<p><em>★Merry★</em> 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★Christmas★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * <em>Π</em><strong><em><em>。</em>˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */</em></strong>__/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜田田｜門｜ <em>And A Happy New Year</em> Have A Great Christmas 
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<p>I plan to spend the rest of today and tomorrow not thinking about anything college related. Time enough next week! </p>
<p>Be safe, be loved and be thankful for all your blessings.</p>
<p>That is so cool - how’d you do that?</p>
<p>I copied it off a Facebook posting of a friend. :-)</p>
<p>Congratulations to all those with good recent news and Merry Christmas to all celebrators. </p>
<p>We’ll be doing the Chinese food and a movie thing as usual, just with the family. We need to meet the boys’ needs (action) and the girls’ needs (relationships) and it seems that The Fighter will work.</p>
<p>ShawD’s semi-helpful GC sent an end-of-term note to her kids and their parents with her college applications status. ShawD’s has only two schools on her list, listing one as likely to which she has already been accepted and the other as a possible with adeadline is 2/1, accompanied by a hand-written note saying that she admires ShawD’s self-knowledge and how excited she is about the two schools. </p>
<p>All that is left for the second school is getting them an end-of-semester transcript (it seemed from website that they could decide from a complete application and the site doesn’t say a first semester transcript is needed for a complete application, but that’s what the admissions person told me) and making sure they have the ACT scores, which were sent in October but they can’t seem to find them. Both the school and ACT are now on the lookout and neither has let ShawD know the score report has been found. </p>
<p>For the first school, ShawD needs to submit an entrance scholarship application with three recommendations, from your school, from an employer/volunteer supervisor, from the supervisor of a community activity (Scout Leader, Youth Group Leader, Hospital supervisor, etc). ShawD has done a fair bit, but because she is in a school that is 50% boarding, the school creates lots of opportunities to use the kids’ time within the school because they don’t want boarders doing more things that they shouldn’t (not that this stops either boarders or day students, but the school is at least trying). So, she may have a little difficulty finding outside people who can comment on her activities since she’s been in HS.</p>
<p>Shawbridge – I don’t know if this is helpful but when my D applied to attend a college-run camp, they wanted a statement from the same kind of people you mention (pastor, youth group leader, etc.) who would know her character. We explained that there weren’t no such folk in her life due to her being at boarding school and offered the comprehensive comments on her report card that described what she was like in class, how they saw her as a person, yadda, yadda! This proved to be acceptable. If you have a similar set-up, it might do. Also, if she takes a sport, maybe they’ll take a recommendation from her coach.</p>
<p>Can’t hurt to ask…ShawD can’t be the first b.s. student they’ve dealt with.</p>
<p>“We Wish You a Merryy♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪ Christmas♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪We Wish You a Merry ♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪Christmas We Wish You A Merry ♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪Christmas ♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪…And A Happy New Year!♪♫•<em>¨</em>•.¸¸:heart: ¸¸.•<em>¨</em>•♫♪…” </p>
<p>Trying a recipe for Rib Roast that calls for cooking for one hour and letting stand in turned-off oven for three hours, followed by 45 minutes on again. Anyone ever try such a weird idea? Wish us luck!</p>
<p>Best to all.</p>
<p>Novelisto, thanks. I believe we will have to do that – she wouldn’t stand much of a chance if they don’t let her use people from the school – but I think it is probably a good idea to follow your suggestion and explain the situation first and let them know what she is going to do. </p>
<p>ShawD doesn’t play a sport but does modern dance and her teacher at the school has been with very famous dance companies (incredible bio as well as great teacher) and she has asked him to write for her – he used her as an assistant to demonstrate to the younger dancers. Similarly, she’s done a lot of service stuff (co-head of the school’s social action group for a couple of years, etc.) and playing some kind of role in student government, but not clear who can write for her there. Dean of Students? We’ll figure something out. It’s not perfect, but it is what it is.</p>
<p>Madbean: Heard of something similar, but for a Eye Round Roast. Sounds like yours would come out really tender. Let us know how it works out!</p>
<p>Happy Holidays to all, Congrats to those who have gotten good news, and good luck to those still waiting.</p>
<p>Prepared DS a Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich with Provolone, and my DD had some Udon and soup. We usually go to town for the New Years Meal. Just a little home meal with the wife, her mom, and the kids.</p>
<p>sleep well all.</p>
<p>Hope everyone enoyed the last few days off whether you celebrate or not. Very hectic in our house, but I love the frantic two days we end up spending with friends and family. This is the first New Years H & I will spend ourselves (S at a friends party…ugghhh, and D skiing with her friends). So I’m thinking this is going to be weird to finally have time alone with H. WHat does he do? He booked to alleys at a nearby bowling place for disco bowling new years eve. We have invited friends and it actually looks like we will have fun. </p>
<p>Woke up this morning thinking FAFSA. It will be the earliest I have done taxes in a long, long time.</p>
<p>Morning All
Merry Christmas. Hope you holidays have been blessed.
