<p>EmmyBet, that is a sad moment. Ours will come in 4 weeks. I hate to see these first things come to an end. D sang the National Anthem before a home game for the last time last week. I know how you feel.</p>
<p>We just went to Parents Weekend at ShawD’s school. Wow. Feeding frenzy on where is ShawD applying. The anxiety was palpable.</p>
<p>Best wishes mosb!!! We will be pulling for you both!!!</p>
<p>We have many anthems yet to come, at least … D’s a capella group sings it at EVERYTHING, probably all the way through the baseball season.</p>
<p>But as we all have noticed, it’s a year of “lasts.” Lots of tears this afternoon at the matinee.</p>
<p>Well SAT parent finally checking in.</p>
<p>FLMath-I wish I had seen your post before the test-but by this time he wouldn’t have been prepped to take the subject tests anyway. I also found out for him that his top school choice requires an SAT Subject test in science-he is signed up for Literature and Math2 in November since after talking to his Chem teacher she doesn’t feel he would be ready for the Chem Subject test-he is just taking Chem 2 this year-long story why and I won’t go into it here.</p>
<p>Older-that stinks your boy was sick. It is true-all that pressure for one morning-at such a young age. I don’t think I was as stressed taking the CPA exam many moons ago.</p>
<p>Well that’s it for the SAT reasoning-on to the subject tests for the boy and finishing his applications. Poor thing though still has no idea what to major in-and if he wants to considerer engineering he really needs to look at different schools-and he needs to look at much bigger schools than he would like if he truly is undecided-which he really is. He feels there is TOO MUCH information and wishes it was as easy for him as it was for us when we went to school-honestly I can see his point. I kind of went to college under duress-didn’t care where I went, didn’t plan on going, but once I got there I got my head screwed on straight.</p>
<p>This all or nothing mentality that is so common at that age (and in this society in general I think) is so hard for me to help him with. He doesn’t realize that where he goes to college or what he majors in really isn’t a life and death decision.</p>
<p>Is anyone else having these issues?</p>
<p>Morning All</p>
<p>Our student is kind of cranky every Sunday–I think its because kiddo sees the homework has to be done , and one day “off” on Saturday- which includes sports, maybe lunch with freinds etc or Trivia is not enough “downtime”…and this app process is pretty intense…</p>
<p>Pepper–the kids can take 3 SAT2s in one sitting–so why not choose whichever science is best, chem, bio, physics etc and take it while there that day. Perhaps using the subject study guide will get him far enough to do well?</p>
<p>I think part of the issue with the kids and the college decisions being so intense, is they are beginning to see the consequences of all of their efforts over the last few years,
and also how much “chance” etc goes nto this.
A mom told me that there are so many well qualified kids, it is more like a dart board.
Hoping and praying that our kiddo lands in the right place, where ever that may be…and we now that right now kiddo has heart set on a couple of first choices…
It will be a sad time if it doesn’t happen and so everyone here is treading softly whle we wait…
I suggested that kiddo go to a college mtg at the school today for a school that recently came across my radar as a potential fit…I am trying to encourage kiddo to continue to show interest in schools while waiting and while there is the opportunity…Trying to prevent the tunnel vision …It is hard.</p>
<p>D’s essay is written. Starts out great, then kind of gets dull. I know she is very anxious to press the Submit button and be done with it. The school for which she needs it is a safety as far as grades and stats are concerned, so if we can’t figure out a way to punch it up in the next day or so, I think I’ll let her be done with it. I know the essay is supposed to “show” and not “tell”, but she seems to be out of punchy examples.</p>
<p>MOSB - Prayers and good thoughts coming your way. BTW, how is your mom?</p>
<p>Pepper - Any thought to a gap year? Maybe your S just needs a break. Some kids are just burnt out. The typical path is not necessarily the right path. Is there an independent third-party he can talk to in order to hear his own thoughts? If he is having a tough time this year, I feel sad to think of him at school without his support system.</p>
<p>Missypie - When is app due? Any reason to submit it this week? Might be best to put it away for a week then pull it out again to amp up the second half of the essay next week. Your D doesn’t want to have any regrets that she didn’t do her best.</p>
<p>fogfog - I definitely agree with your statement “I think part of the issue with the kids and the college decisions being so intense, is they are beginning to see the consequences of all of their efforts over the last few years”. I’m sure there are a lot of…If I only did this or that. As early as we started, I know my S wishes he did ALL his essays over the summer. He is so tired of my glares. Nothing got done the past two weekends b/c of school and family priorities. He keeps telling me nothing is due til Nov 1. He is right but I am not a last minute person b/c something always comes up. His Nov 1 school is an EA which he can switch to a RD if necessary so I’m backing off. G-d, give me strength.</p>
<p>My D says she has received multiple reminder emails saying that unless submitted, her common app will be deleted two months after she started it. The two months are up on Thursday, so she is under the impression that unless she hits “submit” by Thursday, she’ll have to start all over again. I’ve never heard of such a thing (just asked the question on the Common App board.) but I certainly wouldn’t mind if she submitted it by Thursday.</p>
