<p>OWM - happy to hear that your little guy is better and that everyone is home sleeping in their own beds!</p>
<p>Novelisto - love the monk analogy. And good luck to your daughter today. I’m sending prayers and good thoughts in her direction and yours.</p>
<p>KathieP - congrats on the early good news! Even when “expected”, it’s always good to get the actual word.</p>
<p>Collegemaw & Oregonianmom - fingers crossed for interviews today & Wednesday! I remember driving DD to her first and role-playing different possible questions with her. None of the questions we discussed came up during the interview but she said later that just going through that exercise helped her.</p>
<p>AvonHSDad & Momdoc - sorry about the Vandy news. How in the world did they pick the top 200 out of 3000? I think Adcoms and FA folks must find this job almost as stressul as the parents and kids do! Sometimes I envision them all in a room at their respective colleges and they’re spinning the raffle drum and then picking kids’ names out. The process just feels almost that random when you think about how many applications they receive that are just sooo smiliar.</p>
<p>collegemaw - good luck to your D with interview.</p>
<p>Avon- well that stinks about the Vandy scholarship. Unfortunately for our S one good school is giving him enough merit that, in my mind, it makes the rest too expensive. But, maybe S can come up with a good enough arguement to convince me otherwise.</p>
<p>OWM- glad to read grandson is better! Your S and DIL are lucky to have you nearby.</p>
<p>Novelisto - hope your D feels better.</p>
<p>CaMathMom - yes stop stressing! congrats on the likely.</p>
<p>ROM- I have had great luck with a high intensity light on those hard to steam envelopes! Congrats on the Likely from UVA. </p>
<p>AK - sorry about the honors program. Can you reapply at end of freshman year?</p>
<p>Kathie - congrats on acceptance </p>
<p>aris - sorry your son’s team lost tournament. ;-(</p>
<p>hollie - can you stand outside and wait for the letter carrier? They must have some kind of schedule. Just figures though huh?</p>
<p>On top of the college stuff my 11yo will be getting decisions from the middle schools she has applied to at the end of this week. Where she goes next year will depend on how much college costs us for S. And I am ready to kill him. He has decided that he can now coast and there has been a steady decrease in his grades this year. If it were just about him, I wouldn’t be so mad but there is a finite amount of money and the more we have to spend for his college education, the less I have for his little sisters middle school. Which makes me lean even more towards the schools that are offering him the most merit. </p>
<p>I am offering up some great brownies dd made last night.</p>
<p>sorry for the bad scholarship news folks are getting! But I am sure there is good news to come soon for all!</p>
<p>mamom- believe me if I didn’t have to go to work I would be standing out there waiting for the mail. We have so much snow right now that my dh has packed snow around the broken mailbox. It is standing today, so hopefully we will be able to get yesterday and todays mail delivered. It can’t truly be “fixed” until the ground thaws, but my dh promised to rig a temporary solution (once the snow around the box melts) later this week. It truly is cruel to do this to a senior awaiting news of scholarships!! (fortunately has all her acceptances in hand!)</p>
<p>^we had a brief thaw over the weekend and are now back to freezing weather. So cruel. Snow melts and we can finally see the lawn (and xmas decorations that have been frozen to yard or buried under snow) but the very cold weather returns once more. Fingers crossed for good news coming your way.</p>
<p>THAT is exciting…Loved the MIT blog…we always have. That quirkiness is something our student found attractive as well.</p>
<p>Glad to near the snow for some is helpful, even if just to hold up the broken mailbox post. Crazy. Wonder what the 'regulations" are for mailboxes. Years ago , living in a city (basement apartment), our mail receptical was a basket with strawflowers/ribbon that I attached to the door.</p>
<p>ProudMom
</p>
<p>Love your brighter side thought that they have a sense of humor!!
When I picked up our taxes yesterday and saw the AGI --I thought…“gosh wouldn’t it be nice if the finaid people at the U actually followed the same tax principles etc as the IRS!” How rare is THAT!
