<p>missypie–you are so right—we have so much to be grateful for.</p>
<p>we are also aware of at least two CC parents whose sons were attacked within last couple of weeks, they are dealing with the angst and pain of their experiences. we are all reminded how delicate life really is.</p>
<p>eggmom: Maybe he is literally “trying on” the options
you may have hit on something here
also the point on becoming a small fish in a big sea…hmmm
this could explain some of these 2009’s reluctance to decide- they may fear the changes ahead?</p>
<p>Hi All!!! Got home from our trek across the midwest late last night. I enjoyed seeing trees in bloom and green grass. Cool and rainy here. D2 IS going to prom this year! Scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend. Finding a dress will be painful as she is hard to fit and very picky! We had thought we would get her through HS without a boyfriend but I guess she has an “official” BF since it is now posted on facebook. Groups of friends are abuzz that she is dating since she is known as the “quiet, mysterious” type. And wouldn’t you know it, she is going with the school QB/athlete. sigh…</p>
<p>Graduation is June 12th.</p>
<p>NM, congrats to your D on her prom date. That will be exciting. </p>
<p>Luckily our school hosts a huge after prom event that goes until 5:00 am and is attended by EVERYBODY who is a junior or senior even if they don’t go to prom. It is at the high school, which is simply transformed by hundreds of parent volunteers with extensive themed decorating all over the school–gym, cafeteria, commons, hallways, etc. They have things like a mechanical bull, kareoke, loads of games, prizes, and other activities as well as munchies and punch. Students must have an advance ticket and be in the door by a certain time and can’t return once you have left. Virtually everybody stays to the very end, which is when the big prizes are handed out, and then goes out to breakfast and then home. There are fundraisers for this event all year and theater and art classes contribute a lot of the design/decorating work so the students own it. Our older son won a flat screen TV for his dorm room the year he was a senior.</p>
<p>I forgot to add, they open the doors at 9:00 for the community to take the tour and all the parents go through like they would for the Christmas light tour. It is really a huge community wide undertaking. I am always stunned by how beautiful the decorations are, with fake palm trees, grass huts, etc. Very, very elaborate.</p>
<p>Good for the students and parents for organizing such a great event!</p>
<p>This year’s senior class isn’t even having the annual graduation night event…I guess the Junior Parents were supposed to start meeting spring of junior year to start planning the fundraising…only we didn’t. I don’t know who was supposed to be organzing it all…I guess nobody because nobody did.</p>
<p>TheAnalyst: Sounds great. We have something similar – Senior Bash night which is all night long at the HS. Parents transform the school during the afternoon. Only thing is is that it’s 3 weeks after the Senior Ball. They really like to string things out for the seniors. They will also have a day at a local theme park – no where near the size of a Disney park. That is one day during the week in June. Just need to get through the APs and IB exams in May then it should be a better time at our house – less stress for D and hopefully a better attitude to go along with it. ;)</p>
<p>S2’s school is <em>charging</em> for after-prom. Way to discourage kids to attend after spending $65 on prom tix! They are thinking of going anyway, or going to a friend’s house. He hangs out with a good bunch of kids and the parents supervise. </p>
<p>missypie, life is not easy for all too many young people. Your post struck me because I have a Nov. 1990 son, too. Treasure these days, folks.</p>
<p>missypie thanks for the perspective. That is just so sad and a good reminder of what is truly important</p>
<p>cd glad your boy and his gf have options and agree, charging for after prom seems to run counter to the point…ie make it easy for the kids to enjoy a sub free night. </p>
<p>SJTH here are the prom dress descriptions.</p>
<p>Both dresses were halter style, one purple and short the other blue and long. </p>
<p>There was very little bling on either but the blue dress had rhinestone embellishment (bedazzling???) under the bust and on the halter straps. It had a lovely drape (yes I watch project runway ;)) and the style came from the shape more than anything else. D has a perfect hourglass figure and it showed her dinky waist off beautifully. I NEVER had that figure and she spends so much time in Ts and Sweatshirts it was so fun to sher looking like a girl!</p>
<p>The purple dress had a blingy buckley thingy at the base of the neckline. It layered sheer fabric in medium, light and pale purple so that when she moved the dress sort of changed shades. She has the same figure only about a size smaller over all and it really looked so pretty on her. Sigh…this D is slightly more fashionable than her sister. Her Ts are more likely to be from American Eagle and she wears cute hoodies rather than soccer Ts and and big ol sweats. But still it was so fun to see her all dolled up too.</p>
<p>They had a blast. The prom had a casino theme and they had gaming tables in addition so that made soccer t twin very happy. </p>
