@suzy100, the first doggie is my Maxie. The second pup is a friends rescue dog. I fell in love with Maggie and wanted to make her a star.
School semester ended here before Christmas (whew). We’re slacking on the FAFSA. H will do it, but he’s not in a hurry. Realistically, we are not going to qualify for needs based aid except at a few schools. I forgot that it may make a difference as to the order D lists her schools. I will need to tell H about that. If we go alphabetically, one of her top choices is at the bottom of the list. Must think about this more.
D.IS.DONE!
Last app is submitted with 50 min to spare. 
Happy New Year!!
I had the same problem with being unable to get off the housing page. Thanks for the tip about changing browsers. DCs first semester ended on already. seniors get out 4 days earlier in May than the rest and prepare for graduation - sniff! - during that time.
Just checking in to wish everybody a happy and healthy New Year. Congrats to everybody as they finish applications and get acceptances. I tend to keep to myself when stressed which is part of the reason I have been quiet but rest assured I am always here reading everything and cheering everybody on. January will be a big month here. [-O< ~X(
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
S’15 spent the Christmas break arranging his admitted student activities. It appears (based on what he’s set up) that we have 3 finalists, 1 pending and 2 that are falling out of favor.
February will be a busy month as we navigate 2 separate overnights on successive weekends plus a trip south! :D/ And we have 1 admitted student event booked for the end of March.
Maybe one of the dark horses will slip back into the running come spring? :-?
Good luck to those still waiting on admissions and financial info.
D’s semester ended before the break. Traditionally the IB kids get out after IB exams, but the rumor is that the new principal wants them to stay in school after the exams this year. D is not happy about that possibility. They wouldn’t really be working in class, but they’d still have to get up and be at school. Yuck. I-)
My son is similar, no December exams only mid-January. AP courses are all but done once the exam is done BUT some really nasty teachers think they have to overload students after the exam.
They are done mid-June, and he has two non-AP classes to take exams in for June.
DS’s semester ended before Christmas also. He managed to hold on to an A- in a class that had him really stressed all semester so I am so happy that he didn’t have that hanging over him all break. Hopefully this semester will be less stressful. He is at a drum corps audition camp this weekend so keeping our fingers crossed for him!
And Happy New Year to everyone!
Finals were before break, making for a stress-filled December but lots of resting and no studying during the vacation. Kids at our school (even seniors) will be in school until graduation in mid-June.
Congrats @FromMd and all the rest who are done, done, done. D submitted 4 apps yesterday but she has another batch due the 15th. I was on the Common App site a bit ago to look at what supplements are left but kept getting an error page. So very, very glad she didn’t encounter that while submitting apps. Yikes.
D’s semester ends in two weeks. With all those apps also due, it will be a long and stressful two weeks. But I am really looking forward to mid-January!
The Spawn lobbed in 2 apps on NYE & 4 yesterday; the last going in at 11:50 PM so we had 10 whole minutes of fluff in the schedule. There are 3 more with 1/15 deadlines, so she’ll need to get those supplements looked at by her CC when she returns to school on Monday
Semester exams for Spawn are the week of 1/19 I believe. At her school there are no 2 nd semester exams for Seniors other than whatever AP exam is required. School is done for the seniors the end of April, with the month of May dedicated to a senior project, trip, community service or student teaching. No trip for Spawn as she is a senior captain for her spring sport, so it will be either community service of teaching.
Hope everyone had a great New Year!
Here in wrestlerland we have a complicating factor to a process that i thought was over – an acceptance to the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities! Do we stay the course??? Oh my!
I have a particular soft-spot for Minnesota. Some of the nicest people i have ever met were from there. Their stellar academic reputation doesn’t make this any easier!
FAFSA in,all apps due 1/1 were in on 12/30…and I note that Twitter’s Common App account was posting about an outage…oops. Looks like the last minute app filers brought it down, again!
Anyone’s kid have school today? Mine did. They’re really trying to put days in the bank in the event of blizzards. OTOH, he gets Three Kings Day off on Tuesday.
Happy and relieved to report that D got her last 3 apps in - one on the 30th, one on the 31st, and one on the 1st (7 whole hours before the deadline). Now once she gets through finals in late January, maybe she can relax and enjoy the rest of her senior year. I’d like to announce that the welcome lei stand is now open on the promenade deck, dispensing leis in custom colors and fragrances. All lei fees are waived for USS Indecision passengers!
All, thought I would share something finance related here… Please review and pass on as you like…One disclaimer: I am not a financial planner or anything of the sort ; nor am I getting anything from anyone for sharing this… Just sharing here since I found it useful…
Last week of December, Congress passed and President Obama signed the "ABLE act of 2014". While there are many provisions to that, I would like to share two that you may particularly want to investigate. These are given below. These are both good provisions IMHO. Please pass on the news so, families can make informed decisions.
1.529-A plans
The Achieving A Better Life Experience Act of 2014 (also known as the ABLE Act of 2014), will create a new Section 529-ABLE account to be used not for educational purposes but to allow for tax-free growth for a special needs beneficiary (without disqualifying the beneficiary from most Federal or state aid programs). This is expected to change the landscape of using special needs trusts and planning for special needs beneficiaries for many years to come.
2.529 plans update
Current 529 college savings plan owners have previously been restricted to only making one investment change per year. The ABLE Act has made a change to all existing 529 plans that allows for twice-yearly investment changes. Just as you make changes to your retirement portfolio based on changing investment objectives, you also should make sure your college fund investments are on the right track. Even if you are in an age-based portfolio that automatically shifts investments based on the age of the beneficiary, you should still monitor the plan’s performance. If you see something you don’t like in 2015 you now have two opportunities to change it.
S applied to 15 schools. So we did his top 5 in alphabetical order yesterday on round one of the FAFSA. Not sure yet if I will do the last 10 all together in alpha order or do three groups. When do we know it is ok to change them out?
We got the FAFSA confirmation email, but do we have to wait to know that the schools have it?
You will get an email saying it’s “processed”, then you can make changes to it (like swapping out schools). As I recall that takes 2-3 days.
Useful info: https://studentaid.ed.gov/fafsa/next-steps
We got an email already that says the FAFSA has been processed…
Congratulations, your FAFSA was processed successfully.
So this means I can change out the schools already? I just filed last night!!!