The U- They “add back” all kinds of crazy stuff and take us from a reasonable EFC to a “humorous” (not) EFC.
sigh</p>
<p>CGPM
</p>
<p>Sounds like a gov goof…were these first passports or renewals. The apps for passports have gotten crazy. For renewals - three of us could do it one way and submit them here at the Clerk of the Ct, and one student had to do it via mail.</p>
<p>AmandaK, AvonDad and momdoc – Sorry about the bad news. I hope next couple of weeks will bring you something to smile about.</p>
<p>OWM- happy to read olderwisergrandson is better! I read the MIT blog and can see the appeal of that school. I will keep all my fingers and toes crossed for your S on the decision day. </p>
<p>ROM and CaMathMom – Hurray to the likelies! And Kathie - congrats on acceptance! If that’s not the reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.</p>
<p>holliesue – wishing speedy recovery to your mailbox.</p>
<p>Not a lot to report here. S got an e-mail that he was selected as a finalist for substantial scholarship in one of the schools that he was accepted to. Which means more essay writing. And he thought he was done. This week he is on a semi spring break. No college classes, but school’s in. So it’s not a bad timing.</p>
<p>Hi All, I am a long time lurker on CC. But I wanted to share something with you all. D finally let it be known just how stressful waiting to hear from colleges was for her. (It’s been causing me stress for quite sometime!) As she was ranting and raving, I just held her tight and quoted all of you! All the pearls of wisdom I have gleamed from here sure helped! I have tried so hard to not show how stressful this is for me, she is an only child so this is a new experience for us, not one I would want to go through again…ha ha ha. </p>
<p>She has been accepted to 4 schools already and is waiting to hear from 5 other ones.(no rejections yet and am not sure how she will deal with that if it happens or how I will! yikes!). She doesn’t have a favorite school which I think is making this more stressful for her.</p>
<p>But, I just wanted to thank you all. I have learned so much from everyone and I so appreciate it. And I love hearing what is going on with all the kids etc.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, we lost our mailbox to a plow also - had H out there in the dark fixing it! ha ha</p>
<p>Novelisto, that was pure genius. Thanks for the laugh this morning. (I will be so impressed with myself if I figured out how to make that quote thing work!)</p>
<p>Novelisto - LOL! Living in the Northeast it is clear that whomever came up with the EFC calculation either has an unlimited trust fund, liveson a self-sustaining farm or sits in an ivory tower. The whole application process is crazy and then paying for it is insane.</p>
<p>AmandaK, AvonDad and Momdoc: Sorry to hear the bad news. I hope that the next news is better. The nice thing about this thread is that it helps you realize that you’re not the only family dealing with these disapointments. I took a quick look at the Vanderbilt thread, and saw that one of the scholarship recipients not only had top grades and scores, but was a world class equestrian. I guess she had a good hook. </p>
<p>OWM: I’m glad to hear that the little guy is feeling better and is back home.</p>
<p>CaMathMom: Congrats on the likely letter. We visited UCLA years ago, and my D1 was quite smitten, but it was too far from home so we didn’t let her apply.</p>
<p>Kathiep: Congrats on the latest acceptance. </p>
<p>BKCS: Welcome. I’m glad that your daughter has some acceptances in hand, and I hope she gets more good news soon.</p>
<p>It’s very calm here since my daughter has been set with her choice since December. I’m glad to be finished with all the stress, but I have to admit I do miss the excitement of waiting for the mail. It figure that I’m the one with a functioning mailbox.</p>
<p>Amanda~Your son can apply to the honors within his first year I believe.
Also keep in mind that being in the Honors program in NOT always the best option …You can PM me if you have questions.</p>
<p>To bad for the Vandy scholarships still a very good option ;)</p>
<p>S2 has a friend who also received a LL to UVa. He is OOS, S2 was so thrilled for his great news!</p>
<p>I should not even pipe in on the cost question. I have relatives that are sending their kids to schools beyond their means. They are taking out huge loans way beyond what I consider reasonable. None of them considered finding a financial safety their kids would love to attend. They were ignorant of the whole process. One of them told me “how can I deny her the college of her dreams?” Um, how about the same way you deny her an expensive car? I predict in 10 years there will be some kind of gov’t bailout because we have a generation of kids who are swamped in college loans and can’t afford to buy a new car, a house, etc. I do not want to be paying for that bailout. I blame parents who can’t say no, banks who loan out ridiculous amounts of money, GC who don’t let kids and their parents know that their extremely smart kid may not get a full ride and colleges that push loans. </p>
<p>Lots of news here lately. Amanda,AvonDad and momdoc - so sorry about the less than good news. Honestly, sometimes these decisions make no sense. And I’m with those of you who feel my children’s pain more than they do, and I have absolutely no objectivity where they are concerned. If those admins knew our kids like we do, they would see the light!
