She is already involved in a million things (and improve is definitely not her thing). It’s not that she doesn’t have enough to do, it’s that her confidence is shaken. She was just so excited about rush and I think had some sort of vision in mind about what would happen and it didn’t happen that way at all. But this too will pass, it will just be a bit painful to watch/hear about for the next few days or weeks.
I’m so sorry that the rush turned out to be a sad thing for your D, @momofzag.
My D says she is not interested in joining sororities, and based on what I witnessed at my own big state U, back in the day, and what I’ve heard lately, I’m relieved. You’re right, it seems to feed into young women’s insecurities about looks, the right clothes, etc.
I hope your D can find a way to have a positive experience from all this, regardless of whether she joins a sorority, or not. Best of luck to her.
@ballerina2016 I have not heard this. My son was given the form at the end of last year to fill out. I just checked the UC site and ELC is still on the UC website, so maybe it will be discontinued in the future but there is no sign of it being discontinued for our kids this year, from what I can tell.
I have not heard anything about the ELC being eliminated…I am sure it would have been mentioned on Ms Sun’s blog if it was. Since the UC system is under great pressure to increase diversity, it’s hard to imagine they are getting rid of that as an option. Which really means what…that your kid has a spot at Merced?
@LKnomad DD was given form as well. The information came from her new CC. It just seems strange that it was not announced. I will try to get more information during UCLA open house. How was your son’s interview at Harvey Mudd?
@Ballerina2016 He has had 3 interviews so far, including Mudd. All 3 were completely different. During the Mudd interview they were training a new interviewer so it may have thrown him off a bit, but I think he did well after listening to him tell me about it. One more interview to go! This one is in a coffee place and I have to drive 45 minutes to get there. He is becoming an expert at interviewing, I think. Not bad for a kid on the spectrum.
Congratulations to all receiving good NM news! How great to have your list of affordable schools increased substantially!! Good luck with achieving NMF.
@LKnomad, I am so glad to hear his interviews are going well! What a relief!
@momofzag, that really is heartwrenching. My oldest was involved heavily in theatre in high school, and I remember the agony of audition results. And the sorority thing… 
@momofzag – S14 went through some heartache last year because of the whole fraternity rush thing. He and a friend rushed a fraternity together – his friend walked out after 10 minutes (because he wasn’t interested), but my son stayed for the whole presentation. He really liked that fraternity. His friend got asked back, but he didn’t. . . It’s hard not to take these rejections as personal, because, well, they ARE personal. And it’s a rejection by one’s “peers”. Ugh. She’ll obviously bounce back, but it’s such unnecessary pain.
P.S. Addendum: Before S14 was at college I ignored all the fraternity stuff here on CC, as I thought it was totally irrelevant to him/us. I didn’t think he’d be interested. But for many kids it’s a different ballgame than they envisioned once they get on campus. Just sayin’.
OK can someone explain exactly what rush is and how it works. I really have no idea what everyone is taking about!!!
Do you cover just past events on CA activities section? How about events that are planned for December of this year?
There are so many people on here getting so many awards I cant keep up, so congratulations to everyone who got awards lately.
@momofzag When S was 10 he used to play baseball and was on a team that went pretty far into the state playoffs.The whole time the team was together it was decided that once the season was over the team would be a travel ball team. Unbeknownst to us, while the playoffs were going on, one of the parents whose kids wasnt playing enough decided to get a sponsor and coach his S team so his S could play more. With the ability to offer free basball he took almost all of the players from my S team except for my S and another player because they were the youngest and my S played the same position as this guys S.So when it came time to tell my S he had been screwed over by this parent and no longer had a team he broke down in tears. So I feel your pain.
@LKnomad Rush is a process where students who are interested in joining a sorority or fraternity attend a series of events that start out as open attendance and then each future event has less ad less people invited until they ask a group of people to begin the process of becoming a member which is called pledging. At some of the big greek campuses this takes place in the fall before school even starts. What people who are new to the process don’t realize is that there is a huge amount of weight given to legacy status (meaning a family member has been a member) and to recommendations. I have had people ask on FB for people to write recs for their children that FB friends have never met so they can have a rec for every single sorority. It may not be that a person wasn’t well liked they may have just had many other people that were legacies and/or had recs that had priority. In the past this process was used to make sure that rushees met the racial, religious, financial, etc expectations for the group without being overt. I would hope that this is not the case these days. At the end of rush the kids rushing make a list of their top choices in order and the greek organizations do the same and then there is a computer program to figure out who matches where. I was greek in college which I decided based on parental input before college even started. I never enjoyed it that much but it was really hard to leave once you started. I’ve told my kids I don’t want them to do it and if they are interested they need to know they will need to pay every penny for it and it is expensive. If your child is really interested in rushing get recommendations sent, it’s very hard without them.
Selective Early Action Question. Hubby is pushing D to apply somewhere SEA. She doesn’t even want to apply to the school, but hubby wants her to and since its non binding, she’ll consider it to make him happy. Only a Christmas miracle would get her in. That’s not really the issue here. I understand that she can apply to any public or any non binding rolling admission school. My question is, can she still submit her RD apps before she hears from this school. A lot of them have deadlines for merit consideration or interview options. I also think getting that big fat rejection would really take a bite out of any motivation to write app essays in December. Does anyone know for sure?
@dcplanner Thanks for the info. It sounds like one big popularity contest. I was not interested in it when I was in college, and both my kids are non social types. No interest in any kind of social group stuff, so not an issue. It just sounds awful and your description reminds me of waiting for PE team leaders to pick teams for sports, and if you are not one of the popular kids you are left at the end, unwanted.
I remember a discussion here last week about honors and awards on CA. I am sitting with my DD as she goes through this 150 characters cutting board game and I do not see a separate section for awards. Is it part of activities section? She is our of characters as it is.
@Ballerina2016 you can check out the whole app here to see where it might fit
file:///C:/Users/Karen/Downloads/2015%20Common%20Application_SampleApp.pdf
(cut and paste the url, it should work)
if that doesn’t work, its at the bottom of this page:
https://recsupport.commonapp.org/ics/support/kbanswer.asp?deptID=33014&task=knowledge&questionID=794
@Ballerina2016 have you tried looking to see if it would work to put the awards under the education section, honors subsection? Also, I think there is a part at the end of the activities section where you can upload a resume type list. We aren’t that far yet in this household, but that is the rumor.
@MuggleMom As I know your daughter can apply RD before SCEA or ED result is available. I asked my daughter to finish all the application before early result comes out.
I have no idea regarding greek life on campus. My DD told me she does not like greek life and would like to avoid any school if greek life is dominant on the campus. I am not sure whether she will change later. Anyway, it looks very interesting campus life for me. @LKnomad Wish your daughter comes back soon.