<p>I have heard that that book Letters to a Young Scientist is excellent. Saw an interview with the author on TV I think </p>
<p>Unfortunately my D is not a ‘young scientist’ </p>
<p>Still cannot even catch up with my D to get her to log in to view her impressive college schedule. I think today will be the day that I make her get her butt out of bed before 11am.</p>
<p>We are finished with our last scholarship dinner and I am just so grateful for the scholarships DS received:) He ended up with $10,000 in local scholarships. He has written all of the Thank You notes and now we are just trying to figure out the process. Some gave checks to him and others mail them to the school. Some checks are made out to him and others are made out to him and the school! He has reported them to UF as instructed and now he is ready for his orientation on July 8 & 9. :)</p>
<p>S3 enjoyed his first day at his job with the kids. He had funny stories about the swim test (which they do in their life jackets). </p>
<p>Now that I have gotten through his graduation and party I am focused on orientation this weekend. It will be a very quick trip, we will fly up on Thursday night and we return home Saturday evening.</p>
<p>Coralbrook - I will say that I, too, would be at witts end with DD. My D is a swimmer and she chose to continue swimming this summer so she is out the door at 6:30 every morning and then coaches and lifeguards all day so she is not being “lazy” - she is motivated to look for things for her dorm room but has NOT gotten in the habit of checking her school email even though I have been reminding her regularly. Now I will say between swimming and working she is busy about 60 hours a week so I can’t really blame her. </p>
<p>Oh and the schedule…I think that would put me over the top. I might have to physically get involved in getting that worked out :)</p>
<p>Coralbrook…good to know we are in good company…bizarre right? all that attention and hard work to get into a school and now…it is almost like D has a split personality (or perhaps newly discovered latent-lazy-layabout syndrome) …D’s school is very well organized…the student has to fill out a detailed questionnaire about academic background and interests (D says it is very long and thus has only completed half of this). ONCE this is done you get an appointment with advisor online…only THEN can you do a preliminary schedule which is submitted (first week of July !!!) and then you get your schedule in August. There are a host of webinars that they are supposed to go through before meeting with advisor and putting together a tentative schedule, since they have a lot of core requirements so you have to plan carefully. Thousands of classes to choose from, and they recommend researching professors too. Also, the student should submit a schedule keeping in mind how far between buildings, etc. so some real thought and planning needs to be invested in this. She also has a peer advisor who has already written and offered to help and asking for contact…I don’t think she even answered him? her? (Un)luckily she does tell me this information (makes me worry) but I dont have or want access to her email. I get mailings for parents that tell us to light a fire under our freshman as much as possible (which makes me believe that I am not alone and apparently it is a plague affecting a good number of these smart and high achieving kids). </p>
<p>Well…she returns from her beach “week” (4 days) tomorrow and I have a list of absolute must dos (college and chores) for each day through next Monday on the kitchen table with the message “Do not think of leaving the house until this is completed” not even for work. Also, netflix has been disabled and the remotes will be hidden. My argument is that if she had a substance abuse problem, I would remove the substance from the house. She has a tv addiction (albeit short term) so she needs an intervention…Too extreme? Better ideas? Keep in mind it has been a month of zero action since the end of AP/IB exams and I have never had to motivate her before…</p>
<p>At least S2 doesn’t have to worry about choosing courses. The course sequencing at the conservatory is very strict. The only choice that he gets for freshman year is German or Italian. To my surprise, he chose German. I would have thought he’d pick Italian since he is fluent in Spanish and it might be easier for him. Pleasantly surprised, I guess.</p>
<p>We have just sold our house (after 2 days on the market) and I’m leaving to go to house hunt in London on Sunday. So, we’ve got a really full summer - cleaning out closets, packing, shipping, making financial arrangements. D1 is coming back home at the end of August and we will make a “farewell” tour of Texas before they head to college and I head back to London.</p>
<p>Congrats, megpmom, on the quick sale.</p>
<p>Congratulations Megpmom!!</p>
<p>Has anyone else been on school FB pages or chat groups, etc? I’m finding it very interesting that so many of the students have questions that they could very easily find the answers to on the college website. For example, someone just asked if there was an orientation program at the school. I thought this generation was supposed to be internet-savvy. </p>
