<p>We have texting disabled on all our phones. Iāve never texted once.</p>
<p>So, to bring up another topic: Do any of you care really strongly about where your kids go to school? I ventured onto another forum ā why do I do that??? ā and a kid is writing about how his parents donāt support his choices for college and are chasing prestige and they wonāt pay for his apps, etc. Iāve seen many threads like that. I, personally, donāt care at all as long as itās reasonably affordable. Do you?</p>
<p>Nope, donāt care where they go as long as it is a 4 yr school (or even a 2 yr on the way to 4) and they do reasonably well and most importantly, graduate on time.</p>
<p>I cared a lot about where D went - not a specific school, but I hoped it would be one where she would be with similarly intellectually motivated peers that also had a great Classics Dept. That narrowed things down quite a bit. For S, who is a different kind of student, I donāt really care. As with D, I want him to find a school where he can thrive academically and be happy, but I get the feeling thereās a much wider range of colleges out there that would fit the bill for him.</p>
<p>Since we will be footing the bills, I do care where my Ds go to school, but I am not hung up about prestige and think the one Ivy on her list is not the best fit for her. I want to know that they are getting something more than the state school to justify the upcharge. With D1, I can tell she is trying her best and although we would like her to look at some schools with merit, Iām sure weāll be able to come to some choice that is great for her. </p>
<p>D2 is in the phase where you want to disown your teenager half of the time. She isnāt trying her best in school sometimes, even though she has good grades in most subjects. If she keeps with this attitude, it will be a a merit school to be comparable to the state school, or even the state school itself. Hope she turns it around and gets motivated, I need to keep reminding myself that D1 had some time at the beginning of HS were she was thinking of doing the required courses and coasting at the end.</p>
<p>Youdonātsay - you disabled texting? Even I donāt know how I ever managed without itā¦lol. </p>
<p>And yes, I do care where D goes to school - of course I do. But I wonāt be the one making the final decision. Pretty much agree with what Jackief said.</p>
<p>Iāve sent exactly one text message in my life, as an experiment. It took forever to do it. Then again, Iām one of those people who only uses her cell phone about once a month. :)</p>
<p>Booklady - I used to be like you, but Iāve come to rely on my cell phone. Once the kids started going out at night on a regular basis, itās been a big help. Same with the ECs that have crazy hours. And texting, once you get used to it, can be a huge help. I still donāt use the cell for chatting to my friends- at least not on a regular basis, but as far as the kids go, itās really been invaluable.</p>
<p>Weāve got the USC tour this morning. Three hours, one with admission, one doing the walking tour, and one visiting with an academic department (physics.)</p>
<p>Itās the last tour of the year. Iām hoping not to do it under an umbrella (can this be a Seattle/Tacoma native saying this?)</p>
<p>DS and four others (so, half the AP Physics C class) are signed up to take the April Physics Olympiad test.</p>
<p>have fun on the tour FAP, I guess you can have the rain as judging from Seattleās football game yesterday, they have our snow! No wait, we had the snow also for the Patās gameā¦</p>
<p>We donāt text. Not included with our current plan and not going to pay extra for it. If kids wanted it, they could pay for it. D1 is kind a a throwback kid technology wise, she doesnāt even have her phone with her or on when we need her to, D2 would be more the one who wanted it but currently no. We havenāt disabled it because we thought there might be a reason to really need it, but donāt use it and use SELF CONTROL! </p>
<p>One of my friends sent me a text the other day. I called her bakck telling her her I donāt text and what did she want, etc. I am supposed to give her an update on something later this week, and she told me ājust text meā I replied again, I donāt text, I will call you again. Some people just donāt get itā¦</p>
<p>Our next plan we will reevaluate. One year of two left in this one, when D1 knows where she is going to school we will see if our current carrier is the best choice and resign with them or look into other options. But for now with the nonQWERTY keyboard phones we are fine in our text-free worldā¦</p>
<p>I think a lot of the people here are looking at schools not too far from home, but if not I would like to direct your attention to the ālong trip homeā thread. It brings back memories for me. Even though I was driving distance from my home in college, as were most of my friends, my boyfriend was from Oregon. I remember he had many adventures like those happening this week. Much of it was the rural location/airports on the college end. D has a couple schools lower on the list which are air distance not car distance, but this really is a factor. I have already said that if you need to fly to school, you only come home at winter break, not thanksgiving or other shorter breaks.</p>
