Parents of the HS Class of 2012 - Original

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
2961

<p>thank you hv for that post. My D is also none of the extraordinary things mentioned, but is a wonderful kid who will hopefully end up at a great place for her. As we visit places, I will post reviews here (I just don’t like the revamped college visit area) So far she has seen Smith, WPI, and Northeastern with the last being her favorite for the location and the programs.</p>

<p>We are doing a southern visit later this month (yippee!)</p>

<p>hv- we also toured Clark with my older daughter.</p>

<p>question for all- we ordered the answers for the Dec ACT and have not received them yet. I haven’t yet poked around the ACT area to see what general lead time is, we did this once for D1 and I thought they came in before the test which followed two months after. Anyone have any more precise experiences to report?</p>

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<p>HV, I envy you and your D’s upcoming college trip. I’ve been AWOL from this thread because my D is showing no interest in a college search. I’ve been banging my head against the wall to figure this one out. I’ll be patient through the spring…argh!</p>

<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC App</p>

2963

<p>I also want to add that I don’t mean any slight to any of the kids/families on this thread. I just know that there are people on other threads who do mention how “intense” this thread seems to be, I think it is just the stage we are at. I remember on the thread for those two years ahead it started with most parents of kids looking at the top of the top schools, but now that they are all settled in their wonderfully diverse group of schools we are a lot more chill. I know that will happen here also.</p>

<p>We have our school’s big intro to the college process thing on Sat. I will post a review. And I need to put on my todo list checking out this android app, but I’m not sure I like how it identifies the posts as coming from it.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the post HV. DS is not a tippy top kid. However, he does do some really great ECs. I try and celebrate the positives for every kid, no matter what it is. Everyone should feel welcome. Not every kid hear (including mine) is going Ivy.</p>

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<p>Jackief, you can turn off the app notification so it won’t show up on your post. I did it with my blackberry but haven’t gotten around to do it w/this new phone.</p>

<p>You’re right, this is the most intense time for us with juniors. I can’t tell you how many times I told D “This is it! Junior year!”. I’m so glad it’s half over! After all is said and done, our kids will find that perfect school for them. We will all be celebrating and then launching them before you know it!</p>

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<p>This thread IS intense! I look over at the 2011 thread kind of wistfully. But it’s very interesting to be among such science-and-math able people and see all the things everyone does. Makes me feel better about the future! You guys are going to fix everything!</p>

<p>lilmom, do you think your D is just not ready to think about college…nervous about it all? Mine alternates between full speed ahead and idling in the shallows. Leaving home is a huge thing, frightening and exciting and…sometimes easier not to think about. I dragged my D to a few nearby colleges last spring and it gave her something to be excited about, and a sense of what was possible. Still, she sees the competitive effort ahead and it definitely daunts her. (She’ll have auditions on top of everything else.)</p>

<p>We are going to NYC, Philadelphia schools over Feb break-- NYU, UArts, Montclair State, Wagner, Adelphi---- good theater programs, which is what D is looking for. We will definitely see some shows too: The Importance of Being Earnest among them.</p>

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<p>I was just going to post the other day to say how chill this thread was.:slight_smile: What I have found is people are so supportive of each other, and parents are not embarrassed about posting some trials and tribulations of what our kids are going through. When there is good news (of any kid) we all cheer, but when there is bad news we all give support. Personally, I enjoy coming here to read every kid’s accomplishments. This is my last one, so sometimes it feels a bit of bitter sweet.</p>

<p>D2 is getting emails from different colleges now. We are overseas, so it is interesting to see which schools she gets emails from. In looking up some of those schools, they all seem to have large international population. Top schools have Koreans as the largest international group. </p>

<p>We are up in air about when/where to visit until we have a better sense of D2’s SAT scores. We are beginning to have a “list.” She has last week of April off, so we may plan a trip back to US to do our tour.</p>

