<p>College senior and 10th grader here.</p>
<p>Totally different kids! Second one not as <em>motivated</em>, but much more social! :o</p>
<p>Zoozermom, isn’t big sis exaggerating a bit? or a lot? Your younger D sounds very accomplished and special. I have read your prior posts about her.</p>
<p>Oh, and momonthehill, and sokkermom, join in! This list is getting nice and long. Some of us never unplugged after our older kids went through this!</p>
<p>May I join the group, please? I have twin 10th graders, and have been through the process with S#1, currently a first year grad student. Last year as some of their classmates began discussing taking an SAT 2 at the conclusion of freshman year, my guys came to me and started asking about it. I told them not to worry about it and that I would let them know when it was time to start stressing. 
So, they are signed up for SAT 2’s this June. They go to an independent school which is college-obsessed, and I will try to “protect” them from some of this for a while. I can’t imagine what junior year will bring with trying to do college visits with both of them. They will have completely different lists, I am quite sure, so I have already started looking on college web sites and checking the calendars for next year to see when my kids have breaks or days off, and how that meshes with the college schedules. I’ve started keeping a chart. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I’d like to listen in, as the parent of two current 9th graders.</p>
<p>“Zoozermom, isn’t big sis exaggerating a bit? or a lot? Your younger D sounds very accomplished and special. I have read your prior posts about her.”</p>
<p>Exaggeratingn a LOT. Except at 3 am when I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>Oh, and momonthehill, and sokkermom, join in! This list is getting nice and long. Some of us never unplugged after our older kids went through this!</p>
<p>It would be so great to have a group to go through this with.</p>
<p>Think they’d start a class of '10 forum just for us? :)</p>
<p>“She meant not go away as in never leave high school or her bedroom.”</p>
<p>LOL. I’m sorry, zoosermom, but that was funny. I totally misunderstood you!</p>
<p>My D is definitely planning to go away for college - she’s very excited about it - but not excited enough to start researching on her own. I think (hope) that will kick in early in junior year. I know she is very aware of the whole process of visiting, applying and waiting - she just went through it all with her boyfriend and some other good friends - but she is very busy right now with her sports and ECs and isn’t quite ready to start her own search. I’m sure your daughter will start showing interest next year as well - and I’m sure we will meet up with each other at some point.</p>
<p>Thanks for the welcome to the group northeastmom - I brought my crayons!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Neither have I. ;)</p>
<p>You know, I recall reading a thread for the class of '09 in which someone provided a link to a Wall Street Journal article claiming that that class will be largest one yet. And I thought that '08 was supposed to be the largest class! So now I’m wondering if, one year from now, we’re going to start reading similar predictions for the class of '10. I hope not–I thought that the class sizes were going to begin to level off, and maybe decrease, even just a little bit.</p>
<p>And thanks for the welcome, northeastmom and zoosermom. I’ve enjoyed your posts in the past 16 months since I’ve joined CC, and I look forward to getting to know all of you over the next couple of years.</p>
<p>Hey, I want to join the new club! Two sons in the class of 2010. (Not twins, one is adopted.) They are very different. It will be an interesting challenge.</p>
<p>Happydaughter would not even hear the word college last year. This year she has senior friends from stage crew who are in the middle of college acceptance/rejection season and is starting to pay a bit more attention although I still hear a lot of “OH NO MOM! NO MORE COLLEGE TALK! WHAT’S WITH YOU?” </p>
<p>Sooooo happy I’ve found the moms/dads/sibs of 2010!</p>
<p>I’m a student who’s in the class of '10, will be eavesdropping here pretty often. :)</p>
<p>Another mother of a 10th grader here! We already have a folder full of solicitations from schools and my D’s inbox is full of sales pitches and she doesn’t even have her driver’s license yet! It’s too soon. </p>
<p>Her brother is a freshman at Yale and sailed through the college app process (he actually only applied to the one school). Unlike her brother, she isn’t focused on Ivy League status, and doesn’t already know what she wants to study – she just wants to enjoy her college years! So this will be a very intersting couple of years.</p>
<p>I doubt that our son ever had such conversations as a 10th grader with his friends as colleges seemed to be quite far from their minds, with talk instead about girls, weekend plans, and other teenager stuff. Because of class scheduling there was some consideration of what college “track” they might be considering but that was about it and we did not have college discussions at home during those early hs years.</p>
<p>In fact the whole college discussion/angst milieu was quite different from what seems to be common here. Perhaps it is because we do not live in a metropolitan area. Even during senior year there was very little college related conversation among us parents and a more laid back attitude among our students. </p>
<p>It made the whole hs college process much more pleasant for everyone so that a student did not have to feel uncomfortable if he chose to attend the local cc or if another was rejected/wl’ed by a highly selective college.</p>
