<p>I was away from the forum for about 10 days and horribly behind all the news. </p>
<p>Mosb – such sad news. My thoughts and prayers are with your family and the family of the young man.</p>
<p>Fogfog and ldinct – Hope you feel better soon.</p>
<p>Not a lot happened at our house. Son had another interview that went very well. But… I had to remind him 3 times to send the thank you email. </p>
<p>I submitted Profile to 4 more colleges and finished FAFSA, but still need to sign and submit it. I wander if anyone knows if I can send FAFSA to some schools now and to the rest of them later. And if it can be changed after it has been sent. I don’t have all of the 2010 tax documents yet, but some of the colleges have 2/1 fin aid deadline, while others are due later.</p>
<p>Keylime - I suggest you call FAFSA to verify what I am saying (I have called-they are very patient and helpful), but I think I think I can answer your questions.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>You can change your FAFSA. I don’t know if the schools you list (see SAR 101 section) are notified of updates or they just get most updated #s when they pull your file from the FAFSA database.</p></li>
<li><p>I believe the schools you list on the FAFSA that show up on the SAR in the 101 section are the only ones who can see your info. If you list 3 schools today they can see your FAFSA. If you add 2 more next month, all 5 will see your FAFSA.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know if one school can see the names of the other schools on your list. If you call, maybe you can ask and report back. I would call sooner than closer to 2/1 as many schools have that cut-off.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Sorry for those that are under the weather and/or are inconvenienced by the weather. This has been a very cold winter for us in NC but we are happy to have a sunny, warmer weekend ahead.</p>
<p>I just submitted our FAFSA! Because we own our own business, it will be another month before I can input actual 2010 numbers. I’m almost finished with the CSS Profile but need to check some numbers at the office tomorrow. whew! Because the financial front has not been so great the last 3 years, this FAFSA, Profile, tax talk really stresses me out.</p>
<p>Another snow day here - end of semester finals pushed out a day - the end of the first semester is not until Feb 1st now! Emmybet - we will need to wait till the end of next week for that loud shout-out we were planning!</p>
<p>Weighting/ranking - I’ve decided that this is all a game and if you can somehow learn the rules and the not-documented sub-rules, you can play it well. Am annoyed with our school about this - D was coasting in her math classes, so wanted her to take Calc a year early. They refused to let her take Calc, without having taken the PreCalc course, despite the fact that she had taken an online PreCalc course with Johns Hopkins. We persisted, but with no help from the department or the teachers, it was impossible for D to do and we did give up finally. Start of senior year, we found out that two other kids did exactly what D had been asking to do - rules were bent for these kids, but not D! And not surprisingly, one of those kids is the val! The val has more AP classes than most and given our school schedule, it is not possible to take those classes unless some requisite classes were waived for him. Frustrating. Another kid takes Honors/AP classes that he is not interested in, purely for the grade boost. D is at peace with the whole thing though - she feels like she took the classes she wanted to take, irrespective of grades - the non-honors sociology class that dropped her GPA was one she thoroughly enjoyed the discussions in.</p>
<p>On another note, D found out that two of her classmates have been called for alumni interviews for a school that she applied to as well. No sign of progress on her app! A bit disconcerting. At yet another school, the same alumni interviewer talked to both her and another friend at school - and is scheduled to talk to a third kid. Interesting. Wonder if he will “rank” or “compare” these kids in his evaluations??</p>
<p>Well dug my parents out, about 4 cars out and I am glad to report the 7" prediction was wrong - it was 15" actually. And since it ended by 4 am - we did have school, delayed but not cancelled which is just insane given HS drivers. Apparently the BOE approved taking a vacation day away and the Superintendent wants to keep his vacation plans so - we had school. ldinct, hope you feel better, here’s a cup of tea.</p>
<p>FlMathMom - Thanks. I think that I will sign and submit the FAFSA for all colleges. I had enough of that FAFSA thing and want to be done. My estimates should be really close to the actual numbers anyway. I am not concerned if the colleges will see other colleges on the FAFSA list that much.</p>
<p>Arisamp it sounds very frustrating. Our school calculates rank but does not report it to colleges and we dont have Val. I didnt like the idea in the beginning of the high school, but now think it works for the best. Most kids in my sons grade dont sweat about their weighted GPA and are taking and enjoying classes like art or band that are not weighted.</p>
<p>15" and they didn’t cancel school? That’s crazy. We got about 8" and will probably have another snow day tomorrow. My daughter is loving these snow days. Seniors finish classes on May 27th, but everyone else has to make up the snow days. She’s been waiting for this
for a long time.</p>
<p>Our HS does not have a validictorian, and does a weigthed and unweighted class ranking at the end of junior year. Only year end grades are included in GPAs. I think this system benefits the kids because they can get an occasional B for the quarter and still have an A for the year. A good number of kids end up with high GPAs. I think that the median is about a 3.2. Overall, I think this system benefits kids with their applications and seems to cut down on competition.</p>
<p>You all know each other so well, I feel like an interloper.
