<p>You braggart, IloveLA!!!</p>
<p>(Says a freezing ZM huddler around the heater)</p>
<p>Couldnât resist. But the traffic was unbelievably horrible, which means normal, so thereâs that.</p>
<p>Hi all, Iâm back for the weekend⊠just finished reading all the posts from 2801 to 3022. Thats how many posts you all made during the week! </p>
<p>I am getting just a little envious of you (well, actually, your kids) for getting all this mail and the phone calls from colleges. Either the colleges have all decided they donât want my D to apply, or her checking that little box on the PSAT booklet really worked, to opt out of receiving mail from colleges. Iâll assume it is the latter. The only colleges sheâs getting mail from are the ones that received her free SAT score reports or ones she signed up for at a college fair.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about those AP classes being canceled in CA. I would be pretty mad if that happened. </p>
<p>zm: Sorry about the incompetent and conflicted letter writer. I would talk to the counselor and express those concernsâŠtho Iâd probably wait until later in the spring or early in the fall to bring it up. Who knows, this person could quit her job, get sent to jail for a crime, or drop dead next month and you wonât have to deal with the issue.</p>
<p>mathmom: Very interesting to read about Bard and Vassar. Vassar has been on our list to visit next month. Unfortunately they will be on spring break so we wonât see too many students. I will look for your college visit reports.</p>
<p>edit: zm: We visited Oberlin last summer. Nice campus and particularly appealing to my D because of how strong they are in music, but she is a bit concerned that the students might be a bit too âwishy-washy hippie typeâ for her.</p>
<p>vicariousparent - welcome back. I wouldnât be too envious of that college mail - my D never looks at it, and while I saved up bags of it last year, most of it ended up in the trash, and now, thatâs where a good amount of it goes almost as soon as it arrives. Sad for the trees, and sad for the money thatâs spent on creating it and mailing it.</p>
<p>Did I tell yâall about my daughter and the college info she is receiving? She just got a large viewbook from a school with a program sheâs interested in. She was appalled that they sent her a viewbook, AND several sheets about majors she indicated an interest in. There is no way she will consider a school that is so wasteful. It gained back a few points when we noticed that the book was 100% recycled, but still!!!</p>
<p>For awhile, I feared that NO school will fit her green mentality. Thankfully, the next one that arrived was one sheet of paper and a dvd. (Iâm not sure how environmentally sound a dvd is, but we can use it as a coaster, or something.)</p>
<p>vicarious, S2 did not check the junk mail box on the PSAT soph year and we got virtually nothing. It did seem to work. This year, thoughâŠ</p>
<p>At least the folks who do mass mailings still have jobs.</p>
<p>Our annual Casino Night to support the Booster Club (all athletics) is this evening. I plan to chat up the parents I know regarding the proposed cuts to science/math AP classes. On Friday and again on Monday the HS amazingly asked students to sign up their interest for the classes they previously said wouldnât be offered. Hopefully they are dealing with this diplomatically because some of this kids are not happy campers. I heard one parent speak of her current sophomore, a budding engineer, who she said was outraged! He even complained about it to Obama on his Facebook page.</p>
<p>And then thereâs the School Board meeting on Tuesday. You know the saying. It ainât over 'til itâs over or until the fat lady sings. Iâm not the fat lady.</p>
<p>FindAPlace - I hope that if enough kids and parents complain, the school will reconsider discontinuing those APs. Good luck!</p>
<p>Karen Colleges - did you or your D request that viewbook, by any chance? It was weird, but I started filling out the info for D to receive a viewbook from Amherst, then reconsidered and didnât send it - yet a few days later, D received the viewbook anyway. Very strange. Itâs very nice, but yes, a waste of paper and money, considering I donât even think D is considering the school (which is why I canceled the request). Sheâs also received a DVD or two. </p>
<p>CountingDown - I was thinking the same thing - at least the people creating the direct mail have jobs, and all that mail is helping to keep the USPS in business too. Iâll stop complainingâŠlol.</p>
