<p>I encouraged him to try Spaetzle – he avoids anything with real taste, he doesn’t even like most American food. When he travels he sticks to white rice, bread and cheese (and chocolate, esp. Nutella!). Knackwurst should be okay too. I sent him with a jar of peanut butter. He doesn’t know what he’s missing!</p>
<p>@2016BarnardMom when we visited Cornell last year at this time groups of students were studying together, at least in the Engineering commons area. Much more social than I remembered! I guess it is all relative :-)</p>
<p>@2018dad - Boggles my mind that Cornell would schedule ASD during prelims/mid-terms, but then again, many high schools down in VA are on Spring break too, so makes sense they are catering to many of their prospective students. We had a wonderful student for our tour guide at Cornell a couple years ago. She did such a great job, with captivating stories along the way. Loved the campus, especially the Hogwarts-style library. Hope your D has a great time tonight!</p>
<p>@3tallblonds - We had a wonderful time in our whirlwind trip to southern CA. Hope you do too, and that you get some insight into whether the school is a good fit or not.</p>
<p>@crowlady - What a wonderful opportunity for your son! My D also loves to travel. Spent a good part of my life in Germany having been born in northern Germany, graduated from hs in
Munich, worked in the Alps, and met my DH in Heidelberg - there is so much to see and experience there! Never went to Dachau, but D14 and S14 visited there on their European tour a couple summers ago. Know Dachau is an eye opener, to say the least, and just seems unfathomable. Love Austria, and Switzerland all the more! Surely, they’ll stop in Liechtenstein, at least for a quick souvenir. Seems a great break after all the stress associated with college apps. Wishing him the trip of a lifetime!</p>
<p>@staceyneil - Thinking of you today and hoping you and your DD had a wonderful time at Mt. Holyoke yesterday and today! We’d had plans to go but school musical rehearsals derailed that. I think Brown has moved up above Mt. Holyoke for DD but since she won’t talk about it, I’m not really sure! Hope it all works out for you!</p>
<p>Re. Cornell
My daughter’s experience at Cornell dramatically improved halfway today. (She ditched me after our campus and library tour in the morning.) She was scheduled to attend 2 classes but the second one had their prelim test (surprise!). She made friends to a bunch of prospective freshmen and they ate lunch together and hang out together the rest of the day. Yup, she’s that social. She has that personality that she can make friends easily and could be the magnet that can pull other kids together.</p>
<p>We have landed!
It’s official. The deposit was submitted tonight. D will be attending Villanoa University in suburban Philadelphia. She did the pros and cons list and the overwhelming weight was in the suburban campus location in a major city, the overall FA, acceptance into the Honors program, and a pre-dental Health Professions advisor who has already been in contact with her regarding her decision and freshman course planning. And she has already found a couple of prospective roomates, one of whom was also a participant at the 2012 HOBY WLC in Chicago with her although they never met each other. It looks like another four years of trips to the east coast.</p>
<p>This eliminates the FA fight with the #2 school. Now all we have to do is get a couple of local scholarship apps completed and start the summer shopping list for the August move-in. After the prom dress shopping trip, I am passing the baton to AvonMom for the dorm room shopping. I told D she can fill out and submit the “No Thanks” cards to the othere accepted schools and take herself off of the waitlist at Wm & Mary so others can have the spaces.</p>
<p>This should be interesting until next year’s basketball season as older brother is at Georgetown and that is a very serious rivalry. But that assumes that both teams will be good next year and GU is a downhill slide whereas Nova is rising. It will be an interesting year. Our older D’s husband went to Nova so there is some family support for D which she likes.</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone else who has reached the decision point. For those of you who are still evaluating, a decision will come in the next couple of weeks. Just relax and have another “M” drink (Margarita, Mojito or Martini).</p>
<p>We are supposed to get SNOW tomorrow! WT***?</p>
<p>And I might be a server since my guy’s known where he’s going for months now, but I’m serving myself a Mojito… for other reasons. It doesn’t really matter that it’s 6am does it? </p>
<p>I would like to share my happiness after a very successful ASD weekend at Mount Holyoke. It’s embarrassing, but I got teary-eyed so many times over the course of the two days! When we arrived, my D immediately made friends. One of the young women, from the midwest (we’re from Maine) actually recognized my D because she used to follow a photography/lifestyle blog my daughter had around grades 7-10! Small world or what? These young women were just so lovely and so like my own daughter, from the way they were dressed (Dr. Martens, flowered skirts, jean jackets with lots of weird buttons…) to their interests and demeanor. Articulate, intelligent, passionate girls. Very cool. My D -and the other “prospies”- kept saying, “I’ve found my people!”</p>
