<p>Emmybet that is awesome!!! :)</p>
<p>Emmybet: I’m so very happy for you and your daughter! What a thrill it must be to get accepted after an audition – so affirming of her talent and her academic ability. Glad the trip to NY was a complete success – a great prom dress, some good theater, and an acceptance. Way to go!</p>
<p>AmandaK: I, too, am sorry about the Michigan FA news. Although I’m a proud Michigan graduate school alum, it’s hard to believe that Michigan and UVM charge so much for OOS tuition. I’m glad your son has other great options but I understand how disappointing it is not to get FA at his 1st choice. </p>
<p>I’m hoping for a happy conclusion to this chapter for all of us. I hope that we and our kids experience very good karma, such that even if they’re not at their top choices, wherever they land is where they were meant to be and all’s well that ends well.</p>
<p>Finally, I think it would be so much fun to meet up as a group – I’m game. In the meantime, if any of you are in or near Chicago, I’ll be there one night on my own when my S goes back for his admitted students trip in April. He’ll be staying in a dorm and I’ll stay in a hotel. I’ve no plans for the evening; if anyone is also attending Chicago’s admitted students’ events, or is a Chicago local and free for the evening (and not at another school’s event), let me know!</p>
<p>Emmybet - So excited for your daughter. Congrats on the fabulous news.</p>
<p>Get together - I’m game. Count me in.</p>
<p>emmybet: I am really thrilled for you guys…it must be a huge relief knowing that she can go to a program that she will absolutely love.</p>
<p>to those whose FA didn’t come through, I am sorry. Your kids will always have the satisfaction of saying that they got in and turned them down.</p>
<p>I am so impressed with this group. What struck me today is the loving and responsible financial decisions being made. I graduated 25 years ago with a boatload of debt due to a change in my dad’s business while I was in school. I had an amazing finance job in a booming economy and a multiple roomates sharing the rent and I still had to worry each month about my loan payments. These days, job security and job prospects are less likely. Our kids will thrive wherever they plant themselves. There are great opportunities up and down their well thought out lists. I don’t want to make light of any disappointment or sadness (we have some here too), but I do want to congratulate those having the hard discussions and making tough decisions. Thank you for sharing your experiences.</p>
<p>Congrats to EmmyBet and daughter!</p>
<p>Amandakayak: it’s tough in that situation, I hope S is OK.</p>
<p>
Is he looking at nuke as a major? That was mine - hence the name. Love his reasoning here. I didn’t make it into MIT and was very happy at Cal. I would never have survived the winters in Boston. My parents were going to refinance the house to pay for MIT - so glad I didn’t go there, just for that. And good for him to have all that going for him at Mizzou:). Tell him, I said, “job well done”.</p>
<p>Yay for EmmyBet’s daughter! What an enormous load off your back that must be, knowing that you’ve cleared an auditioned acceptance.</p>
<p>AmandaK, the right school is still waiting out there.</p>
<p>D1 is dragging her heels on the summer job front. We are cracking the whip. Or trying to crack the whip. The free ride is coming to an end, kiddo. :)</p>
<p>However, the free ride continues through at least graduation dinner. Graduation will be in late June. D1, who has some foodie tendencies, wants to go somewhere special. I just checked on OpenTable for reservations for 6 at just the place–no go, booked solid. 
So, a public service announcement: make those reservations now, if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>I’ll add my congrats to Emmybet’s daughter! Those audition trips sounded both exhilarating and grueling, and it must be great to be experiencing some of the payoff now. My D has done her share of auditions for high school theatre, but taking it up to the level many of these kids are at is amazing to me.</p>
<p>And I’ll also add to the thoughts about AmandaK’s bad FA news from Michigan. My ties are to Michigan State, but it’s a shame that the OOS tuition is so out of bounds on some of these schools. It sounds like there will be other good options, though.</p>
<p>And I’m still thinking of looking into a cryogenic option that will just allow a long nap until the end of March when all of this can start making more sense as decisions roll in for D …</p>
<p>^ LOL, onegirlsmom. See if you’ll get a deal on that cryogenic nap if you book for two. I’ll join you.</p>
<p>I don’t know how d will feel this evening when I pick her up from her college trip at the airport but last night she was telling me that the school she almost ruled out for minor, minor reasons is now tops on her list (not the school she was visiting). We have airline tickets to visit two more (both in the same area so only one flight each way) but if she has decided, the tickets are able to be changed and used in the next 12 months. So if she has decided (based on admission), I will be totally happy. I think she had a really good chance at the previous college. She had a GPA above what they want for strong candidates, a ACT at the 75% level, and strong academic schedule plus great recommendations and extra-curriculars. Yes, the school only accepts about 40% but since she is closer to the top then the bottom and made a point of visiting in their winter, I think she is probably going to be admitted. It didn’t hurt that when she had her interview with the admissions counselor, she called us (the parents) in and talked with us. In particular, she congratulated me on providing my d with a great education and how happy she is to meet homeschooling parents who actually make sure their children learn math. Apparently she meets parents who have an opposite philosophy from mine and if their kids don’t like math, they don’t do it. I don’t care who likes what- everyone does the basics which include math through pre-calc. I let them choose things like which math text they will use (within reason) but it will be done. All of them have thought that that was the only way to go and is one of the reasons d has been having such a hard time finding a good fit. She wants a school where people think the reason for being there is to learn and they act like that is the reason.</p>
<p>That school is also a yellow ribbon school for GI bill recipients so we know if she is accepted, she can afford to go.</p>
<p>MilitaryMom - that is so wonderful! </p>
