<p>Just saw toy story 3. I loved it. I laughed, I cried!! Beautiful story!</p>
<p>I saw TS3 yesterday with my two sons, one son’s GF an GF’s Mom. All of the girls got a tad weepy. I thought it was good, but the plot was quite a bit like TS2. </p>
<p>I found a class for son to take at a PSU satellite campus about 10 minutes from our house and he’s going to sign up for it on Tuesday. His GC thinks it’s a great idea. It’s the first class for an IST major. It’s for the fall and the timing is just right - Tuesday and Thursday’s at 4:30. A good motivator for getting the drivers license - we’re on the real roads now!</p>
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<p>He just thinks your brillant? LOL</p>
<p>Whenever a question about the college search process comes up H asks me to check with my online group. Both H and S know this group is a gold mine. It drives H crazy when he thinks he has some tibit of information I don’t know only to find out how old news it is here at CC. </p>
<p>We’ll keep quiet about your association with CC!</p>
<p>S finally sat down for several hours and reviewed “the list.” I was surprised he spent as much time as he did on it. The list went from 26 colleges down to 17 with 3 of those 17 listed as also probably coming off list. I think in an effort to show we are team players we may add on a couple of schools S’s GC suggested, safeties all.</p>
<p>H and 10yo D saw TS3 this weekend. H agreed with a lot of you that it is a tear jerker</p>
<p>Morning all</p>
<p>Too funny about how CC affects families and spouses–When I tell my DH something like…“I was PM-ing with another parent about…thus and so…” I kinda get a strange look–like he doesn’t know what to make of it since its a cyber connection</p>
<p>Have learned more here from seasonsed veteran parents
–(our elder student will be the sr) than our GC/school. </p>
<p>Waiting for those scores this week–tick tock…</p>
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<p>The whole budget and closing education options is so sad–and not very forward thinking on the part of municipalities. I realize that towns, states, --the school districts have to figure out where to cut…and cutting classes doesn’t seem to be the right thing.</p>
<p>I was reading about a school district (GA I think) that went to shorter school weeks–maybe 4 days–and attendance and grades have gone UP not down…the school day is longer those 4 days to get the classroom hours in–</p>
<p>I recall hearing about how the hs I went to many moons ago–took all of the visual and performing arts out of the available curriculum because of the budget–sports however wasn’t touched. There has to be a balance. Schools like MIT, Johns Hopkins and some Ucs etc have cut sports so it doesn’t hit the classrooms.</p>
<p>American students DO NOT lead the world in math/science etc…AND in some cultures the students take their responsibility to learn very seriously–far more so than our US kids–and study on the own time…</p>
<p>In our district–where the student population continues to grow (one of the fastest growing counties in the US) bus services were seriously curtailed, district office hours were cut etc–the budget is providing less and less to run the schools and there are more students to serve…It is a mess here too.</p>
<p>Fog fog- oh I forgot the June SAT scores are out this week?(when exactly?) D leaves Wednesday morning for her summer job at the sleepaway camp. She has assured me she will write her common app essay and get her AP English reading done. She actually seems motivated to do so!</p>
<p>^I believe the scores are released on Thursday.</p>
<p>read from other thread, June 24 5:00 am EST is the time June SAT scores are out.</p>
<p>Has been following this thread somewhat. D will be senior, took the June SAT II test, hoping this is the last one, but she did not get back from DC until midnight the previous day so not sure how she did on the tests.</p>
<p>Wow, the ACT are out that day too! Double stress, Subject exams and the ACT. Well will help us in the planning anyhow.</p>
<p>D pared her list to 10 which may go down to 9, so we are set on that score anyway. Good news is that more schools are now waiving application fees if done online. Always a big help</p>
<p>I just wish the Common App did not push back the roll out one month. August seems so far away and I feel like I should be doing something!</p>
<p>D really tanked on her Math 4 H final exam. So did much of the class. While that is consolation to her, that C won’t impress the admissions counselors. Ugh!</p>
<p>I can tell it’s summer. The number of times that D1 is using the word “like” has, like, totally increased to, like, astronomical levels.</p>
<p>S1 and I just in from first two interviews at Bowdoin and Bates. I think he is hugely relieved to have survived - and relatively surprised that it wasn’t so bad. Both interviewers made a point to compliment him on dressing for the occasion (blue blazer, tie, khakis and dress shoes)…adding that he earned points for that. The assistant Dean at Bates told me he interviewed a young man before S1…who showed up in a t-shirt and shorts. 
