<p>Don’t forget that you can shop at a local Bed Bath and Beyond, they will give you a scanner to mark the upc code of the items you want and have them ready for you at a BB&B near the college. They also take expired coupons!</p>
<p>Congrats @akmom124!</p>
<p>@glido - I’m sure I will feel the same way when we have our band banquet in June. Wishing them all happiness and great success as they begin this next phase of their life.</p>
<p>@ECmotherx2 - Yes! we will probably do the BB&B thing as well. I’ve identified a place outside Philly that has a BB&B, a Target, and an Ikea - the triumvirate of college supplies. I’m sure there is a Staples nearby as well. So we’ll have a couple fun days loading the car up, then we’ll move her in and I will head home, alone, leaving my D 3000 miles away. yikes. </p>
<p>Welcome @12dandelion! I think you’ll like it here, it’s a great group!</p>
<p>I am so impressed with all of you who’ve purchased dorm bedding and decor. Spygirl chose her college and that’s as far as she’s gotten. Hasn’t even completed the roommate survey. Has no idea about housing, food plan or what to bring. But there is a palpable relief in the air, mostly mine, and a light at the end of the senior year tunnel. Hopefully she can come up for air this weekend and finish that survey. </p>
<p>In the meantime, I am frantically finishing quilts, planning the grad party and trying to attend spring sports for both kids while Max’s missions have doubled and the busy spying season is upon us. </p>
<p>I don’t want to get off the boat. Can’t we just cruise and drink a little while longer? I’m going to need a real vacation before June is over. But hey, we’re sending a kid to college so I’ll have to settle for wine and a kiddie pool.</p>
<p>So here’s the big question:</p>
<p>D’s first choice has been Sewanee since she visited the school in Nov. I think it is an ideal environment for D. If all goes well - she graduates on time and we get her back to good health over the summer (big ifs) - it’s a no brainer. If she is better, but not at full speed, by fall, College of Charleston may be the better choice - closer to home and her doctors, less academically demanding. Transferring to Sewanee is not a possibility because I can’t afford the COA without her scholarship. A gap year is a last resort (only if health precludes attendance entirely) because she already lost a year due to health problems (that we were sure we had under control!) So, do we deposit at Sewanee or CofC? D really wants to go to Sewanee, but she is also a little afraid with her health issues. I wish I had a crystal ball. Or, that we could deposit at both and decide in August. </p>
<p>How much would it cost to deposit at both? I realize this practice is frowned upon but you have mitigating circumstances. I’m not familiar with Sewanee. Is it close to an urban area where she might find a doctor who specializes in the health challenges she faces?</p>
<p>@Overtheedge
I’m so sorry about your D’s health condition. Those are really hard decisions to make and you are right I wish you have a crystal ball.</p>
<p>Welcome to 12dandelion</p>
<p>Just 5 more days onboard the SS Indecision.</p>
<p>Notice to all passengers - Please get your Dramamine or ginger tabs this evening as we are expecting rough seas this weekend and we want to help prevent indecision nausea.</p>
<p>Overtheedge – I am so sorry that your daughter’s health is compromising her ability to make this very important decision! Does stress play a factor in her medical condition? If it does, I would encourage her to think about COC. In the long run, she wants to be able to enjoy her college years. If she’s sick and far away from home and the doctors she trusts, it might not be in her best interest to go to Sewanee. I hear so many great things about COC. </p>
<p>Akmom124–Congratulations on the Brown decision. Have you read Geoffrey Eugenides’ novel The Marriage Plot? It’s a must for anyone connected to Brown. I read it and was immediately convinced that it was the right school for go2girl. Unfortunately, she hadn’t read it so wasn’t feeling it the way I did!</p>
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<p>My DS’14 got a Swiss Gear backpack when he started high school and it lasted 3 years, but this year has been really falling apart. He’s had various bits of it tied together to last him the rest of the year, but it’s pretty much trash at this point. I don’t know if he’s especially hard on backpacks, but he’s only used it for carrying his books and laptop to and from school, and to classes during the day. (He also doesn’t use his locker.)</p>
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<p>It was an ASD that sold my DS11 on Cornell, so I thought they did a pretty good job of making the sale. They had a lot of social events for the students in the evenings in addition to the usual stuff during the day. I could tell he liked it because he didn’t get tired/impatient with the events of the day, and wanted to go on a tour near the end of the day when we were both already exhausted (big campus!). The engineering ambassador did a good sales job, as did the regular tour guide, and the social events sealed the deal as far as I could tell. Of course YMMV.</p>
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<p>My DS is also graduating on Friday the 13th (we also started after Labor Day).</p>
<p>Sorry for all the individual resonse posts – it’s easier for me to catch up when I respond to posts as I come to them</p>
<p>@Overtheedge could you call CofC and explain the situation honestly, and ask them what they chances would be of them having a place for her come August if she feels unable to attend Sewanee? Would it be possible for her to attend Sewanee and take a lighter than usual first semester load (possibly as a medical accommodation, or possibly just on her own accord depending on whether her scholarship would allow it and so on)? That’s a tough choice. But my understanding is that if you actually double-deposit and they find out, they can both rescind her acceptance, so be careful about that!</p>
