<p>Ok, I’m officially jealous for all of you whose seniors do not have to make up days. Is my school the only one that does it? I remember last year is the first year it’s happened in quite some time and oodles of parents were enraged due to previously set plans. It didn’t matter…</p>
<p>I think our district is stuck with set graduation dates because there are three large high schools, none of which can “host” it’s own graduation. None of them even have their own stadiums for athletic events. Graduation is in an events center, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way to change dates. The district is stuck with the dates they pick a year in advance.</p>
<p>Our district doesn’t extend the graduation date either, but a few days can be converted to school days instead of conference days or staff development days. I don’t think the kids will be happy to lose the handful of non-school days during the second semester.</p>
<p>Our school has 5 snow days built into the schedule – if there are more snow days, school goes later, if there are fewer, it ends earlier. None of this impacts seniors though, whose graduation date is fixed, and who are done thereafter.</p>
<p>D will have her first college interview Thursday. The turnaround was so quick that she was freaking out when she received the email from the interviewer. She submitted the application on the 29th. She received the confirmation email from the college on the 30th. Then the email from the interviewer on the 31st. This is an ultra reach school for her. Any tips?</p>
<p>^^^2018dad, only tip I have is the standard: relax, be yourself, it won’t make or break your application, and have a question or two for the interviewer but be sure that it’s not a question that a 5 minute web search could answer. </p>
<p>Wish her luck.</p>
<p>My son had his interview with his ultra-reach school alumni during the break. The interviewer said, “Bring questions” about the school and he did. I think bringing a resume is a must; she should be prepared to talk about things like extracurriculars listed on the resume and what has been important to her during the past couple of years and why. I think that being able to talk about her interests will be important. Interviewers are looking for a good fit, and will want to know what really makes her tick.</p>
<p>It is obviously important to get there on time, or a little early, be dressy casual, polite and offer a firm handshake. Remember, the interviewer probably wants to like her, so she should just go forward from that assumption. Also, a follow up thank you with an email never hurt.</p>
<p>I thought that some might find this article from the WSJ interesting. It attests to how many families have figured out that, in most cases, incurring debt to pay for college is simply not a smart decision, and that many schools are essentially discounting tuition by providing a lot of need-based and merit-based financial aid.</p>
<p>[Degrees</a> of Value: How to Make College Affordable - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303870704579298302637802002]Degrees”>Degrees of Value: How to Make College Affordable - WSJ)</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s hard to come up with questions about the school that aren’t answered on their website. One thing you can ask is whether the interviewer attended the school, and if so what was their favorite (and least favorite) thing about it.</p>
<p>Hi, all, I’m new to this thread, but have been thinking of joining in for a bit. Winter break has been pretty stressful here - D2 has a big list but her targets are all small northeastern LAC’s… So… Lottery schools for unhooked RD applicants, and she refused to apply ED. She completed 11 applications in 2 days, not that she wasn’t working on them earlier in break, but she didn’t even have completed drafts till the 30th for any of her supplements. I thought D1 procrastinated, but D2 has brought her game to the pro level! </p>
<p>I seem to recall from D1 2 years ago that February and March were very long months. Happy waiting to everyone!</p>
<p>I think we ALL need to spend February and March just enjoying each other. There won’t be a lot of college talk until that last week of March when results start coming in. Once we get the financial aid stuff done, I don’t intend to bring it up at all for awhile.</p>
<p>Just had to catch up on a few weeks of posts I’ve missed through the holidays. Congratulations on all the acceptances. What a lot of accomplished kids!</p>
<p>S14 has heard from 3 of his 9 schools so far. A deferral from his Ivy League ED and two acceptances from EA schools. He is particularly enamored with Northeastern - he got into the Honors Program with some very nice merit aid (Presidential Scholarship). Truthfully, I had thought of this is a safety school for him but since then have revised my opinion - we are hearing just staggering numbers of deferrals and rejections of very high stats kids from NEU, particularly here in the northeast. He is so excited about the Honors Program and the co-ops, I am starting to think this is where he will end up regardless of what happens with his other schools, including the three Ivy Leagues - he is just thrilled. Perhaps this is becoming even more of a journey than I thought - since getting into Northeastern, he’s barely had a passing thought about his ED deferral, which may have been a blessing in disguise!</p>
<p>Happy New Year to all!</p>
<p>Our school does not set graduation until April, so any snow days we have are tacked on to the end and graduation moves accordingly. It’s quite annoying. We don’t have any family who has to make travel plans for graduation, thank goodness, but it must be quite annoying for those who do.</p>
<p>When I graduated high school, graduation was weeks after school ended, after all exams and papers had been graded, etc. Snow days had no impact because there was lots of slack in between. This thing of setting graduation before the last day of school for underclassmen is really odd, IMO.</p>
<p>Our graduation is after exams and papers are graded for the seniors, who have their final exam week before underclassmen. This works because most are taking AP or post - AP classes and those exams are in May and our school year doesn’t end until the middle of June. They present their senior research projects in May also.</p>
<p>So many classes in our HS have both seniors and underclassmen in them that this method of ending on different dates is kind of crazy.</p>
<p>We have graduation on the last day of school. Seniors spend the morning picking up cap & gown and attending grad rehearsal. Everyone else attends for a shortened day with time in each class to obtain final exam scores. Grad is 4 or 5pm of the last day of school and that date changes with each snow day we add. Indoor/Outdoor decision announced that day as we all watch the weather and hope for sunshine.</p>
<p>We also have a decent mix of Jrs & Srs in the upper level math classes, all AP science classes and then some of what I consider the new APs (Art, Human Geo, Econ). </p>
<p>Looking back to my own HS grad, I recall it always being on a Sunday but I don’t know how they made that work out! Time for a call to the siblings. </p>
<p>NoCook–I think I read somewhere that NEU received a HUGE # of apps……perhaps 20K+, so I imagine there were many deferrals or worse. Congrats to your son….and all the others here!</p>
<p>Our high school has such a unique curriculum that any class with underclassmen and seniors would be an AP, post-AP, a seminar, or a project based class that wouldn’t have a final. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how it works out for other high schools in our district, but I guess they’ve figured it out somehow!</p>
<p>All classes at our HS have to have a final. For AP classes, the “real” final (the test that is worth a larger chunk of their grade) is given around the time of the AP exam, but they have to have another final during finals week (different for seniors and non-seniors). For many classes that means teachers have to give 2 different finals. It all seems absurd to me.</p>
<p>I honestly think they do it to reduce senior pranks. Get the seniors out of there before the last week of school. And yes, the AP tests being SO early makes the last month of school pretty useless anyway. They cram like mad to get all the material in and then watch movies or something in AP classes for the last month. Usually movies relevant to the subject material in some way, but still.</p>