<p>missypie - that poor girl. You would think they would have had a dress made for her without her mom having to say anything! And you’re probably right about the dress getting used again in the future.</p>
<p>Here in laid back CA, S hasn’t had too much use for a suit or jacket/khakis except for family events (marriage, funeral) and his mock trial competitions. So we’ve taken to getting him inexpensive kinds from JC Penny. He’s borrowed shoes (he detests wearing formal shoes) and tie from H. I am going to check out that link above and get him his own “geek” tie. Now may be the time to look for a nicer suit, since I think the height velocity has ceased. (We know this since he was on growth hormone until a year ago.)</p>
<p>He looks quite nice dressed up, actually. Lately, he’s been taking to styling his hair with a gel and blow dry in the AM and looking nice as well. No idea if there’s a special girl.</p>
<p>Had to laugh the other day. He got a cell phone message and I could tell that the voice was that of a girl. The conversation had to do with some physics problem. So I joked with him saying: "Hey, they call you about physics problems, and that’s a start … " He said, “Oh, that was just Hanna.” (Hanna is his calculus team partner who’s going to Yale in the fall.) So I said, “Wow. A girl who’s going to Yale is calling a rising senior to get his take on a physics problem. Isn’t THAT something?” Big grin from him.</p>
<p>our choir issues black long dresses to the girls and black suits to the boys. The girls must supply pearl necklace, boys a white shirt and they need to buy their own school tie.</p>
<p>We have 4? dress up days during the school year, girls have to wear dress/skirt or nice pants, no flip flops or sneakers, boys need to wear collared shirt (and tie?) and non jeans and no sneakers.</p>
<p>One of these dress up days is tomorrow awards day. Mostly for the seniors but a few Jr awards the book awards and some science prizes (B&L, Renssealear medals etc) D won’t be getting anything since they let the parents know ahead of time for them to show up. It will be interesting to see which Jrs do get these awards.</p>
<p>I also meant to say the dresses are made by someone so if they need a size not in stock they will have one made. Horrible what happened to that one girl.</p>
<p>There were a couple of other large girls who had dresses like everyone elses - they just weren’t quite as large as she was. I also noticed that the largest boy didn’t have a cumberbund on. Maybe the school keeps having larger and larger sizes made, but can’t keep up with how large the kids are getting. Whatever the reason, it was horrible.</p>
<p>I bought a skirt suit–dark navy/black with thin purpleish stripes, very elegant and not severe–a few weeks ago at Macy’s, because it was on clearance for $40. Fitting into a women’s size 4 does come in handy sometimes; I’ll need it for my Key Club conference next year. It’s scary, though, buying a suit! I’ve always gotten by with dresses/blouses–plus a white linen blazer and a black blazer–girls are more expensive but also more flexible wrt business dress.</p>
<p>Now, shoes… don’t even get me started on shoes. I’ve learned not to be too picky about styles, because a shoe with a back (e.g. pumps, slingbacks, flats, any dress shoe that isn’t a strappy sandal) will not fit me unless it’s a size 5. And apparently American shoemakers have decreed that 6 is to be the lowest standard size, with a few 5.5s tossed in for freakish people.</p>
<p>D had one suit (now too small) from a middle school competition. Now she has a few different “business” outfits to choose from when she has a competition or has to do a presentation. </p>
<p>Jackief - the girls have to supply pearl necklaces? Can they be fakes? </p>
<p>Our awards ceremonies are next week. Also mostly for seniors, and only the kids getting awards and their parents are invited. D will be getting a music award and some unknown academic award. </p>
<p>FAP - even better than the price of the JC Penney suit - the emergency $35 suit I bought for S at Walmart a few years ago! He needed it because he had to portray the person he researched for a biography project, and I wasn’t going to spend a hundred + $$ on a suit for a 10 minute elementary school presentation. Instead, he ended up getting tons of use out of that suit, and the quality wasn’t bad at all.</p>
<p>My mother gave me one of her old suits and the jacket does not work on me but the pants are fine, so I wear those pants to most ceremony-esque things. I have a few tops that go with it. I own 2 formal dresses that I wear to friends’ Proms/weddings and one semi-formal one that I wore to most Sweet Sixteens and the like.</p>
<p>We had our awards assembly today. Daughter wore flip-flops but nice jeans, came home with a medal and a plaque, so we’re happy.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D, IloveLA. Flip flops and jeans aren’t allowed at our awards assemblies. :(</p>