<p>My son is getting lots of mail, too, from taking the PSAT. I was surprised at the number of schools who sent him stuff. He has it in a pile on his bureau & has not opened any of it.</p>
<p>I guess there will be a lot more. D3 did not receive any of that (Class of '09) Must have checked the box that she didnât want any of it. No doubt it will be read & put into the recycling for the dump! (Oh, we arenât supposed to say dump, itâs ârecycling centerâ)</p>
<p>SLUMOM - unless your DS is sorting through that mail before stacking it on his dresser, Iâm going to recommend that you get a box or a bag for it now because before you know it, that pile is going to be spilling all over and out of control. We went through that last year after the PSAT (started earlier - in November). Itâs really insane how much mail some colleges send. I sort through it now myself, since DD canât be bothered. Some gets saved, but most gets tossed.</p>
<p>One word of caution - donât let your kids get in the habit of dumping the college mail and email as âjunk mailâ without reading it. </p>
<p>My DS (2008) threw away his invitation into an honors program (with $5,000 scholarship) without reading the email. Only after the school called to ask why he had not responded did we figure out that there was a problem. (and fortunately I was able to revive the email off of a backup tape.)</p>
<p>scualum, thanks for the warning. S deletes most of the college e-mail he gets without even reading it - Iâm going to send him your post so that as he moves into senior year heâll be more careful!</p>
<p>scualum - yes, thanks so much for that warning! DD deletes all of her college emails without reading them first! I just sent her an email telling her that if she doesnât want to read them, she should forward them to me instead!</p>
<p>another plug for a college-only gmail account. Tons of disk space and can be shared to keep separate from their private accts. D doesnât read her mail there but I scan through it now and again, and I use it to sign up for visits etc to the schools.</p>
<p>D doesnât get the deluge of paper mail as some do on here, but a few pieces a day. She gets many more emails which is great ecology-wise and takes less room. We save some of the paper mailings in a cardboard box for now. We went through last yearâs whole pile and I only saved the ones I knew could be a potential interest for her.</p>
<p>this is my penalty post tax after posting in the 09 thread. </p>
<p>H and I started filling out the questionaire sheet we have for our first meeting with the college counselor on Tuesday. Iâm glad he helped participate. We only did a few of the easy questions so far, our post secondary background and we thought of four adjectives to describe D. We threw in one not so flattering one âstubbornâ but left out a couple others :)</p>
<p>Never say âstubbornâ - say âpersistantâ. I learned that from Your Spirited Child.</p>
<p>mathmom - how about relentless? ;)</p>
<p>jackief - Iâve really got to have D create one of those college-only email accounts. </p>
<p>Sounds like we have a similar form to fill out - Iâve been struggling over those adjectives myself.</p>
<p>thanks for the tips on the adjectives, I think I probably will use one of those instead. LIMOM we need to have our forms completed before our first meeting. D is working on hers nowâŠ</p>
<p>I am also thinking of âhard working,â âconscientious,â and I forget the fourth one we came up with this morning⊠I think H wanted to use âbright.â</p>
<p>jackief - Iâve thought of those adjectives as well - itâs just that my Dâs been aggravating me lately, and itâs been a struggle not to include some other choice adjectives along with those positive onesâŠlol. Not sure that relentless is exactly positive either. I use that to describe my son more than my D - he just doesnât understand when enough is enough!</p>
<p>We had to hand in a form before the first meeting which included things like parentsâ post secondary education/jobs, sibling info, and info about the student such as ECs/sports/community service, colleges the student might be interested in, and what the student is looking for in a college - rural vs. urban, size, geographic limits, potential major, etc. That form was supposed to help the GC come up with a list of potential colleges. I suspect the new form will be used to help the GC write her evaluation in the fall.</p>
<p>Jackief:</p>
<p>How about tenacious?</p>
<p>I was amused to find the HS students were communicating via a special Facebook group concerning the axing of certain AP classes. Theyâll likely target a bigger audience of like minded kids this way than with the HS daily bulletin announcement. Go kids!!</p>