school sunk that ship when they decided not to teach.

I thought we were alone in this and then I talked to friends in the class and they were all doing the same thing. I feel horrible for kids who did not have mom or dad instructing them for 10+ hours a week but the bottom line
was that I 1) wanted my kid to learn the math and 2) didn't want his/her grades to tank because the school was not providing any instruction.

This was us except I never went past algebra 2 in HS and can’t help him. The school said there was no extra help available. The counselor said the only option was to retake the class he took the year prior and got an A in. So now he has a D and his life course is forever altered.

I'm sorry. I hope colleges toss this year.

We basically did our kid's work for him. That is not right or fair. But the alternative was to let our kid fail because there was such minimal instruction. A kid can't learn an upper level math course in 1.5 hours of instruction per week. And this 1.5 hours included taking attendance, administrative tasks, etc.
Most weeks it was 1 hour of live math instruction.

That is insanity. But that is what our public school decided was all they could give. It was a joke. And so we treated it as a joke and did the course as a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a TON of remote cheating, much of it done by parents. We were guilty of that.

My kid was trying to make it through honors pre-calc with two 45 minutes of Zoom instruction per week (but same tests as always). The kids were basically left to self-teach the material. So my husband started teaching our kid for hours each week and they did
the homework and tests in tandem. For us, it was more important that my kid learn the material (which wasn't being taught) then any ethics about the cheating. The school sunk that ship when they decided not to teach.

I thought we were alone in this and then I talked to friends in the class and they were all doing the same thing. I feel horrible for kids who did not have mom or dad instructing them for 10+ hours a week but the bottom line
was that I 1) wanted my kid to learn the math and 2) didn't want his/her grades to tank because the school was not providing any instruction.

This was us except I never went past algebra 2 in HS and can’t help him. The school said there was no extra help available. The counselor said the only option was to retake the class he took the year prior and got an A in. So now he has a D and his life course is forever altered.

I'm so sorry for your kid. We were faced with a similar decision: intervene and make sure our kid maintained good grades, or accept that the pandemic was going to trash the school transcript. Of course we intervened, from homework to tests. We didn't want our kid to suffer long term consequences from COVID-19.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a TON of remote cheating, much of it done by parents. We were guilty of that.

My kid was trying to make it through honors pre-calc with two 45 minutes of Zoom instruction per week (but same tests as always). The kids were basically left to self-teach the material. So my husband started teaching our kid for hours each week and they did
the homework and tests in tandem. For us, it was more important that my kid learn the material (which wasn't being taught) then any ethics about the cheating. The school sunk that ship when they decided not to teach.

I thought we were alone in this and then I talked to friends in the class and they were all doing the same thing. I feel horrible for kids who did not have mom or dad instructing them for 10+ hours a week but the bottom line
was that I 1) wanted my kid to learn the math and 2) didn't want his/her grades to tank because the school was not providing any instruction.

This was us except I never went past algebra 2 in HS and can’t help him. The school said there was no extra help available. The counselor said the only option was to retake the class he took the year prior and got an A in. So now he has a D and his life course is forever altered.

I'm so sorry for your kid. We were faced with a similar decision: intervene and make sure our kid maintained good grades, or accept that the pandemic was going to trash the school transcript. Of course we intervened, from homework to tests. We didn't want our kid to suffer long term consequences from COVID-19.

I’m sympathetic to the helping with extra tutoring, but helping your kid take the test is 100% cheating. I don’t know what planet you’re on that you can justify helping your kids take a test as okay. I’m also horrified by the lessons you’re teaching your kid about integrity. Dad demonstrating mastery of calculus on an exam in no way helps your kid learn the material and screws all the kids who aren’t cheating.

[Anonymous]

I hope you all enjoy your kids college acceptances knowing that you, as grown adults, took those spots away from honest students who were working their asses off trying to do well on their own merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope you all enjoy your kids college acceptances knowing that you, as grown adults, took those spots away from honest students who were working their asses off trying to do well on their own merit.

There was nothing FAIR about this year.

My kid got ZERO in-person instruction (thanks DCPS). He was expected to learn math in 1.5 hours a week of Zoom instruction. If he lived in MCPS he would have 6 hours of live instruction AND returned to school in-person.

If we were able to afford St. Albans or Landon he would have been back in-person since November.


We did what we needed to do to make it work. "Fair" would have been all schools actually providing instruction in the same way.

Thank goodness my kid will still have the same college opportunities as your Sidwell, etc. kid who was actually being instructed this year. My kid would have LOVED that luxury. He was dying to actually be taught the math. Alas, DCPS and many other schools did not provide instruction.