<p>On college related issues, DDs are both leaving with their grandmother after school today to go to an overnight at Saint Mary’s College. TwinK told me that she thought she would have a decision after the overnight. She said, “I want to give them the chance to impress me” I am 85% certain it is where she will choose to be.</p>
<p>TwinE still up in the air. Way up.</p>
<p>DH took S to order tux yesterday. S’s date had sent him a picture of the dress, which I showed to DH, noting that it was fuchsia and that a black tux with a fuchsia vest might look good. DH and S forgot to take the picture and, when asked, DH said the dress was chartreuse!!! Fortunately, the salesclerk steered S to a platinum colored vest.</p>
<p>ffs chartreuse?!?! LOL. My DS loves the word “peuce” but has no idea what it actually looks like.</p>
<p>D has a date to the senior prom, she’s taking a junior who hangs in the same circle. She was also invited to the junior prom.</p>
<p>May 22 - Junior Prom
May 29 - Senior Prom
May 29-June 1 - Senior Prom Trip with friends
June 3 - Senior Class Trip
June 8-12 - FINALS
June 19 - Graduation
June 23 - Flight to Florida
June 25-26 - College Freshman Orientation
Juen 27 - Mom leaves Florida
June 29 - First Day in College</p>
<p>Whew! Only 2 more months!</p>
<p>So is May 1 a postmark date or a receipt of deposit date?</p>
<p>Wah! Thanks Historymom–those dresses sound lovely! Hope you got lots of pics. S2 is taking his best girl friend to Prom, which I think will be a BLAST for them. There is a great group going together, limo and all, and if they think they’re keeping me and my camera away before they go, they are sadly mistaken. (lol, fortunately, I take lots of pics of these kids, and they’re usually very happy–I have another boy mom friend who is going to propose a pre-function at her house so we can gather them all together for pics.)</p>
<p>I belive May 1 is the postmark date but that may depend on the school.</p>
<p>My son made his decision this weekend. We visited two different schools. One is a state honors college which has a very good reputation and is highly selective. The other is private and less selective but has a good reputation. What a difference! At the state school, a group of us met with a history professor who bascially said “our department has grown by 50% but our staff hasn’t. We are overworked, our classes are too large, and you won’t get any personal attention.” I guess he’s tenured and can say these things. He then told us which professors to avoid - not exactly by name but what courses not to take if the prof’s name starts with … My son was not happy after this visit. </p>
<p>At the private school we went to a tennis match where the entire team all shook my son’s hand when we arrived. The coach, assistant coach and admissions director all came over to talk to us during the match. The largest class is 40 in size. At a reception we met several staff members and the president’s wife and were recognized the next day by these folk. The tennis coach met again with us before we left to see how the visit went. All these personal contacts sealed the deal. </p>
<p>Prom question. Our tickets are $60 per person. My son was surprised that he would have to pay for his date’s ticket. We offered to pay for hers since he’s saving his job money. We’re old fashioned but I’m wondering if it’s common that both parties pay for their own tickets.</p>
<p>I’m old fashioned, but I think the boy should pay for both as long as it’s a “date date”. If two friends are going together, each could pay for their own.</p>
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<p>Kind of nice when they make it easy for you, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Sure is! The private school has gone out of its way to welcome my son. He had a personal note on his acceptance letter, a phone call from the coach, and just today we received a letter from parents whose son plays on the tennis team.</p>
<p>Suzukimomto2, the state school sounds so discouraging. I’m sure their admissions staff would be mortified to hear what the Prof. said. BUT an easy decision. Congrats!!!</p>
<p>Congrats to crzymom and all who have decisions or semi-decisions. We’re getting there in my son’s inimitable and genuinely wonderful, thoughtful way.</p>
<p>He spent the 2.5 days at Dartmouth Dimensions. I came to pick him up and for one meeting, described below. He was in heaven when I picked him up. The kids were so nice, he had so much fun, the Dartmouth program was spectacularly orchestrated. The kids loved, loved, loved Dartmouth. [They were beyond enthusiastic, if you catch the drift]. Students not associated with the program would stop him on the path and say, “You’ve got to come to Dartmouth. It is the greatest place in the world.” The new President, who will start next year, was Paul Farmer’s partner in starting Partners in Health and now runs the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS program and is a genuinely impressive human being (and an inspired choice by the Trustees]. He said, “I’ve devoted my life to changing the world and I wasn’t looking to run a university, but when they approached me with this offer, I realized that if I could help train wonderful, brilliant kids to change the world, I could have an infinitely bigger impact on the world that by myself and so I’ve decided to devote my life with helping you to learn and grow so you can change the world.” Apparently, his speech sealed the deal for a lot of kids. It did for one of my college friend’s kids. When my son described it, it almost sounded like the love-bombing the Moonies used to do. </p>
