<p>Oh - FlMM, don’t forget about the new DS. My D is counting that down with way more excitement than her college answers.</p>
<p>arisamp–I’m very interested in your D’s good reviews on this campus visit. Is it, by chance, one of the schools our kids have in common? I still think they may end up in the same place. :)</p>
<p>Slithey–were you able to find a great sale? As you know, we last-minute ran to The North Face store in BH where there was huge selection–but no sales. S1 is now wearing his new coat (has the rain shell with the Denali fleece attachable as liner) all over Italy and reports staying warm and dry.</p>
<p>FlMathMom–S1 cannot live without his iPad. He does email, surfs internet, downloads books, sketches, watches tv, and Skypes with it. And, naturally, he and his creative partner designed a multiplayer party game for the iPad which he is now able to share with new friends in Florence. 
And btw, your remodel plans sound fantastic.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, S2 has received a little more news. One of our financial safeties has invited him to a Reception for High-Achieving (their caps!) Applicants in March. Could this be a hint? </p>
<p>Patience is not my virtue.</p>
<p>arisamp, I want to have D1 try on a pair of Bogs. I got the name off of a CC thread about winter boots–I’ll also try some of the other brands (like Hunter?) but the Bogs look like a great combo of style and performance and warmth if the fit works for D1. Then my modus operandus (operandi?) is to google like mad on the particular desired object until a nice sales price comes up. madbean, the Denali was $100 at 6pm.com, but I might have to spend more if I ended up getting the wrong size as that was the last one. I remember last year starting to see Denalis going on sale around this time and thinking that maybe I should snag one, so I’m sure more deals will show up. I’ll post here if anything appears in quantity in terms of boots or jackets. </p>
<p>EmmyBet, not all of us SoCal parents are quite so clueless about cold! I’m seeing sales on big long warm coats suitable for Boston, but it’s a false economy in my book to buy something on sale for D1, only to have her not wear it at all the following year because it’s not functional enough or horribly out of style. </p>
<p>Following a great suggestion by madbean, I added Medford to the weather locations on my phone. The comparison of highs isn’t so dramatic today (39 vs 57), but over the past few weeks there have been a few standouts (high 70s/low 80s vs teens).</p>
<p>Most kids find they need a warmer coat in college because they are out walking much more than at home. The Northface fleece jackets are great in the fall and spring, but once winter hits anywhere that gets a real winter, kids will need a down parka with a hood. It’s hard to find Northfaces on sale, but Nordstrom usually has some in their July sale.</p>
<p>I checked out the Bed, Bath and Beyond website. If you sign up for their email updates, they will send you a 20% off coupon now and more coupons in the future.</p>
<p>I found out with D1 that the most important thing to own in college is a pair of real rain boots.</p>
<p>They sure do walk around outside a lot more than they used to.</p>
<p>Slivey - don’t worry, the Californians got us back. They bought what they thought was the most hysterically funny wall calendar featuring exotic chickens. They showed it to us, saying, “Wow, aren’t these chickens funny? Are they even real? Have you EVER seen chickens like this?”</p>
<p>My D and I looked at each other and realized we had to admit that yes, we had seen chickens like that. Every year at the 4H Fair in our town. And at some of her farm friends’ houses. Yup yup yo …</p>
<p>Her entire 4 years at Tufts her friends have accused her of having a cow named Bessie. Every chance I get, I send her cow souvenirs, just to perpetuate her image (which happens to be completely erroneous, but there’s no fighting it).</p>
<p>momjr, thanks for the bbb coupon heads-up.</p>
<p>EmmyBet, I dunno, the Californians still sound pretty dopey in the chicken story! We’d like to get chickens, but among other things I want to see if the dog can coexist with them.</p>
<p>I second Emmybet’s suggestion about the rain boots. I tried to get D1 to buy a pair before she left for college, but she insisted that she wouldn’t need them. Guess what her first purchase was during fall break freshman year?</p>
<p>My dog would love to co-exist with chickens … except I’m not sure how long the chickens would exist …</p>
<p>I bought my FL boy his first winter jacket during my pre-holiday Lands End online shopping spree. No matter where he goes - Atlanta, Houston, Boston - other than Los Angeles, he will be able to wear it with or without the lining or hood. </p>
<p>It will get a trial run along with his new waterproof hiking shoes/boots we bought for Candidates Weekend at Olin this weekend. We figured sneakers just wouldn’t cut it. It is a very small school so I didn’t get the scarfs, gloves, high boots etc yet. I want to first see where he will be for the next four years before I start buying a new wardrobe for him.</p>
<p>Re: BBB coupons. BBB will take expired coupons except for those you get online. Those cannot be expired. Sometimes BBB has coupons in newspapers or magazines. They used to honor unexpired Linens 'N Things coupons until LNT went OOB (out of business). If you have other competitors nearby, you might want to try using their coupons.</p>
<p>Little story regarding winter jackets…
Last week S’10 sends a text: “70 degrees here, beautiful day, i love it here!”