<p>After the “welcome” speech (during which the Dean of Admission read out a sampling of accomplishments from this year’s accepted class, including TWO of my daughter’s… yeah that made me tear up!) the sun came out and the campus was beautiful. I attended panel discussions and a Parent Reception where my previous impressions of the school were reinforced. I feel like this is a wonderful, supportive community of really passionate, smart people. Very cool.</p>
<p>D meanwhile spent the night and made lots of friends. Meeting up with the next day, I saw something new in her face… a rather adult look of satisfaction and excitement. She talked about the inspirational classes she’d attended and the friends she made. She was clearly so happy.</p>
<p>It has been a long couple of years, and she’s had to overcome some pretty huge obstacles to get here. As we were leaving campus, I started to say, “You’re so lucky…” but stopped myself. It wasn’t luck: she worked hard to get here. What is lucky, I think, is that she found a school that is such a GREAT fit for her. I’m so very happy for her, and so proud :)</p>
<p>Congrats to @staceyneil and @AvonHSDad ! </p>
<p>We had a bit of a kink thrown into the works here yesterday - D got a letter informing her that she had been awarded the Presidential Scholarship at CSULB - basically a full ride with housing, stipend, etc. BUT only if she can confirm that she will be Valedictorian. Well, we’re about 99% certain that she will not be Val, she has had 5 or 6 B’s through HS & I’m sure there are kids with 4.0, but her school doesn’t let the kids know their rank, and we don’t even know how the val is chosen. So she is taking her letter to school today in the hopes that they can at least confirm that she is out of the running. Ouch, painful to be so close to such an amazing deal. </p>
<p>@AvonHSDad - yippeeee!! Congrats on the decision! The dorm shopping to me is the happiest time of all - the excitement and anticipation of what’s to come!</p>
<p>@staceyneil - I get teary over everything so I totally get it. Interestingly the school both kids ended up attending were the two admissions I cried over when they received their acceptances.</p>
<p>@Creekland - I believe we discussed we leave all judgment at the dock - this is a 24 hr beverage service. </p>
<p>@GertrudeMcFuzz - that’s awesome! If the school knew this scholarship was on the line could they tell you? Our school doesn’t rank and doesn’t do valedictorian…</p>
<p>@eyemamom - yes, I think with that letter in hand, they will have to tell her something. We’re supposed to let CSULB know by Friday, for goodness sake. What if they don’t even choose the valedictorian until after this semester’s grades?? And we have no idea how they count in weighted vs. unweighted GPA. Of course, this is all probably moot, as we know of a kid at her school who was profiled in the paper for having a perfect ACT & D says she thinks he has taken more AP’s than her and has a 4.0. So hopefully they’ll just tell her she’s like number 26 in the class & that will remove all doubt & she can sign on with Temple with no regrets.</p>
<p>@staceyneil Sounds like an ideal start to an exciting phase of her life. @avonHSDad – Hearty congratulations! “No thanks” cards? I’m not sure we got any of those. We are still getting letters daily from the runners-up, not sure if we’re supposed to let them down gently or what.</p>
<p>@GertrudeMcFuzz That’s really annoying – as if amazing credentials aren’t enough your D has to go to extra effort to essentially declare that she didn’t win that particular competition. Sigh.</p>
<p>We haven’t gotten any no thanks cards either. I wasn’t planning on notifying the no’s anyway, I figured the non deposit come May 1 was their hint. Plus if by some reason there was some crazy change of heart we left all options open.</p>
<p>I think we are going ashore - yesterday my son said he preferred UVM honors college over Muhlenberg -end of discussion. There was no pros and cons list - he just likes it better. We asked what was it he liked better? S relplies - I don’t know - it just seems like a better fit. Not too big I asked? “hmm no that does not bother me”…really? I was thinking, we spent all this time looking at LAC and now you want a larger U??? UVM (10K students) is the largest U we looked at and we added it in at the last minute just to have a EA school…</p>
<p>We were all excited for about 1hr or so - we went to the honors reception, got a tour of the honors dorms…then it became very anti-climatic. S bought the Sweatshirt but was very somber…very odd. I asked if I should pay the deposit or wait a few days - he said wait a few days…I don’t know what to think?</p>
<p>Today I said let me know when you want me to pay the deposit and he sighed …I said you can always change your mind - it is only a sweatshirt that he was wearing and he looked down at it…Was I wrong to say that? Am I casting doubt? </p>
<p>It suddenly feels so real…Is UVM the right school for him? It feels right but so does Muhlenberg for different reasons…what is wrong with me? I should just be happy and move on…</p>
<p>@staceyneil loved your story and so happy for you! It’s wonderful when the fit is so perfect – and obvious!!
@onlyonemom you’re not casting doubt, this is likely something beyond anything you can say or do, he needs to sit with the decision and see if he’s comfortable. Good luck.</p>