Parents of the HS Class of 2011 - Original

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
8681

<p>OWM - best wishes to you and your mother. I hope she gets on her feet soon. I, too, will have long trips when parents become ill.</p>

<p>Revisits: I’m afraid we won’t be doing much of those. Too much geography. As it is, D has 3 schools she needs to do first visits to, depending on results. It’s not the way I would have chosen to do it, but we’re confident about the schools. The details will just have to take care of themselves. I’m not trying to be cavalier - we’ll just do what we can do. Talking to students and professors will also be helpful, and that can be done from a distance.</p>

8682

<p>OWM: Best wishes for a quick recovery for your mom.</p>

<p>Emmybet: It’s great that your daugther came through and finished her apps. I had to laugh about her surfing the web looking at prom dresses. My daughter was doing that last night.</p>

<p>Congrats on all the new acceptances and merit scholarships.</p>

8683

<p>Emmy, congratulations!! Your D has one of the hardest roads to college of any of our kids. You both should do something to celebrate.</p>

8684

<p>Well, good for D1–she got home from working all day, quick supper and then off she went immediately for continued essay thinking/writing for the 2 apps due by tonight. She likes hiding in her room with pencil/paper for that part, we’ll see how things are going when she reappears to start typing the finished product into the Common App. I believe these are the last two Common App. Then she has an app due by end of month and hoping she’ll get the final one done by then also.</p>

8685

<p>Researching and LofP, Congrats!!! That’s great news. Sure gives you something to smile about, doesn’t it?</p>

<p>OWM, holy cow!!! Best wishes to your mom for a quick recovery. That must’ve caught you totally unprepared. Sandwich generation, indeed!</p>

<p>EmmyBet, great news about your d pulling it all together at the last minute like that. I bet she (and you) will sleep well tonight!</p>

8686

<p>FlMathMom - thank you for that link; I will check it out. Actually, DH is 51 (as of Oct. 2010) and I am about to be 51 . . . on Tuesday :o</p>

<p>Once again, it is in the 40’s and raining here today, so after I make a grocery store run, I am GOING to finish this thing today!!</p>

8687

<p>Mamabear, Congrats on the ED acceptance. Yay! You’re done! Its great that your son is pursuing his dream. Kudos.</p>

<p>OWM, so sorry to hear of your mom’s poor health. Hang in there.</p>

<p>EmmyB & CollegeMaw- Glad to hear all the apps went in! Yay!</p>

<p>D had her first audition yesterday and felt good about it. Regardless of outcome I am glad she feels good about the work she did and that she feels comfortable going through the process. She is incredibly lucky to even have this chance to pursue her dream and I know she is aware of that and excited. I hope she enjoys this ride.</p>

8688

<p>So many of us wondering if we have pushed enough, pushed too little, pushed too much. Of course I thought to myself yesterday, This would have been so much easier if you hadn’t put it off. And I wished she’d put in the effort to have done one of these schools for EA in November - we’d be hearing soon, rather than just applying now. </p>

<p>But I know why she didn’t do it in November. I know what the week-to-week process has been. And it’s not that all she’s done is work, work, work and nothing could have been added. But she just “couldn’t” do it any other way. And in the long run there is nothing wrong with how she did this. A more studied, careful process on the essays? Eh, who knows if that would have made them better? This is how it was done, and they are fine.</p>

<p>What I think senior year is good for is a faux college experience - those hard deadlines and juggling schedules and learning to prioritize, under parents’ watchful eyes. If I rub her back, it’s to help her learn that sometimes she needs someone to rub her back, not that I’m a critical player in her ability to cope. If I impose an internal deadline, it’s to teach her how those work to one’s advantage, not so she can please me. Every day I’m seeing signs of how she’s internalizing the things she’s learned work for her - whether they’re my kinds of solutions or not.</p>

<p>I think everyone’s kids here are learning about their limits, their strengths, what works for them and what doesn’t. Every time D has had a challenge this year - a test, a project due, an audition, an application essay - she’s had to go through the work and the stress of trying to balance the work involved in that with all of the other things in her life. She’s had to decide how to focus, in what way to focus, and what she wants in the long- and short-term as results. Nothing has ever turned out “perfectly,” but she’s batting way over .500 on feeling successful, often more successful than she’d even hoped. </p>

<p>She’s fought being a perfectionist all her life - and she’s not the type who will work to the bone to get it “just so”; instead she sometimes couldn’t even begin something that would “never” be how she envisioned it. She’s learning how to find her own version of “good enough,” how sometimes it’s pretty awesome, and sometimes it just means it got turned in, or that she showed up and tried.</p>

<p>collegemaw - hurray for your D! Maybe there was something about working all day that got her revved. Clearly your D knows what works for her.</p>

<p>mosb- We did sleep well, and we’re on to the next set of tasks. And I’m pleased that for my D “the last minute” was 5 p.m. - she was determined to have a relaxing dinner and spend the evening with her BF!</p>

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<p>LoP - just saw your post. Hurray!!! So great to have these happening.</p>

<p>I’d say to the folks who don’t have auditions, portfolio reviews, etc. that while it is pretty admirable that these kids are going over that next hurdle, maybe it also makes it easier because they have something they can DO for themselves rather than just wait for their answers. It’s apples and oranges. </p>

<p>Japanese D asked me yesterday when my D’s “college tests” are. She said that in Japan you pick your schools and have to take a test for each one to find out if they’ll let you go there. She was shocked when I said that isn’t how it works here!</p>