My answer: “20 degrees here, another snow fall, you picked the right school, 
Mom”</p>
<p>Needless to say he did not take his warm ski jacket, but he did use the rain boots ;)</p>
<p>I know there was a lot of talk of spread sheets earlier but I need one now (I hate CC’s search engine) so we can clearly see the full financial aid picture as the packages come in. Does anyone have one an excel or word document, (blank of course!) that they would be willing to share via e-mail? Our EFC went up more then we expected and the colleges think we can actually afford what it says. </p>
<p>BTW, for those of you that remember that my oldest son is doing a backpacking/hostel trip in Europe right now you will be interested in knowing that he’s been gone a month. So far he has visited Stockholm, Berlin, some small town for two weeks where he worked on a horse farm, Cologne, Dusseldorf and is currently in Belgium. He has lost two pairs of gloves. He really liked Berlin, especially the cheap hostel that cost about $10 a night. We talked via skype a couple of days ago and he sounded quite happy. He created a website before he left where he is doing a blog of his adventures. As an English major, it’s par for the course for him, but really, really nice for me!</p>
<p>Kathie- can’t help you with the financial stuff. We have a D who “may” be going to a middle school costing more than what we will be paying for S’s college. Of course, our EFC says we can afford all that and more. I can’t complain we can afford to send S to many of his schools, especially with the merit money he has received. D may end up at public which is not the worse thing that can happen. </p>
<p>I would love to read your S’s blog if you (and he) wouldn’t mind sharing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same here S1 is actually planning a similar trip for this summer 
PM the info if he is ok with sharing.</p>
<p>Thursday’s countdown is:</p>
<p>MIT (March 14th) - 18 days to go</p>
<p>**March 31st schools - 35 days to go. Just 5 weeks. **</p>
<p>Kathiep - I am also interested in such a spreadsheet if it exists out there somewhere. I will have the same job in evaluating the various FA scenarios (assuming that S gets admitted to at least 1 or more of the reach/merit schools he applied to).</p>
<p>If nothing is found I will develop my own and offer it to the posters on this thread.</p>
<p>kathie, avon - I’ve developed all sorts of spreadsheets re: this process so if either/both of you want to let me know what you want on it, I’d be happy to either to share what I have or create something new. </p>
<p>EmmyBet - My son won’t let me forget about the new DS. He turns 18 in 2 weeks and that is his first choice birthday gift!!</p>
<p>Kathiep - I started adding columns to my existing spreadsheet on the 7 schools ds applied to with: 2010-11 tuition (only 1 out of 7 have 2011-12 rates published), r&b, books, and “other.” Then add columns for COA, COA less “other” less grant = netCOA. Problem being that when a college posts COA, it is inconsistent with other college’s methodology. That “other” bucket for these schools ranges from $860 in fees to $6000 in fees, “personal” and one-time computer cost. UMiami budgets $3800 to travel and personal for example - and I don’t know how much travel/jetsetting they assume one kid would be doing! I want to be able to look at apples to apples somehow and backing out that “other” helps.</p>
<p>I also did a regression analysis/4-yr projection on tuition given linear rates of increase (which is a bad assumption, I know but it’s all we have besides rumors or hoping every school goes the Sewanee way and cuts tuition - HA!) - got the data on tuition rates on each college from 2002-3 up to 2009-10 here: [IPEDS</a> Data Center](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/Default.aspx]IPEDS”>Use The Data)
Helps to see that even among privates, some have increased alot of 8 yrs and some not so much. It projects that next yr, UMiami will be more expensive than Cornell for example. Nice to know. Puts that static scholarship into perspective!</p>
<p>Thanks for the offers of spreadsheets, I’ll PM about that. It is more complicated if you really factor in estimated transportation costs or expected living expenses for different years. Also, my son is looking at one college that is a 5 year co-op college which will look really lop-sided with total expenses. I almost think I did this with our last child and all of the schools that were over the amount we would pay (we promise a certain amount) were highlighted in a red font. sort of a Danger! Danger! That was a few computers ago though, so I’m not sure I can find that. The higher costs for this round might be depressing to compare to also.</p>
<p>kathie - You can do a search on your computer.Try putting in some words that might appear on the spreadsheet like tuition, fees, co-op. </p>
<p>I must admit, my spreadsheets are NO where near as sophisticated as AK’s. I just put in a 5% increase for year one. I did not project out 4 years other than to multiply year one by 4.5 to allow for inflation. GA Tech is also a co-op school and I have no clue as to how much income will be coming in from that. I admit I just did it to get a ballpark # b/c there are many unknown variables. If your child is getting a scholarship based on maintaining a certain GPA, you might want to evaluate both uncertainties.</p>
<p>10,000 posts!! Woohoo! </p>
<p>Slithey - do keep me posted on rain boots. We need to get her good ones (I think she’ll need them no matter where she goes). I might look at Denali again - maybe get her a thicker one? She usually layers - wears a thick sweatshirt and then the Denali fleece.</p>
<p>madbean - D was at U of R - so I don’t think it is a common school. Unless your son also applied there?? D hated the food there - interesting, we didn’t like the food while we were there last year and she said the food hadn’t improved in the past year. She has to still visit those schools that she and your S have in common - not sure when we are going to schedule those. Just gives me a stress headache thinking of all this…</p>
<p>kathiep - can’t help on the FA spreadsheet. But would love to read your S’ blog if you would like to share. We love going to Europe and are thinking of another trip down there this summer - the last hurrah before D heads off to college.</p>