<p>You can also contact AFS (sorry I don’t know how to do links, but their address is usa(dot)afsglobal(dot)org. We got involved from being suggested as an emergency placement, initially. Right now we’re being a “Welcome” family and may end up being long-term hosts. </p>
<p>If you think you could take a student even just for a few weeks, I would ask your school administration to let you know if there is a kid at your school this year, and you could join the host family group, whoever the sponsoring organization is.</p>
<p>Hey! Maybe we’re quadruplets! LeftofPisa, yabeyabe suggested last year that holliesue’s, rodney’s and my D’s were actually triplets separated at birth - but I think your D would fit right in! One qualifying characteristic: Does her room look like a tornado struck it? (Or as my grandmother used to say, like a volcano struck it?)</p>
<p>I think the difference is that girls can magically emerge from a rat’s nest looking like a million bucks, whereas boys tend to emerge from the rat’s nest looking like they emerged from a rat’s nest.</p>
<p>ldinct- my d not only eats in her room, but leaves her dishes there hidden under piles of stuff. It got so bad in there that she ended up with a family of mice that moved in!! Since then it has gotten better :)</p>
<p>and missypie…you are right, noone who would look at her would guess she is such a slob!</p>
<p>emmybet-our Costa Rican exchange student is through D’s language program. She went with her Spanish class to CR last spring. It is now their turn to come to NYS for 2 weeks. Personally I think coming to upstate NYS in November vs CR in the spring means they by far get the raw end of the deal!! There are a couple of trips planned to NYC and DC, but most of the time they will be stuck in the Binghamton NY area. That time of year there usually isnt enough snow for it to be pretty, no leaves on trees, parks are closed…I am afraid they will be bored to death!! Although teenagers from around the world can always just have fun hanging out!</p>
<p>We have been away for two weeks–and I am so far behind on the day to day conversation here…I am doing lots of laundrey and will be doing more tommorrow…</p>
<p>As far as our student…nothing started on the aps yet—and we have 2 college visits next week…</p>
<p>I think our student will be applying early to at least one school–so hopefully things will start perking here—
in our dear kiddos defense
–it wasnt possible to do anythng the last 2 weeks
… I am a little worried kiddo is behind already </p>
<p>–yikes!</p>
<p>Hope everyone is enjoying the last weeks of summer–I know we have!</p>
<p>I think we will all feel much better when the kids have access to their GCs and can get things rolling. Having done this before, it isn’t really a huge amount of work to submit applications - mostly they are just some tedious but pretty quick forms to fill out and documents to request from various people at school and testing services. The real jobs are making the personal statements - EC and other lists of achievements, and the essay. My older D procrastinated a lot, but then once she was in the mood (and under a deadline - in her case a fall ED date) she cranked them out. </p>
<p>I’m trying to stay calm about this for a few more weeks. I think my D’s safeties open up rolling admissions in mid-September, and I know she and her GC will get things in order for them (very typical schools for him to be helping with). Once she has those under her belt, we can use the work she did to put together the other rolling/EA apps. But right now it would just be me nagging her, and I’m realizing that would just be annoying for both of us, and unnecessary. She did start the basics on her Common App and is musing over her essays. I think we’ll be sitting down around Labor Day to get things moving, realistically.</p>
<p>S has work for every course this summer, including 2 books to read. It’s crazy. He hasn’t started anything never mind his essays. He did take 2 summer college classes and is working, so I can’t complain, but I don’t know how or if he’s going to get all of it done.</p>
<p>One thing I’m watching out for is that I personally want to be past all this and I could easily get very pushy with my D. She not only has to complete her applications but also has to prep massively for auditions. She has said very clearly that she does not plan to do any early auditions, so those won’t start until January. I know time can get away from us, but really that is a lot of time, and she’s doing incremental work, at a decent pace. I would be unreasonable if I acted like she was “blowing it” already in August when she might not even do these auditions for another 6 months. </p>
<p>Idinct - if your son is capable of his job and 2 classes now, I’m sure he’ll make everything work out. And I imagine when the deadlines loom he’ll hop right to it. Good luck to him.</p>
<p>From reading posts like yours, I’m grateful to our otherwise frustratingly low rigor HS for not assigning summer work.</p>
<p>Our kiddo was up late with friends and promised to be up this am to get the day going—lots to do…
Its almost 11 and guess who is in the bed </p>
<p>Kiddo hasn’t started the common app–
