<p>AvonHSDad - thanks for the info on Olin. DS is interested in engineering and I like to think he’s bright, but that applicant pool is crazy smart! We’ll see if they like him. It’s such a small school but looks like great opportunities if one is admitted.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was amandakayak in '11/15. Maybe Flmathmom? I think the mom is quite active with the school now.</p>
<p>thanks Avonhsdad, helpful timeline. </p>
<p>Creekland, congrats on your oldest’s wedding, seems you are talented at juggling multiple balls…</p>
<p>son is in NY visiting family, called to share he tracked Holden Caulfield’s footsteps over the city…enjoying the somewhat slower pace of summer, wish we had summers off too though ;)</p>
<p>I think juggling is a requirement when parenting multiple teens… or early twenties in his case.</p>
<p>I’m only now remembering the calendar does, indeed, continue. The juggling continues considering our schools starts Aug 19th and middle son’s college year starts Aug 22nd with him being off Aug 10th - 22nd (unable to be in the dorms). It’s a good thing youngest can drive. Middle does not have a car at school. If he can’t store his things on campus we’ll be figuring that one out. If he can, then he can fly back and not much juggling will be needed.</p>
<p>Thanks Capt’n!</p>
<p>Wow That is a real eye opener. Hard to imagine that in less than 6 months much of this is done- for better or worse!! yikes</p>
<p>I might have to print that out to keep focused here!</p>
<p>The calendar is daunting! Wow! A year from now we will be getting them ready to leave the nest!</p>
<p>Congrats on the wedding, Creekland! May they have years of happiness and good health!</p>
<p>Greekland - I love to hear more about U Rochester - my son is interested in Neuroscience - similar to Brain and Cognitive science. For some reason I thought it was a large school.</p>
<p>Wow - that timeline is scary!</p>
<p>Things seem to be looking up here. DD 14’s grades came on Saturday and while there is an online system where you can check the quarterly grades, the final grades are not on there. She did very well and it was nice to get the confirmation of that. She’s really got everything going for her application wise but will have to study this summer to get her scores up. Hopefully it will all turn out okay next year!</p>
<p>Best news is she confirmed a summer babysitting job this summer! She’s just got to find a friend to cover the one day a week she can’t really make it due to leadership stuff at school and the time we’ll be on vacation. Plus maybe help cover every other weekend day but she’s got a few friends to ask so hopefully it will all work out okay. She’s hoping to split the job days to leave herself enough time to take care of all her other summer commitments and to do the summer work for her AP classes. And I’m hoping she’ll build in some ACT/SAT studying time!</p>
<p>Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th!</p>
<p>Oh - and my big news of the day is I got carded buying wine at the grocery store! It’s been so long I can’t even remember the last time I was carded! I burst out and laughed when the clerk asked if I had ID for the alcohol purchase! Trust me - I don’t look like I’m anywhere close to 21! Do I need my ID for our cruise?</p>
<p>They have already released Common App Essays.
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/EssayAnnouncementFinal.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/EssayAnnouncementFinal.pdf</a></p>
<p>Congrats, AKMom! I bet that felt great!</p>
<p>Yay!!! Huge sigh of relief on the common application essay questions. There are two on there that my essay-hating son will actually find interesting to write. Does anyone else have issues with math oriented kids who are just dragging their feet on starting to write their essays??</p>
<p>Onlyonemom - U Rochester has neuroscience, brain & cognitive science, and psychology - all three branches of brain study and it has them all in depth with oodles of research opportunities in them. It’s what drew my guy to the school as he wasn’t quite sure which specific he wanted with it all and many schools have one or two aspects, but not all of them.</p>
<p>It’s definitely not a large school, it’s more mid-sized overall and considered a small research U. My guy loves it there and is working in two labs this summer, one of which will continue into the fall. He turned down another lab opportunity and had his choice about which one to continue with in the fall…</p>
<p>He almost didn’t apply as he didn’t want a more northern school. He was talked into it over Thanksgiving vacation his senior year and went ahead and applied. Now he considers the best decision he almost didn’t make.</p>
<p>School-wise, it has its own campus in Rochester, so is urban, but with a campus. I really enjoy the school when we visit. If interested in neuro (of any sort) it’s worth a look. They are a 100% need meeting school as per the CSS profile AND they offer merit aid for high scoring students. My guy has a combo of both types of aid making the school very affordable for us.</p>
<p>buellersmom – S hasn’t said anything about writing the essay either. He knows he has to do it. I think I’ll give him til August then ask for a rough draft. </p>
<p>I had an epiphany about Naviance last night (if you’re not in the whole college app scene, that phrase sounds so pathetic!). Here it goes (drumroll, please) – it doesn’t show gender. And if you have a boy, what I’ve heard is there is a slight gender bias at small LACs because many boys want big schools. So when I’m looking at the green squares (for accepted students) they could be girls which means S might have a chance even if his stats aren’t exactly what theirs are. I’m grasping at straws here.</p>
<p>Of course, in a small school, you can basically look at the scattergram, find a data point and say “Oh – that’s Allison”.</p>
<p>Thank you Greekland!