<p>Yes the year off has come up several times-by me. </p>
<p>I don’t think though he is burnt out-I think he’s just a kid who likes to do a lot of different things and doesn’t know which way to go-which I think is pretty normal for someone his age. He can’t fit himself in a box no matter how hard he tries. There are colleges that let you make your own major-we’ll look into them. I also know a lot of this is peer pressure-he is a big fish in a little pond here and he has told me he is “expected” to be going to some top-ranked school and get accepted wherever he applies. I know and he understands the reality-he is a smart kid with good stats-but not at that “elite” level-boy I HATE that word.</p>
<p>It’s going to be very interesting to see him work through this and realize, as I have told him before-that happiness truly is an inside job-and that when this process is over I do believe he’ll fins a college that wants him as much as he wants them-and if that doesn’t meet other’s expectations for what he should be doing should he really care?</p>
<p>^^ Missiepie - say what?! My daughter created her account on August 1 and it’s still there - I just checked. They can’t/shouldn’t have a policy like that, considering most schools’ apps aren’t due until January.</p>
<p>FlMathMom and fogfog, I entirely get what you mean about the students seeing the consequences of their actions. As a parent, it drives me nuts when they (well, at least my D1) complain about how we the parents didn’t push them to do x,y, and z, when in fact we DID…but they didn’t go along with the suggestion. D1 told me enviously about a classmate who got all their application essays written last summer, and how smart they were to get that done early. Last spring, when I told D1 she should get her essays written over the summer, she rolled her eyes and told me that absolutely no one at her school did essays over the summer. :rolleyes: </p>
<p>The GCs and I are spiffing up the school profile. I’ve been using Word since it first came out, and trying to make a nice layout using it still makes me tear my hair out. I am tempted just to put the blasted thing in Powerpoint. Contentwise, it’s going to be an improvement. I took out some deadwood text, added in some statistics that show the achievements of student body off nicely. Not only should it benefit D1 and her classmates, it should help the school as it battles for resources from the board.</p>
<p>Things were pretty rough in our household this weekend. I have been gone almost 2 weeks, and asked for good progress on essays when I got home. None to speak of. So Sunday had to be catch-up day. A critical essay to a/the top choice school is still disorganized and only marginally coherent–but it is an EA application due this month. The tears in my son’s eyes as we struggled with it and each other liked to broke my heart.</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with my high school senior, but my college junior son at the University of Maryland just called and said he was accepted to the study abroad program in Auckland, New Zealand for next semester! He’s so excited!</p>
<p>My sons teachers tell me that the meltdown will come for all of them-it’s just a matter of when! </p>
<p>Oh UT this does break your heart to see them struggle, and Slithey it’s funny but same here-so I guess it’s par for the course.</p>
<p>Strangely enough I find myself looking forward to working on the financial stuff. Even though we aren’t going to get a cent based upon preliminary FAFSA calculations I guess it is still required-but this is the one thing that he can’t do and I CAN!!! Yeah Mom, and it won’t be like pulling teeth for me to get it done!</p>
<p>UT – Is there an English teacher or Social Studies teacher that your son can give the essay to for review? I worked with my S to the point of near torture…and then suggested he have a teacher review it. Fortunately, at our school, teachers are willing to help - if it’s not the last minute when everyone needs help. The teacher guided my son into modifying some phrases and adding a sentence or two…so it came out quite nice…without so much frustration.</p>
<p>Congrats Omom. Hugs to UT and son. Wow. I think we all need some chocolate.</p>
<p>Missypie - any news from CA folks?</p>
<p>Pepper - I understand. My son constantly is questioned b/c he is not applying to the schools people expect him to. I guess your son just needs to find a Baskin Robbins that will have lots of flavors for him to choose from instead of a Ford Edsel - black only. He doesn’t have to decide where he wants to go until May 1. Right now he only has to decide where he wants to apply. Maybe he can select a variety of affordable schools and hopefully one will feel right come May 1. Has he tried going online to some of the websites where current students post their opinions?</p>
<p>Chocolate Martinis all around!
Cheers</p>
<p>If I had another child, I just might treat them to one of those summer camps where they work on college essays for a full week under the guidance of retired admissions officers. The cost has got to offset the multi month torture that I am experiencing.</p>
<p>Hey–there is a thread that mentioned this site
collegemeasures.org</p>
<p>…which has interesting stats on 4 yr grad rate, etc. Helpful if you want a little better look inside a school…</p>
<p>if you go into a specific schools page, you can see median starting salary as well</p>
<p>Hi, all.
We just came back from NYC. Got very lucky with the weather and overall had a good time. The house is just a little bit messier than it was when we left it. And of cause no work on applications was done. But S is not behind by any means. His CA is done and couple apps already submitted. </p>
<p>It’ll take me couple days to catch up on what happened on this thread. In the meantime, passing around Hershey chocolates from the Time Square store. But, I have to admit the chocolate martinis sound a lot better.</p>