<p>Holliesue : we looked at Wooster earlier this year. I liked it but felt it was kind of isolated from the city with no clear transportation other than on major holidays. D thought it was 'too academic"! aargh! It’s technically still on the list but way down there. We are in Tx and I was concerned about the winters!
D is looking at ED to UPS but will still apply to some others as back up. Hope to be done with the Common App by the end of the month. She won’t show us the main essay, says her English teacher is using it as an assignment : (</p>
<p>Right now Wooster is 3rd on D’s list, mostly due to her quirky issues- lack of red bricks, busy road through campus. I loved it and wish i could go there! Haha !! It would be top of my list! Tomorrow Hiram, Friday Allegheny and Tuesday Elizabethtown. I am trying to come up with others to look at, but d’s parametersmake it difficult - small school. Small town. Not too preppy, yet not too " alternative", red bricks preferable ( oy) , and so forth!!! Good thing she doesn’t care about Hewish life or she wouldn’t have any to look at. Oh… And dh wants her within driving distance because flying out of our airport ( Binghamton) us a pain!</p>
<p>Forgive the typos. Posting from my phone of course I meant Jewish life!</p>
<p>First day of school for D today. She received her schedule last week, and it is terrible. She starts at 6:30am for a “0” period class has 2nd and 4th periods unscheduled, travels to another school across town for 6th period, then to a third school (her home school) for sports, finishing at 6pm on practice days, much later on game days. </p>
<p>We have requested that she take her 5th period class at school #2 so she could drive during her open 4th period, but no dice. Instead she has to leave 5th period early and arrive late for 6th. She also asked to swap 2nd and 3rd period classes so she could have 2 class periods open together. If she finds someone willing to swap she’ll get some relief, but I’m afraid the 12 hour day, 3-school schedule is a recipe for failure. I’m frustrated that her principal isn’t willing to make the effort to come up with a more reasonable plan for her.</p>
<p>Husky82, that schedule is a nightmare - what possessed the school to think this was reasonable? My condolences…</p>
<p>My S has a schedule he is loving atm. He was unable to get one class that we felt would be beneficial, so now we must reconsider him leaving AP Spanish behind for that other class that didn’t fit. He is unhappy (very unhappy) at that prospect.</p>
<p>^6 That is AWFUL. I had a 12.5 hour day (including commute and activity) in sophmore year and it was very tiring but somehow sophmore year was the best year in high school for me. I hope it works out for your D too.</p>
<p>My daughter is in the 12+ hour boat too. They went from a block schedule last year (4 two hour classes on A days and four two hour classes on B days) to a straight 7 class (I think 58 minutes each) every day. The adjustment has been difficult. School <em>officially</em> starts at 8:40 and ends at 4:25, but she reports for a “0” period in the morning at 7:15 (Instrument) and then has Marching Band Practice from 4:45 to 7:45 each afternoon. So that puts her out of the house by 6:40 am and back in at 8:15 pm. If the football game is on Friday, there is no “0” period so at least she does not go in at 7:15 but next Friday the game is an away game (almost 2 hours away) and they are projected to be home at 1:30 am. Too long of a day for my taste…but par for her course. She then manages to do homework and reading for 6 AP classes. I am grateful that she does not have to campus hop though…that would be 2X as hard.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I can’t imagine a schedule like that. On the other, I had a schedule I created myself my senior year which included 2 night classes at a university, a varsity sport, professional music gigs and umpteen other activities - and I loved it! Depending on temperament, I think being busy is often the best route at this point in their lives.</p>
<p>My D had her first day - really excited about her classes and teachers. The only thing that bugged her was that her independent class is slow to get started. She’ll be a TA in choir that hour, among other things, but officially is registered for “Student Tutoring,” run by another teacher, in which they just sit in a room for the first few days. But she knew better today and brought stuff to do. Her p.m.'s will mostly include play rehearsals and singing groups. And college apps!!!</p>
<p>Got her class rank, finally - some glitch in the computers this spring/summer. Depending on where you put the decimal point, she’s in the top 20%. She was a bit of a late bloomer, but we’re proud of the work she’s done as she’s progressed. The important thing is how she leaves HS, and we’re confident she’ll do very well in her next place.</p>