<p>The visit would have sealed the deal for my son, but we met the next day with the head of disabilities services. He was a nice and thoughtful man, but in a sense, he was very circumspect about granting accommodations. He’d need extensive neuropsychological and/or medical data for each accommodation and had only recommended 15 waivers of the language requirement in his 3 years on the job. He said, “I have to maintain my credibility with the committee that decides this and I don’t want to sacrifice that for one student because the committee might not follow my recommendation for some other student who really needs it four years from now.” When we told him that my son had used scribes for longer papers (and SATs, etc.), he said, “I won’t rule it out but we’ve never done it. I’d need to look carefully at the neuropsych raw scores and I’ll need a letter from your doctor about the fatigue issues. But, I couldn’t commit to that now.” The mindset was that the prescribed curriculum was front and center and deviations from this were viewed with skepticism and had to be justified (sometimes at levels that I don’t think are possible).</p>
<p>So, my son had an inkling that Dartmouth might not be the right place for him even though it was fantastic and people were unbelievably nice and interesting and gues what, they loved, loved, loved it.</p>
<p>On to Amherst. Much less showy two day program. Amherst’s president was committed but seemed a bit stiff and answered questions like a politician by not answering questions and always returning to the stump speech. Dartmouth definitely won there. But, instead of being curriculum-centered, it is student-centered. There are no requiremeents, no language requirements, just a freshman seminar with a big focus on writing. Classes except for a few are 12 to 22 kids, taught only by professors. They involve the kids in their research. They really do have dinner with them. When we asked about accommodations, they said, “Scribes no problem, we pay for them. And note-takers and readers if you need them.” The attitude which one dean said, was “If we accept you, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure you succeed.” We’ll use the open curriculum to help you to balance courses so that you only have one heavy reading/writing course per semester. We’ll be looking out for you.</p>
<p>Then my son went to a spectacular class in constitutional law (an area of prime interest) from a recognized master teacher and a mediocre class with 15 students in international relations. Halfway through the meeting with the first dean (these meeting happened on day 2), he said, “I’m going here.” He said it is a little small (only twice the size of his HS) but that the small classes and intimate relationships with professors would be perfrect for him. He said, “Dartmouth wins on style but Amherst wins on substance.” He also said, I loved my time at Dartmouth and would do OK there. I had an OK time at Amherst, but it is the best place for me." As is often, the case, I am impressed by his clarity of thought and analysis (especially since his conclusions are similar to mine). </p>
<p>Plus, the resources they throw behind their undergraduates are astounding. Before I visited, I thought it was the best choice for him and was the reason I dissuaded him from applying early decision to Brown. It was better than I thought.</p>
<p>He has an overnight tonight at Wesleyan and he’ll go to some classes and then we’ll meet the Dean there. It is possible he’ll change his mind, but he’s quite analytical and decisive. He’ll have to see something extraordinary, which is possible, but although Wesleyan is a very good school, I thing it is unlikely that what he sees will change his mind. Given his needs, Amherst would be hard to top. He’s not one to vacillate, so tomorrow, I suspect that we will know for sure.</p>
<p>I am not old fashioned. I really think each should pay for his/her own ticket if each is a member of the class. If not, than the graduating senior should pay for both. For instance, my daughter asked the last year’s valedictorian. They were close friends. She paid for both tickets and the limo for him (or rather I did, sigh.)</p>
<p>Then my S chose a girl from another school, so again we paid for both. (Sigh again.)</p>
<p>Had either attended with a member of his/her own class, I would have felt that each should pay.</p>
<p>By the way, this is my favorite thread on CC and where all the action is. Congratulations to all of you whose children are making such wonderful decisions. To those who are still waiting, just a little while now!</p>
<p>And here’s my vantage point: I daughter just had her senior thesis bound. If I could tell you where the last four years went, I would. And my son is a second semester sophomore. It’s freaky. The other positive thing I can say is, “only four more semesters of tuition.” </p>
<p>I am proud of them, but I feel all is going way too fast, and very soon they’ll both be all grown up.</p>