<p>Congrats to all the decided!</p>
<p>I’m impressed and jealous - divining S’s preferences is like trying to read tea leaves, with the caveat that tea leaves are more communicative.</p>
<p>Hi everyone! I’ve been off for a while but wanted to come see who’s decided, and offer support for those still deciding. What a fantastic list of schools! I think these kids are going to do some great things going forward. 
worrying about final grades a little in my house, and I’m trying to ignore the growing fear of my soon to be empty nest!</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>I asked my daughter what she has left to do academically this year, and she gave me a blank stare. Prom and senior picnic day are done. 46 days to graduation.</p>
<p>Are y’all planning on any sort of party for your kids? I think we’re going to have a root beer kegger and cook out. Graduation is at 9 am, so probably for lunchtime.</p>
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<p>Student’s perspective: You should remind her to be as honest as possible, but still let her complete it herself. Depending on the school, there may be sensitive questions that your daughter doesn’t feel comfortable answering with you in the room. These include attitudes towards sex, drinking/drug use, etc. My school asked about the former, and I know another institution that asks about the latter. </p>
<p>My previous roommate lied on her housing app about her tolerance for certain things (she wanted to please her mom who was hovering over her), and while we’re good friends, living with her was very difficult. I tend to think that if she hadn’t said that she was ok with certain things, she and I would have been assigned different, more compatible roommates.</p>
<p>HL, I worry about the roommate survey too. DD is not the neatest kid in the world, but she has been trying hard to be more so and she functions better when things are neater. So should she say she is middle of the road or a slob? She can be very boisterous and sociable, but also deals with chronic fatigue issues and would probably be better with a roommate who turns in early. She needs sleep, and will likely have to do morning classes… The roommate selection can be tricky - my first college roommate and I did not work out and switched after a month, but it wasn’t easy.
At MIT, students get a room assignment, but nothing is final for a week or two… students are expected to try it out and then there’s a mad switch… yikes!</p>
<p>grad party - I don’t know what we’re doing. I have relatives who want to come from out of town. D has one of these “lock-in parties” right after a 6 pm graduation, which I think is stupid, frankly, since it doesn’t allow you time with out of town family and friends… D leaves the next morning for a week-long trip. We’ll probably have a very casual family dinner when she gets back.</p>
<p>I just wanted to thank everyone on this thread for alerting me to Susquehanna University. I always knew of the school but never visited with my other kids. I attended their Junior Open House this weekend and all I can say is “Wow!”. My D was adamantly opposed to a smaller college but after the open house she asked if we could go to the bookstore before we left because it was “sweatshirt worthy”. Beautiful campus and some of the nicest kids we have ever met. What a great find.</p>
<p>RIT’s roommate questionnaire was quite impersonal. The Duckling voluntarily shared it with me. It asked about smoking, how late you stay up, messiness, music preferences, sleeping with the windows open, sociability, and study habits. Nothing about boyfriends/sex/drugs/alcohol/religion - all of which I think are pretty important. After completing the survey, a list of potential matches came up, with an encouragement to e-mail and facebook each other. Another girl e-mailed the Duckling, and they hit it off. They correspond quite a bit.</p>
<p>I had to laugh when I saw my daughter was the only one who 'fessed up to being messy. Everyone else chose “middle of the road”. I don’t think everyone else was being honest. The Duckling is a true slob. I refuse to go in her room.</p>
<p>Daughter and I had a brief conversation about choosing a substance free floor (there are a lot). I don’t care one way or the other, but she doesn’t drink (really) and I pointed out the bathrooms might be a lot cleaner without drunk people. On the other hand, RIT does not have a reputation as a party school, so maybe it’s a non-issue. She has not talked about it with her roommate. She will be on a co-ed floor (hall baths, but not shared by opposite gender). Thoughts?</p>
<p>@Bobby - we drive right by Susquehanna on our way to RIT. All the aggressive driver warnings on Highway 11/15 freak me out a bit! The drivers are certainly speedy! I want to stop sometime and check out Susquehanna.</p>
<p>Hey Bobby - So glad you liked Susquehanna!
