<p>historymom, fist bump right back at ya’! My boys have been to a couple of college fairs and went on their first tour earlier this week to a small-mid-size university. Neither one of them thinks it’s the right size for them at this point. I think they’ll both end up smaller, but not in the same place. Frankly, I can’t imagine it as one is interested in the biomedical sciences and one in…Broadway. They are fraternal, not identical. We have a more extensive tour planned in March when they have vacation. For one of the trips, I will only take one of them with me, and there will be a bit of tagging along on some of the other journeys. I’m thinking that after seeing another 6-8 schools each, this will be somewhat clearer. I’m hoping.</p>
<p>And historymom, may I take this opportunity to say what a meaty and focused post that was…</p>
<p>our day is 7:55 to 2:45 and then sports 5x/week until 5 or 6 unless there are games. There isn’t and I don’t think there ever will be an option of a 0th period as I hear about at some other schools.</p>
<p>How nice to start that late. D’s school starts at 7:25. You can imagine what time she has to get up. She is never fully awake her first 2 period and it shows in her grades. Last semester she had AP World 6th period and pulled an A. This semester she has gotten several Bs already.</p>
<p>Haven’t they done a ton of studies that say teens don’t function well in the mornings?</p>
<p>I can’t even imagine my DD (aka the Grouch) with a zero period. </p>
<p>Her school has them for AP Physics and AP Chem so as to have the extra lab time. That is the only time slot they are offered - her response “I just won’t take those classes”… </p>
<p>First period at our school is 8:15, but there’s a zero period which son goes to every other day for orchestra that starts at 7:15. Luckily school is a 10 minute drive. We drive on the early days he walks on the later days.</p>
<p>My DD HS is actually in one of California’s largest geographic school districts - with kids coming from over an hour away by bus. Small district in terms of kids - huge in terms of spread.</p>
<p>The HS has to start at 730 or earlier as the buses need to make the K-6 run after they drop off the HS kids. We live 30 minutes from school - so the grouch was charming for the first two years of HS. This year has been a huge improvement. That extra hour makes all the difference.</p>
<p>our daily schedule rotates so the same class doesn’t occur during first period each day. Our last period of the day is the longer one, so this way they all rotate through that. It also helps when kids have to leave early for sports that they don’t miss the same class each time, but it is a bummer that it is the long period and possibly others which are missed.</p>
<p>The past two years, the school’s done nothing for ds’s team, but that’s changing this year. He’s had three coaches in three years, and the program has been somewhat in disarray, but this year parents are taking charge.</p>
<p>The athletic director’s policy is that the kids have skin in the game and fund-raise for some of the cost.</p>
<p>So, if I could get the school to start an hour later, I wouldn’t have a grouch anymore either?? Sign me up! I’m petitioning the school board right now. </p>
<p>QM, yes there have been a number of studies that showed that adolescents function much better if their school day begins at 9:00 rather than an hour or two earlier. Too bad it doesn’t mean enough to the powers that be to make the changes. I know, I know, the logistics would be a nightmare. But I can dream, can’t I?</p>
<p>It’s funny because D had this same schedule in HS, but now that she is away at college a 9am class is so horribly early!! :)</p>
<p>aaarrrggghhh- after I nailed the adjectives, I’m filling in some more of the easy questions and I came across two more I need to think about–</p>
<p>What are the two or three most important things a college admissions committee should know about your child as a person? as a student? if you were writing his/her letter of recommendation, what would you highlight?</p>
<p>What of value would your child add to the mix of the student body at his or her college?</p>
<p>I ALREADY THOUGHT OF FOUR ADJECTIVES FOR YOU, WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO ASK FOR MORE AND MORE??</p>
<p>Bell schedule at our HS has zero period (for just some students) at 7:05 am, regular first period at 8:05 am to sixth period end at 3:00 pm (except for Wednesday minimum day when classes end at 1:30 pm.) Athletes take sixth period team sports and then continue on until around 5:30-6:00 (at least for water polo swim, unsure of the others), or later if there’s an away game. So, you guessed it. The real scholar athletes are either taking that zero period as well or (as in my S’s case) taking some classes during the summer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the compliments on my S. You parents have a world of talent sleeping under your roofs at night as well. I know we all feel exhultant for their successes when they work so hard for it because that’s a life lesson learned. </p>
<p>Since my H is taking S to his orthodontist appointment this afternoon, I joked that the ortho will give him that better long term smile but that the test results will provide a more immediate ear to ear grin.</p>
<p>Changing the subject (if there even is one)…</p>
<p>One of DD’s friends did a visit last week to Whitman in WA - and came back raving about it. Since DD has been wanting to visit, now the pressure is really on to go visit. The problem is Whitman is geographically impaired… it is in Walla Walla which is in the south east corner of WA state. How the heck do you get there from the SF Bay Area? Airplanes all seem to connect in Seattle - which is like flying from DC to NYC with a connection in Boston. </p>