One of the really nice things about having a kid who doesn’t give a hoot about grades is that you never, ever have to worry about this val/sal/ranking stuff. DS honestly does not care if it’s an A, B, or C…it matters not a whit to his self worth. I sort of envy that approach, to be honest. But it will be interesting to see him in 5-10 years as he does like cars, and nice vacations…
Not sure if anyone saw the Zits cartoon this AM but it’s going on the refrigerator.</p>
<p>ahappymom, there are no interlopers here, just newer-to-the-forum. So welcome. :)</p>
<p>And yes, Zits has been hilarious today and yesterday. Especially as D2 is now telling us that she wants to be a trophy wife. :eek: We are telling her that she needs to understand money so that her (hypothetical) husband won’t be able to hide away assets if he decides to bring home a new trophy. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Long time no post! So many congratulations - I raise my tea mug to you and yours with their successes too numerous to mention. Commiserations and Get well to others.
Our last semester is under way and D is comfortable enough with her level of work and grades to have a job! Yay! Saving for college spending money. We are not in the top 10% category for her HS so that’s one concern we fortunately don’t have!</p>
<p>Overnight visit to her ED school with audition and hopefully a little (more) scholarship money is booked for end of Feb, she wants me to join her and I was happy to do so, we last were there on a gorgeous summers day but WA will definitely not be like that in Feb!</p>
<p>She also ‘forgot’ about another application she had submitted and got a big boost to her self confidence to receive an acceptance and a $17,500 annual scholarship to College of Wooster! Nice school but she preferred UPS after visiting.</p>
<p>Our Prom is April 9th - her good friend is coming home from college to be her ‘date’ so dress shopping is in my future.</p>
<p>Graduation for her class of @800 is not till June 5th and how I wish our surname was in the first half of the alphabet - it’s going to be a very long afternoon!</p>
<p>Love ZIts. Have seriously considered sending a thank you note to the cartoonist as seeing Zits in the morning often made me tolerate my son much better, and not feel as though he was “the worst kid in the world” but rather being a typical teen boy… In waiting/worrying mode here. NOt much left to do but son is delaying on his Presidential Scholars Program app essays and on the “update” email we want to send to the colleges he has applied to. Very nervous as his super-safety school, which should have taken him in a blink, requested midyear grades (I know they have been sending acceptances without those, so this isn’t a requirement), hopefully this is not a bad sign of having misjudged his chances… Oh well, nothing to do now but enjoy the second snow day in a row…</p>
<p>rodney - thanks for the link - I couldn’t send it fast enuf to my sister who has a 25 year old college grad son whose next unpaid venture is writing music. For this they spent $150K.</p>
<p>the Zits cartoon is hilarious by I think ST’s D2 comment is even funnier. I could totally see our D coming up with something like that. My SIL has lots of married girlfriends that she refers to as “kept women”.</p>
<p>Great ZITS cartoon. Reminds me of the old Cosby Show episode where Theo decided he was going to get his own apartment (he was still probably 14-15 at the time), so one day he comes home, and Dr. Huxtable is dressed like a landlord/maintenance man, and Claire is dressed like a cook. Dr. H gives Theo some Monopoly money and said “I hear you want to rent a room” and takes him upstairs to Theo’s bedroom . . . where all the furniture and belongings have been removed. So Dr. H proceeds to tell him how much the room costs (takes some of the Monopoly money), how much furniture costs (takes money), how much “Miss Claire’s cooking” costs (takes money), etc. etc. until Theo has maybe a dollar or two left. That episode still makes me laugh. The REALITIES of REAL life! </p>
<p>It is a sunny 65 here in Austin, Texas, so I really feel for you folks snowed in.</p>
<p>^ One of my favorite Cosby episodes is when his daughter (I think it was Vanessa) complains about middle school and how other kids are mean to her because she is rich. To which Dr. H replies: “Honey, your mother and I are rich. You have nothing.”</p>
<p>There is an upside to living with cold wintry weather. When it snows and the roads are bad you have the perfect excuse to stay in and make brownies! And you can wear layers of clothes to cover those brownie bumps!</p>
<p>I believe we are DONE with the first semester! Son’s grades are on-line and they are all A’s and B’s. No worries here about the val or sal or even the top 10, but that’s okay, I know there’s a perfect college for him somewhere. Still waiting to hear from his favorite…</p>
<p>cpgm59: 65 and sunny sounds nice, but I actually love snow. We got about 8 inches of wet snow last night, and it was beautiful to wake up this morning and see snow on all of the trees.</p>