<p>Japanese D had a good day - very nervous, extremely exhausted by the end. “So much English!!!” she said. But that will get better. She has a lot of good breaks during the day: Choir, Gym, Study Hall, etc. Found a native speaker to be a resource for tutoring if necessary. </p>
<p>I’m proud of both of them, and glad the first 2 weeks are short weeks. A nice build-in to the real thing.</p>
<p>holliesue - that is funny about the red bricks. It has me wracking my brain … Does she like SUNY New Paltz? The buildings are kind of typical state school, but I think they had some red bricks …</p>
<p>Seriously, why not? But I’m sure she won’t make you crazy with that issue. I do think having an “image” of college come true is a lovely thing - in many ways it was for me. Good luck your next few days!</p>
<p>Two days into a Senior Year experience I was waxing poetic about a few short months ago and S is “ready to move on”! OK Emmy, maybe you WERE right-not quite ready to concede just yet! :)</p>
<p>He is more obsessed with the track of Hurricane Earl than he has been about anything in months! What a nut he is!</p>
<p>He got all the classes he wanted! The sad thing is no band at all-not even half-year. He is trying to be able to participate somehow and the music teacher is in discussions with administration-meantime he can still participate in Jazz Band as that is an after-school program.</p>
<p>He finally gets to take AP classes! Spanish 5 and Calculus are offered as EEP classes or AP classes-I told him take them as AP and make sure to talk to the GC about how this will be shown on his transcript. Most kids take them as EEP since you don’t have to take an exam at the end to get college credit-but with the schools he is looking at not all of them even know what EEP is and he will get no credit anyway-whereas they all know AP.</p>
<p>Updated class rankings are out today and one person ahead of him moved so he is looking forward to rising (if no one else caught up!).</p>
<p>His job is gone. He went in a few weeks ago and gave notice. They were very impressed by that from what he tells me. They even told him please come back next summer and if he needs any recommendations don’t hesitate to ask. He wanted to wait until they approached him about school hours to tell them he couldn’t work after school due to everything he has going on this year after school. I strongly suggested he go to them first and tell them. He didn’t want to do that but did-every time they do something they don’t want to do but is the right thing to do they learn and get a little more grown up-at least I think so.</p>
<p>He is running CC, Assistant Editor of school paper, Freshmen Mentor program, National Honor Society President (still can’t believe that one!), class treasurer, full honors course load, church volunteer, and writer. My goodness just typing that all seems like his plate is way too full.</p>
<p>My biggest concern for him is doing all this while taking the SAT in October and waiting until November for his first and only chance to take the SAT Subject tests. I feel his SAT scores are fine and will get him at least looked at for the schools he wants to apply to, and he should give himself a little safety net on those subject tests. He strongly disagrees and in insistent he wants to do it his way-so hey go for it! I hope it doesn’t blow up in his face.</p>
<p>He has been “working” on the Common App and “thinking” about his essay. </p>
<p>He is a procrastinator just like his father and he’ll get things done when he gets them done. I am here for him if he needs any help and he knows it-that’s all I can do.</p>
<p>One school I really want him to apply to is SUNY Binghamton. Even though they give no merit aid it still would cost roughly what URI would cost him and he could go to nice cold snowy NY and get that experience at a school that I think is a tremendous value. He liked it alot-until he saw Cornell! He also loved U. of Rochester and they are known to give some good merit aid so that’s a possible.</p>
<p>I understand about the procrastination concerns, but everything you say about your son shows that he knows himself and can make it happen when he wants. I think he’s going to do great! </p>
<p>It also sounds like he has an excellent list reach-match-safety-wise. Great job! Is he going to try for UR or Cornell early? Or wait for the new scores? It would be so wonderful to have an answer soon from the reachier schools…but I tend to want early answers no matter what. I know we’ll be waiting all the way until April (because of how auditions are scheduled) and it’s making me nuts.</p>
<p>Hi all…was reading an online article of "most overpriced stuff…
and …
</p>
<p>like that is news?</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>we too have kids in the long day boat.
Open period at beginning of day, then classes from about 8:30 to almost 4. Sports til 6:30. THEN travel home, shower, dinner, and finally hw.
At 7th grade our student was up at 6am and home by 7:30pm…and to bed by 11.