<p>I’m in the club too! We’ve started our college visits (DH is ill and we may not be able to do visits next year). My daughter’s friends are asking if they can come along since their parents aren’t taking them anywhere yet! Our school is also having a meeting for the 10th grade parents soon, which I anticipate will be a wake up call for many parents who haven’t been through this process before. Our public school has a huge push on colleges, with 95% continuing their educations. There’s a huge amount of pressure on the kids and a tremendous amount of competition for everything, from activities to AP classes. It can be pretty unpleasant for both kids and parents, since many parents get so caught up in the process that you’d think some of them were going to college themselves. </p>
<p>I’ll have 2 others in school at the same time (1 in pharmacy and 1 hopefully in law school), so I anticipate that I’ll be checking the nutritional values on dog food bags soon.</p>
<p>Welcome, Neonzeus and BurnThis. It will be great having people to share this whole college app process with. </p>
<p>originaloog - I wish I could say things were the same here - but maybe location does have something to do with how the college app process is viewed. Here, that is all anyone talks about after 7th grade! Back in middle school, my D was telling friends that she loved the food at a local university’s cafeteria (she was talking about the cereal dispensers…lol), and her science teacher overheard her and told her she should really be thinking ivy league! I don’t even think she knew what that meant at the time.</p>
<p>Well, I am glad to see this list is growing. </p>
<p>I still have my initial concern about peer pressure and college selection influence. </p>
<p>Like a previous poster, my son does not want to talk about dreams, goals, colleges with me. He apparently is listening to some rumblings at school. Just the fact that he brought up the feelings of a couple kids who insist that brand name spells possible success, but unknown brand name is equated with a gloomy future means that my son is feeling badly, and is worried about it. We have visited 3 schools with him now. One is already off the list because he did not love it, but he sees that we are taking him to LACs. How does one reassure that one can go on to have a good career, or grad school, after graduating from a small LAC, with a name that is unrecognizable to the masses? I know this will just get worse. When people ask, “where are you applying”, “where did you get in”, “where are you thinking of attending”, it seems like there are bigger strokes for a kid to say, oh, I am going to the University of [you name the state], than to say I am going to attend Albion, Augustana, Flagler, or Scranton. I know from my older son, that when he told some people that he was accepted to Towson, which is a state school in MD, he got puzzled looks. People weren’t even kind enough to put on a fake smile, and congratulate him on that acceptance (it was his first, since it is a rolling admissions school). My older son did not apply to the tiny schools that we are considering with our younger son. So, any advice on dealing with this? I am not saying that our 10th grader will not end up at a larger school, but we going to look at much smaller schools.</p>
<p>Just editing to add that maybe Scranton was a poor example. My son is going to apply to a school which has the name of a place in it, like Scranton does. My H has been asked where will be looking with our son. He named the school, which btw, is a tier 3 school if one is into rankings. It is because the name has recognition by having the name of a place in it, like Scranton, that this the other person said, oh, that is a very good school. I am sure that this person had no idea, and I have no problem with a 3rd tier school, but I know that it was “brand”, not the academics that gave this school the stamp of approval. This person does not know any alumni from that school.</p>
<p>Another 10th grade parent!</p>
<p>Yes the kids are talking at school. Many of them are eagerly signing up for some week long program medical program this summer to “look good for colleges.” Luckily my D and I have had college conversations for a while, so she listens to her friends, stays quiet, and then comes home and relays the conversations to me. She went to a few college fairs and has browsed college websites so she has a general idea of what they are looking for and realizes that dropping language and math next year as one friend wanted to do is a bad idea. Their school is a small independent day school with a very “anti-competitive” slant, find the right college for each kid is great, but it seems that they discourage the kids from aiming at the top even if they aren’t looking for prestige. Opening for a new college counselor next year, we’ll see how the focus changes then.</p>
<p>Also have an 8th grader picking her first HS class schedule. Just need to focus on keeping the grades decent at this stage.</p>
<p>northeastmom,
Based on what you are saying, perhaps my 10th grade twins are luckier than most, because their older brother went to a small LAC. His LAC is well-known in circles of academia, but certainly less so to the “outside world.” He would often be asked, quizzically, “isn’t that an all girls school in upstate NY?” (The LAC he attended was always co-ed and not located in NY.) So, they have had the benefit of seeing him have a fabulous education at a small school, unknown to the population at large. Their father and I also were educated at LAC’s. I think that one way to deal with the constant questions about where you are applying is to come up with an answer to the effect that you’re really not sure yet, you’d like to keep it as a private matter for now, etc.</p>
<p>My 8th grade daughter asked me if her best friend’s detention would stay on her transcript when she applies to colleges!!!</p>
<p>Our school starts college process 9th grade. It is intense, but 30-35% students do go to ivies and equivalent, whether it’s through legacy or atheletic.</p>
<p>Another Mom of a tenth grader. He saw some colleges with big brother, but since he runs away from anything techie, none of them will be on his radar screen. I don’t think kids are talking about colleges - he’s told me in no uncertain terms that he’s not interested in the flood of mail that has arrived at our house.</p>