Parents of the HS Class of 2013

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
17221

<p>Taxes: I agree that we are bordering on violating the CC TOS with some of these posts. We really have to keep the discussion as pertains to college only. It will save us a lot of grief, I’m sure. Congress is doing an awful job. Let’s just agree to that :).</p>

<p>Just told my DH to get our FAFSA pin. His reply? “What’s that for?” Arghhhhh…</p>

<p>RE two kids graduating from diff schools at the same time: this is my nightmare. My kids won’t go to the same school. IDK what might happen there. Sigh. I can’t even think about that. I just want them to get into college first!!!</p>

17222

<p>Again, thank you CC. D added new college to list. No thought about sending scores, until I saw it mentioned above. It has a Jan 15 deadline. Thank you thank you.</p>

17223

<p>anouilh-so I am correct that if the AMT doesn’t get fixed, we are in the hole for taxes this year, by a lot–and a lot being what we were paying for tuition next fall–it is VERY college related as far as I am concerned. This isn’t an us vs them political thing, it’s just reality right now for those of use that are getting slammed by this.</p>

17224

<p>Thanks for the suggestion psblstnr, I’ll do that this weekend.</p>

<p>GreekMana - if you’re worried, call the school and ask. Mostly, you don’t need the rush service.</p>

<p>critter - it’s really amusing to see you say “Awww, rats” :smiley: !</p>

<p>FWIW, I love smilies. For example, adding that last one allowed me to avoid thinking about the “punctuation in or out of quotes” issue.</p>

<p>FAFSA PIN - there has to be one for the student and one for a custodial parent. They (and I) recommend each parent have one. Because what if… I’m at my mom’s helping to move my grandma and something comes up that requires DH to log into the bank account and I have to talk him through it on speaker phone from the side of the road? Oops, I mean FAFSA, of course ;).</p>

<p>89wahoo - without a lot of information, I’ll say that the essays they want to write will always be the best ones.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice, everyone. Funny, some are stressing about whether they’re adding too many schools and some about too few…</p>

<p>Regarding taxes - I think as long as we refrain from commenting about the causes and movers behind the situation, we’re not crossing the line. And since I trust most of you more than most people on TV, I’m glad to have your opinions about what the facts mean to us as parents of students. I’m really frightened to run the numbers.</p>

<p>And, I probably won’t do it until the weekend, because tomorrow is Christmas at Nana’s. She’s having condo problems with water/mold (that they chose the first week of January to fix! In Wisconsin!) so asked us to just drive up and back the same day so she doesn’t have to set up the extra bedroom (now full of stuff moved out of the drip zone). Which is fine. Except that S13 is sick and DH is having a bad flare-up of his back problems, so even if they both come I’ll be doing all the driving <sigh>. It’s only 3 hours each way, but that drive home is long!</sigh></p>

17225

<p>Inability to file taxes which causes inability to file profile and fafsa, potential tax bill taking money slated for college expenses…certainly more pertinent to college than holiday menus,etc. IMHO. I guess I should read the TOS though.</p>

17226

<p>No, no, no… I don’t think that my tone conveyed well ;). We can talk about the AMT and fiscal cliff as pertains directly to college. We just can’t have political rants, or that is my reading. The moderators are pretty strict about that detail. I want us all to remain pals and I know that won’t happen if we start discussing political agendas.</p>

17227

<p>Buranri: Changing major depends on the school. Some schools on my son’s list admit by major, a recent admissions letter stated that he was admitted for that particular major and could not change until he got there. Other schools on his list admit to that particular school (school of engineering, school of letters & science, school of arts, school of nursing etc…), but not to the particular major. For music it might be under a different school (school of arts for example) than another major you are thinking about changing to. So you need to look at all the schools you applied to and see if a change would matter or not.</p>

17228

<p>MommyDearest, I haven’t checked recently, but I think the TOS specifies no political/religious/etc. opinion posts because those tend to breed contention, which interferes with supporting each other. So, if I’m correct, “This has to be fixed, don’t our lawmakers realize we have to plan for college?” is okay, while “Congress is bad!” is not okay.</p>

17229

<p>Cross-posted with Walker, who was much more eloquent (bows to Walker of the liquid tongue and liquid-filled basement :slight_smile: ).</p>

17230

<p>Confetti, I wouldn’t have to have clarified if I had a silver pen :). Now DD13a is the one with the silver pen. She made me cry at Christmas. She made me a lovely shadow box with pictures and some other things. She wrote this in the center:</p>

