<p>I guess that almost everyone knows where their kids are going next year. So, I have a question for all of us formerly stressed parents: How did you react/tell your kids the big envelope was in the house and/or break the good news to your kids that they got into their dream/good/best choice school?</p>
<p>My daughter was upstairs when I got the mail. I saw the big envelope and flew to the phone to call my husband. Since he works 5 blocks away I whispered into the phone, “Come home! She got in!!!”</p>
<p>I believe that he made the trip home, including an elevator ride in less than 5 minutes. In the meantime I ran and got a bottle opener that played the fight song (our other daughter just graduated from the same school).</p>
<p>We stood at the bottom of the stairs looking ferocious yourintrouble parent like and I shouted, “Come down here!”</p>
<p>As our daughter came out of her room and saw us she got the look (you know…what did I do/I didn’t do it/how did I get caught?) and, while the fight song didn’t work we both yelled, “You’re in!!!”</p>
<p>I swear she hit two steps on the way down to open her envelope.</p>
<p>D found out herself, online. She wanted to do it alone, so she went downstairs, where the computer is, and I tried to remain nonchalant upstairs. I heard a shriek, and then she came bounding up the stairs saying “I got in! I got in!” It was a very sweet moment. :)</p>
<p>The “first time” D was in Wales with family and told me to call and tell her when her e-mail notification came in. We shared the experience over the phone. Now that I think about it, that happened with her transfer (and then her internal transfer) too.</p>
<p>H was out of town and it was the day of S2’s first nursery school Christmas concert. D decided that she could re-arrange a conference at school and use a get-out-of-jail-free in some other class, and have just enough time to go with me in H’s place. Afterwards, we headed back to the h.s., replete with cookies and punch and still laughing over the way S2 had stood stock still, with his mouth clamped shut, through the entire performance (you can laugh about this immediately when it’s your third child). Just as I was about to turn into the parking lot, she said, “let’s run home and check the mail.” So we did. THE envelope was there. She shrieked, threw the whole pile of mail in the air, and launched herself into my arms, sports-victory-style. </p>
<p>Fortunately, I didn’t drop her. </p>
<p>It was very sweet. </p>
<p>Took her back down the hill to school, with her squeaking variations of “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” and “I’M SO HAPPY!” all the way.</p>
<p>H called a little while later, because she’d texted him the news, and S2’s report to him was, “Sissy threw all the mail in the snow and jumped on mommy and they’re very happy.”</p>
<p>D received a couple small (not good news) envelopes first, so things were pretty grim at our house. Then a BIG envelope from the school she’s now attending. She attended a HS w/ a laptop program – meaning everyone had a laptop, and used it every day, especially for notes in most classes. Of course they weren’t supposed to be doing things like checking emails during class, but with all the multitasking skills of teens, they did. So, I sent her an email – and got a thrilled answer in about 5 minutes!</p>
<p>H (an alum of D’s future school) prepared in advance with taped fight song, hat, pom poms and a school banner with D’s future graduation year. He hid it all just in case the news wasn’t good. We all sat around the computer together and got the great news. She was so happy she even put up with all of H’s over the top celebrations. I’m not sure who would have been more devistated if she hadn’t gotten in.</p>
<p>I cannot possibly reveal the exact details of how my D received the acceptance to the school she will be attending or I will be “outted” (her whole senior class knows about it), but let’s just say that it was an amazing 18th birthday present…!!! (and lots of crying in a very public place…)</p>
<p>When she received her acceptances (on the same day) to two of her other top schools that was both “reaches”, she called me on her cell phone when she got the mail at home…I was in the middle of a parking lot and started screaming…Strangers came up to me to make sure I was okay…haha…</p>
<p>One Saturday in December, I brought in an envelope from the mailbox, postmarked from her ED place. She was at her computer, tapping away on the essays for the RD applications to many other places. </p>
<p>I watched her unseal the ED envelope, read it silently, then push “Exit” on her personal essay to the other place. She winked at me. THEN we screamed.</p>
<p>Mine came in just a regular old envelope. It had a logo of my school on it, marked “admissions and records”, so I thought they were waiting for more transcripts or something.</p>