2968

<p>Welcome to all the class of '12 new additions! I think this thread has a big variety of students. My own son, vacillates so much lately in motivation, GPA and college interest. We are meeting with a private college counselor in two weeks, since he goes to a huge public hs where there is no real guidance and he refuses to take mine. I am going to have to explain to her (which is embarrassing enough for me) that the main reason we hired her is to take ME out of the process. I need someone else to get on DS’s case about his apps and to help him find the right fit school for him. I have a list with about 30 schools on it right now because we really don’t know how his rank/GPA/SAT’s will play out come June. For all this thought and effort, who knows if, when decision time comes around, if my son will leave the state of Florida (as he claims is his goal right now). I can’t even get him to consider a teen tour cross country! He is such a homebody.
We have no plans to visit schools this semester but perhaps we can see some over spring break (March 14-18) unless of course, the colleges are all on spring break too!</p>

<p>It is going to be a long year in our house. I don’t want to wish time away but I am sorta dreading the next year (having been throught this twice before).</p>

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<p>seiclan - your son sounds like a good candidate for a private college counselor. It is a good way of getting yourself of process, at the same time, a good counselor will also help your son highlight his strength when it comes to application. A good counselor will listen to what’s important to your son, and also what’s important to you. Most people believe it should always be what your kid wants, so we try to keep our mouth shut, then when the chips are down (when a decision needs to be made), parents are then having a battle with their kid. Our counselor had one interview with us and another separately with D2, he highlighted some of our differences and asked us each on a scale how important it was to us. Luckily, we were pretty in line, except for one or two points. I think we are very much aligned on what we are doing now. The counselor will also help your son in selecting his senior courses and summer program. It shouldn’t be too different than what your son wants to do.</p>

<p>D1 didn’t have a private counselor and we didn’t feel she needed one. With D2, also due to our circumstance (new school), we are working with one. We feel it’s taking a lot of stress out of the whole process. D2 is more artsy and high strung, she is not as receptive of us telling her what to do.</p>

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<p>Congrats Geogirl! WTG GeoSon!</p>

2971

<p>Cheers to Geogirl’s family. Ocean science, how specialized! She must be doing quite a bit of self study.</p>

<p>Seiclan --not all juniors are ready to start the college search process so eagerly. My sister has a junior D who REFUSES to discuss college or test prep with her or her dad. Interestingly, she will discuss her thoughts on college with her cousin (my D)…so my sister and I have encouraged the two girls to have a fun college adventure to make the process more interesting. Over winter break they went to Tufts & Harvard (an hour’s drive away) on thier own unofficial & unchaperoned tour, subwaying between the campuses on the Redline, chatting with students on campus and slurping noodle soup in Harvard square). They had a blast! Not sure if they ever made it inside an academic building, but it was a start. </p>

<p>Since my D’s list of prospective colleges is 25 deep (using the CC match engine) my DH will take DD (and niece) on a road trip during February vacation to experience different campus settings, to get a sense what feels right (starting with Umass-Amherst, Union, and U of Rochester – D wants to be student-athlete at an academically strong, but not overly competitive school). For April vacation my sister and I plan to take them north to check out schools in Maine, and we are hoping there will be time in June for a PA/MD vacation-trip too. </p>

<p>BTW: I am amazed by the number of great schools in PA, once I took a closer look (being geo-centric I thought New England had the corner on the SLAC market).</p>

<p>Like others, I will post her reactions to the Feb. visits and am looking forward to reading yours!</p>

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<p>welcome to all new '12 parents! hudsonvalley - I loved your post. thanks. and jackief, I think you are exactly right - the parents of college ‘13 thread started out pretty intense too (waaay back in 2007!!), but we became a pretty mellow bunch. we still have a wide diversity of kids’ abilities, but we don’t talk about them much any more - now it’s all about us ;)</p>

<p>D2 is frustrating the heck out me at the moment. her head is in the clouds and the college search process is the last thing she wants to think/talk about. I’m still hopeful that she will take a closer look at the Fiske Guide in time for us to plan a spring break trip, if even just to a couple of schools. summer visiting is out b/c she works at a camp all summer, and I really don’t want to wait to fall to do most of our visiting. </p>

<p>pathways - I wish D was interested in schools closer to home and the same schools as her friends/cousin - she would much prefer to go visiting with a friend. she did ask if we could schedule a trip to one school because a friend is going to visit… the week BEFORE our spring break. I had to remind her that this isn’t a buddy road trip and we kinda need to do it on our schedule.</p>

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<p>Hi PRJ, neither girl wants to go to a school close to home or will apply to Havard! …just a ruse between sisters to spark interest in the college process.</p>

