<p>I´ve realized that, because my D doesn´t have her license, and hasn´t been in a hurry to get it, I am not really sure what all the rules are for newly licensed drivers in our state. I recall looking it up, the difference in the laws of all the states and ours seemed fairly lenient. I will look them up again to be sure I am familiar with them! Before any of her friends got their licenses, I was so sure I´d be so strict about her riding with others, and compared to some, I am. This is the only teen friend I´ve allowed D to ride with. I wasn´t going to allow that, but there are often other factors to consider that you just can´t plan ahead for.
Just looked up the rules for Florida. There are time restrictions (16 yr old licensed drivers can drive between 6 am and 11 pm) but no passenger restrictions.</p>
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<p>DC#2 wants to go to the opposite coast to visit schools over spring break. (He seems enamored of moving thousands of miles away from me. Go figure.) He tagged along for many of DC#1’s visits and is very familiar with big brother’s school. But he’s a completely different kid and will probably only have two or three overlaps with the schools DC#1 considered.</p>
<p>Shoboemom, oh so scary! I am so relieved that your D is not injured, but like everyone else already stated, monitor her over the next few weeks.</p>
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<p>Like GoAskDad’s son, BunHeadGirl wishes to head out east to visit schools. I figured we have two 4-day weekends, five 3-day weekends, one spring break, and one summer to get in the remaining visits. BunHeadGirl’s East Coast list currently consists of too many schools. She also wishes to revisit 4 schools here in the Midwest, and of course each school is located in a different state.</p>
<p>Well we sat down last night and planned out our Veterans Day visit weekend. We decided we would drive to Georgetown early for a Sat tour, do a school (American/GW) on our own on Sunday and then do a tour at Penn on Monday. We were going to take one of D’s classmates with us. We picked the hotel and were all set. An hour later I got a text that the boys’ club team tryouts are that Sunday. Back to the drawing board!!</p>
<p>@keepme, I took S to DC this summer. We were going to do our own tour of GW and take the official tour of Georgetown. In hind sight, I wish we would have done our own tour of Georgetown because the tour keeps you outside except for the admissions building and student center. It was not easy to hear the tour because of the airplanes going over the campus every 10 minutes.
At the last minute we signed up for the GW tour/info session and are so happy we did. I feel there would be no way to get a true feel for the school without the tour.
After reading a lot of great reviews here on CC about American, I wish we would have included this school on our tour list.
One thing I do recommend, if you have time, is to take a double decker bus tour of DC.</p>
<p>Thanks Muf, to be completely honest, a big part of doing the Gtown tour is to get her name on record with Admissions. She has been to overnight camp there and it’s H’s alma mater so we’ve been there a few times. The double decker bus sounds like fun! Less walking!!</p>
<p>I can’t find any schools open on Sunday for tours. That’s why we were doing one on our own. I wish they would do Sundays!!</p>
<p>Now we have to figure out if we’re splitting up for the weekend or just go another time.</p>
<p>I have yet to figure out the timeline…time remaining for college visits. I just can´t seem to get a grasp on the general deadlines and that sort of thing. Calendar math-elapsed time always throws me for a loop! lol<br>
If anyone wants to post a timeline, or a link to one, that would be great!