<p>Walked into mom’s office (my parents both work from home), handed her the rest of the mail and opened it. Out falls a magnet that says, “Congratulations on being admitted to SSU! Come check out our housing…you’ll be impressed! GO SEAWOLVES!”</p>
<p>I found out online. My parents were out shopping so I called them. They bought me a tshirt since I’m superstitious and wouldn’t buy/wear anything from the school I wanted to go to until I was officially in. This was right before Christmas so I got a bunch of VT stuff for that too.</p>
<p>The week of the mailing was our D’s 18th birthday. I had the notice sent to a PO box so she wouldn’t get it (we didn’t want her to get a rejection letter right before her b-day weekend). Anyhow, I got sick as a dog that week and totally forgot that the letter was sent. It was Friday before I remembered there should be a letter. </p>
<p>I went up got the letter. I guess Vandy sends their ED people a simple standard envelope regardless of acceptance/denial. We had her boyfriend and best friend come over before we gave it to her to open (we literally had no idea from the envelope itself). She opened it, got to Congratulations and then jumped about 3 feet! I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happier in her life. After all the hugs, kisses and tears were done we went to a celebratory dinner. Kinda anti-climatic but oh well.</p>
<p>D had two favorite colleges. One put their decisions online on a Saturday morning. Since that was a day D was volunteering, she had arranged that she would call during her lunch break so I could look it up. Unfortunately, it was a waitlist. The sun went behind the clouds. Not five minutes later I went to the mailbox and pulled out a very large envelope from the other college. I ran back to the house, squealing, and called her. Not believing that a large envelope contains good news, she made me open it and read it to her. The sun emerged from the clouds!</p>
<p>On a weekday long ago, my own mom had unglued, peeked, and re-glued my envelope while I was at school. That was such a famous story in our household that my oldest gave me verbal “permission to unglue” if he was out when the envelope arrived. The younger 2 asked me to wait. The whole thing almost unglued me.</p>
<p>My son was in Canada on a HS French field trip when his acceptance was available online. He was under the impression he would not have access so he reluctantly gave us his name/password to log on and get the result. At 5pm I went to log on…the password was “BADIDEA” which cracked me up as I typed it and pressed enter…the Yale bulldog was there in all its glory… and they had a wonderful certificate I was able to print. It had the shields of all the residential colleges, so I printed it. I then put it in a folder in the regular stack of mail for my husband when he walked in…he was a Yale graduate many years ago too…and was hoping against hope that his son would get the opportunity to attend. He was looking at the mail, opened the folder and saw the acceptance for his son at Yale and was stunned! It was an extremely memorable moment for me… fast forward 4 years and he has already graduated. Time flies when having fun!</p>
<p>My S got his big envelope hand delivered from an admissions counselor at the LAC he will be attending. They brought it to him on the Friday before winter break started. He applied early and they awarded him a nice scholarship package. The college is about an hour away from his high school.</p>
<p>D broke the news to me - I was at work. I’d been nervous, because we’d read on CC about ED notifications for her school being received by kids who lived in the school’s vicinity, and we knew that our area should probably hear that day. The phone rang that afternoon, when I knew d had probably just arrived home. As I answered I wondered what I’d say if it was bad news. She said, “I’m [frickin’] in.” We were both so shocked (it was a reach) that I didn’t even mind the adjective. ;)</p>
<p>S applied ED to an LAC. We had a suspicion that the envelope would come on a Saturday when he was working. We asked if we should open it and call him at work and he said, “no.” So, when the envelope came we held it up to every light source imaginable. We couldn’t read anything! (It’s a school which does not send a fat envelope for their ED acceptances.) Going backwards a bit, my H had purchased a school sweatshirt for S, believing that he would be accepted. So, after the envelope arrived I went out and bought balloons in the college colors. I tied the envelope to the balloons and floated it in his room, and my H lay the sweatshirt out on his bed. When S came home from work he went into his room and there was silence. We heard paper tearing and there was silence. This went on for more than 5 minutes. Finally, S came down the hall to our room, flipped something in my direction and said, “I need a check for $250.” Pretty anti-climatic.</p>