SAT/ACT vouchers - This week.

A message from our awesome District AVID Co-ordinator:

Your counselors should receive their vouchers from the state for a FREE SAT or ACT THIS week!  There are limited numbers.

 Please be sure that EACH junior AVID student has a voucher in his/her hand by Friday.

 The voucher is good for ONE of the following:

ACT - April 9 - Deadline to sign up is March 4 (seats are going to fill up quickly)

          June 11 - Deadline to sign up is May 6  (seats are going to fill up quickly)

 SAT - May 7 - Deadline to sign up is April 8  (seats are going to fill up quickly)

          June 4 - Deadline to sign up is May 6  (seats are going to fill up quickly)

 I would make sure that they students are signed up for the test of their choice by Feb. 11th....maybe you could visit the computer lab as a class and do it!!

 Yes, they can ALSO take one FREE for being an AVID student.....

They must obtain a fee waiver from their counselor and check that they are a part of an Upward Bound or Trio program.

 Remind the students about how they are READY for this.....they have been working hard on their e-Prep!!!

 Thank you,

Susan

Take advantage of your opportunities.

Princeton Review - Free Assessment of SAT/ACT Oct. 2, 2010 @ AHS

The Princeton Review Assessment

The Princeton Review Assessment (PRA) is a test created by The Princeton Review to expose you to both the SAT and ACT. It's  a measurement tool that can help you determine if you would score higher on the SAT or ACT.

Why was the PRA created?

The majority of colleges and universities accept either the SAT or the ACT.  But the two tests are quite different. Your testing strengths may be better suited for the style and format of one test over the other. But, tradition and geography have created “SAT Country” and “ACT Country” where the other test is just not taken (and in some cases not even known about).
To shed some light on each test, we created the PRA to give you the chance to “meet” both the SAT and ACT in less than four hours. The PRA has seven 25-minute sections and one 30-minute SAT essay section.

Why should I take it?

Most people don't take the SAT or ACT for fun. They take these tests to get a score that will get them into the best college. If you knew that you could score higher on one test over the other, wouldn’t you want to show colleges that score? Of course, the PRA will help you find the right test for you.

When is the PRA?

October 2, 2010

Atascocita High School

9:00am – 1:00pm

Cafeteria – enter from bus drop off area.  (Back of cafeteria)

Cost: FREE

SAT & ACT Dates

Important dates

Test Name	Scheduled Test Date	Regular Registration Deadline	Late Registration Deadline
ACT	Saturday, Sep 11, 2010	Friday, Aug 6, 2010	Friday, Aug 20, 2010
SAT and Subject Tests	Saturday, Oct 9, 2010	Friday, Sep 10, 2010	Friday, Sep 24, 2010
ACT	Saturday, Oct 23, 2010	Friday, Sep 17, 2010	Friday, Oct 1, 2010

To get more information on the SAT or SAT Subject Tests, access useful tools, or register, visit the College Board's Web site (www.collegeboard.com) or call (866) 756-7346.

To get more information on the ACT, access useful tools, or register, visit the ACT Web site(www.act.org) or call (319) 337-1270.

Kaplan SAT/ACT course for $45 for Juniors

This is a note about the program from Kaplan:

At Kaplan, helping students succeed is what we do.  We’ve been inspired by the Texas Education Agency’s commitment to increasing college preparation efforts, as demonstrated by their recent initiative to make free college admissions tests available to all Texas public high school juniors.

To play our part in supporting the effort, Kaplan will offer comprehensive Live Online SAT and ACT prep courses, normally valued at $499, for just $45 to cover material and shipping costs.  All Texas public high school juniors registered for the May or June 2010 SAT or ACT are eligible for these courses.  Our SAT and ACT Live Online programs provide the same rigorous preparation as our traditional classroom courses and are taught by our top instructors using streaming video delivery.  Our Live Online classrooms come to life with full online whiteboard capabilities, polling and instant chat.  Students experience all of the same rigors and demand of a live classroom, and are able to ask questions of their instructor in real time during each lesson, as well as interact with their fellow peers!

Kaplan’s programs have helped millions of students get into the school of their choice, and we hope to help more Texas juniors succeed on the road to college. We appreciate your help in making students aware of this special offer, as we know your students will benefit from participating in Kaplan’s SAT and ACT Live Online program.  Students interested in enrolling in this program can do so at www.kaptest.com/college, using promotion code TXSATPREP for SAT or TXACTPREP for ACT, between now and May 1.