Congrats on the likelies and acceptances. Hopefully the good news and bad news will balance out (in favor of the good).
We have a road trip this weekend to Minnesota for a scholarship weekend. Hopefully this will help D narrow her list. She says she has no idea which school she prefers; still waiting to hear from two. Hard to believe that a month from now we’ll know where our kids are going (or at least have a considerably narrower list).
And here’s hoping that our major snowfalls are a thing of the past - at least until next year - and that mailboxes are up and operational soon. Fortunately for us, our mail is delivered to our front door - we just have to keep the mailbox brushed off!</p>
<p>Wow if you miss a little time around here it’s impossible to address anyone specifically.</p>
<p>I as always am very happy to hear of the good news and very sad to hear of the not so good news. I always try and remember when I get a result that was not what I hoped for that in the end sometimes the best things that ever happened to me where when I didn’t get what I wanted-it was just hard to see at the time. I have gently been telling my son that once in a while to protect him from the disappointment that awaits him not just in this process but in life. </p>
<p>I agree that the EFC calculators are nuts-and if you live in certain areas of the country you make more but the cost of living eats it up-too bad there isn’t some kind of adjustment to account for regional differences. You know, when we were going for a mortgage we were told what we could “afford” but we knew differently and took on what we knew we could handle-we will do the same thing here as well. They have formulas and the number is whatever they say it is-so what can you do?</p>
<p>I too had a very emotional day yesterday-very down, teary, and mourning the passing of time, my youth, my children’s youth, etc… banner day around here…I blame hormones. :)</p>
<p>mamom I couldn’t agree with you more on this issue. If we have to spend more of our hard earned dollars bailing out more financial irresponsibility down the road I think I will be pushed over the edge.</p>
<p>The problem is the people loaning the money though as much if not more than the people borrowing it. </p>
<p>Mind you, I have nothing but compassion for people who have been handed tough breaks in life due to circumstances beyond their control and would always want to help however I could-but this is a completely different story.</p>
<p>I read fairly regularly, but can’t even begin to try to respond personally. Please know that I am cheering for those of you needing encouragement and support, and fist pumping all the successes being noted…no matter how small. :)</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone who has gotten good news. I have to believe that, for everyone who hasn’t gotten the news they want, things will work out for the best in the long run (although maybe that’s easy for me to say, still waiting for 9 RDs!)</p>
<p>Because I think it so important, I wanted to share with all of you some advice I gave to a poster in another thread. Her son apparently got charged for underage drinking after having too much to drink at a party and getting taken to the hospital. She wanted to know if she needed to get him a lawyer. The answer is YES!!! Anyone, particularly someone college age, who gets a criminal citation, even if the offense seems minor, needs to get legal advice immediately. You never know when the police department or the DA’s office might want to “get tough” on some particular issue to send a message, especially underage drinking. Having even a misdemeanor on one’s record can have very serious consequences for one’s future, and you do not want your child to ever spend even one night in jail. I do prisoners’ civil rights litigation, and assure you that very bad things can happen to good people in jail, and young adults are particularly vulnerable. Please make sure your children know this also, and know that if anything ever happens, they must call you immediately. </p>
<p>Sorry for the rant, but I hope it may help someone someday.</p>
<p>I echo MaryOC. I read this thread religiously, although I don’t post often. I love cheering for your kids and hearing about your interesting lives. Don’t have much that’s exciting to share from this end. DS applied to 14 schools, got in 4 so far, but it’s all going to come down to FA in the end. That’s why the no’s from all the scholarship competitions have been so discouraging. The hardest situation will be if he has to turn down Notre Dame, his first choice (which he got into EA), for money, but I’m a firm believer in the dictum that everything happens for a reason. These final three weeks are going to be excruciating!</p>