<p>Amanda, sending lots of hugs your way! My D had an emergency appendectomy several years ago and it was difficult for the Doc’s to figure out what was going on. A wonderful nurse practitioner was the one that figured it was the appendix. Just glad things turned out well. I know you must be feeling much relief! Have a great Thanksgiving on Saturday:)</p>
<p>AmandaK, hope your son spent a restful (and pain-free) day recuperating. What a thing to have to deal with! You probably needed a day in bed, too! Happy Thanksgiving to all the Kayaks on Sat.</p>
<p>BI, wonderful! I love bluejr’s comment to you as he pushed submit. You have a great son!</p>
<p>RenMom, hope your husband had just a 24-hour thing, is feeling better, and didn’t pass it on to you!</p>
<p>AmandaK: I’m sorry you had to spend Thanksgiving in the ER, but I’m glad you took your son in when you did. I hope he has a quick recovery and you all have a great belated Thanksgiving on Saturday.</p>
<p>BlueI: I loved your story. Your son is hilarious. It sounds like you two have made it through the process as partners instead of advarsaries.</p>
<p>I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great day here. It was so nice to see all my nieces and nephews. </p>
<p>I hope all the sickies recover quickly and many submit butttons get pushed this weekend.</p>
<p>O-mom, hope your “procedure” went well. Who do you submit the bill to, I wonder? </p>
<p>Ds is doing fine, milking the special treatment with gf, wanted to play xbox…which tells me, all is well. Ended up we did thanksgiving last night because my aunt passed away Thanksgiving am (mom’s only sibling) and Mom needed to have distraction and company. She was elderly and not doing well so it was not a shock but sad nonetheless. My dd’s (3 of them, 9 yo, 13 and 15 yo) did almost all the sides and desserts. Good to have good sous chefs around! </p>
<p>Ds has to write one more essay for the psu honors college app (due Tues)…he puts “the pro in procrastination” as his ds said. Having trouble with the prompt which says something like “you have been given the chance to study abroad - Cheyene indian reservation in S. Dakota, Madagascar or Costa Rica - which would you choose and what would you study there related to your major?” For engineering, all the sanctioned psu study programs are in major cities so the standard curriculum can be followed (london, berlin…) and any study programs I can find in Costa Rica or Madagascar are related to resource management, biodiversity. If he was an environmental science, biology major - it would fit right to it, but on these choices, I’m stumped and so is he. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Amanda - Good for you for taking your son to the ER. Wow, what a holiday.</p>
<p>On the essay - some schools have programs for engineering students to go abroad and do projects, kind of like Engineers without Borders. Maybe he could think about those three locations, and imagine some needs that he and a group of fellow engineers might be able to work on together.</p>
<p>amandak: glad to hear that he’s doing well. </p>
<p>Maybe some of the engineering moms and dads can flesh out my suggestions for his essay: perhaps he/you/the aforementioned CC m & d can think of some engineering environmental project, like for instance solar panels, or some biomedical engineering project that could be studied in those locations. Perhaps there’s a program that actually offers some environmental engineering or biomedical engineering classes. for those, I might check out the study abroad options sanctioned at Johns Hopkins since they are the leading school for biomedical engineering. Also, my son applied to Emory and they have amazing study abroad options for his major - neuroscience -which other schools don’t. I’d research their study abroad to see if anything applies. When doing this, look not just at the study abroad webpage but also the departmental pages b/c that’s where we found some info of this kind. </p>
<p>If none of these suggestions work out, then I’d begin his essay by stating that since as an engineer major, there aren’t any sanctioned programs for his major, he’d go to one of those options for a semester or summer to explore his other avid interests in … (insert whatever grabs his attention from the programs established in those locations) or to venture into fields he has yet to explore, such as…; either of these options will highlight his curiosity beyond his engineering focus.</p>
<p>edit: sorry, just reread your post and realize that the prompt specifically asks for study related to major. I’d definitely check out the websites of the leading engineering schools to see what they offer for study abroad.</p>
