<p>I watched part of the concert online last night. Pretty awesome.</p>
<p>I’m really irritated at ds. He’s let another week pass without asking a second teacher for a LOR. I made him e-mail a teacher last night. Ridiculous to be so rude and give people less than a month’s notice.</p>
<p>And the guy already has responded with a yes. See how easy that was???</p>
<p>Awesome! I just wish I could get my D to answer my text, voice mail, email or Facebook message so I could hear how her school year has started off and how her apps are coming along. ;(</p>
<p>YDS, you have my sympathies! I don’t what it is - DD is the same way and it’s driving me nuts! I’m really worried that when school starts she’ll drag her heels about asking one teacher (she should have asked last year since she had him last year, but that’s water under the bridge…) </p>
<p>amazhon, thanks for the Pitt report. I think it’s a really great school, and a very student friendly city. Someone was just telling me that all the public buses are free for college students now? We have several students from our hs there now. I’ve mentioned it to DD several times - great programs for her, but they don’t have her sport and it’s bigger than she thinks she wants, so she’s blown me off. 
I hope that the FA/scholarship comes through for your D!)</p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about Washington & Jefferson? DD asked about it and is thinking of applying as a safety. (She has a friend there, so it got on her radar.) They have rolling admissions and it would be nice to get one of those!</p>
<p>annie, I know what it is. It’s awkward. “Hey, will you write a letter to people you don’t know and tell them how wonderful you think I am?” But it has to be done and procrastinating isn’t going to make it any less awkward! And the option is …</p>
<p>My kid is digging her heels about one essay. It’s for the UC application. She doesn’t know after finishing this essay, there are 8 more to write. School starts soon. OMG, Screaming emoticon here!</p>
<p>Dr G: S3 is struggling with the UC essays too! He is struggling with what his dreams and aspirations are for the first prompt, and WHY he is proud for the second prompt.</p>
<p>I am right now sitting in our study helping dd do her CA. The activities section is very confusing when you have an activity that is planning for a 18 hour event but they plan for 6 weeks - but the boxes on the CA only ask you hrs/wk and wk/yr. I keep telling her that the little details aren’t that important - And where do you put National Honor Society - Academic, volunteer etc - its everything? URGH!!!</p>
<p>Oh and I am very happy that is was required of my dd to ask her teacher in the fourth quarter last year and the teachers were all expecting it. Once less thinkg for dd to be nervous about!</p>
<p>Our Sunday college meetings went by the wayside long ago :/</p>
<p>D has comments about her CA essay from a family friend, who is a dean at a great university, but I don’t think she’s edited it yet :/</p>
<p>Last ACT prep class today - test next Saturday - when I ask her how the class is going and if she thinks it will help she says, “I don’t want to talk about it” :/</p>
<p>When I tried to schedule a visit to a financial/acceptance/“not sure if she’ll like it safety” around D’s easier day at school, either a S-M or Th-F for both of our schedules, so she doesn’t have to miss much school she says, “I can miss school this year - last year counted more” :/</p>
<p>And finally, since her friends who are now freshman in college came back this weekend our D thought she would be able to stay out past her curfew with them, since she may not get to see them otherwise. Uh, no :/</p>
<p>…common theme?? 
…but after reading an article about a dad who took his older daughter to college this year and was reminiscing about her swinging, and playing as a toddler, I try not to get very upset and stressed. Hard, but I try :)</p>
<p>Hope everyone has a three-day weekend to enjoy :D</p>
<p>Apollo - a very wise friend told me the way to get your kid to respond if they have chosen to ignore you is to send a text, a voice mail and an e-mail all with the message that says if you haven’t contacted me by 5:00pm (whatever just give a few hours) then I’m going to contact campus security and have them do a well check. Never failed the kid made contact immediately.</p>
<p>Or ask whether they got the card with the money in it. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for the ideas! There is some chance that she is on a wilderness camping trip this weekend so I will wait until Tuesday but if I don’t hear from her on Wednesday, I will try one of the above. I also think I have the email of her houseparent somewhere…</p>
<p>YDS: LOL!</p>
<p>D is studying several hours a day for the ACT. I dunno when she does her regular homework, but I’m sure she’s getting it done somehow. She has postponed all work on applications until after Saturday’s test. </p>
<p>I have stopped reading books about admissions and am moving on to launching/empty nest syndrome. Luckily, I have one more kid to micromanage before our nest is truly empty. I guess I can try to manage DH then. ; ). I can only imagine his excitement about that.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone taking the ACT next weekend. A big part of me wants DD to take the ACT again because a 1 pt increase could make a difference for scholarships that she really really needs! But I know how stressed she is, and how much she doesn’t want to take them again. (she only took them once, last June.) I know that she has so much on her plate already between classes, sports and college apps - I hate to add one more thing on to her plate this fall.
Anyone else having this internal debate?</p>
<p>My DD is also having her last ACT prep session tonight also. It seems to be working as her score has gone up about 1 point per practice test she has taken. She doesn’t start school 'till Tuesday so there shouldn’t be too much stress before the test on Saturday. </p>
<p>She has been steadily working on her essays. Yay!</p>
<p>Well S finally put words to paper. He wrote three paragraphs of his personal statement. But then he trashed it. At least he started and has ruled out one idea.</p>
<p>
I understand this one. My D managed to get very high CR and Wr scores but actually went down in SAT math. She is very lopsided. She did NOT want to take them again. Part of me thinks she could study the math and that it could make a difference but I’ve decided to back off and let her be done with testing. She has plenty of other things on her plate.</p>
<p>She finally called me this evening. She was leading the first years on camping trips every weekend. She’s been back at school for 2 1/2 weeks and classes started a couple days ago. She is very happy because her new Spanish teacher is Argentinian and she is nearly done with her extended essay, an English literature research paper. The crazy thing is that she currently has five higher level courses, including both higher level Spanish and French, and two standard level courses. The normal IB course load is 3 HL and 3 SL. I think she’s nuts but she says she can drop French any time if she wishes and that she doesn’t get anything done if she has a free period so she might as well take another class. Huh?! Where do you think this crazy kid should go to college? She wants to study Chinese, Spanish, maybe Portuguese, and environmental policy.</p>
<p>I would like DD to take the ACT again for the lost scholarship dollars as well, but she doesn’t want to and we didn’t push it. At a few of the schools she is applying to they do superscore the ACT for merit money (not admissions though) and her superscore pushes her up into the top level merit awards so that is good. I wonder what the ad comm’s will say with DS’s score–he had the same subscore for every subject on the ACT. I hope that gets him noticed at his lottery school :D.</p>
<p>Apollo-I would have her go to school somewhere near Washington DC because with language skills like that she will be VERY popular with the CIA and other government entities!!</p>
<p>Annie, I had that internal debate about the SAT, and decided it was worth pushing. I then had to have the external debate with H and then with S. My deciding factor was not wanting to have regrets that we didn’t try, since his scores are a bit low relative to his GPA. Not saying that’s how everyone should frame it; that’s just what influenced me. So S is doing it but I’m not sure how engaged he is and I sometimes feel guilty for not just saying it is what it is and letting him off the hook. But I’d rather have that guilt now than worry that I sold him short. Again, this is appropriate for this kid and this mom. Not sure about anyone else.</p>
<p>We also had the debate about taking one of the tests again (dd took ACT and SAT once). I thought she should be finished and she thought she could do better. I won! We decided this about 2 months ago and she is VERY happy now that she is not prepping for another test on top of the apps and essays! We looked at the stats of possibility of going up and what that would mean (she was already in the range for acceptance and scholarships but she thought she could get another point) - It is nice to have that part of worrying over!</p>