<p>Also, I noticed that the FB page had lots of students sharing way too much personal info. about themselves with complete strangers (they’ve since made it a private group). Yikes!</p>
<p>My D’s class does have a Facebook page that is private - invitation by the University I think. I haven’t seen it, but I do know that my D has never logged into her college student web portal - she just asks questions amongst the freshman group.</p>
<p>Geez, if a student doesn’t know about orientation they must have missed every single piece of mail coming and is not checking their email. We’ve been inundated with Orientation information</p>
<p>I know DS is on the Facebook page, and it is private so I haven’t been able to do any detective work. I joined the Parents page which has some good information. I can’t believe not knowing about orientation.</p>
<p>Congrats megpmom.</p>
<p>I also joined the FB parents site. Some interesting things, but I think the real action is on the private FB page for students. No idea what’s on that one.</p>
<p>Some of S’13s friends are leaving next week for summer terms at UF, USF, FSU, etc. Ugh. I’m glad he’s here until August.</p>
<p>We know very little about D’s orientation. There hasn’t been any mail about it. I know when move-in day is, and there is some stuff for parents that day, but haven’t seen a schedule yet. I did find last year’s schedule to get a rough idea. The next day there are placement tests, then the following day they all take off for 3 day orientation adventures. I could understand kids asking about her school’s orientation in the Facebook group. The online student portal is a bit difficult to navigate.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if we made a mistake about sending AP scores to the college where the kids will attend. So far we haven’t sent anything. We are waiting for the early July date where they can send scores from the tests that they just took this year. We were going to send all scores at that time. Were we supposed to already have sent previous years’ scores? Does it matter? I guess there’s not really anything we can do about it now…</p>
<p>Where your kids are going, I don’t think it matters much when you send in AP scores. They’re in for the full four regardless, and the placement will shake out in the first couple of weeks of classes, if not before. </p>
<p>Responding to the June blues theme around here, since DC ran off to the woods immediately upon graduation, I have no idea whether he is on top of everything he needs to be before orientation. I think he is – and he knows exactly when he needs to commandeer the camp’s computer for registration – but it’s on him at this point. I know when <em>I</em> have to write the check, and I’m strapping on my crash helmet as we speak.</p>
<p>We are finally on our way to meet up with D13 at her school. She will graduate this Saturday. I must be the last one on this thread to finally see our graduate walk across the stage. I know this sounds clich</p>
<p>DD graduated last night! She was so happy to “leave High School” behind…she wouldnt stay for any pictures…the only picture I have of her in her cap and gown is speed walking to the car…that’s right…just her back!!! </p>
<p>About info for college? she says she doesnt know…</p>
<p>Just found out S was accepted into the pre orientation leadership program! I think that will give him a nice head start. The school also sent us a nice parents guide (my dad: all they sent me was a bill!) </p>
<p>Okay maybe you all will empathize with this. I had a vivid dream last night that I was moving into my freshman dorm, meeting my roommate, setting up the room etc. Jealousy maybe? :)</p>
<p>D’s graduation is over. But I can’t relax yet, since we’re hosting a graduation party on Friday for the students, in addition to a family gathering/party last weekend. I’m really hoping it doesn’t rain on Friday. There was some concern that it would rain during graduation, but we escaped it. Afterwards, there was a lot of picture taking of the graduates, in many different combinations.</p>
<p>I managed to finish the photo book and get it printed and delivered in time for the family party last weekend, where everyone enjoyed looking through it. D was happier with it than I had feared, although she did point out a few mistakes I made. Making a single photo book with pictures from throughout her entire life was just a huge amount of work. Luckily, I won’t have to do another one - this was #2 of 2, since I did a similar book for S three years ago. </p>
<p>Less than 2 months to go before college move-in. We haven’t really done any shopping yet, so I guess we need to get started on that.</p>
<p>We haven’t done any shopping yet either…for someone who is anal about lists and checking them off, I don’t have a plan for all of that yet…did purchase mattress pads based on info here at cc that the kids would be appreciative…other than that…we haven’t even talked about other stuff…</p>