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<p>I assume he would not be studying at a college or U located in these places but would be studying with the folks who live there. There would be lots of things to learn: how do they dig wells or get water, how do they build their houses to withstand the environment they live in and how do they make use of the available materials, how do they move products around from one place to the next considering the roads and infrastructure available, what about sanitation facilities - what works, what doesn’t? etc.</p>
<p>I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. We had good food, good weather, and good company. Who could ask for anything more?</p>
<p>The DIY stent removal went well this morning! I pre-medicated myself with a pain pill and Advil, took a deep breath, and did it. It only took about 5 seconds to pull it out, and was much less excruciating than expected. I’m fine, and will be billing myself tomorrow. ;)</p>
<p>Amanda, sorry about your Aunt. My condolences to your family.</p>
<p>I don’t post very much, but this is one of the threads I head to when I sign onto CC, you are all so supportive of one another. It’s nice to know our family & D is going through similar things, we’re trying to keep the pressure down and be supportive. </p>
<p>My mom decided after we had done all of the tours and the applications and tests that she would step in and push my daughter to write letters to the admissions offices because she met someone at a party who said “that’s what gets kids admitted”. Never mind that she’s already applied EA and the Common App was submitted before Nov. 15. Write a letter and put your picture in with it. A picture you took when you toured the school. Every day she calls…did she mail those letters yet? I think she feels left out, she had offered to take a trip with my D to visit schools over the summer, but my D worked 7 days a week this summer, and anyway we would have heard about how my mom had to cancel work to take time off to spend with her for the trip! And how tiring it was. And it’s not the same without the students on campus anyhow. But I think she felt that she offered and we took that away from her. And now that D’s excited and awaiting results, Grandma’s putting her two cents in! Where was she this past year! </p>
<p>Oh well, just venting! I’m excited to hear about admissions and everyone’s decision making regarding where they’re going, it’s finally feeling fun. I cleaned up the other day and took a huge pile of college advertisements to the recycling center, it will be nice when all this paper stops coming.</p>
<p>bella,
Feel free to vent here any time! I think we’ve all done it at one point or another. I know I have. This sounds like a case where someone is offering information that was valid at one point in time, however perhaps not now. This is often the case when people offer opinions about campus culture. They share opinions on what may have been the case 25 years ago, but a lot changes in a generation… academically, socially, financially. I do remember sending my picture with my applications 20-some years ago. I believe it was required.</p>
<p>Family members want to feel connected, some moreso than others. We have a Great Aunt that wants to have her ex-husband call one of my son’s potential schools to ‘put in a good word’. A) They really won’t care given the number of applicants, and B) his stats are well above the 75th percentile…that call may do more harm than good. We continue to ‘smile and nod’. It sounds like ‘Grandma’ is beyond the ‘smile and nod’ stage. Perhaps others could weigh in on the thank-you notes. It’s not something I have heard of recently. I would stay away from sending a picture, whatever you decide.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that her need to be included, beyond gentle suggestions, is becoming stressful in the application process. No one, student or parent, needs any more stress in the situation. Perhaps you could tell Grandma that your D’s application package is quite strong and additional communication could do more harm than good…or perhaps you could tell her you looked into the etiquette and found that thank you notes are currently only appropriate when a student has a personal interview. If all else fails, hopefully your daughter will have good news in a very few weeks for EA and this will be a moot point.</p>
<p>Please let us know how it’s going!!!</p>
<p>O’mom - So glad your self-service medical attention wasn’t too bad. On the bright side, you possibly saved yourself $200 just to walk in the door of any clinic!</p>
