<p>LeftofPisa, I THINK that if you go back and look at the app you may see (in very very small print over the section in question) a statement to the effect that ‘if information you submitted appears to be missing that is because this college elected not to receive this information.’ I THINK. As my student has finally submitted all his apps and as his father or I proofed till our eyes crossed, I can’t bear to go back into the commonapp and check…</p>
<p>Mamom: I know it was hard, but you did the right thing. Teens make a lot of bad choices, but smoking is so dangerous. I’m sorry it ruined what should have been a happy moment.</p>
<p>Bella 28: Try not to be disapointed in your daughter. Yes, there will always be smarter kids going to more prestigious schools. But as long as your daughter is healthy and well-adjusted, she has every chance for success also. This isn’t a competition with only one winner. Remember the CC mantra - “love the kid on the couch.”</p>
<p>I love these two sayings - they are priceless.</p>
<p>The FAFSA and the Profile are like a colonoscopy…the prep is the toughest part. </p>
<p>Love the kid on the couch!</p>
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>It’s been a long time since we were on CC. Congratulations to everyone for their ED and EA acceptances! Here is a question to put out to all of you. Our son was accepted at one of his top choices with a great scholarship. Should he withdraw his applications from the remaining two schools he applied to RD? One of the schools is a big reach and I think he just wants to hear. What is everyone else thinking?</p>
<p>crewguy, I’m not sure what the advantage is of withdrawing unless your son is absolutely set on his accepted school. If it were me, I would always be wondering about the other colleges.</p>
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<p>Crewguy–are you the student or parent? Are you talking Tulane, Trinity, Santa Clara or “state schools” ???
If of the acceptances–the top choice for academics/fin aid etc is in…then why not commit and be done?</p>
<p>Thank you kathiep and fogfog. Two different responses. I am the parent which is how I have been responding by saying “our son” throughout any CC posts. I think our son is committed but would like to hear from his reach school. Thanks again for everyone’s assistance!</p>
<p>Except for maybe getting priority on dorm assignments (if that is an issue) I would just wait. Wouldn’t you always wonder if you withdrew the other apps? Congrats to your S!</p>
<p>3257 & others - I plan to do my best filling out my tax return with TurboTax. Fortunately our broker already has our Schedule B & D info posted on the Internet. I have all the info for Schedule C for my hubby’s business. K-1 stuff takes forever, always changes and is small anyway in our case. FYI - When you print the Forms using TurboTax, it has a DO NOT FILE watermark all over each page. I guess that will be there until the forms are final. FAFSA & Profile can’t have it both ways. They seem to want FILED Form 1040s but they want them early. C’est impossible, monsieur! I’m sure this won’t be the last of this story.</p>
<p>Momjr - I love that saying! I do love my kid on the couch, I guess I struggle with these feelings of wanting more for her. She really showed us this past summer how hard she worked, juggling 2 jobs and babysitting and this year she’s taking some hard classes and really having to study (finally). I am constantly walking the line between doing things for her and giving her direction to do things on her own.</p>
<p>She got her new contacts before the vacation and spent the week we were in DC whining about how they were dry and irritating, I gave her the phone number of the eye doctor and told her to deal with it. It took her til yesterday to finally make the call, but then she drove the 15 miles and exchanged her 6 month supply to a different brand. We discussed just whose problem this was, mine or hers, and how she has to deal with some things on her own. I couldn’t tell the dr. how it made her eyes feel. </p>
<p>She had a tough week though, her health teacher (a teacher many teens feel close with) had a 12 year old daughter who passed away this week from liver cancer. Many of the students had been involved in fund raisers and she and her friends attended the wake last night. After my D’s accident, we bumped into this teacher many times at the hospital where her friend and his daughter were both being treated and got to know him pretty well. She’s having trouble getting up today, she said she cried too much last night. Tonight is a holiday party for the restaurant she & my husband work at so this will be a cheerier time.</p>
<p>Mamom: We are sometimes torn when we have to punish by taking car privileges away because it only makes it harder on us! My D went through a cigarette phase and my husband flipped out. She knows people who have become very ill from cigarettes and it’s a huge health issue. He was hanging up pictures of diseased lungs and yellow teeth in her bathroom and it was not a happy time in our household! I do believe those days are behind us, but it also has to do with who they are hanging out with. Kudos to you for sticking to your guns.</p>
<p>Oh Bella, Hugs and our sympathies for your DD. She is handling alot…and seeing a young teen lose that kind of battle is just so so difficult.