8690

<p>Little d got hit with the stomach virus overnight which has been making its way around town. Ugh, really? Good thing she had two pink lemonade slushies at Applebee’s last night. Honors band concert today for ds and dd2, so dd1 will have to stay home to babysit. Good to have extra kids to spread around! OK, here is my next “everyone can apply” scholarship: [AFSA</a> $20,000 High School Scholarship Contest](<a href=“http://www.afsascholarship.org/hsinformation.html]AFSA”>High School Scholarships | Scholarship Contest for Seniors) or how about Olive Garden’s Pasta Tales: [Olive</a> Garden Italian Restaurant: Company: Community: Pasta Tales](<a href=“http://www.olivegarden.com/company/community/pasta_tales.asp]Olive”>http://www.olivegarden.com/company/community/pasta_tales.asp)</p>

8691

<p>I am back from the tournament and even though neither of my d’s did break, overall it was a good experience for them and we have at least three more chances for each of them to go to regionals. It was fairly exasperating for me on Thursday and Friday, trying to reach D’s two colleges that had Jan. 15th deadlines. One had said, your application is missing something and when we finally managed to reach her admission counselor, nothing was missing and the application was complete. The other had been having a message on a college website that the application had been received and was being reviewed that suddenly changed on Tuesday or Wednesday to contact the admissions office. Well we tried and tried and tried. Finally, on Friday, they extended the deadline for another week. (This was the only thing they could really do since they had been closed due to the ice storm for four days). On Friday night, when I checked the website and tried the application status checker, it now says the application is complete. I think that with their school closing for weather related causes in the week before deadline plus all the students from that state and surrounding states who were also in the bad weather and couldn’t get to the post office, the website had crashed.<br>
But this wasn’t the end of fun times here= this morning at 1am, while I was asleep, d decided to hug our cat and he decided to bite her in the face. (absolutely no trace of any ADHD medicine at that time of night and full severe ADHD in fine form). She washed it out a lot, put bacitracin on it, and went to sleep. She skipped church this morning claiming she was too tired but we did go. So then I had a fun 2.5 hours in the urgent care waiting for her to get her scrip for Augmentin. There went my afternoon of recuperation from tournament, and from after affects of getting too busy too soon after general anaesthesia.</p>

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<p>Oh, gosh, MilitaryMom - take good care of yourself. These busy weekends are hard enough when we’re not recuperating. So sorry to hear about the app woes, too. I’m feeling so fortunate that we’ve had very few glitches so far. It’s so stressful!</p>

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<p>MilitaryMom- what a busy weekend you have had. Hope the Augmentin holds back any infection. Frustrating when you are trying to do the right thing, like call the admissions folks and you keep spinning your wheels. It is like getting a late notice or some other kind of notice, for a bill you paid, on Friday when you get home from work and you have to wait til Monday to fix. Hope this week is uneventful. </p>

<p>Amanda-hope little D is feeling better and it doesn’t go back through the house!</p>

<p>LoP- Glad to read the audition went well. Good luckto your D.</p>

<p>Did not do FAFSA over weekend. Still working on 10yo D’s apps, but we are almost done, yeah! Plus I spent the entire day on Sat. with my Father driving him around. I hate to say no when he asks because he recently stopped driving and I know he hates losing his freedom to go where he wants when he wants. We have someone who stops in M-F for a couple of hours but he can’t seem to always coordinate stuff for then. On his own he rescheduled a well planned doctors appt for Sat when he realized it coincided with the cleaning lady coming. By the time he told me, the time slot had been given away. The rescheduled appt is in the middle of my work day and I work 40 minutes plus away from him. So I rescheduled the rescheduled appt for another Sat in Feb and asked my Father to not schedule or reschedule anything before talking to me. The best part is he called our house Sat afternoon at 5pm (after I spent all day with him) and told me he now had an appt for Sun at 11. I was pretty sure they weren’t open Sun and thankfully was able to get hold of someone and verify my Father was mistaken. After verifying that my Father is not concerned about his cleaning lady stealing anything or being alone, I gave her a key and she can let herself in and out.</p>

8694

<p>mamom - so sorry you also had so many frustrations. I’m glad you were able to make a plan with your dad that works better for you. You’re entitled!</p>

<p>I’m wondering how everyone’s finals are shaking out - I know some kids had them before break, and every week someone has said they’re taking them. Is this the last week anyone’s kids have finals? Is there anyone who won’t be done with their semester by this Friday?</p>

<p>I propose a mass shout-out to the end of the first half of senior year, whenever that happens. Please chime in if this isn’t your last week. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out or run over. We’ll do it when we know everyone’s ready to celebrate.</p>

8695

<p>Finals Friday of this week through Wednesday of next. Seems like it is dragging on forever. Will not get report card til end of first week of Feb. I cannot believe that S will done with his non AP classes the 15th of April. He has 3 AP’s but it will free up so much time in his schedule.</p>

8696

<p>My d is getting a take home midterm on Wednesday and due the following Wednesday. I am having her do it by SUnday and getting it turned in so she can get the final midterm grade and I can send out midterm reports to all schools.</p>

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<p>The end of D’s first semester isn’t until 1/28! Although since Regents testing is 1/25-1/28 and she has no Regents exams, she is pretty much done on Monday 1/24.</p>

8698

<p>Here finals aren’t over until 1/28 - but heck, that is because we don’t get out until 6/22!</p>

8699

<p>My son has finals at the end of this week and the beginning of next. Looks like report cards will be mailed on February 4th. Graduation is June 17th.</p>

8700

<p>Curious as to when everyone’s graduations are scheduled for…D’s is Friday evening 6/24.
We have just started discussing the scheduling and planning for the graduation party as I was warned that we need to order a tent soon!</p>