<p>amanda, I’m sorry to hear about your loss. It sounds like you have some great kids, willing to step in and help out so your mom could have something else to focus on. No matter how prepared you think you are, it is always very hard to lose a loved one. I hope your son is healing well from his surgery. Remember, you can’t take care of everyone else if you don’t get any rest.</p>
<p>I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving…with someone else to do the dishes. That’s the BEST! :)</p>
<p>What kind of stent was that?</p>
<p>Wow, its been quite a week for many of you around here! Sorry to hear of all the trials and tribulations and hope that abodes and bodies are all on the mend.</p>
<p>Whether all the apps are in and your Seniors are enjoying a break or (like here) they are using this time to grind out some apps, I hope you and yours are having a wonderful holiday.</p>
<p>Bella, my sister (the maven) called me every day to tell me my son needed to apply ED to get into his reach school no matter that I kept telling her it wasn’t his top choice (he doesn’t have one.) She called my mother telling her the same thing and so I would get a call from her about it, too. It finally ended when I reminded her she had her chance with her 4 kids and to MHOB.</p>
<p>O-mom…when you get the bill from yourself make sure you pay it with a nice pair of shoes or vice of choice. :)</p>
<p>Amanda…yikes! I am so happy your son is on the mend. And I am very sorry for you family’s loss. It has been a really tough month for you all.</p>
<p>Birthday party here tonight in celebration of the big 18! They grow too fast.</p>
<p>Calreader, Ren-Mom, Mamom - thanks for the suggestions, engineers without borders was a really great suggestion, found actual projects there in each of the 3 locations, alot to do with water supply (old systems in disrepair) and one interesting thing about building codes not being able to deal with straw houses (which are cheap and strong if produced well), pretty interesting stuff. So he has some guts to his essay. I knew I could count on the collective wisdom of you all!! Of course his gf/nurse is over, so writing is taking a back seat to…oh, I don’t want to know. Forgot to mention, in all the hubbub, ds got a big envelope from Pitt welcoming into the honors college, which is nice (even if we had to ask for it)</p>
<p>And Amanda’s and O-mom’s situations remind us that in addition to all of the college stuff, we have life to deal with as well. We stayed here on the island and did Thanksgiving with my H’s family instead of mine because his 90 yo father just had both cataract surgery’s this past month which seem to have pushed his “memory lapses” into full blown dementia. So that is taking up all of our energy now. </p>
<p>Blue, thanks for the input regarding “thank you’s”. We did spend a fair amount of time speaking with an admission counselor when we did the tour and ended up emailing some follow up info to him, and thanked him at that time, but it just seemed like brown nosing with the picture and all! I swear, she was almost too hands off when I was applying to college 30+ years ago! I was letting her go with her research and input but had to say something when I realized she was stressing out the kid. Yesterday I finally told her to relax, that my D had applied to 6 schools, 2 safeties, 2 on target, and 2 reaches, and that chances were that she’d get into all of them, and to please just back off, it’s too late. I’m constantly in between generations.</p>
<p>But the good part about being near home for Thanksgiving, is being able to just hang out this weekend and knit and watch movies! We have my D’s 17th birthday on Sunday, and there’s a new boyfriend to distract her…</p>
<p>Hey collegeshopping–we’re celebrating our D’s 18th birthday today, too! Of course, November 26 was Thanksgiving Day 18 years ago, and I still remember the turkey, green beans and cranberry sauce I had in the hospital after giving birth. I was ravenous!</p>
<p>My daughter has just finished her hardest essay yet–why is she a good match for School X? The prompt included several aspects of School X to be addressed, so it was very difficult for her to write a cohesive essay that tied all aspects together. At least it was probably a difficult essay for all the applicants.</p>
<p>She has one more December 1 deadline looming. I don’t want to push her on her birthday, but it will be a great relief when she finishes that one and has a month before the next ones are due!</p>
<p>I enjoyed the engineers without borders discussion. Great ideas!</p>
<p>Schok…be thankful you got to eat! I has a c-section and got nothing but grief for “ruining” everyone’s dinner. But fast forward 18 years and what a blessing!</p>