I know we have this year and the upcoming summer for visits, but then the Fall of senior year is where is all gets confusing to me…when applications need to be in…when acceptance-rejection letters come, when we might have time to do accepted visits, how long we have to decide on schools (assuming there are options!), all of that seem rather vague so far.</p>
<p>I’m overwhelmed trying to plan college visits - to the point of paralysis. I just don’t see how to do many of them on a budget.</p>
<p>shoeboe, as far as timelines go, I think the due dates for apps will depend on whether the school has rolling admissions, etc. I believe that even if a school does rolling admits, there are early deadlines for scholarship applications and/or some schools seem to be more generous with aid earlier in the process.</p>
<p>Suzy, I saw the advice somewhere on CC to consider the idea that if the cost of visiting certain schools is prohibitive, think twice about considering those schools since there will be trips back and forth required, at least for scheduled breaks, and perhaps more. I really, really want D to stay within a days drive (closer would be better), and it will take an amazing opportunity for me to feel like the distance is worth it (Wellesley is one possibility on that list). But some places are definitely easier to get to than others…or provide more options. I hate to fly, D doesn´t like it (does anyone like it anymore?), but some schools that might be a long drive are on the Amtrak routes and they do often have good rates if you plan pretty far in advance. Right now, when I look at rates for flights for some locations, it might not seem too bad, but then you never know what the rates will be later, same goes for gas prices, but the impact of that depends on your car.<br>
So, my goal has been to visit lots of schools that are fairly easily accessible, without an airplane, and hope that a couple of those feel like good fits. D seems to have other thoughts at times, but she has liked a couple not too terribly far away (Furman was a hit), and we have more to see.</p>
<p>D woke up feeling a little sore, but ok this morning. She says her neck hurts a little, but towards the side, likely just a stiff or pulled muscle. MY back is hurting and I keep having to remind myself I wasn´t in the car accident lol. Does anyone else do that sort of thing, where you almost feel like whatever your kid experienced, happened to you? </p>
<p>Pinotnoir, You mentioned getting over the ´what could have happened´ then moving on, and I think those thoughts have really just started to occur to me. It was a pretty good hit. I am not sure the cars will really be repairable. What if the car had hit just a little bit further back? What if it had been a larger car that hit them? yuck. move on, move on…she´s ok, she´s ok…</p>
<p>shoboe - hope your D is feeling better today. </p>
<p>here is an example link to month-to-month timeline. It’s not perfect but gives you general idea on what to expect/when. </p>
<p>[Senior</a> Year College Application Timeline - Keep Track of Senior Year Deadlines](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/admissionstimeline/tp/12th-grade-timeline.htm]Senior”>Senior Year College Application Deadlines)</p>
<p>You will have to adjust as needed for the schools your D’s interested in. For those schools with rolling admissions you can apply as early as you have all the things schools asked for.</p>
<p>shoboemom, so sorry to hear about your daughter. That’s one of my fears of letting D ride with friends, even those you know are good drivers. If she has a stiff neck, then I would go see a doctor to get it checked out. Maybe you can call and talk to a nurse first?</p>
<p>Like Suzy100, I’m pretty paralyzed by the thought of college visits - it’s not so much the cost (although with the looming federal government shutdown, maybe cost is a factor), but the logistics of planning college visits.</p>
<p>Shoboemom (I always type Shoebomom!) - I have a spreadsheet that has EVERYTHING on it including ED/EA deadline, RD deadline along with the usual stuff (ACT/SAT 25percentile, 75 percentile, tuition& fees, room and board, estimated incidentals, potential merit, does it have D’s major interests, location, # of students, etc.) It’s also color-coded with red meaning unaffordable.</p>
<p>@keepmecruisin, How was GTown? My D is very interested. She has never seen it though. My two cousins went there for grad school. they both loved it and I like it too. D. became interested in international stuff and heard it’s a good school for it. </p>
<p>@FromMD, thanks for that link! Things like this are very helpful for those of us who’ll have seniors for the first time. I’m so clueless and D’s school couselor is not much of a help that I think we may need to hire a outside couselor.</p>
<p>We were thinking about a college visit over Columbus Day weekend, but this weekend I came to the realization that D would be better off sleeping than traveling. Her workload is high and she’s always tired, and with the PSAT on that Wednesday, she’s better off sleeping until noon on Monday. Next year. . . .</p>
