<p>MOSB - Bravo, bravo. So glad you and dd are OK. Car - that is what insurance is for. Anyone out there snow-phobic? Come to south Florida. It is a bit chilly today…in the 70s and the sky is a beautiful clear blue! I will never live anywhere else. I did cold weather for 30 plus years. BRRRR.</p>
<p>Wow - my best wishes to you, mosb.</p>
<p>I’m finding it kind of strange thinking that I was driving from Chicago-Milwaukee around midnight last night and the roads were bone-dry, nothing coming down. I can’t imagine you were all that far from me - but obviously enough to have completely different weather. Wow.</p>
<p>Add me to the camp that compulsively checks online admissions status. One of her changed to “being very carefully reviewed” yesterday. Woo! Maybe we WILL have news before Christmas! It’s a pretty likely school, and one she really would be happy at, although not a dream school. It will just feel so good for her to have one answer, and I know it will mean the world to her to feel “wanted.”</p>
<p>MOSB – Did it take long to peel your fingers out of the steering wheel? Glad you are both okay and that your kid has a proper respect for your mad driving skills. </p>
<p>On-line admissions status? Is that on the college website?</p>
<p>Most of the schools my D has applied to will give you a login ID and you can check for your admissions status online. Some of the checking is impulsive and impatient, hoping for her acceptance (or not) answer. Other checking is important, because we can see if scores and recommendations have arrived or not - although it’s not entirely reliable, because sometimes if it’s “missing” that’s just because they haven’t processed it yet.</p>
<p>But in this day and age we don’t just get the news in the snail-mail box. E-mails, phone calls and online status announcements are all part of the package.</p>
<p>Some of her schools say: We will announce all decisions by X date. I don’t check those much. But schools that admit they will be announcing on a rolling basis could tell us news any day. She and I will have to have a deal, though, just like about opening the snail-mail letters. She didn’t mind when I knew her ACT one time before she did (she said it took the stress off of worrying she’d see a bad score, to have been prepared for good news by my smiling face). I imagine she and I will share how we get admissions news, too.</p>
<p>D and I had quite a scare yesterday. I asked if she had been checking her e-mails and she said that she had. Then, I asked if she had been checking her spam filter, just in case… And, she hadn’t! Turns out there were a few important e-mails in there, including a notice of an incomplete college application that we thought was complete and a request from an interviewer to set up an appointment.</p>
<p>It’s all fine now. She sent off a note to the interviewer immediately and apologized for the delayed response. But, you might want to have your kids check their spam.</p>
<p>Great catch, dignified! I should have mentioned that myself. The other day I was checking the e-mail and realized there were a half-dozen “spams” we hadn’t noticed. Luckily none of them were emergencies, but one was a login ID! </p>
<p>One of the best pieces of advice we got on CC was to start a separate e-mail account just for colleges, and for both of us to have access to it. We send each other e-mails about college stuff, and D e-mails herself info to have in a centralized place.</p>
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<p>That was an amazing story KBS…thankful you are safe.