<p>“The key to happiness is a messy house,
a dirty sense of humor,
and an infallible belief in the impossible.
All these things,
mean innumerable laughs,
unfailing smiles,
and happy children.
You have taught me
that if there is a basket for widowed socks,
dog hair bunnies under the couch,
and a lawn that needs trimming,
then there can be found a loving home”</p>

<p>Read that without bawling. I dare you.</p>

<p>And I’d like to say for the record my house and lawn aren’t that bad but my D has OCD tendencies. They apparently skip a generation ;)</p>

17231

<p>confetti - “:smiley: :wink: :)” Love the indecision over the quotes! I HATE those rules!! Sometimes DS says when an essay is handwritten, he will put the punctuation directly UNDER the quote, so as to be vague! He knows the rule, but doesn’t agree with it so it is his way of rebelling! :)</p>

<p>You can all be sure I will not make one single political comment! :)</p>

<p>Tone is so hard to convey in text.</p>

17232

<p>wahoo, if I am understanding your post correctly, and the two schools in question are who I think they are, I would advise your D just to alter her essay slightly so that it doesn’t look like she has reused the supplement essay of the one school for the other.(even though she has not) If she is referring to the painting, can she mention that she received it as a gift for Christmas? I think that would allow them to know that it is a recently written essay and one not used earlier for the ea round at the other school. I understand your concern when two schools are intimately familiar with each other, but ultimately if the essay is a true reflection of who she is, she should submit it.:)</p>

17233

<p>Wow!! Something new to worry about…and I was focusing whether i would have three of the same move in weekends, and when parents weekends are…who knew I could be worrying about concurrent graduation ceremonies :smiley:. Geez!!!
It’s looking like I MIGHT have two at the same but it won’t be all three for sure.</p>

17234

<p>OK…that I understand…take the ruler to my knuckles. I just dislike boardies being asked to refrain from speaking about a topic due to erroneous information…if that we’re to happen, CC would not exist. If you feel you have more accurate information, please enlighten us…it’s done around here all the time. I, for one, would like to understand it a little better.</p>

<p>Bovertine, as it stands, there is no AMT patch for 2012…so if nothing is done, 2012 taxes will be affected. It’s not that they’re changing the tax code at the last minute, it’s that they haven’t done anything to correct an existing problem in the code as they’ve done in the past. There has always been an AMT marriage penalty as the married exemption is not twice that of the single exemption, but without the patch, there’s a larger disparity.</p>

17235

<p>I haven’t seen any discussion on this topic that even comes close to a TOS violation.</p>

<p>MommyDearest13–you can still file the FAFSA. There is an option of “will file” which is what you want to use next week anyway even without the tax mess. Use your last paystubs from 2012, use Turbo Tax or something to get estimated numbers and use those to fill out the FAFSA and the CSS if you have to. Then, once you do file, if any of the numbers are different you go back in and change them and the option to “did file”.</p>

17236

<p>Walker, I love your DD13a’s poem! I’m afraid that it’s a pretty accurate description of my house, although the bunnies under the couch aren’t from dog hair, so I hope that it’s true! :)</p>

17237

<p>MD13… Now you know we wouldn’t use a ruler. Way too conventional ;)</p>

17238

<p>Well, I <em>was</em> planning on using turbotax to do my taxes by the end of January, then completing my fafsa and css with actual numbers to avoid doing them twice. I think I read that you can’t correct the css online…you’d have to fax/mail the corrected profile to each school. Anybody know for sure? And I did check…it asks for taxes paid, not just income info.</p>

<p>Steve, btw, where are you seeing that medical insurance benefits will now be taxed? I know that fsa has been reduced for 2013, but I don’t see anything about benefits being taxed.</p>

17239

<p>It’s one of the “loopholes” in the tax code that needs to be extended. There was a link on the “getting a jump on taxes” thread in the Cafe. </p>

<p>I put all the info into the CSS and just saved the file. You can change info until you actually send it off. We have a Feb 15th deadline for the CSS and FAFSA at one school so I need to get those in either way. The way it looks now we won’t be able to officially file until March. By the end of Jan we should have W-2’s at least to change numbers as needed. The rest is up in the air for us with the AMT/Marriage thing anyway. The colleges are going to just have to do the best they can with the numbers we have at the time. Keep in mind that colleges dole out money on a first come/first serve basis and if you file that late in Jan, you might not get as much money depending on the school deadlines.</p>

17240

<p>You can correct the Profile online for colleges you have not yet sent it to.</p>