Your DD sounds like a lovely young woman and you are doing a great job helping her to take control of what she can! Kudos!</p>
<p>Good Morning, all.</p>
<p>Bella my sympathies to you and your DD. Its so sad when a life so young is lost. Give your D a hug from all of us.</p>
<p>Crewguy If the acceptance is from an ED school, your son has to withdraw all other applications. If the acceptance is not binding, then he has a choice. Id say, if you already paid the application fees, let the adcoms read his applications.</p>
<p>bella - thanks for being so honest here. I hope you find it helpful. </p>
<p>It is hard to deal with the “what ifs” of being a parent. I feel like I fight that every day. There’s something about HS that is so charged - including reliving our own dreams and disappointments, carrying a fantasy of what it could or should be, and then also being legitimately worried about whether they’re making choices that will impact their whole lives. Plus there’s the whole public part of being asked constantly about how they’re doing and where they’re going. I feel like the kid we take to college sometimes seems like the “test” of our parenting - and it’s hard to fight that. </p>
<p>But really of course everyone is just a person, trying their hardest (even when it looks like they aren’t!). When I have to make myself love the kid on the couch - and my D2 requires that a lot - while I was reading some of these posts she was literally lying on the couch playing her gameboy and watching Family Guy - I try very hard to remember what she does all day. While it’s easy for me to see her as doing “nothing,” I know she’s very worried about college apps, auditions, concerts, competitions, teachers, homework, friends, non-friends, a thousand other kids, test results, grades, homework pressures, her future (and I do believe she worries about it A LOT), her looks, her health, and who knows what else. </p>
<p>And then there are the really big real-life events that come in the middle of this, as has happened to bella’s D. We haven’t had that too close lately (D1 had 2 kids killed in cars in her class senior year), but a very close friend’s family is having a very close call with cancer right now. D2 knows that any day she may hear very bad news about them, and she cares a lot about that, and asks me about it regularly.</p>
<p>Sometimes I want to shake her, and sometimes I do have to be the parent and say Look, go do your studying, do your practicing, etc., change the cat litter for once. But I find if I make sure she knows I understand she’s trying to do her best and that there are pressures and worries every day that I can’t even begin to imagine, it all goes much better. Our best moments are when we do feel like a team. When she balks at what I’m suggesting, I remind her of that. And when I’m “too annoying” she usually says it’s because I seem like I have no faith in her (and sometimes she’s right that I’m coming off the wrong way).</p>
<p>For example: She has college auditions coming up in a month. I have faith in her abilities, and I know she wants to do her best. We’re willing to leave things to fate and to accept what none of us has control over. She knows she needs to be well-prepared, that it is the one thing she CAN control. Sometimes she’s needed a little prodding to get off the couch and put the work in, but gradually I’m seeing that her methods do pay off.</p>
<p>What makes her the angriest at anyone is when they tell her she “doesn’t care.” She is offended that people think they know how she feels about something. Yes, they see how she acts and they evaluate the results, and she admits that of course sometimes she makes mistakes. She says, though, that no one can say that she didn’t care, yet it’s amazing how many adults throw that accusation out. I just try to keep that in the forefront as I deal with her - if she knows I know she cares, things go much better. But I goof up, too.</p>
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<p>Bella, so sorry for your D and her teacher.</p>
<p>I really don’t think you could have done things very differently with your D. Could you have really MADE her do more meaningful SAT prep? Yes, you could have made her go to a prep class or sit with a tutor, but you couldn’t make her focus. ECs? You WILL be in the school play? You WILL learn to play the flute and be in the marching band? Stuff like that usually doesn’t work out that well. There is a girl on D’s all star cheer team whose mom is forcing her to be there. (I know why she’s doing it…at 14, the girl has already had more than her share of alcohol and the mom is really trying to keep her involved.) But that’s the girl who doesn’t practice, doesn’t have her skills, makes up excuses to miss practice, etc.</p>
<p>My freshman isn’t the student I’d like her to be. I’m trying to guide her on study skills, etc. but if in the end she ends up at a second or third tier state school, I’m sure she’ll learn a lot and have a good time.</p>
<p>Bella - So sorry for your and your Ds loss.</p>
<p>Bella - hugs to you and your D. So sad. Hopefully, the party tonight will be a happy distraction. How nice that she is so empathetic even though it hurts. </p>
<p>Emmy: your observation (“I feel like the kid we take to college sometimes seems like the “test” of our parenting - and it’s hard to fight that.”) is something I worry about because there is some judging (maybe that is too strong a word, but maybe not) based on how these kids “do.” I don’t want D to feel that her value is based on where she matriculates. I don’t want her to feel that WE think her value is based on where she matriculates. I certainly don’t want ME to feel that the quality of my parenting is based on where she matriculates. Her EA deferral was a great opportunity for these discussions (another blessing in disguise - after some tears!). </p>
<p>These sweet kids/almost adults have a lot of pressure on them! D was watching “Glee” on DVR between practice and homework. SO nice to see her taking some downtime. Our semester end is next week, so there are finals and essays to worry about thanks to the “send us your mid year report” requests. Hopefully, February - June will be more fun! </p>
