<p>We don’t mind at all, and congratulations on such a stellar report card!</p>
<p>My younger daughter is going to be in 9th grade next fall. We just got her report card. She got all As and one A-. Last year (7th grade) it was all A+ with one A. I asked her, “what’s up with this?” She very calmly told me, “Not to worry, I figured out that middle school doesn’t count, I am just resting up for next year.”</p>
<p>ItalianBlonde, welcome! (And thanks for the brownies.) Great job on your report card. I hope your parents are soon able to see the big picture and be happy with it.</p>
<p>Thanks, timely. I moved from a blue state world to Texas and have gotten pretty good about not fanning flames. I’m lucky the internet is around so I can communicate: my tongue is perpetually swollen from my biting it so often. :-)</p>
<p>Thanks for the welcome. D and I explored small Texas liberal arts schools (small and Texas isn’t so easy to find) and had nice visits at Austin College (in Sherman way up near the Oklahoma border), Southwestern University (in Georgetown, outside Austin) and Trinity University (in San Antonio). So we got rural, suburban and urban. All nice schools: two of them featured in Loren Pope’s books. The big hit was Southwestern with Trinity as a runner up.</p>
<p>2blue, she’s starting her senior year. She had some friends last year who persuaded her (since it was what she wanted to hear) that you don’t really need to start looking at schools till your senior year. These are some nice kids, but with very little ambition. So the topic was pretty tense with her last year anyway. She does admit it seems more real now. And I’m taking some encouragement that one of the schools we saw was a place where she could truly picture herself.</p>
<p>Queen’sMom, youdon’tsay, and Harriet – I’d love to see a thread on the looking outside the radius thing! That’s a major, major issue for us in our house. I’ll even bake a fresh plate of cyber-coffeecake for anyone who joins in!!!</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom–</p>
<p>I clearly don’t know the details of your daughter’s high school record nor her personality, but I feel like a lot of my friends dealt with the stress of college admissions by being “rebellious” and by latching on to a school or two and claiming it as “theirs.” (Some of my peers did this way back when, including my brother, I’ll tell his story in a bit).</p>
<p>If I were you, I would go onto websites for different colleges that you think might be of interest to her and sign her up for a viewbook. I say that because college viewbooks continue to make me weak in the knees excited about college… it doesn’t matter which one :-)</p>
<p>Once the materials are in the house, she will probably start flipping through them on her own.</p>
<p>And if she doesn’t open up about attending other schools, yes, force her to file some applications.</p>
<p>So, about my brother:</p>
<p>My brother found a school that became <em>his</em> about sophomore year of high school. However, he was pretty overqualified for it and it wasn’t going to save my parents any money if he decided to go. My parents thought it made a fine safety school, but that there were other schools that provided a better academic fit. (My brother is borderline child-prodigy-type, but has spent many years downplaying his smarts to appear as “normal” as possible and my parents felt that his infatuation with his safety had a lot to do with the fact that he didn’t want to label himself as “smart.”)</p>
<p>Anyway, my brother wanted to apply to three schools: Harvard, Yale, and Safety. My brother viewed Harvard and Yale as obstacles to going to his safety and banked on the unlikelihood of getting in (it’s pretty easy not to get into Harvard and Yale, but less easy if you have, like my brother did, a really fantastic transcript and so on).</p>
<p>Parents pushed for ONE school in between. They knew of a school that had almost everything the safety had, plus more involved and challenging academics for my brother’s level. Many, many, many tears were shed and words were shouted over this ordeal-- my brother did NOT want to consider the school my parents wanted him to consider, but he was also unwilling to consider any other schools, but eventually he caved in. This in-between school is the one he ended up going to, the one he graduated from, and the one he adores like there’s no tomorrow.</p>
<p>For your D, I would consider other Barnard/Chicago schools to be schools like Bard, Simmons (womens’ college in Boston), Whitman (smaller version of core and liberal arts college, but in small-town Washington), and Reed.</p>
<p>(I’m picking up the ice cream dishes to wash and throwing out the cherry pits before we set out more food.)</p>
<p>I haven’t heard my son’s final quarter grades. Hmmm. In the beginning, he was one of those that wanted be far outside the radius.</p>
<p>Oldfort: “resting up for next year.” lol</p>
<p>bblfraser, welcome to Texas! We’re going to Austin College next month. I have a friend whose daughter is going there next year, but the family much preferred Southwestern.</p>
<p>I’lll start another thread about the close-to-home college search.</p>
<p>oldfort, I love that - resting up for next year.</p>
<p>And cottonwood, I’m still waiting for that report card myself. </p>
<p>bblfraser, I tossed up the new thread. </p>
<p>And ItalianBlonde, of course you’re welcome here, and congratulations to you.</p>
<p>Thanks, Harriet!</p>
<p>Uh oh, Youdon’tsay - I think I just did! But I’ll drop mine if yours went up first.
:::going to look:::</p>
<p>It’s there. Go post! :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Blondie, you can stay as long as you don’t make any messes and don’t jump on the furniture. Otherwise, it’s off to bed for you!</p>
<p>:: hands ItalianBlondie a bowl of ice cream ::</p>
<p>Ice cream for breakfast? Oh my, what a decadent lot we are…</p>
<p>bblfraser, my son visited one school his junior year since it was the site of a program he was attending. He didn’t visit any of his other schools till he had admission offers in hand. So, you’re way ahead of where we were!</p>
<p>I’m unhusking the fresh sweet corn for later. What kind of ice cream are we having today, Owlice?</p>
<p>Fresh sweet corn, hooray! H and S2 just came back from the farmers’ market with wonderful strawberries. I’ll pass them around as soon as they’re washed.</p>
<p>2blue, it’s after 12 noon here; are you just getting breakfast?!</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>cottonwood, today’s ice cream flavors are peppermint with your choice of mix-ins, espresso coffee bean, freshly-made peach, soursop and chocolate brownie. Vanilla is always available for those who want it, too. For those who want something lighter than ice cream, we have two sorbets, watermelon and lemon.</p>
<p>Fresh corn is good; yay! H and I are making a kale/feta/pepper/pasta dish for dinner tonight, kale being added to our diet on the suggestion of the doc who examined my eyes. (S loves kale, and once some years ago, ate a massive quantity of it, raw. Recommended only if … ah… facilities are available a few hours later. 
)</p>
<p>owlice, please expand my ice cream knowledge: what’s soursop?</p>