<p>Flip flops and jeans. So CA. However, our HS doesn’t allow opened toed shoes, which rules out the flip flops.</p>
<p>My HS has a modified uniform–e.g. school polos, no jeans–but doesn’t care what you wear on your feet. Go figure.</p>
<p>yes fake pearls are ok, I have two necklaces and they fight over who gets which length. This year D1 who was auditing chorus chose to go necklace-less to some functions.</p>
<p>Congrats to all getting awards. D was angling for the Latin award, but it will go to a senior I assume, even though she is arguably the strongest student. There is always next year.</p>
<p>Flip flops are allowed at school (just not on dress up days) and my younger D really pushes the season.</p>
<p>I believe school’s policy on footwear is more related to safety issues than anything else.</p>
<p>the fashion theme threw me off!</p>
<p>On the more academic/college related theme, D has asked the three teachers she wants to write her recommendations.</p>
<p>And she also talked to the schedule person to switch Stats for AP Physics C next year. She stresses this is not because of colleges but because she likes the Physics teacher. As long as the scheduling actually works out, all is good on this front :D</p>
<p>+2 brownie points for her. Now if I can get D2 to talk to the librarian about the books she got wet and will need to pay for…</p>
<p>D got her 2 rec set up too, math and history…and both said they’d be “very happy” to do it, so I’m hoping for good ones.</p>
<p>Grades are not all out yet, but it looks like an A in AP World (here’s hoping).</p>
<p>Jackief:</p>
<p>Presumably your D knows that Physics C will be more demanding than Stats. Is she taking AP Calc at the same time? Glad to hear the teacher is good, as great calc and physics teachers are sometimes in short supply.</p>
<p>S has two great, well known teachers lined up and waiting to do his LORs, the AP English Lang and AP Calc BC teachers. They both think he’s wonderful. We’re hoping the U’s will too.</p>
<p>FAP yes she knows it will be more, since she will have a free period forced upon her she should be able to handle it. Also she will have had a year of H Phys this year which was only mechanics non-calc based. She will be taking Calc AB concurrently (required before taking BC) Both the Physics teacher and the Math teacher (who teaches all the sections of all the math APs) are excellent teachers. This will be the first year Physics C is being offered, so it will be a bit of a try as you go year. They keep futzing with the curriculum, this year was the first year the H Phys was only mechanics, leaving many angry parents with kids not prepared for the SAT II. Reason was the class was going too fast for many so they had to dumb it down. There are still quite a few kids not keeping up with handing in work on time. Next year it is back to covering other areas. They are having a hard time finding the right place between rigorous honors classes and having them open to more students. There were two sections of H this year, which is around 50% of the class. But I digress…</p>
<p>D changed which English teacher she asked for the rec, originally it was going to be the very demanding teacher she had in 9th grade, one trimester this year, and will have next year for AP Lit. She decided to ask another who she has this trimester for comp, and is also the asst ski coach. “He understands me better.” She is definitely doing things her own way and I’m glad she has strong opinions. The strongest rec will be Latin teacher for 3 years and advisor for 2 years. Also math teacher from 9th/11th. The English rec will only be used at some schools where that is required or might be good to enhance the app, since she doesn’t plan to ski in college I don’t know if that will be a factor. He is head of the dept, all the teachers can right strong recs and they will all know her very well at a small private school.</p>
<p>jackief–does your D plan to use all three LORs for all schools, or is she using 2 per school but using different letters for different schools? Wondering what your take is on schools’ interest in getting extra letters.</p>
<p>A different question about LORs–do kids ever give extra information, like EC lists, to the letter writers? My D has only been at her school one year and I wondered if she should give extra background information. I know it was useful to me to have a transcript and EC list from a student I wrote a letter for last year (for some homeschooling classes I led), even though I knew the student very well.</p>
<p>Crossposted with you, jackief.</p>
<p>Our HS has a form that the students are requested to fill out and provide to any teacher requested to write a LOR. It’s pretty standard and will provide the teacher info on the ECs, but it also has 3 open ended questions to provide a little bit more info on the student’s aspirations and such.</p>
<p>Astromom, your D especially needs to provide this background info about herself if she’s only been there one year.</p>