<p>Perhaps you could get them to commit to a similar amount of aid for all 4 years provided that your financial situation remains similar?</p>
<p>I just sent off another email to them with a similar inquiry. Once again, I’m not expecting much…but, this seems to be working well for me:)</p>
<p>If I didn’t have some of the same doubts as DD, I would chalk her reservations of school #2 up to stress, nerves, etc. and wouldn’t even persue the school #1. However; I do see the issues she is concerned with, and would move heaven and earth to make school #1 happen if possible. </p>
<p>Honestly, up until the last 2 years we haven’t had to be as concerned with our finances as we are now. I know many many families are in a similar situation, but, as spoiled and shallow as it may appear, it is really difficult to have to fall back on her second choice. I feel as though I am selling my D short (not really addressing and solving her reservation of school #2), yet, I totally realize we HAVE to make a safe financial decision. I have two more kids heading off to college next year…yikes! I am also very grateful to both schools for ANY AND ALL of the FA they have offered. Our own in-state school didn’t offer us anything except loans.</p>
<p>Just wished that there was something I could do to make it better.</p>
<p>I know what you mean. I’ve brought my son to the Orthopedic doctors, a podiatrist, chiropractor, and most recently to massage therapy. Massage therapy seems to be doing the trick, but I agree, it was much easier when we could just kiss the boo boo:)</p>
<p>Jolynne, glad to see your son will be with my son this fall. ROLL TIDE ROLL!!! You can find that flag at [Football</a> Fanatics®: NCAA & NFL Shop, College, University, Sports Apparel, Fan Gear, Store](<a href=“http://www.footballfanatics.com%5DFootball”>http://www.footballfanatics.com) or check out Amazon.</p>
<p>SharonOhio, many kudos to your daughter on that top spot. My son will be his class valedictorian – the other day, the class sponsor asked him how his speech was going (he still has about five weeks before he walks). He told her that he has a lovely blank piece of paper. Guess he will wait until he is done with two proms, 6 APs, behind the wheel, etc., etc. I figure that he will start the speech about … a day or two before he needs to make it.</p>
<p>Our val and sal both give speeches. I know this is terrible, but everyone is secretly (and not so secretly) hoping that #2 and #3 change places before they name the Sal…the #3 at the end of first semester is an … unusual… person and we’d all love to hear this person’s speech.</p>
<p>ksabbo: Is the money need based or merit money? Merit money is usually given with specifications for exactly which years it covers and what you can expect.</p>
<p>Need based aid usually comes with a letter that reads, “Provided your family’s circumstances don’t change you can’t expect a similar package all four years.”</p>
<p>Colleges don’t want to see kids leave. They want their stats to look good, so they should be responsive to this concern.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s shallow to want your child to be happy or to make the best choice available to them. And good that she saw it on her email and knows she is wanted.</p>
<p>No matter what happens in the outside world we still have to pursue our lives in the best way we can. And who knows? The best education might help your D to serve humanity more. I don’t think you’re shallow at all.</p>
<p>Oh, Congratulations Jolynne’s S!!! Woohoo!!! So glad he made the decision!!! How wonderful!</p>
<p>Congrats to those Vals!!! Good luck on speeches! Our local Hs has a competition for the speaker, anyone can enter! They write speech, present to a panel, a vote is taken and the speaker is chosen!</p>
<p>Re graduation announcements: My DS said he didn’t want any graduation announcements or anything like that…I was only allowed to order pics for us. Am I going to regret this? He is about as unsentimental as they come and to him graduating from HS is just required…not a big deal. Will I wish I’d sent them out? I tend to be the sentimental one, yet overwhelmed with a thousand details of life, so just let that one go by…</p>
<p>Sometimes when I read all these things that everyone’s doing (making photo albums, raising uber-responsible kids, having grad parties with fancy invitations–yikes!) , I feel inadequate to the task of parenting!! But then I try to breathe deeply and keep things in perspective. I think part of it is knowing your kid–mine is just not into making a fuss.</p>
<p>DS has made his final decision – well maybe. The entire family has been waffling for days. </p>
<p>Now DH has announced that he will hand-deliver the final-actual-real-deal acceptance letter on Friday. (Both schools are within reasonable driving distance.)</p>