<p>Shoboemom, I hope your D’s soreness lessens today. If it doesn’t, it might be time to have it evaluated–and this is coming from someone who avoids the doctor’s office. The near miss is lucky and also frightening. My middle D was in a car that was hit when the girls were sitting in a turn lane waiting to enter a shopping center. It sounds like a similar kind of thing: the cars were both pretty battered but luckily, no one was hurt. I think it was a good, low-stakes way to learn a powerful message…though it also freaked them all out. I mean, they were sitting still waiting for a left turn arrow. What else could they have done? My D put off learning to drive after that incident and didn’t start until she was just a few months shy of 18. The youngest D is not rushing to get her permit but I think it has more to do with my driving behavior than anything else. (I hate driving.) It also turns out that all her friends are youngsters and not one of them has gotten the permit yet and not one is eligible to get a license before next month when they start to turn 16. </p>
<p>We are taking the plunge and doing a first round of midwest college visits over a four day weekend this October. The goal is to see what large and small, urban and suburban campuses look like. We will plan to do an east coast trip over winter or spring break and to see the Claremont Colleges and USC whenever we don’t go east but I have to make sure that the spring break doesn’t coincide with accepted student days. One of my daughters lives in DC and we have talked about combining a visit there with visits to GW, Georgetown, American, and Johns Hopkins. This might be a spring visit or a summer visit. </p>
<p>Our college counseling office advised us that 95% of all seniors applied early action or early decision somewhere last year. They strongly recommend that kids aiming for reach schools to continue to follow that practice. I’m not sure what that means for D because I’m not really clear on what constitutes a reach school these days (other than the obvious ones). It almost seems like every school we’ve heard of has become a reach. I’m also not clear what role EDII plays in this recommendation. </p>
<p>I have to comment that I’m really floored by trends in college admissions. My eldest applied for admission to the college class of 2011. This was the absolute peak of the “echo boom” and we parents assumed it would also be the worst year for admissions. I could never have predicted that selectivity could become greater now than what it was then.</p>
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<p>Right with you. We live, as you may have guessed from my screen name, in Ohio. The one state where D is not interested in going to college 
I have ruled out west coast schools, even though we do have family out there, it is just too expensive and time consuming to travel those routes often from here. She is OK with this because what she really wants is NE city - NYC, Boston, Providence, Philly, DC. She will consider Chicago and Pittsburgh and will consider rural/suburban IF near one of those NE cities. We have tons of family in the NE because her dad and I are both from there.</p>
<p>So for this 3 day weekend we can either look at her favorite of the state Us that may be a financial safety, go to Chicago (Oct weekend in Chicago is nice but it’s 12+ hours round trip driving and in summer there are beaches), Pittsburgh (two wild card schools she may or may not even apply to), and then saving for longer visits, DC area and Boston area schools. Spring break won’t be an option so these weekends are the best shot for seeing campuses with students on them.</p>
<p>Sigh.</p>
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<p>I’d let D apply EA, we need to compare financial packages so ED is out. I am not convinced that ED is much of a bump at the very reachy schools, but may be at ones that are a level down in selectivity. Some EA and rolling admissions are great for morale, IMO. It’s nice to be in *somewhere *by late fall senior year.</p>
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<p>I think we’re in a spiral of sorts…the common app makes it easy to apply to lots of schools (and so many go for ones they’ve heard of) and as schools get more apps they become more selective so kids apply to more of them…</p>
<p>S has already announced to the family that the month of August before his Sr. yr is off limits to any thoughts of a family vacation. He wants to get most of his college apps started and complete his extended essay for his IB program. Thats fine with me as long as the Xbox is off limits for the month of August as well.
@shoboemom, I hope your D feels better soon.</p>
<p>fromMD Thank you for that link. I now have it pinned, so I may actually be able to find it again! I have started a new spreadsheet of sorts with the application dates etc so that I can quit just wondering about it.</p>
<p>Ohmomof2, I think a lot of our kids feel basically that way…any state but THIS one. Oberlin looks interesting, D keeps getting mail from them, but it´s all the way up there in Ohio! </p>
<p>I will definitely keep an eye on the soreness from the accident. I am just so wary of making a big deal when it´s not a big deal. We went through that some last year with a dr visit leading to emergency room, contemplating emergency surgery, follow up visits, but the issue ended up resolving itself. Same things with a longer term issue a while back…all that stress that wasn´t needed. </p>
<p>muf123, it´s impressive that you S is thinking ahead like that and already has a plan for how to deal with those applications and the extended essay.</p>