<p>@staceyneil – For a state with just over a million people Maine is disproportionately well-represented on this thread. Although we’re out in California, our two grown daughters (35 and 32 y.o.) live just north of Lewiston in Wales and Greene. We’re out there often, and when S16 is out of the house we very well may become bi-coastal.</p>
<p>P.S. Hope you recover soon. Stay out of the ER. You could get into further trouble there.</p>
<p>@mathmomvt – I should have prefaced my criticism by saying that I am a huge supporter of Cornell, loved my four years there, and am thrilled my son will be attending. I happily describe and explain the university to anyone interested, as I think it is difficult to get a handle on, due to the decentralized decision-making by the seven colleges. Once enrolled, it is quite easy to take classes anywhere, but to the uninformed outsider not pursuing a specific degree (Architecture, Engineering, Hotel Management, etc), the application path can be less than clear. The quality of the Info Sessions varies widely. Some days one school will host a great session with a panel of faculty, students, and admission people, and another day the same school will have one admission person sitting around a conference table reading from prepared notes. (We attended four info sessions at three different school at Cornell so we experienced the good and the bad.) Also, the fact that the same subject can be studied in multiple colleges is confusing to many. The flexibility is excellent, but it can be tough to navigate from the outside. </p>
<p>In further fairness, my son didn’t bother attending ASD as an ED applicant. I wanted to bring him back up, but the description of activities made it seem not all that appealing. Attending my own very loose ASD sealed the deal for me. Of course, back then when the drinking age was 18, there was a pub in both the North Campus and West Campus student unions and not a single event organized by the university!</p>
<p>@CT1417 we had a poor visit at MIT with DS11, and had a similar conclusion as you had with Cornell, that they are good enough that they don’t have to work to attract students. (In our case both the admissions rep and the tour guide were fairly poor, and the weather was awful – freezing rain – and the tour guide made ZERO effort to minimize our time standing around outside in it, and didn’t even highlight all the myriad ways – tunnels and skyways and connected buildings – to get from place to place on campus without going outside. She just stuck with the script.) </p>
<p>Just pointing out that our experience with Cornell admissions was actually excellent for the ASD that he attended.</p>
<p>For those of you who have an up and coming D or S in the HS Classes of 2015, 2016 or 2017 and might have an interest in attending Vanderbilt, they are starting their Admissions Office road show visits early this year with May and June visits around the country. Check it out at <a href=“http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/travel/roadshow.php[/size]”>http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/travel/roadshow.php</a></p>
<p>@CT1417 @mathmomvt
The only ASD event that my daughter attended is at USC and UCLA and those were for a special and tiny group of accepted students (Presidential Scholars @ USC and Regents scholars @ UCLA). So we don’t really have any basis for comparison. Those events were really well organized and they had a lot of social events all day and into the night. But they were trying to woo the most qualified applicants so . . .</p>
<p>My DS14 was wooed by the ASD at UVM. They didn’t really have anything special going on other than the usual tours and info sessions (no social stuff) but it was enough for him to get a really comfortable feeling there. So, sometimes they work. On paper I wouldn’t have guessed it would be a great fit, but in person it really was. We had not visited at all prior to the ASD and were thinking of it primarily as a financial (and academic) safety. (Don’t worry, he had another safety that we had visited and that he liked well enough to attend.)</p>
<p>@MathMomVT -^^^we had the same experience. S had applied EA as a safety with a free app. We actually went to two ASD days at UVM -Our first visit was the ASD in Feb before S was accepted to the Honors college. It was cold and rainy outside and really crowded and hot inside but S really liked the school and Burlington. This was a surprise because S hates crowds. The ASD in Muhlenberg was a really all out affair to recruit and very nicely done. I think S liked the school but wanted to go back to see UVM again before deciding…Our second ASD included a tour of the honors dorm, S sitting in on an honors seminar and honors reception. Oh and our first full tour of the campus. It was an absolutely beautiful day in the low 70s - what’s not to love ! We bought the sweatshirt and lounging pants - his go to attire at home! He seems really happy ! …
Now to help him with his Senior Transition Project (STP). I am not sure why they call it a project -it is more of a two week internship. My S is suppose to do a 2 week “internship” the last two weeks of school. In January I had asked a Neurologist, I worked with, if S could shadow him in clinic and possibly shadow in a lab. He said yes of course and he was happy to help out…well for various reasons things are not going as planned…The first week the neurologist, S was suppose to shadow, will be out because his wife is having surgery so that is up in the air. Apparently the help with finding a lab was just a name and a phone number. After a few calls and email -requesting to observe in a certain lab, we find out the lab is being shut down for lack of funding…jeez… I feel bad because I convinced S to come spend two weeks with me in Providence and I would help him set it up! I just found out about the lab issue yesterday and haven’t had the heart to tell S. On Monday, he has to do a presentation about his STP …what a mess…I guess he will just have to “wing it” and hopefully we will be able to pull something together in the next week or two…just when I thought we could coast a little…or should I say cruise…</p>