<p>Hey all! Iāve been gone this weekend and need to catch up on the posts!!</p>
<p>We have the online grade check thing at our highschool, but I never signed up for it. I figured that it would make me more crazy about their grades, and since itās not me doing the work, I better keep my nose out of it. Iāll find out soon enough;)</p>
<p>We are texting fanatics at our house - started when my oldest was in highschool. He could text throughout the day if he needed something, and it has become the communication of choice when they are at school. I guess it is sneakier that pulling out a phone.</p>
<p>My oldest had his 15 hour drive from Florida on Saturday. We hadnāt seen him since the summer, he doesnāt come home for Thanksgiving - too far. He left in the morning and made it home late late Saturday night! It was pretty fun when he finally got home, the mass confusion now is that he brought his 2 dogs, so added with my 4, there are 6 dogs running around the house!! Oh, and edited to add that last night, when we were all dressed up for a big party (tuxedos and fancy dress for me), one of the dogs knocked over the Christmas tree, so I was down on all 4ās securing the base while they picked up ornaments!! Yikes!!</p>
<ul>
<li>It is so nice having my family back home all together again. This will be the last Christmas like this, just us 5, because my oldest is getting married in June. Iām trying to really cherish the time!</li>
</ul>
<p>Jackief - that ālong trip homeā thread was something, wasnāt it? Poor kid! </p>
<p>About texting - it costs us $10 a month more for unlimited texting, and itās been worth it for a variety of reasons. For some reason, phone calls donāt come through in some places, but texts do; the kids can send texts to me from school if theyāve forgotten something or if an afternoon activity is canceled; when theyāre at parties (Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Sweet 16s), itās really hard to talk on phones because they canāt hear, so texting is very helpful. Also, if theyāre somewhere and donāt feel comfortable, itās a lot easier for them to text me asking to be picked up, than it is for them to call in front of people. Not trying to sell you on texting, but just pointing out some of the benefits.</p>
<p>ag54 - yay for having your oldest home! So funny about the the dogs! And love the Christmas tree story. Hope no special ornaments were broken? You probably didnāt notice in all the chaos.</p>
<p>I tried checking, but his scores arenāt posted, nor is the message they said would be there about ācheck back in a weekā or something. So Iām thinking his account isnāt connected to his scores for some reason.</p>
<p>LIMOMOF2ātexting saved us once after sonās graduation when we couldnāt find each other. One son texted to the grad the number we were under at the arenaāC17 or something, and he found us! It would have been way too noisy to talk.</p>
<p>mommusic - weāve had similar incidents - so, yes, texting can definitely be a huge help.</p>
<p>Got Dās scores - though higher than her PSAT total, both her CR and M went down a bit -but her W went up 140 points. Still, she was really bummed about her CR because it wasnāt great to begin with, and she immediately asked me to sign her up for the January test. I was really hoping she would be finished.</p>
<p>My D had uneven and unpredictable results from her Dec SAT. She had taken three subject tests and left thinking that she had done pretty well on all three. She nearly aced the Lit, did great on the Spanish, but got a rather unexpectedly low score on the Math 2. She had found only a few questions hard, had checked the answers discussed on the SAT thread here and was expecting to do really well. </p>
<p>Iām thinking about requesting a hand-rescoring of the test. Apparently for the subject tests, there have been instances (reported on C.C) of peopleās Bio subject tests being scored as Bio E instead of Bio M, or vice versa. Iām wondering whether Dās Math 2 got scored as a Math 1. Alternatively she just did some serious mis-bubbleing. I guess she will retake the test at some point in the future- depending on her E.C schedule.</p>
<p>vp - glad your D did well on her Lit and Spanish tests, and Iām sorry about the math. My D also seemed pretty confidant after taking her SAT, and thatās one of the reasons she was so disappointed in her CR score. I wasnāt especially surprised though - sheād been sick that whole week, and while she was feeling better the morning of the test, she said she started to feel sick again about 2/3 of the way into the test. Not sure if that mattered at all though.</p>
Iāve never texted once.</p>