<p>RVM: Those forms killed me last year too. Even harder than the college apps! I just have to do a new (updated) FAFSA this month. Hopefully, that won’t be that bad.</p>
<p>emilybee: congrats on another acceptance! It’s all about having choices! Keep us posted on what your son decides!</p>
<p>mom24boys: welcome!</p>
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<p>My daughter was on the avodah corps at her URJ camp last summer and there was no charge. (They were considered staff, not campers, but they didn’t get paid.) It was only four weeks, so gave her some time to work on college applications, too. She did already have her list together before she left for camp, though.</p>
<p>She hopes to go back as a machon (junior counselor) this summer and finally they will pay her. Funny how it cost almost $1k/week to attend but they will pay her less than $1500 for the whole summer…</p>
<p>Spending summers at camp has given my daughter fewer opportunities to do things that build up her college application resume–no academic programs, nothing prestigious, no “accomplishments” to speak of. But I am convinced that the single most formative experience in my life–the experience that made me the Jew I am today and gave me the tools to create my Jewish home and raise my Jewish children–was the experience of attending that camp, and I’m happy to send her back each summer. And in the end, although we didn’t expect it to turn out that way, her Hebrew immersion summer there really wound up shaping her academic interests and the major she is applying to now. And she impressed one college rep who visited her school by chatting with him in Hebrew.</p>
<p>A lot of my camp friends did an avodah summer at camp, but I did not. They all look back on it as one of the best summers of their lives.</p>
<p>Happy New Year all.
Great news Emilybee!</p>
<p>DeskPotato: I wish our URJ camp was like yours. Four weeks would be so much more managable and no charge and no pay would be awesome; our Avodah summer costs $3200!!! (I guess that will cover the counselor salery for the next couple of years) I know no summer will beat the Israel summer last year but this group of kids is so tight as long as S wants to go I hate to say no. It is the only time all of kids have a chance to be together. I agree the camping experience does put some limitations on the resume but also has been so important in S’s life. I’m not sure if S will get into the program based on his late application. At that price though one would think a little late would be okay. When I was mentioning all of the things that need to get done this summer I omitted mentioning reviewing for the SAT or ACT. It seems there are advantages to both going or not going. As far as the resume goes they do get tons of service hours, leadership experience and they do have the college counseling services. Somehow we will make it work. I told S if he does go, he will need to be busy before he leaves and when he comes back and he can’t be expecting for that time off to be his fun time. We’ll see how that works won’t we?</p>
<p>Those of you already tackling the FAFSA, I am soooo impressed!</p>
<p>RVM: I was getting the impression that what we were reading about Elon was’t giving us an accurate perception. There is an excellent possibility that we will not be able to visit before ap time. If any of you have seen some write ups that match your experience it would be great. For whatever reason S just is less confident when I tell him, " all these people on CC say…" I will also look at the college visit summaries. Thanks!</p>
<p>I wanted to contribute my 2 cents to the camp experience generally. My d has attended sleepaway camp since the summer of 2d grade (not a Jewish camp per se, though virtually all kids are Jewish or have one parent who is Jewish) and the experience has been wonderful. Yes, choosing camp means NOT choosing something else in the way of college prep. But, we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.</p>
<p>Vitrac my son also since summer of second grade (not a Jewish came but practically every kid is) until he aged out after the summer going into 10th grade. So he had two summers to do other things (summer school and getting a job,) He could have gone back last summer as a CIT but the owners are a<strong>h</strong>** to staff (they love us only when we are paying thousands of $$$$.)</p>
<p>Avodah used to be a full summer. I am not sure when that changed, and whether they broke it in half to give more kids a chance to participate, or whether they had trouble staffing it because rising seniors are reluctant to commit to a whole summer away with applications looming. Last year, they actually had a lot of trouble staffing the first session and put out a call for kids who were signed up for second session to stay all summer. (I am not sure anyone agreed.)</p>
<p>My daughter didn’t have to clean toilets, either–she had to muck stables! (But that’s the assignment she wanted. And the paid stable staff were Israeli so she got to practice her Hebrew.)</p>
<p>Congrats Emilybee!</p>
<p>Congratulations to emilybee’s son!
mom24boys, the age spread from my oldest to youngest is almost as long as yours, although you will have much more of a gap between your second child and your twins. One thing that surprised me is how colleges and the application process can change so much in that amount of time!</p>
<p>Congratulations to Emilybee’s son!
Thanks for all the welcomes.
Levirm: I am hoping it gets easier by the time my twins apply. It seems so much harder now, both more competitive and more choices (or really just more knowledge of options). My “perfect” nephew was just deferred at Columbia and while I know it will work out and he will land someplace wonderful, it’s great to have this thread to know my sons who are not “CC perfect” will also have someplace wonderful to land.
As I am typing this at 11 pm Saturday, my son is searching the house for his “missing” English assignment he was supposed to be re-writing over break. This is the year I am trying to back off, much easier said then done.</p>
<p>Scratch stress about the English assignment (still not found), he just came up and said he would work on the 5 Essays due Friday for AP Government. This is ofcourse after saying he had no homework all break.</p>
<p>Just returned from family vacation and am checking in. Congrats on the recent acceptances. Wanted to add that I have 3 daughters, oldest is a sophmore at Penn. Wishing everyone a New Year filled with happiness along with good news for all 2011s!</p>
<p>Re: camp counselor experience. D2 (2011) attends a summer camp that has entering HS seniors still paying at 50% full fare. A counselor left abruptly last year and my D was asked to fill in as a full counselor for over a week…not only did she not get compensated but I paid for the priviledge!</p>
<p>Son was accepted to SUNY Binghamton (Harpur). I am concerned if he wants to switch to accounting at Binghamton, might be difficult to do, and therefore, he should take Towson.
