<p>blue - taxes are my task this long weekend, too. Trying to meet the IDOC deadline for two schools. Does anyone know if I can sent completed - but not filed - tax return to IDOC?</p>
<p>We will be paying rather than getting a refund, and I’d like to not pay until April, even though the tax docs are needed for the IDOC program.</p>
<p>puma12 - I think you can delay the payment but cannot delay the filing. Colleges need to have info from the IRS to verify FAFSA/CSS profile. TurboTax let users specify the date for the IRS to withdraw money from bank account at the time the users file returns.</p>
<p>Thanks - I’ll look for that option in TurboTax.</p>
<p>It sure makes me nervous to put all of this very specific info - taxes, w-2’s, ssn etc in an envelope and drop it in the snail mail to IDOC - looks like ID theft waiting to happen! How do ya’ll handle that?</p>
<p>You can certainly file before paying, I don’t intend to give away that float. I liked Cornell’s electronic uploading to send the 1040s to them because I am way leary of some min wage finaid worker snagging all those ss#s. I’ve been an ID theft victim twice and this archaic “give me your entire 1040” has to end. As if the inputs from CSS/Fafsa aren’t enough? And it’s not like any of us has a 1040-EZ or something, my tax docs with all the schedules…got to be 20 pgs at least. Once they are done with them, I sure hope they dispose of all those stacks of paper securely.</p>
<p>I’m so nervous about all the financial aid info being sent around, too. About six months after DS is enrolled at a school, I’m going to run a credit check on him to make sure no charge accounts, etc. have been opened in his name. Same with us. There’s got to be a safer way to do this!</p>
<p>congrats kathiep and blue. I love what was said about sensitivity. As the kids start to get their acceptances, the first reaction for them is to post to Facebook, or whatever. Which is great…as long as they don’t add that it’s just a “safety” or something demeaning. Share the joy, hold the judgment.</p>
<p>Congrats on the VT acceptance blue! We have a lot of Hokie’s up here and two in our own family. Great College!</p>
<p>I’m taking today to look up and print out the curriculum for the major’s from son’s accepted Colleges and tomorrow (he has off) he’s going to go through and eliminate the ones that no longer interest him. Hopefully he will knock off a couple.</p>
<p>I was willing to take off tomorrow so we could visit the nearby State U that he was accepted to but he didn’t want to. Says it’s too close.</p>
<p>kinderny – When the D isn’t around, open the watch box if possible to charge the watch before you give it to her. That way it will be running when she gets it. Hope she loves hers as much as I do mine!</p>
<p>Finally got 2011 son to submit his Purdue Emerging Urban Leader’s scholarship application. Considering the fact that he began his main essay by stating that the theme of the prompt was inaccurate (an improvement over his initial response of “absurd”), I think his chances are not particularly good. We are planning a “come to Jesus” meeting to show him how much more he will have to pay (ie. borrow and work) to attend Purdue over Indiana University. Still sorry we weren’t able to get him to consider any out of state schools. Despite his 34 ACT and rank of 21/600 he was not offered any merit money by Purdue. Too bad they quit giving automatic merit aid this year. He would have qualified for free tuition just like at IU.</p>
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<p>Ahhh…I get it. A little slow on the uptake here! That must look very nice!</p>
<p>MaMom – I’ve always said that if men ever realized how much women love a man in a tux, jean sales would drop to nothing overnight. </p>
<p>Apollo6 – They may like that response. It will certainly stand out! And it will show his style better than any of those stacks of suck-up essays.</p>
<p>Congrats BlueJr!</p>
<p>MOSB- The kids do learn a lot about the programs on these auditions, good and bad. Glad your D continues to have a positive attitude and clear head.</p>
<p>D took a break from soiling the nest last night and we had a great time dancing at a friend’s birthday party. Its great to have these moments to store in the memory bank.</p>
<p>Hope the coming week brings good news and good times for all of us.</p>
<p>Glad to hear of kids having fun! That’s so important.</p>
<p>D is taking a painting class this semester - it’s a ton of work, but she’s really enjoying it. I’m so glad she has something refreshing to do right now.</p>
<p>And the health club membership is going amazingly well! For the first time in her life, I think she actually is enjoying exercise! She has several chronic health issues - asthma, inflammatory knee problems, scoliosis - that have always made gym class a disaster (the only one that worked out was swimming, except they spent the last 3 weeks of the semester doing high impact activities like running!). Even dance class was rough, in hot, airless rooms. But she’s finding out what it’s like to run her own game now, in this independent study, and she’s feeling really good about it. </p>
<p>Now I just need to start feeling the same way … I think I’ll take out a membership, too.</p>
<p>IDOC experts - How does anyone know when the 1040 is filed?</p>
<p>We had perfect weather today - sunny, dry with a bit of a breeze. Hubby and I went to the same beach we went to on our first date 20 years ago. A lot has happened in that time.</p>
<p>Monday’s countdown is:</p>
<p>MIT (March 14th) - 21 days to go (that’s just 3 weeks!)</p>