2974

<p>Ah, I get it :)</p>

<p>Trying to figure out how I could make something like that happen for D. Most of her friends are looking at very local schools in which she has no interest. Also, she is just not receptive to any kind of conversation about this stuff right now and I don’t want to force it. Sigh.</p>

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<p>I can so clearly see, even with my D who has worked toward this so mightily, and against some odds, all these years, that she goes into a sort of protective cocoon-- and I want to say “C’mon kiddo, let’s get with it”, but part of her at least is holding back, making sure she knows what she wants and is ready to pursue it. And there definitely is that “don’t force it” feeling…even if not forcing it ends up taking some options off the table. </p>

<p>It’s all so huge and unknown to them. (Maybe less to the kids with older siblings) Who can blame them for hanging back a bit…(it is frustrating though when we know all the good that can come of starting early.)</p>

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<p>Hi everyone, I think its time I join in again. I’ve been lurking because we’ve been in a holding pattern here compared to some of you. D is my adventurous one who wants to “go away” for college. </p>

<p>D is plugging along in school - doing well in her classes and ec’s. She just isn’t showing any enthusiasm in the college search because she’s been offered an athletic scholarship. I was very upset that this happened so early because now she has developed tunnel vision and basically feels she can be on auto pilot till graduation. </p>

<p>She has grades (and hopefully test scores) to be able to apply to some top schools if she wants. If in the end, she chooses this school, I would feel better if she had choices - sport or no sport.</p>

2977

<p>I want to welcome Gnusasaraus to my hometown of Houston!</p>

<p>My DD is also considering Rice because it’s such a great school, but I think she’d rather be farther away. I just hope not several states away. We are a Texas A&M family through and through.</p>

<p>I was joking about the college emails. I don’t know if ya’ll could tell. Our parenting is not mainly responsible for our DD’s SAT scores. We have three other “normal” kids…including one a current college freshman, which is why we need the scholarship $$ so badly.</p>

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<p>Geoson’s amazing success has that M<em>A</em>S*H joke going through my head, something about being the best surgeon in the Army is like being the best ballet dancer in Galveston? Galveston, TX will forever make me think of dancing.</p>

<p>To start to pull my daughter out of the passive stage, I have been giving her ‘scavenger hunts.’ A few times a week I ask her for four or five things (an aerial photograph, certain facts about an art history or English program, student reviews, stuff like that) about a college on her rough list. Recently, I’ve discovered her knowing things I didn’t assign, so I think it’s working.</p>

<p>In keeping with her personality, she loves several of her ‘likelies’ with all her heart, and thinks that all of her reaches are horrible cliches. Her friends are all focused on the same twenty-five schools, and several of her choices have novelty value because she hasn’t been hearing about them from her peers since seventh grade.</p>

<p>But then this weekend the e-mail spam began, and I discovered the limits of her open mindedness about unfamiliar schools. The line, apparently, was drawn at Texas Christian University. They seem perfectly nice to me.</p>

<p>The Xiggi Method continues apace. Really, I wish there was something I could do for that guy.</p>

<p>It occurred to me tonight, as DD settled in for 90210/GG/PLL, that this is the only three hour stretch of the week that she clears for herself, without any work on her lap. It’s kind of sad. I wonder what she would do if she were given the choice of my slacker upbringing instead of her high pressure childhood.</p>

<p>Anyway, touring upstate NY colleges in March, I hope, and maybe northern California. Not sure yet. Grades have improved as much as they’re going to, and the comments on her most recent report card read like applications to write college recommendations, so she’s getting her confidence back for the first time since 8th grade.</p>

<p>Those early decision applications are due in less than nine months.</p>

2979

<p>I like this thread a lot too. I followed the 2010 thread and posted a couple times, but never really jumped in. I decided early on to be part of this one, just because the journey is so much better with company! I find that parent’s concerns are all so similar, whether the details or numbers are the same or not. Some of us are worrying that S or D has this GPA instead of that GPA, some of us are worried that our kids don’t test well, or glad that they do, we share our kids victories and not-so-victories, and we all hope they find a college they are excited to go to where they will learn and be challenged, and that we can afford!</p>

2980

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<p>That’s hard to believe but that 8 months may disappear even faster.</p>