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<p>They were also impressed that S1 took the time to research info on their respective websites beforehand, so he was able to ask salient questions about the school, curriculum, student life, etc. Not sure how this will weigh-in for the final assessment by admissions - but every little bit helps!</p>
<p>Lesson of the day… have your student go the extra mile on wardrobe, and have him/her demonstrate sincere interest by researching each of the schools he/she visits, to come up with insightful and relevant questions for the interviewer.</p>
<p>My impression is that Bates and Bowdoin pay a lot of attention to demonstrated interest because they are working on the yield part of the ratings as well as the selectivity.</p>
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[quote]
I am a big fan of enjoying the journey…[equote]</p>
<p>Me too. But if you don’t get some preliminary work done ahead of time, the middle of senior year gets really stressful. Some college advisors recommend all college apps be submitted by Halloween. While that would allow many months for senior endeavors, few students can pull it off (and Colorado_son did not!). </p>
<p>Do check your GC deadlines. At our school, applications have to be pretty much done before Thanksgving if you want to have the high school part completed before Christmas break. </p>
<p>So… if students are not ready to look at college, maybe encourage them start with essays. They are good thought provokers. The Common App questions would be a good place to start. Alas, Colorado_son did not pick this method, but I can say that his many essays squeezed into his busy fall academics and ED did help crystalize some of his thoughts on schools and majors.</p>
<p>Are there any IB parents here? Looking at my visit list, I’ve been panicking since it includes more reaches than anything else. I was wondering if anyone could help me on this. Would the following schools be a match for a student with 2250+ SAT and good GPA (IB points in the early forties for those who know what that means) - Barnard, CMC, UMass, Sarah Lawrence, USC</p>
<p>Morning all</p>
<p>My student is away for the summer–and we neglected to pack cold/flu meds–kiddo has had maybe one cold this winter–and as luck has it–got sick last wed/thurs…body aches/ congestion/cough… After speaking to kiddo yesterda–I was surprised kiddo wasn’t feeling better–hadn’t said a word about it…
so I told kiddo to head to the CVS for Sudafed. No dice. Evidently you have to be 18 to buy Sudafed! Even if I had faxed a note with a coy of my state ID to the pharmacist–its not possible. So had to call a coach to ask for an adult to go buy the poor kiddo Sudafed. sheesh.</p>
<p>Who would have thunk it…kwim.</p>
<p>tick tock—SAT/SAT2 scores coming … good luck everyone</p>
<p>Yeah the “old formula” Sudafed is used to cut illegal drugs so you need the ID. Unfortunately the “new” formula doesn’t work so what can you do?</p>
<p>School committee meeting last night netted us the Spanish teach back at middle school so that helps my daughter for 8th grade-French is gone though.</p>
<p>No real success at all at the HS-we will try again next week but it looks grim.</p>
<p>S off to the hated job-he is working this summer two full days a week after I brokered a compromise between him and his father that required the skill of a diplomat. It is so tough for me when I disagree with my husband on something involving the kids that he feels very strongly about-I always go with the unified front to the kids but that doesn’t mean I have to like it!</p>
<p>Dad has gotten more involved and is going to sit down with S and make a plan for the summer on what he wants him to get done re: colleges. I welcome this because my way isn’t working and I am glad to hand over the reigns. RI has a good and free service available to prospective college students that will help with all kinds of college related issues from essays to FAFSA forms-now the boy has to get down there and make use of it.</p>
<p>The great beach weather we are having doesn’t help either!</p>
<p>Happy Summer to all! What an important and treasured one it will be. I realized over the weekend that I will see S2 less this summer than during the school year (internship) which is a stark reminder that in a year we will be packing him up to move ‘somewhere’. Who knows where, but it will be his ‘somewhere’.</p>
<p>The 40hr/week internship with the 40mi/day commute started yesterday. He promptly drove directly to the gf’s house, as it should be at 17. I’ll have a chance to hear about it all tonight 
. The bonfire was a great event last night. They truly feel like sr’s now. As the gf lives a bit away, I drove her home rather than have S2 make the drive in the dark tired. They were both knocked out dead asleep by 10:30 in the back of the car as I drove. Funny, they are not the energizer bunnies they think they are. :)</p>
<p>Grades were posted yesterday. Not as shiny as we had hoped at the beginning of the year but given the grueling schedule of the Jr year, and the tough balance of AP’s vs. placement tests vs. a demanding EC, we’ll take it. There was a hiccup on the AP Chem lecture exam but the yearly grade is fine. Our transcripts only show yearly grades I know this is nothing that most everyone else is going through right now!</p>
<p>We are also looking for those SAT2’s and ACT scores this week. Keeping our fingers crossed for the SAT2’s as he does need these. The ACT was to see if the test favored his test taking over the SAT. He was so fried by mid June he really didn’t feel great about the test. His SATs were fine so I’m not too concerned. Like others here have pointed out, I refuse to have our final year defined by stress and anxiety. You can’t remove it, but you can try to put it in perspective and not allow it to invade your home.</p>
<p>Peace and happiness on this summer day. I hope it brings good things to all!
Blue</p>
<p>D is off on her annual one-week church service project. I had expected to get her report card in the mail before she left, and when I still didn’t see a copy of it, I feared the worst (e.g., a C in pre-calc) thinking that she got to the mail before me and kept it. I just found out from S that she didn’t get it b/c she neglected to pay the drama teacher $8.00 for a show t-shirt, and the teacher followed through on her threat to have report cards held back if payment wasn’t received by the end of the school year! Not sure if this means that there is no way to check the grades before school starts again (the teacher is out of pocket for the summer) or what - while I’m a little nervous about how her grades are going to look (as one of those families that really is counting on merit $$ to make a LAC possible) it would be good to know sooner rather than later so we can focus our college efforts accordingly. We’ll have a little chat when she returns…</p>