We are proud of the fact that this year alone, we have helped thousands of students get into their top choice schools, and with your help, we look forward to helping many more.

Agenda: Monday, November 9, 09

Quote of the Day:  "Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails... Explore, Dream, Discover."  -- Mark Twain

Agenda:

Juniors 4th period --
1.  Goal of the Week
2.  Road Trip Nation interview - The inspirational story of Damon Dash

Damon Dash claims he still doesn’t know what he’s going to be, yet he has always been sure of one thing: he's going to be successful. Growing up in Harlem, he acquired the entrepreneurial skills he would need to capitalize on those opportunities when they did arise. Instead of hanging out on a stoop in Harlem, as he once did, he now hangs out at his plush office in downtown Manhattan and gets paid handsomely for being there. As Dash recounts, personal tragedy also shaped his rise to the top. A turning-point occurred after his mother died. Only a teenager, he lost his sense of security and knew he had to take care of himself. Obliterated by the loss, he became fearless. At the same time, he tried to follow the Golden Rule by treating others as he wanted them to treat him. For someone who was the class clown and to his high-school peers probably the most unlikely to succeed, Dash has come a long way—without formally studying music, fashion, business, film, or any of the other enterprises with which he has been engaged. He combines an unflagging belief in himself with a strong work ethic.

 Damon Dash's Quote:  "You have to work hard - Always work hard. Don’t expect anyone to give you anything. If you really believe in something, then fight for it... Don’t let anybody tell you anything different."


3.  We'll pass out the ACT practice test books and work through those for the final part of the period.  We need to start setting our dates for when we want to take the ACT and SAT this spring.

 Sophomores - 
1.  Goal of the Week
2.  We'll catch up on some examples of Road Trip Nation lesson interviews.  Over the past week of working with Road Trip Nation our conversations have gone longer than expected and we have not gotten to a few of the video examples Mr. Duez was hoping for.   Jeff Adams, Olympic Wheelchair racer, is one of those interviews.  We'll take Cornell Notes.

Agenda: Friday November 6, 2009

Quote of the Day:

Agenda:

Sophomores 7th Period:

Lesson 6: Hard Work Versus Luck
     What is more important, hard work or luck? It’s no secret that luck can often play a big part in positioning you for success – being at the right place at the right time, making connections with people, stumbling across something randomly that interests you. However, it’s your hard work and talent that keep you there and allow you to take advantage of opportunities when they come your way. As world-renowned film editor Walter Murch says in this lesson video, “The world is full of people who are talented, who were not lucky and did not work hard, and washed out.” In other words, there are people all around you that may have found themselves in situations where luck may or may not have played a role; but either way, they did not have the necessary foundations in place to sustain their talent in order to take advantage of opportunities and thus could not make anything of themselves.
     In order to understand the concept of how hard work can actually position you to take advantage of luck, we must first explain what working hard means. It is easy to label things that are tedious, laborious, difficult or even boring as “hard work.” But the real question is working hard for what? If you’re working hard at something that doesn’t matter to you, there’s little value in how your time is spent. The goal is to find ways to put hard work in the larger context so that you can see the big picture of where that commitment is taking you. You want to be working hard for something that you believe in.

We will watch the video that goes with the lesson and also see this video:

Walter Murch, Film Editor and Sound Designer; Apocalypse Now, Ghost, Julia, House of Cards

Fortunately for Walter, he discovered at an early age that he had a gift for sound recording, even though he didn't take his youthful experiments seriously until after he had explored other paths, including architecture and oceanography. Always eager to push things and see what happens, he found himself in good company at USC film school, where he met George Lucas, another graduate student whom instructors identified as a troublemaker for daring to challenge cinematic conventions. Impressed by Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal, a film Walter saw while at USC, he had the revelation that maybe he could create something equally moving and monumental and at the same time earn a living. He had his chance as the sound designer for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, one of many award-winning productions with which Walter has been involved during a long and fruitful career. Known for taking risks and breaking the rules, he attributes his success to three main factors: luck, talent, and hard work. Each factor, he explains, functions like a leg of a tripod. The trick is to keep the tripod balanced, a skill he has mastered.

Junior AVID Students will be getting 3 materials:
1)  Road Map to College
2)  Financial Aid Information Packet
3)  The practice test for ACT
We'll spend the first 1/2 of the period working on Road Map and Financial Aid information in groups.  The second 1/2 will be working silently on ACT practice test.
On Monday we'll work on the first group of ACT practice test questions in our tutor groups.