<p>I figure this means we can continue to anguish until about midnight Thursday.</p>
<p>Historymom: And tell her to be on the lookout for a lanky Hapa with a perpetual grin, and an impenatrable force field of goofiness about him.</p>
<p>Everyone, thanks for the kind words about his choice. The important thing is that it was HIS choice. His first big decision. A milestone. Will start getting misty if I think about it too much.</p>
<p>Great thing about UCB is that the Pacific Film Archive is on campus. And a lot of bakeries/coffee houses etc in the area. I envy him</p>
<p>Congrats to all who are making decisions (or still trying them on for size), those who are winning more accolades, and to those finding more crumbs in the FA pot!</p>
<p>No graduation party here last year. S1 didn’t want one. He hates to be the center of attention at social events. Was appalled at the idea of sending out invitations (“Mom! I don’t want people to think they owe me a gift!”), but convinced him that the grandparents would indeed be offended if they didn’t get an invite, even though no one was planning to attend. He didn’t want a photo album, either.</p>
<p>I made a quilted wall hanging for S1 based on a favorite mathy video, but I still haven’t finished it. The black comforter w/trim I added that matches the hanging is off at school, though. When S never bothered to finish setting up the bookcase in his dorm room (after going to considerable trouble hauling the @%$# thing to Chicago and lugging it up three flights of stairs), I came to the conclusion that he was not likely to hang anything on the walls w/o parental supervision – so I haven’t been in a big hurry to finish it.</p>
<p>Well, all, I’ll be crossing fingers and other appendages for everyone’s last minute choices.</p>
<p>My mom is having knee replacement surgery early tomorrow, so I’ll be out of commission for the next 10 days or so, while I visit her and then move in until the right time to come home!</p>
<p>Looking forward to the college class of '13 thread!</p>
<p>I was wrong, that one came up as 656
But at least 5 of my posts just before it came up as the same number.
sorry for the wasted bandwidth. It was just something I noticed, but just as I notice it, it makes a liar out of me.</p>
<p>Hi #theorymom,
I’ve seen some “lag” in my post counts too. Big Web sites like this one often use more than one server, and I recall reading elsewhere on CC that they have multiple database servers in a cluster. That makes the site faster, but also means they have to do some synchronizing behind the scenes. Imagine if you had two phone receptionists in your office, both scheduling appointments for you… they would have different information for a little while, until they could compare notes and update your appointment calendar.</p>
<p>That’s probably what happened with your post count… two different servers “answered the phone,” and they hadn’t caught up to date yet. Nothing to worry about, as it all gets worked out in the end. I hope this helps. :)</p>
<p>One less thing to think about, Prom Night for D#3 is weekend of D#2’s college graduation weekend. D#3 informed me of this yesterday & said she had no plans to go to Prom, also it would be quite expensive as her Class did not do much fund-raising, so costs would be passed on to the ticket buyers. So no dress, shoes, hair appointments & all that crazy stuff like I did with the first two! </p>
<p>With no prom & only paying 44 cents each for party invitations & about 60 cents for college graduation announcements, I feel like I have just won the lottery! LOL</p>
<p>Oh, no ellemenope, H & I are not paying for weddings or buying cars for our children!
We decided that quite a while ago when we embarked upon the putting 4 children through college for 11 consecutive years adventure! They can buy their own cars & pay for their own weddings! I am sure all parents make these type of decisions! </p>
<p>One of D’s friends her parents won’t pay for college, won’t co-sign for loans, she is working, saving, taking a year off & so on. D#3 sees this situation & is grateful that we are putting her & 3 siblings through college.</p>
<p>We finalized grad party plans last night and invitations will go out next week, so I can check that task off the list. We have 150 invites. S1 had 275 invited to his party, so this one will be significantly smaller. Also, S1 had a live band which ran into a large cost. S2 will just hook his IPod into a sound system and use his play lists. We have been able to go more upscale on the food as a result and it still comes out to a fraction of the expected costs, so that is good news. </p>
<p>It’s starting to sink in that all this high school stuff is really going to be over soon.</p>