How is a kid to grow/develop when they are getting maybe 7 hrs sleep a night??? and reports say these teens should be getting closer to 10-12 hrs a night.</p>
<p>The kids are keeping longer hours than most adults we know.</p>
<p>As for apps–this LABOR day weekend will be about the labor on the apps (and any homework) :rolleyes:</p>
<p>momofsongbird: Your driving story made me laugh/cringe in empathy - we had a very similar situation last summer when my daughter narrowly missed causing a major accident at the exit of a rural highway (we were actually on our way from visiting Williams to visiting Cornell!). It really did spook her, and she has not driven much at all as a consequence…probably the “get back in the saddle” approach would have served her better, but I didn’t push it. She is 17, still has her permit, and has no real interest in driving. As she is away at boarding school, she has much less need for a license, but it is still a very important skill to have!</p>
<p>With colleges, she has a list of 5 right now, but that may be added on to later this autumn. We are finished with all visits. She is being athletically recruited so if that goes as hoped, she will know where she is going by mid/late October. If it doesn’t work out, we do have a Plan B in that she has visited lots of colleges that have nothing to do with her sport, and she did like many of those too. </p>
<p>What an adventure!</p>
<p>I am going to take a crazy guess here an assume that 99% of parents know that Amazon has used books at great prices. All you need is the IBN. They are listed by individual seller, the condition, price and shipping. I have had universally good experiences. Like new, has always been like new. Probably never left the students shelf. These books can be sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester if you don’t want to resell online yourself. They don’t care if you have purchased the books through them or not. We have purchased college text, as well as high school AP text. The price has always been less than the used price at the book store.</p>
<p>blueiguana, You mean the ISBN number. I work at a small public library that has a used book store in it, right next to the front desk, so when an interesting book comes in, I can actually scan the ISBN with the bar code scanner on the Amazon site and then look up the ratings. I buy way too many books because of that! half.com is also a good place to buy and sell textbooks.</p>
<p>Post’s about these kids loooong days make me feel very lucky that my son doesn’t play sports and dropped out of band after 9th grade. My son does Robotics, CS club and Key Club, and Robotics is only a real time sucker in the early part of the year. His PSU college class is just twice a week and it’s after school, a short drive away. So far, it’s interesting and not difficult he says. </p>
<p>This weekend son has plans for the college apps - yay!</p>
<p>My college D told me that if she had bought all of her books new this semester, she would have spent almost $900. For ONE semester (she is a science major, which explains it partly)! Of course she is getting them used, through Amazon, through the college, through friends - she’s a networker and very stingy. Also you can now buy e-versions of textbooks, and they allow downloading onto 2 computers, so she can share with one friend. She says she thinks she’s got it down below $300 now.</p>
<p>This is all very helpful for us, but I do wonder about textbook companies - who the heck buys the new books??? If no one buys the new books, there won’t BE any new books … but maybe this is what is happening with the book industry in general, going to electronic publishing, etc. Going to be a whole new world, again.</p>
<p>Got a sweet note from one of Japanese D’s teachers. She’s taking a “Small Animals” agriculture class, and he said he had her teach the other kids the Japanese words for “cat” and “dog” today - really made her feel special! She’s never had pets and she’s enjoying ours a lot. One cat who’s gotten very fat lately amused all of us this morning when he tried to leap through the dog gate and got stuck. The gate swung open and he literally was hanging in mid-air … (poor guy - he’s going on a diet!).</p>
<p>kathiep - Thank you so much for the correction. Sorry guys… first cuppa coffe 
ISBN is correct. I tried to edit the original msg for more clear information. I missed the window.</p>
<p>Now I really feel like a dolt for buying new textbooks! Usually we get used ones at school during registration, but this year we were the last ones to register (registration is by random alphabetizing of last names) and all the used ones were gone. We got the book list late enough so I didn’t make it a point to take the time to track down used ones elsewhere. I will not make that mistake with college textbooks!
At least I can rationalize that I rarely buy new books for pleasure reading (and I do a lot of it). I am one of our library’s most frequent customers.</p>
<p>cooker, we did this for one semester last year… then we found Amazon. Chalk it up to experience and think about all the money you’ll save the next 7 semesters!! :)</p>
<p>I do urge my D to think about investing in a few books that will last - she plans to go to grad school and perhaps become a professor, so she’s going to want something of a library of her own. On the other hand, they become obsolete so quickly! I still relish my Humanities classics, while my H’s Biology and med school texts languish uselessly in our basement.</p>
<p>I went to Social Work school so long ago that I am two editions behind in the DSM … I don’t use it in my work, so I haven’t invested in the newer ones.</p>
<p>It’s a personal choice. I do think it would be a shame to finish college and not have any old books for reference. But again, the e-book phenomenon is going to change that, too.</p>