tell me–is it possible to customize it–I recall reading somewhere on the boards that they removed certain options this year…</p>
<p>We’d like the app to be as close to custom for each school as possible
All of the schools have supplements and one doesn’t use the Common app,
we just dont want it to read too boiler plate…</p>
<p>Similar question about the customizing of the Common App.</p>
<p>I know that they don’t want kids to change their essays (I presume this is because they don’t want the kids to write about what they think that particular school wants to hear, they’d rather the kid write something true to self and generic to fit all.) This could work fine if the kid is applying to all the schools at the same time. However, I don’t see why kids should be locked out of being able to change it later, maybe even six months later. Skills and ideas can change in that time. They might have even had an extraordinary new experience that would be an excellent essay topic by then. Why would they be forbidden to write about it?</p>
<p>For example, my son would like to apply now for some rolling decision schools as possible safeties. These schools rely mainly on stats, and his first essay attempt will likely be fine. However, he’s afraid that if he does send something now, then in the winter when he is applying to match and reach schools (most deadlines are January) he will have had all these months to improve his writing skills, mature, write additional essay ideas, show his essay choices to teachers and feel confident that he is presenting his best work at the time of his submission to 90% of his schools. However, if he has already submitted even one App to any school the summer before, he could be locked into an essay that was not done a peak opportunity, so all that improvement is lost.</p>
<p>If the Common App lasts for a whole year, why would they make a rule like this, preventing any kid from wanting to apply early to any school if they are then locked into the same essay for the rest of the year?</p>
<p>For those of you whose kids are working on the common app - It REALLY helps to read all the instructions (for student and school officials), view the PowerPoint docs in the Common Questions for School Officials and read all the answers in the Knowledge Base (don’t forget to click on “more…” in each section). It is an hour well-spent. You will find most of your answers there including how to make an alternate version of the common app (you are allowed 10). Hope this saves you some time.</p>
<p>the common app suggests that the essays (both long & short) should stay uniform for all applications but does allow you alternate versions (they claim in the event you have found a mistake and want to edit). you first have to submit one application before you’re allowed to create an alternate version. obviously, you can change it as much as you would like, although it seems like a pain to do. to bypass this situation, we sat down w/ our son and reviewed all the supplement essay questions from his list of schools and the questions on the common app before he determined what he’d like to focus on for each. there were certain things/aspects about himself that he wanted all the schools to know and that became of the basis for his 2 common app essays. </p>
<p>his high school college counselors have a sept 1 deadline for the common app and any supplements to ED/EA or rolling schools to which he’s applying. despite working like a dog at a university lab this summer – 7:30 am train and back at 7 pm, he’s managed to write 7 drafts of his longer essay and 3 of his shorter one. many of the english teachers volunteered to do a virtual writing center for the college essays this summer. he chose one teacher that he’s been sending his essays to who’s really made him work/think hard and i think he’s just about done. of the 7 drafts, the teacher only saw 4. S kept revising it on his own trying to get it where it needed to be before asking for the teacher’s attention. still, he has to do all the supplement essays. it seems overwhelming to me. he was hoping it would all be done before school so that he could concentrate on his homework, one more sAT II and his ECs. I don’t think that will happen. most of those supplements will be done thru the fall. his school sets a deadline for all apps, including supplements before he’d hear from his ED school.</p>
<p>thank god where going on our vacation next week, although we’re visiting 2 schools.</p>
<p>I’ll put in a plug for Rotary Youth Exchange since my 2012 daughter just returned from Ecuador with RYE. We anticipate volunteering to host a student in the future. Here’s the great thing about it: typically students stay with at least 2 families during their year so you only have to commit for about 3 months. I figure I can live with just about any teenager for 3 months- not that Rotary students are bad kids - typically they are good, average kids. They just aren’t well off. Rotary charged very little more than an open-ended plane ticket so it is much cheaper than AFS or YFU. Exchange students are great fun. My dh and I hosted two in the '90’s before we had kids.</p>
The sliding piles are very similar to molten lava.</p>
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