It is amazing when some things happen like that --we “see” and “asess” it in micro seconds -Much of that comes from maturity and experience–which our teens dont have yet. Hopefuly she also learned to not panic and to do what she can realistically do…</p>
<p>We are not in a heavy snow climate so neither of our teens have ice/snow driving experience…though I think they need some just in case…</p>
<p>Cannot believe the holidays are marching upon us quickly. Most of our shopping is done and yesterday I started some baking–and put things in the fridge/freezer (homemade fudge that our student makes is so amazing and creamy. and I got some quick peanutbutter filled/chocolate coated cookies done. Have a few recipes to consider and have to coordinate with MiL etc.</p>
<p>Hope everyone’s Sunday is blessed.</p>
<p>mosb: So glad that your quick thinking saved the day. I am a big scaredy-cat about driving on snow, so I don’t know that i would have had the good sense to do what you did. Nicely done!</p>
<p>Wow MSOB–I had chills reading your story. What an amazing ability to assess your options and the best course of action in a just a quick moment and during such a frightening moment too. Amazing–huge kudos to you!</p>
<p>Emmybet, a separate email address is a great idea! I sat down with my daughter and had her search through her emails (so many emails from colleges, just like the snail mail!) for the colleges she had applied to. We made a list of her log in id’s and passwords and went to each school and made sure all of her data was there. One school kept saying it hadn’t received her Supplemental Form and she swore up and down that there wasn’t any…I shouldn’t “worry” about it! One day when checking on the site to see if her transcripts had arrived, I scrolled down on the page and saw the Supplemental Form! We could’ve gone on for weeks and not known where to find it! She’s gone through them all again and made sure all of her i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.<br>
It’s hitting us now that this is our last year doing certain things with her living at home. A little sad.</p>
<p>MOSB, glad you guys are ok, but I bet neither of you will forget it!</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. </p>
<p>Emmy, so glad you had safe conditions for your drive. Sounds like that was last night…my adventure was Friday night. We live more than 50 miles W of Chicago, and were heading west, right into the storm that dumped easily 4-5 inches over northern Illinois.</p>
<p>Glido and fog, you’re right…it all happened much faster than you would think by reading my account. Still, there were those precious seconds during which I remember being focused like a laser on options-of-least-damage (and by that, I mean to US…heck with the car (and this is the dream-car I treated myself to for my 50th birthday).</p>
<p>So many lessons from this experience…my D keeps bringing it up in random moments…I can tell it’s on her mind, as it is on mine.</p>
<p>Me: what did I do wrong?</p>
<p>SB: There was a point at the top of the hill when you were still in control and could’ve stopped, but decided to go down the hill?</p>
<p>Me: Exactly.</p>
<p>Me: What did I do right?</p>
<p>SB: Stayed calm? Didn’t panic?</p>
<p>Me: Right, what else?</p>
<p>SB: I just don’t know how you knew what was the right thing to do. I mean I knew we were going to crash, but I didn’t think there was anything you could do about it.</p>
<p>Me: I knew we were going to crash, too. That wasn’t the choice I had. The choice I had was what I wanted to crash into. </p>
<p>You almost always have choices in desperate situations.</p>
<p>Several decades ago my dad, a private pilot, was co-piloting a twin engine Cessna for the Coast Guard Reserve along the Lake Michigan shoreline on a holiday weekend when the plane lost power in both engines. They ended up crashing…my dad and the pilot were both severely injured…shattered feet and ankles, broken bones everywhere, blood loss, you name it.</p>
<p>Over the years we have sometimes pestered him to tell us what he was thinking and feeling when he knew they were going to crash. “Did your life flash before your eyes? Did you think about Mom and us?”</p>
<p>“No,” said my dad, “it’s not like that. Every fiber of your being is fighting the most intense battle you can imagine to stay in control and evaluate possible options, desperately trying anything and everything that might improve your odds, even a little. We had minimal, but some, control of direction, and another few thousand feet of altitude when the pilot said, ‘not in the lake, I’m banking left.’”</p>
<p>My dad said, "No, no, no: power lines.</p>
<p>They “chose” their crash site as best they could, to avoid the 2 things that were certain to kill them, if the impact didn’t.</p>
<p>I learned a lot from that story.</p>
<p>Maybe show these posts to your new, inexperienced winter drivers. I can’t give them my 35 years of experience, but I would like to pass along these lessons in a small way if I can.</p>
<ol>
<li>If you suspect it might be icy, don’t start down the hill…even if you’re late to something important, or almost out of gas, or don’t know a different route, or whatever. Turn back.</li>
</ol>
<h1>2 Control your panic as much as possible; it will negate any chance you might have of improving your situation.</h1>
