Dyiu13 I agree if your kid qualifies for full tuition scholarships, he/she may also qualify for room/board at certain schools. You should cast a very wide net and also have your child apply for outside scholarships. Although they tend to be for one year, every little bit helps. Your child can also be an RA eventually- it may be competitive to get (?) but it’s worth a shot. Good luck.
My daughter had her prom on Saturday evening, and then I graduated from college yesterday afternoon - I’m not a big ceremony person, but I’m glad I went. The best thing was that I came home to a huge surprise party organized by my older daughter and my sisters. It was fantastic.
Dyiu13, that very factor made the college I teach at not the most inexpensive option for my son. He would get full tuition at another school which has much cheaper housing. Like others said, about 5K different.
And congratulations @Irishmomof2! I lost my coat at my graduation - it rained and was being held at a huge sports arena, so I had to wear my coat in to the ceremony, and left it “where I could find it”. Had to have security let me in to get it!
Congratulations @Irishmomof2! What a great accomplishment. 
@dyiu13, do you qualify for Pell? Does you state have a program that gives funds toward college costs? Both of those together cover a large part of my children’s room and board. Keep in mind that if you do find full ride scholarships, your child will need to pay taxes on the room and board portion.
Agreeing with the others here, though; full tuition at one school can often mean full ride elsewhere. You have time to do lots of research and find those scholarships. There is a lot of information on the financial aid board.
Our situation is that while her tuition will be fully covered through a tuition exchange grant (if not, she will not attend), we are on the hook for all other expenses. That’s the grant’s deal, and we’re very grateful for it, and with carefully chosen schools, we hope for at least one grant offer at one college.
With two parents making about $50K each, there’s no Pell or state grant. D16 would probably earn about $2K net each summer and work about 10 h/wk in school months. Subsidized student loans each year? Is that $5500 to start? If a residential student, her current $1000/yr HS transportation cost could be applied toward college. RA jobs are super competitive, I now see. Our EFCs were about $15K per year when I ran the NPCs a year ago, iirc. The whole full-tuition grant makes it an odd situation.
I am very concerned I’m not considering some important factors in the residential v commuter decision. It looks like I need to dig further into the specifics of each school’s room, board, fees, flight costs, & insurance rules. If room & board could be $5K lower at school A than school B, would she be getting apples to apples? Like 15-meals/week at both, or one with 10/wk and the other 21 meals. I better go check…
Good luck. With that HH income? Anything you get is a bonus.
Yep. We expect to pay all costs except tuition. Just trying to figure out if that’s possible or impossible if the goal is to be financially responsible/prudent. So, I’m starting to think (realize) it’s going to have to be a BA from a local college as a commuter student for D16.
You’re lucky you have a local 4-year. The only thing we have here is a 2-year community college, and she has been attending it for two years now (instead of high school classes for dual credit). There is not much left for her at home.
Graduation was last night… very nice, not too long - about 2 hours for 375 graduates. A little hooting and hollering and one air horn. S said that he and his friend were talking the whole time about how when they were born it was expected that they would graduate from college so the high school graduation did not seem like a big deal to them, lol. He had fun at the all night party and will now sleep all day!
My kids have also expressed that sentiment @wrights1994…going to college was likened to 13th-16th grades. Just the natural progression. But then they saw the special Ed kids on campus, and those with LD’s and it was pretty humbling. For those kids it truly was a big deal. Grateful for my kids’ relative ease of learning for sure. That said, I’m not super excited to sit in the sun for 2 1/2 -3 hours watching 600 kids cross the stage. Air horns and cowbell. Yikes.
@shellz…We made sure that our kids would think of college as the natural progression…If your parents don’t plant that idea in your head, you may not think that college is an option.
True, @bopper. Much success in life is due to winning the parental lottery. So many kids just don’t have people in their lives who tell them, “yes you can (insert lofty goal here)”. And then there are those who just aren’t cut out for higher learning. In those cases, I hope and pray that parents are able to accept that, AND steer them to some sort of vocational training. I’m amazed at how many of my kids’ classmates chose neither of those options and are now working for minimum wage at dead end jobs. This is many years out of high school. Tough road, to be sure.
Help anyone! DS just turned 18 and I want him to sign the HIPAA forms so that we can have access to his medical records should we need them. Do you know where we can find these forms? Is it also good for him to sign a medical power of attorney? One website said so. Thanks!
Yes, definitely medical power of attorney and possibly financial, too. Here’s a link I just found on this topic:
http://knowsymoms.com/serious-stuff-hipaa-and-other-important-medical-forms/
Choked back the tears tonight at senior awards. Was fine until the orchestra played “Yesterday” by the Beatles. All I could see in my mind’s eye was my five year old bravely walking through the gate to kindergarten. Too soon… Wanna rewind and redo some of the last decade again. Feeling so nostalgic, and a little bit lost,. This is truly the end of child rearing for us!
Shellz the music always gets me teary eyed as well. The song that gets me bawling all the time is Time of Your Life ( ( Green Day?- Seinfeld finale song). Whenever that song comes on the radio the bawling about my kids leaving automatically begins. There was also a TV commercial that was on in the summer a few years ago- it was a Dell commercial and the boy opened up his acceptance letter and then it fast forwards to him being at college and walking away from his parents and waving goodbye. Ugh it’s 5:30 am and I just started crying- this is not going to be good LOL.
Dropping her off and leaving will be incredibly hard. I have gotten very accustomed to her taking over my kitchen, not being able to chew ( we are too loud), not being able to watch TV ( too loud) having fits when stressed, LOL - but mostly I have thoroughly enjoyed these high school years ( minus the stress) and all of the joyous events that we were part of. Yesterday I picked her up from a school event and the teacher is going out today on maternity. The teacher actually cried saying goodbye to her and then said to her " I love you- you are amazing, I will miss our morning chats." Again- I cried. I just can’t deal with this. It’s intense happiness and sadness at the exact same time- a very weird emotion.
No sign of relief in sight. S wrote the final exam for AP Calc BC and he said it was harder than the actual AP test they just wrote and also harder than most of the practice exams. This does not look headed in a good direction. We won’t know final grades until late next week. We will likely need to have the hs counselor send a note with his final grades. However, while the university of Minnesota will soon have his grades in hand, apparently they don’t make a final decision until August? Seems like they want to be like the UC system - one bad grade and you lose admission.
@PhxRising, We had D sign a medical power of attorney form right after she turned 18. I found it for our state through a web search. I just have to get the form notarized this weekend. I think she does the HIPPA form when she goes to her doc for her pre-college check-up. That is something I need to check on with the doc. I thought back to when I was in college and why it wasn’t a big deal then and realized that the age for legal adults in the state I lived in was 21 at that time! :-t
@singermom4, D said the same about her Calc BC test. But her prof will change a grade to an automatic A for any student who ends up getting a 5 on the AP exam and didn’t otherwise get an A in his class.
@mtrosemom - unfortunately neither the hs or the university will consider the AP score in balance with the class grade. The privates he was considering would have considered his AP score but Minnesota says they only look at class grade 