<p>At times I regret letting D commit so much time to one EC and not pushing for some more breadth. But then I remind myself that it was her choice and her sport really was the foundation for so much of her high school experience, relationships, good health, and self realization. Lessons for S (4 grades younger) include more thought about ECs early on, SATIIs sophomore and junior year, and more open mindedness to less selective schools. Plenty of bright, talented kids and great opportunities at non HYPSM schools!</p>
<p>I’m with you, missypie - we can talk and force as much as we want, but we can’t really “do” as much as we sometimes dream we might. I say all the time: I won’t take blame for their failures, but I also don’t want credit for their successes. I really want my kids to feel ownership, and that means stepping back as much as I can to let them feel their way. It’s hard, though.</p>
<p>Yeah, mnmom - I’m actually pretty confident about how I’ll feel when I move D2 into school. Even if she’s still nursing a disappointment, or is nervous, or has a rough time, I’m OK with it, because it’s normal. There’s just this outside pressure to have these pat answers: “How’s school going?” “Oh, she’s loving it!” etc. </p>
<p>We’ve definitely been rehearsing answers to nosy questions - and rehearsing how we’ll really feel, too. D knows she’s going to get several rejections; auditioned arts programs are like HYP in acceptance chances, plus she has a couple of regular reach schools as well. What we’re aiming for is a “have your day to cry and then get over it” approach. She certainly gets a lot of practice with that in music, theatre, etc. - practically every week, lately. This is not a kid who’s “too used to getting everything and rejection is a shock”!</p>
<p>There definitely are little important details, choices to be made thoughtfully with good advance info, as mnmom listed. But the life they led in HS is definitely, absolutely, in the long run, their OWN. </p>
<p>As it is in college, too. We’re not going to fit them into some kind of template. And I also keep reminding myself how irrelevant so much of this year will be in just a few months. Kids in college realize how they barely remember all of these oh-so-important-at-the-time moments from HS. It’s really just a phase to get through, for all of us. Find some meaning where it really exists, and try to let the rest of it flow by, with as few lasting scars as possible.</p>
<p>That’s why, when D says, “Man, I’m just going to veg out to TV tonight” or “I’m going shopping today with my friends” or “Leave me alone, I’ll take care of it,” I - while gritting my teeth sometimes - try to say, “Good, just do what you need to do, I know it’ll all work out.” I know it will - she’s an accomplished, capable, good person. I’ll give her plenty of pokes and prods, and I’ll take away her car, ground her, whatever, for good reason. But my absolute main goal is that any real scars she does get this year won’t come from something dumb I’ve done.</p>
<p>Bella: I’m so sorry for your D’s loss. </p>
<p>Emmybet: As far as the kid we take to college being a measure of our parenting…oh how I have felt this! I’ll admit that I was a bit defensive when my first went to college 2 1/2 years ago. He chose to attend a school that is less than 2 hours from home,a small Christian LAC. He had been accepted at other “better” schools, but when it came down to decision time, he made his choice. He had some good reasons – he liked the distance from home, he liked the size of the entry level science classes that he would be taking, he liked that there were some rules on campus and he liked the cost. I actually had another parent comment (when they heard where he was going) - " Oh, he’s much too brilliant to go to XYZ College." And I found myself listing the other “better” schools where he had been accepted. It bothered me – had I not parented him well enough to make him want to spread his wings and fly farther from home? Had I made the financial issues too much of a priority and swayed him to go to the least expensive option? Had he sold himself short? After MUCH soul-searching, I decided that he was just fine where he was. He had always been my homebody, the one who had a hard time adjusting to kindergarten, the one who needed the extra push to participate in sports or EC’s. A little introverted, a little less worldly than some of his friends, a little serious, but always such a kind and thoughtful son. I think he needed a few more years to mature before he would be ready to take advantage of many of the opportunities available. Now, as a junior in college, he’s deciding between applying to grad school and med school, looking forward to apartment living next year, and finally showing signs of being ready to spread his wings. He is who he is. I don’t think any parenting decisions would have made him significantly different. But I was insecure enough to question myself when others questioned his college choice. I’m hoping that as S2 makes his decision that I’ll be secure enough to know that it doesn’t matter what others think.</p>
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<p>That could be our neighbors and their three sons. All went to the same nearby Christian LAC. As adults, all three are now married and gainfully employeed and live within 20 miles of their parents. I’ll see my neighbor, now a grandmother of toddler twins, walking them around the block in a stroller. As a future grandparent, that sounds pretty good to me!!!</p>
<p>Just keep reminding yourself that they will all turn out perfectly fine. We did. My own background indicated that I should be lying in a gutter somewhere, coughing up a lung. But I’m happily married, making a decent living, and doing what I love. There will be ups and downs, troubles and trials (hopefully not legal!), heartbreak and happiness for all our children…we cannot shelter them from any of it and God forbid we should. It not only makes them grown-ups; it makes them human beings.</p>