<p>Thank you for the congratulations. I won’t lie - we’re all so relieved, happy, settled. Something new might roll in, but it’s all frosting from now on. And D’s confidence level has zoomed!</p>
<p>I’ll chime in on something missypie posted a while back - this school that D got into isn’t a “brand name” by any means - it’s one of those schools that locals often shrug at, and it doesn’t make any special college lists. But people who go there are very loyal, and more importantly it has just what my D needs, both in the theatre dept and in the honors college. So I’ll be proud to say she goes there, if that’s what she decides.</p>
<p>AND as many people are seeing, she will make up financially at this school whatever she might sacrifice in “prestige.” If one of the more prestigious(=expensive) schools does take her, we’ll deal with that question at the time. It’s a decision a family can only make for themselves.</p>
<p>I do think it could feel weird for kids to wear clothes from schools that reject them - I was conservative about letting D buy stuff when we visited: only schools she had a special feeling about, whether she might go there or not. Out of about 20 schools, she only got 2 t-shirts, one sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants (from the school she just got into!). </p>
<p>I think she just sees them as a general collection, and I think she’ll keep wearing them. She thinks they’re awesome schools. And we noticed that a lot of kids walking around college campuses are wearing stuff with other schools’ names on it. So just call it a souvenir! Or say your cousin goes there! Whatever!</p>
<p>She has joked that if she doesn’t get into Bard she might draw a picture of Shakespeare on the sweatshirt and say it’s referring to him, not the school!</p>
<p>AtomicGirl: yes, my son would be a physics major with a nuclear engineering minor at Mizzou; a nuclear engineering major at MIT or Purdue (but he’s pretty much ruled out being a Boilermaker.) He only applied to schools that have research reactors on campus.</p>
<p>EmmyBet: my niece is a vocal performance/opera major at Bard. She graduates in May. She has loved it. Her older sister went to Sarah Lawrence. That branch of our family is very different than the other three. They can’t quite grasp having cousins at Indiana, kansas, Mizzou and Rollins College. (kansas is neither a proper name nor a proper place, therefore it is not capitalized. Plus the Border War is tomorrow.)</p>
<p>Funny story about a college tee-shirt:
My girl friend and I were sitting outside eating one day and I saw a 20ish guy wearing a tee-shirt with the name of one of the schools my son applied to on it. I went over to him and asked him how he liked going to that school. He said he didn’t, he bought the tee-shirt b/c he liked it.</p>
<p>EmmyBet, big grats on your daughter’s auditioned acceptance and MilMom on a possible decision made! And amandak, sorry about the big goose-egg from the School-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.</p>
<p>My daughter got the notice yesterday that she’s not getting a scholarship from the audition she thought she had the best chance at. She went through a brief period of “I should have known I was too terrible to have a chance…” etc., but it helped that her granddad was here for a visit and she got a big shiny book from one of the schools that accepted her and that she now wants to visit.</p>
<p>She was asking me recently if I thought it was okay for her to keep and wear the t-shirts she has collected on visits and I said “Of course!” Too bad they don’t all have a cool second meaning like Bard!</p>
<p>My husband wouldn’t think meeting on-line friends is weird, as we’ve been doing that since the late '80’s (yes, pre-internet, I used to hang out on BBS’s!) I did get to have some real-life college talk this morning. We have a group of moms of 7th graders who’ve been meeting for coffee weekly since our kids were in 1st grade, and a few of them also have seniors.</p>
<p>I’ll throw Denver out as a possible meet-up since it’s a hub and centrally located between our east-coast and west-coast friends. I think the places suggested so far are Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Orlando, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, NYC, Albany, and Minnesota (plus whichever ones I forgot!)</p>
<p>One small thing I’ll miss after a decision is made: the funny names my husband makes up for all the colleges my daughter has applied to, like Hampster, Skid Row, and St. Oaf!</p>
<p>olderwiser - sounds like you treat ka<em>sas much like we Buckeyes do with that other state up north near us (mich</em>gan). I remember my Mizzou days well and there was no love lost with ka*sas or k-state for that matter. :D</p>
<p>As a former faculty member at KU I have to put in a good word for that school we lovingly (if inaccurately) referred to as “Harvard on the Kaw”. Those border wars can indeed be fierce - but we always liked being on the “Free State” side of things!</p>
<p>I’ve been absent from the boards for a while due to work and life (nothing bad, just busy). Oh, and nothing new to report on D’s acceptances, still in waiting mode.</p>
<p>Emmybet: Major congratulations to your D on the BFA acceptance! You must be so proud of her.</p>
<p>Amanda: Sorry to hear about no $ at Mich. D liked Mich but I discouraged her from applying there and at other OOS publics for that very reason.</p>
<p>I would love to meet some of you lovely CC people when the dust settles. You know how you always envision a face for a voice on the phone- I find myself doing that on this board based on screen name and postings. I’m quite sure that my “visions” of most of you are waaay off though, LOL</p>
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<p>Amanda. I’m so sorry about the aid a Michigan. I don’t think they’re well known for it and the OOS sticker can be painful. I hope the other schools come back with more reasonable packages. </p>
<p>Emmy. Big happy dance for your D!! The MT audition kids really have my respect. I’m very happy for you all!</p>
<p>OWM. You always amaze me. If I want to have someone working on nukes, I’ll take your son! What a great kid with a strong sense of self. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for MIT still. </p>
<p>Regarding college tshirts, my kids have worn them since they were babies, literally. Maybe our state just has a lot of schools/teams/etc, but the kids have always worn college gear from all over. It’s really common here. I’m sure when he goes to school there will be a certain ‘filtering’ of any rivalry school shirts that may get left at home. </p>
<p>Happy Friday!</p>
<p>AK - sorry about Michagan. Their loss.</p>