<h1>3 Realize that doing the same things (that aren’t working) over and over is pointless. Move on to the next-worse-case options, and assess those.</h1>
<h1>4 Don’t bail too soon, but at a certain point, “bail” on the car. Run it off the road, drive it into a ditch, whatever. We can get another car, or we can take the bus, or we can walk. We can never get another you.</h1>
<h1>5 (Paraphrasing Churchill here) Never, never,never give up. Even in the last few seconds, keep “working it.” Realize that there is a “least horrible” outcome and try to achieve it.</h1>
<p>D and I have also discovered the metaphorical life lessons of this harrowing experience. We are talking about it a lot because there are interesting parallels.</p>
<p>It did take awhile to unclench my fingers from the steering wheel, and I think I wrenched my knee somehow. Minor, minor, minor.</p>
<p>My dad asked songbird what was the first thing I said upon impact. I was positive I had said, “thank God, thank God, thank God.”</p>
<p>But she says no, the first words out of my mouth were very quiet, but that what I said was “That was a TWO-ticket ride.” </p>
<p>Boy, was it ever!</p>
<p>Safe driving to my fellow Midwesterners and all of you in other points snowy and icy!</p>
<p>MOSB, all I can say is WOW, wow to each of your posts regarding this harrowing experience. So glad you made it through and chose the right option. Years ago when I was in college I got a ride from my French professor from my school in MA to Providence to see my then boyfriend, now husband. We were on the highway --Rte. 95 – in the middle of a very bad snow storm; he lost control of the car on the snow and was skidding in circles toward the median railing, all the while trying to break. I remembered from my driver’s ed and not from driving experience, of which I had little, that when you find yourself in the midst of skidding on snow/ice the best thing to do is to take your foot off both the accelerator and the brakes. It’s best to let the car spin out b/c it will slow down more quickly if you’re not breaking. He did as I told him, and thankfully we came to a stop just before hitting the median. We were both shaken up but made it to Providence in one piece. </p>
<p>I’m going to print your posts and give them to my sons; very good lessons!</p>
<p>MOSB–excellent post and so glad you managed a “safe” landing yourself. Sometimes on cc I’ll read about what crisis others are managing at home (icy roads, ill parents, etc) and just take a moment to realize college apps are not the end-all, be-all. Heh. Safe and healthy seems to trump “into College A” over “into College B!” I’m so mushy!!</p>
<p>I have a delicate question which I thought I might try to get answered here, among compadres. S2 has extreme text-anxiety and simply could not face a retake of that-which-shall-not-be-named. Seriously, we don’t mention the name of the test!! Anyway, somehow, yesterday he decided to re-take it (!!?) as a standby. I know he’s just becoming sensitive to how some school will look at test scores to determine merit aid–if any. S2 showed up yesterday, filled out the registration form and paid to take the test. This is not how he’s registered in the past–which was done online so the scores were posted to his online account and score reports could be ordered from there. So here’s my question: do any of you have experience with stand-by test takers and how their score reports somehow get married to their online accounts with College Board??? Oy! I suppose I will be making that phone call tomorrow, but I could use reassurance that this brave gesture by S2 won’t go down some long and distant drain.</p>
<p>Wow, MOSB, that is an amazing story! I am so glad you had that positive outcome! I will definitely pass this on to my younger drivers.</p>
<p>Can’t answer your question, madbean, but props to your son! Maybe without time to work himself up, taking it cold, he felt less anxious? If he were mine, I’d be doing something extra nice for him this week!</p>
<p>Madbean: When you call Collegeboard tomorrow they should be able to “marry” the tests. A few years ago my daughter’s AP results from two different years were separated because she only had her SSN on one of the test dates. They were able to combine them when I called.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son for taking the test again. It sounds like he’s learning to deal with his anxiety.</p>
<p>MOSB - wow - what a scary drive! I am happy to hear that you are safe.</p>
<p>We too are in a “snow zone”. We send D to skid school which is an add on to drivers ed. It is a full day learning from a professional rece car drive on how to handle slick/icy conditions. There is class work but then the students get to try it out in a huge parking lot where they have iced/slicked it up. Once she completed the course, we got a $200 discount off her insurance…and a piece of mind.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reassurance, momjr. Will let you all know what they say tomorrow for the general info of all.</p>
<p>Thanks to all who offered gift ideas for S2’s gf. I knew I could count on you experienced parents for some great ideas and you didn’t let me down! Lots of terrific ideas for me to pass along to him. Thank you!</p>