<p>We visited last summer. We were on a very long road trip, and drove to Whitman from Portland. I thought we’d never get there. It’s a jillion miles from anywhere. We really liked the school, though, except for the frat/sorority population which is larger than my S wants. Travel time and expense is a factor for us in researching schools. After driving out there, it really made us realize how isolated it is.</p>
<p>Whitman is still on S’s list because it is such a great school. He has another very isolated school on his list that is at least as difficult to get to for us as Whitman is. With my D only one flight from home, and seeing the problems many kids have had getting home through storms during winter break, it’s something we think about more now than we did when we were looking for schools for D.</p>
<p>Well, my S may be presented with something very ironic. He’s shown no interest in AP Bio, wants to take AP Chem and thus my entreaties to the HS to keep AP Chem off the budget chopping block.</p>
<p>Menawhile, DH has been making contact with his colleagues, to find a summer time lab experience for S, preferably in physics. So, what email do I see come across today?</p>
<p>Something about an opportunity in BIOPHYSICS looking at new types of bacteria for study of electicity conduction through nanowires that grow out of their bodies, use of these for bacteria based fuel cells, etc. etc.</p>
<p>If this is really there for him and my S doesn’t grab it with BOTH hands, I’m not sure the strongest duct tape in the world would work with me. This sounds like a great interdisciplinary lab chance. And they’ve used HS students in the past, too.</p>
<p>I just can’t get over what prolific posters you all were today. Hope I can remember all I wanted to say.</p>
<p>FAP - congrats to your S. What a wonderful evaluation. </p>
<p>Jackief - good job on those adjectives. We have to provide 5, and I still haven’t settled on mine - but I’m getting there. We also have similar questions to answer. The easier ones were on the form we filled out back in December. Good luck getting that form filled out tonight. I’m thinking I should take another look at mine.</p>
<p>The sleep issue - that’s one of those things that changes on a daily basis. D aims to get to bed by 11, but sometimes those ECs get out of control. I would say that most nights she gets to bed between 11 & 1, but there have been some nights that were closer to 3 (not many of them, thankfully). She gets up at 5:45, and gets to school around 7 in the morning. </p>
<p>History - very sweet of you to come to our thread and offer some advice to momofthreesons. </p>
<p>Sorry, can’t help with Whitman College at all. </p>
<p>Hmmm, I’m sure there were other things I wanted to respond to - will have to post, and take another quick look through the last few pages.</p>
<p>Bengalmom - I am in the same state as you so I do appreciate and understand your comments. I do not think about the actual distance from colleges yet - oldest is too young - but if you want to send your kids OOS from Utah, there is no way you are picking them up when they are sick (one of the recent threads has me thinking about this , especially since S had an emergency surgery last fall when there was only a VERY SHORT window of time for the surgery to be successful. ). OOS from here is far, far away I am thinking that picking a place where Delta has direct route to is not a bad idea.
We are so far away that I am thinking about starting college visits this fall, when my oldest will be a freshman. We do plan to go to NYC, and the last time we visited the east coast was a good four years ago. So, I am thinking why not throw in some campus visits while we are there? Am I totally out of my mind?</p>
<p>Kelowna, We are in the same position. My son did his first college visit the summer between Sophomore and Junior year because we happened to be close by. We just took an informal, self-guided tour.</p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about Manhattanville College? I stumbled across them tonight and while they look good on paper as they have several of the majors S is interest in and his scores are quite a bit higher than the current freshman class (merit aid, I hope!), there is virtually no mention of them here at cc nor can I find a common data set. </p>
<p>Also, how do I find out what percentage of students stay on campus on the weekend? My son will be an oos student so that’s an important consideration.</p>
<p>Kelowna, if you are in the area of a college and he is interested, I would take the opportunity. Don’t push too hard as he may resist. At the beginning, D was interested in some schools and she started getting a lot of mail from a college fair she attended between fr/so years. But if we were in the area of a college and I suggested stopping in, if she didn’t like it she refused. After that, she has realized there are some schools she liked that she had not “heard of” previously, which I suggested, so she is more open to new ideas if they are within her parameters. She was pretty set on somethings like city vs no and big vs small from the beginning. Good luck. Lots of kids are on different time tables for a variety of reasons, don’t listen to people who say you are doing things too early or wrong if it works for you.</p>
<p>pugmadkate, hopefully our NYC area friends will have some input on Manhattanville. </p>
<p>I still have those two questions to answer. I looked through the common app recommendation where they have the checkboxes to rate kids on different attributes looking for ideas. I think I’ll read curmugdeon’s thread again…</p>
We have a more extensive tour planned in March when they have vacation. For one of the trips, I will only take one of them with me, and there will be a bit of tagging along on some of the other journeys. I’m thinking that after seeing another 6-8 schools each, this will be somewhat clearer. I’m hoping.</p>
Hope I can remember all I wanted to say.</p>