We are thankful to be with family during these days and have had fresh snow which has been wonderful. Eating well, laughter and plenty of skiing, sledding etc. wonder serious. Two injuries along the way dampend things, BiL broke ribs on slopes 
and kiddo1 had a little mishap with a ski pole coming off the lift and got a bloody nose… and we are thankful all is ok with THAT!!
Have eaten too much and hope all of the walking in the heavy snow is helping to work off the beef filet and pumpkin praline cake!
Have no cell service right now and only one place in this house for internet so will check back in later.
Off to fix breakfast for the fam–it’s been fun and I am thankful for the White Christmas here even if this storm will snarl travel for some. Two hymns have been particularly meaningful, Night Divine…which has reminded me of the majesty of the moment and Oh Come Emmanuel which reminds me to pray for peace and stability in the middle east.
Peace and blessings to all.
Hugs</p>
<p>Did everyone see this from the “Common App Guy”, posted on the College Admissions Forum:</p>
<p>"DANGER! Submitting app a few hours before deadline…
Applicants are strongly advised to submit their application at least 24 hours before the deadline. That’s because you may discover an issue you need help with, or discover the college requires you to submit your payment or yoiur supplement before you can submit your app to them.</p>
<p>If you run into a problem and need help or need to do more work, there may not be time if you wait until the last minute. Submit your Dec 31 and Jan 1 apps by Dec 30th, and have a stress-free new year…"</p>
<p>I told my D this and she agrees it sounds like a really good idea. Actually one of her 1/1 schools told us 1/2 was OK (I guess because it’s Sunday, anyway). But D thinks being done before the holiday would be nice. </p>
<p>We won’t be at home; I’m so grateful for laptops and wireless!</p>
<p>^A similar warning was posted on the Stanford website:</p>
<p>“Finally, as I shared with our Restrictive Early Action applicants, I encourage you to submit your application well in advance of our application deadline. Last year, nearly 1,000 would-be applicants to Stanford mistakenly believed they successfully submitted their applications via the Common Application Web site when, in fact, they did not. These students completed their applications online and paid their application fees but failed to actually “submit” their applications online by the deadline. As a result, we were unable to consider their applications for admission.”</p>
<p>Don’t let your kids be one of the unfortunate 1,000!</p>
<p>Not to mention (hi, I’m a student) all past college applicants I know have complained about lag on the Common App website (there was some on the USC one too) as deadlines get closer. It’s hugely, hugely stressful trying to get through when pages take minutes to load.</p>
<p>Lots of snow here this morning. Lots. H & I have the week off so we are in no rush to go out and clean the driveway and sidewalk. Think I will load another book on my Kindle and relax with a cup of coffee.</p>
<p>We had just a dusting of the white stuff…nice to look at while it came down…even better when it did not stick. Farther inland, they got hammered! </p>
<p>Despite it being at least a week after when we expected to hear, my D received an acceptance to WCU today! This is great, not only because she really liked that school, but because we thought she’d have to wait months to hear anything. Whew. One down, 3 to go.</p>
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Congrats to your D!</p>
<p>Congrats to you daughter Novelisto.</p>
<p>I rediscovered an old site today which has some new features espec relating to college costs and fin aid ([College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://www.nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)). A dream site for us number nerds.</p>
<p>Congratulations Novelisto! 1 1/2 ft of snow here but the big news is the winds, geez - waiting for the let up on that! Our living room has a beam running the length of the ceiling (2 story kind of ceiling) and the creaking and moaning makes it sound like you are on a boat during a storm…when it’s been blowing we all look up to make sure that beam isn’t swaying.</p>
<p>I think ds has been on xbox for about 3 days straight. Ah well, I think that is exactly what he needed.</p>
<p>I don’t hear much complaining (at least as of late) on this thread about our children STILL pounding out those apps. Is this a thread for parents of the super well-organized non-procrastinating students? I am truly impressed by you all if that is true.</p>
<p>I never thought that my D was a procrastinator until this college app thing hit. Still at least 5 more apps to go, and I am trying my best not to lose it completely.</p>
<p>Are we the only family on cc like this?</p>
<p>^^ Nope. There are two more apps still to be done at our house, and S left on a 10-day trip this morning. He submitted four apps on Thursday and Friday to meet our family deadline of having them done by Christmas. Under the wire… He did get his first acceptance to an EA school. He was already at the airport when the mail arrived, but I texted him about it and I got to open it :-).</p>