I really love CC - great advice from others who have been there before 
</p>
<p>My son has the SAT scores but his GPA could be better.</p>
<p>We will definitely take a look! My sister-in- law lives right out side of Rochester and my husband is from Auburn about 45min away. It will be worth a visit! </p>
<p>Thank you again.</p>
<p>My husband is a graduate of the U. of Rochester (economics and statistics). we toured with our sons during Son #1’s sophomore year. He liked the place, did the interview and got offered a nice financial package. But, in the end, he preferred being down south. Son '14 won’t look at the school – Rochester is too cold for him, but he knows it’s a good school. The biggest downer, my husband said, is that the skies are “too gray” for nearly six months of the year. And he is a native of the city, so he knows. He always has struggled with not having enough sunlight issues.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Son '14 has survived the pulling of wisdom teeth. Maybe he will eat more than jello and milkshakes today. He got a call from a big state university the other day, but was too tired to chat on the phone. I do not envision him going to that school – nice university but in a colder climate.</p>
<p>^^^
Thanks Mom reads! We live in Maine so the cold will not be an issue. We also suffer from not enough sunlight. My son’s does not like the hot weather so the farthest south we are looking is PA ! I could see him going to the NW for grad school -I suggested he look at the NW for undergrad but I think it is a little too far for him. </p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>buellersmom ~ MINE!! He hates writing essays soooooo much… Give him some math-sciency thing and he’s thrilled. He will be SO glad when all of his essay writing is done, lol.</p>
<p>RE scattergrams</p>
<p>I have found that while the ones on cappex don’t tell us anything about the kids/rigor etc and hs profiles…that if I turn off the “considering” gray dots and look at say just the attending…or then just the admitted…the data is easier to read.</p>
<p>also the frustration is the cappex data is much more encouraging than the “rhymes with fowler” data (chances bars)
sheesh</p>
<p>I am going to try an call the GC at the hs today and ask a few questions.
Since the Naviance isn’t including most of the schools on the list…it wasn’t a lot of help when we met.</p>
<p>fogfog–have you been able to locate the CDS for any of the schools your child is considering? While the GPA data is useless since such a small percentage of high schools report, I do like seeing the SAT range. Granted, the scores are for enrolled students, not accepted students, but I generally assume that the SATs for accepted students would be 10-20 points higher on each section. Not an exact science, but better than nothing.</p>
<p>I have also noticed that some colleges report the stats for their most recently accepted class. Again, stats for accepted, not enrolled, but that is what we all need. I think Bucknell had the info printed on a handout and I found it on Richmond’s website.</p>
<p>I hope you have luck getting hold of the GC. I am still waiting for our guidance to update Naviance with 2013 stats. Am not sure why they haven’t yet and no reply to that question…</p>
<p>Has anyone else noticed the arrival of ‘View Books’? I don’t recall seeing these before and a new one arrives here daily. Happy to report that Chicago hasn’t sent anything for weeks! Perhaps they finally realized that my son is not a candidate.</p>