Annie - Too bad our d’s can’t be roommates - think they’d be a good fit lol!</p>
<p>My d’s room survey was even slimmer. Questions on messiness, noise tolerance and smoking. (Smoking?? Do they allow smoking in the rooms?) She is on a FB page where some kids are trying to find their own roomies but she is leaning towards a roll of the dice. I don’t know…She also does not drink but substance-free was not offered as an option. She is a really easy-going, flexible kid so I think she will be ok.</p>
<p>Joisymom - even if there is no smoking in the room, the smell of smoke lingers on clothing and stuff. Yesterday I was in a small workshop and it was very noticable when the smokers returned from their smoke break. </p>
<p>I let my son fill out his roommate survey on his own. If nothing else, it might be a lesson in being honest about who he is and not who he’d like to be :)</p>
<p>HL, I started to post a reply yesterday and got sidetracked. Contenders are Ohio Wesleyan, Ithaca, SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Fredonia. H and S are on their way back from an accepted students event at OWU - S liked it, but not definitively enough to cancel the scheduled trip to Fredonia on Thursday. That’s the last visit. I was really hoping he’d come home and say, I love OWU, that’s it! No such luck.</p>
<p>We finally have a decision! Last Friday, DD and I went to visit Lycoming College in Pa. The traveling was horrendous - two turbulent flights and then a three-hour drive from Philly to Williamsport in a torrential downpour, in the dark, in a rental car in which I was having trouble finding out how to properly operate the windshield wipers while completely freaking out. The campus was beautiful - picture perfect - but the business and theater programs, as well as the internship opportunities didn’t impress us. Her other option, the University of West Florida, although much larger (state U. vs. LAC) and not nearly as pretty a campus, seems to have programs that are better suited to her - at half the price. We both left feeling really dejected; we so wanted to love this school in person as much as we had loved it for months through their website and literature. On the plane ride home, DD said, “I don’t want to admit it, but I know what the right decision is. I know which school is better for me.” She also decided that she didn’t need to go to a school 15 hours from home, that maybe 5 1/2 hours is an okay distance. She asked me what I thought and I told her, although I too, was conflicted. I had always envisioned her at a small school, not at one with 13,000 kids (although that is small compared to the other FL state U’s.) By the time we had gotten home from the airport, she had made her decision - UWF. It was decision made with tears - this was not her first choice school; it was tied for last place with USF simply because of its size and location (she really wanted to go out of state) but it does offer everything that she wants and it prides itself on small class sizes (average freshman class 35) for a large school. On Tues. she signed up for orientation and housing and today they were supposed to send her a link to connect with other freshman through their own site (they don’t have a Class of 2017 Facebook group.) It took a few days, but we are both beginning to get excited. Go Argos!</p>
<p>Sorry for the long post…</p>
<p>Oops, I forgot to add a very important point - we visited UWF two weeks ago and DD really liked it, despite its size.</p>
<p>Yay terrific4! It’s nice to make a decision, isn’t it? Everyone has doubts about his/her choices. My theory is that kids grow to love their schools because the school IS their school. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Don’t worry about her choice. My D ended up choosing a school that was very low on her original list but it just moved up out of process of elimination (and rejections). But she’s starting to get very excited so it will end up wonderful.</p>
<p>Terrific4, it sounds like you did a great job parenting her through that tough decision. Congrats to you for that—not an easy thing to do at all.</p>
<p>Well, it’s official - D has chosen Hampshire! The overnight and class visits sealed the deal for her. She didn’t want to leave. It ended up not really being a hard decision for her - it’s the one school where she really, really clicked and felt she belonged. The location, the academic structure, the people - she loves it and feels she can be happy and successful as a student there. Although telling all the other schools no was painful for her, because she genuinely liked them all. And for us because we were proud of her for having gotten into them. Ah well, on to celebration, housing, extra long sheets and the bumper sticker!</p>
<p>Great news here! Congrats to terrific4’s D, Go Argos! Congrats also to daisychain’s D on Hampshire, Go BlackSheep ! (that can’t be right, can it?)</p>
<p>I feel so bad for my S who has been leaning towards James Madison & was ready to announce his big decision today when he got an early morning e-mail from UDelaware saying he came off their waitlist. Can you believe it – took the wind out of his decision-making sails. (<em>serenity now</em>)</p>
<p>Hampshire has a number of representative mascots but no official one. The more “official” ones are the tree logo and the frog- both of which have been used in official publications. Unofficially they are referred to as Hampsters, and Shaggy (from Scooby Doo cartoon) is their cartoon character. Each of the 5 colleges has a Scooby character that is informally associated with that school.</p>
<p>That said- welcome to daisychain’s D! My D is finishing up her second year, and while there have been challenges, she and I both agree that this was and continues to be the best college for her. The Shire is its own special world.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your kind words and support. DD was actually very upbeat this morning and is eagerly looking forward to housing assignments next month and orientation in June!</p>
<p>Congrats daisy! My older daughter loved Hampshire when we visited. She ultimately chose another school, but Hampshire was high on her list. I’m glad that your D’s decision was an easy one!</p>
<p>ELY, it’s great that your S came off of the wait list, but I can understand how that could completely disrupt the decision-making process. Does he have a preference for either school, or are they pretty much even?</p>