<p>**March 31st schools - 38 days to go<a href=“at%20least%20we%20are%20out%20of%20the%2040’s!”>/B</a></p>
<p>Sorry about no Sunday countdown. We spent all day (nearly 11 hours with travel time) at freshman D’s indoor track meet and then got to drive an hour and 15 minutes home in freezing rain and wet snow. Will this winter ever end?</p>
<p>puma12 - I sent my IDOC package in one of the heavy flat rate Priority envelopes with delivery confirmation. I know that assures me it arrived (it did) but there is no guarantee of who is reading all of that information. I check my credit monitoring access every week just to be on the safe side. I know they got it and I have been trying to log into the applicant’s site at one of the schools that S applied to that posts the various items received and outstanding for FA. I got on the site once and now the URL won’t bring up the login page. All I get is a blank page so I have emailed the school’s IT Office for assistance because I really want to see if they have received the FAFSA and the IDOC informaiton. I do know that they got the CSS Profile when I did get access about a week ago.</p>
<p>Speaking of identiy theft, years ago I worked for a company with operations in southern Illinois and I spent some time in Mt. Vernon, Marion and Christopher, IL plus Paducah, KY further south. I just hope that College Board’s IDOC center in Mt. Vernon is not subbing out their processing to the federal prison inmates at the Marion Federal Prison! Actually, with College Board, I am pretty comfortable with what I have heard and read about their security and privacy controls but I will still monitor as it only takes one employee to cause a lot of problems.</p>
<p>Kathiep and blueiguana congrats to your kids on the latest acceptances! </p>
<p>Congratulations to all auditioning kids nailing their auditions! I am glad good news are coming in these long weeks of waiting.</p>
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<p>Appolo6 It may be just the opposite. For example, when I read your post, I thought to myself I like this guy! I myself didnt like any of my Ss college essays, thinking they were too light, but I know that to write differently he would have to force it out and the result would be much worse. And I think some of the prompts are asking for a daring response. Or maybe they are just absurd.</p>
<p>Good morning all. We received an unexpectedly early acceptance to one of D’s schools, including a note that she was a finalist for the school’s top academic scholarship. I guess the early acceptance shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise; I knew the invitations for the scholarship weekend were going out and it wouldn’t make much sense to get an invite to a scholarship weekend without also being accepted! D really lit up when she opened the big envelope - so nice to see her get such nice recognition for all her hard work.<br>
Our waiting time is a little less stressful than for a lot of others I believe because she only applied to safety schools with the hope of getting good merit money (so the concern isn’t so much admittance as it is getting enough money to make it doable). But I know that for a lot of kids, these are not safety schools and D is well aware of that. She is only sharing her college news with very close friends, and doing it carefully at that.
She is finally able to relax a little and enjoy being a second semester senior, but she has made a number of comments about how she likes living at home and is in no rush to leave - but that she is tired of a lot of the high school drama and is excited about the opportunities her prospective colleges will bring. They are all very different schools, so it will be interesting to see where she lands.</p>
<p>Congrats to those nailing auditions and getting fun admissions letters. The waits continue, and the excitement builds!</p>
<p>cooker - So very excited for your D!! It is wonderful to see that pressure lift after months of uncertainty. I know my S shares the feeling of being ready to move on from hs drama. He is about as anti-drama as they come. He doesn’t have sisters so I’ve had to explain to him the ‘normal’ factor of what he sees as outright insanity. :)</p>
<p>Appolo - I honestly think if your son wrote that essay with conviction (which it sounds like he did) it will not be seen as ‘vanilla’ and may just stand out. keylime brings up the point of ‘light’ essays, which is the same idea (I think). They can convey information, but often miss the students personality. I’ve actually seen a student try to kill an application by writing his essay about ‘Why Your University Will Not Accept Me’. His parents wanted him to go. He did not. He’s a very gifted writer and it backfired.</p>
<p>Happy Monday to all. I hope many of you got the day off (maybe?).</p>
<p>For the first time all year my daughter will get much needed rest and time to enjoy the last part of her senior year. Auditions are done, Musical was this last weekend, she has moved onto a less strenous sport for spring (varsity tennis) as opposed to her Varsity volleyball and soccer, and classes seem to be going great! As we know all these theatre kids stay incredibly busy but I hope she will enjoy her downtime and get to be a kid before she heads off to college.</p>
<p>Congrats to kathiep’s kid on RIT and to blue’s kid on VT. Yay! I love hearing happy news.</p>
<p>Our happy news this week is that D1 was granted credit for life skills. Now the only thing standing between her and graduation is a health class, which is supposed to be offered on weekends. We hope!</p>