Still waiting on 3 more schools-any thoughts about Binghamton vs. Towson? Thanks so much–belated congratulations to all recent acceptances–out of town, and now back at CC to figure this out.</p>
<p>Hi Mom24boys:
Your oldest is a sophomore? IMO taking an AP class is a big deal at that age! I’m sure everyone will have their own opinion on this, but our h.s. begins AP classes in the junior year…it’s A LOT of work!</p>
<p>Most kids at this age still have no concept of time and assignments and how long in advance they should start working on homework! They are learning & growing rather quickly at this age and slowly developing the maturity to work out the logistics of planning out assignments.</p>
<p>My S2 is a freshman and very similar in terms of not yet knowing how to plan out everything. I think it will come with time, encouragement, maturity and maybe even getting a few lousy grades on assignments he waited to the last minute to complete!</p>
<p>Well, as least he realized NOW that the assignments are due on Friday! 
Take some deep breaths…it will all work out!</p>
<p>All 3 of my kids went to a Jewish Camp, for a number of years (BBYO Perleman) and they loved it. But my two daughters both went on “community service” trips during the summer of their Junior year and I’d heartily recommend it as a same price alternative. Camp is wonderful and all my kids developed strong lasting friendships there. But it can also become a stultifying rut where kids see the same kids year after year and don’t really grow that much because they become overly comfortable with the routines and friends. </p>
<p>Regardless of the amount of actual community service (which varied between the two programs we sent them to) both of those travel/service programs gave my daughters a greater sense of independence and confidence about meeting new people and people of different (and non Jewish) backgrounds. I think it can be really beneficial for a child about to go away to college. Sort of a preview of what it’s like to be thrown into new surroundings with strangers. My younger daughter who has always gone to a Jewish Day school, not onlyl loved the experience but made some very good non Jewish friends for really the first time in her life. One came from Tennesee to visit us for a week and she just returned from visiting another in Colorado for a week, including her first Christmas. Especially for those of us considering schools where the percentage of Jewish kids may be less than what our children have grown up with, it can be very beneficial.</p>
<p>RVM, of course you want your son to attend the best law school possible (if that’s what he chooses to do), but it’s not the only path to success. My experience has been that someone who does well (i.e. Law Review and top 10% of his or her class) will likely be recruited and have job interviews at many good to top firms. It always seems like a few “lesser prestige” law schools always have connections with top or near top firms in their area. Those firms will interview and offer jobs to graduates coming out of that school. Years ago I went to a second tier law school and both I and all my peers who did well got summer clerkship and then permanent job offers from top firms and programs. Several also got clerkships with federal judges.</p>
<p>MHC makes a good point about the other opportunities that open up when kids stop going to camp. I was sad when my daughter “outgrew” camp a few years ago, but it really allowed her to try some new things last summer. In the time she would have been at camp we took family vacations to Europe and the beach, she went on an inter-faith community service trip to New Orleans, and she spent two weeks in the Summer Challenge program at BU. The BU experience was particularly broadening, because it was the first time she went anywhere without friends. She met people from around the country and the world, and had a chance to try out college.</p>
<p>That being said, her friends that returned to camp as CITs had a fantastic summer also. Like everything else, it’s a trade-off.</p>
<p>MDCISSP - Congrats on Binghamton! I would think that going for Towson would be better, I think both schools are pretty much equal and I would opt for instate tuition. </p>
<p>That being said, what major did he get into at Harpur? I know we discussed SOM, but do we really know the specifics of transferring into SOM?</p>
<p>mdcissp: Its great to hear that your S has several choices. Congrats on Bing!</p>
<p>Mhc, I really appreciate you mentioning community service programs. For me this would be preferable for him because I expect the time committment would be less. Your kids world is however very different than mine. The summers are the only time that my S is immersed in a Jewish community. Do any of you know of any good community service trips that are done within the Jewish community. I’m kind of doubtful that S would go for this but it is worth considering. There really are several other things he can do over the summer, including getting a job and focusing on basketball. His camp community is so special in his life. He and his friends are FBing all of the time.</p>
<p>Spectrum2…my S1 was going to do a BBYO service program in Boston last summer (it’s called Impact Boston) and you can get info on it on the BBYO website (you don’t have to be a BBYO member to participate). He ended up finding an engineering program at U-M where he wanted to go to school which ended up being a great experience for him, which overlapped the dates, so he did that instead.</p>
<p>Congrats on the new acceptances</p>
<p>mdcissp – have you seen this info – [Binghamton</a> University - Academics: Schools and Colleges: School of Management: Prospective Students: Undergraduate: Internal Transfer Students](<a href=“http://www2.binghamton.edu/som/prospectivestudents/undergraduate/inttranfers.html]Binghamton”>http://www2.binghamton.edu/som/prospectivestudents/undergraduate/inttranfers.html) note – it says that typically there are 5-8 applications for each intra-university transfer opening into the school of management.</p>
<p>i think your son needs to seriously consider whether he would be happy at binghamton if he had to remain in harpur.</p>