I’m a good news junkie. I look for in the news, my day to day interactions, my facebook feed, and here on CC. If I am offended by your happiness, I see that as something I need to correct in my attitude, not your behavior.
As always, this is just one personal opinion. But know if you have any college acceptances you want to celebrate, I would love to do the happy dance with you and consider it completely separate from my own D’s journey. 
The world would be a better place if everyone felt as you do, @palm715! Thanks for bringing a little Hawaiian sunshine to my grey state today.
The CC’s here are considered among the best in the country, and a lot of top students do DE at them. Several grads from D’s school even start their college journey there. Some are more vocational in nature, so those are the ones where the less successful students go.
And in today’s SNAFU report: D informs me on the way to school that the honors college at one of her admissions is missing the principal’s recommendation. Which he told her 2 weeks ago he would send “that day”. Now, he’s known for being disorganized, but honestly, this whole process is making me crazy. D went straight to the office this morning to check on the letter. The college helpfully is allowing it to be faxed or even emailed when it’s located…
We started out thinking D would take as many AP classes as possible except for speech, which was required at the time and not offered AP but we found out the that the program she wants to go into limits the about of AP credits she can apply to her major so senior year she substituted 3 AP classes for DE credits. She’s not planning on graduating early but wants to get as many gen ed required credits out of the way as possible so she can take more classes that really interest her.
DS18 will likely go to school instate, different set of gen ed requirements. He’ll be taking gen ed classes that are not offered in our school as DE (understanding music, intro to philosophy, Texas Government) and might take American Government DE instead of AP because he doesn’t like the teacher
I’m intrigued by the “don’t wear college gear” idea.
My D was complaining last night that everyone at her school thinks she is crazy for wanting to go away to school. They don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t just go to our flagship. Granted we are in Wisconsin and our flagship is a great school, but there ARE other options. So I think she doesn’t wear her gear very often because she doesn’t want to have to explain why she isn’t going to UW yet again. I was intrigued to see her wear a Pitt shirt on Monday. She is so close-mouthed; I have no idea what she is thinking.
@CAMidwestMom I think the book you are recalling that was mentioned was: The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (P.S.) Paperback – January 20, 2009
by Lily Koppel (Author)
I agree it sounded intriguing. I am thinking about getting it for my DD to read over the break.
So as we all sit and nervously await good news for the DCs anybody care to share an opinion on whether they feel that the process of having to write all the essays for college applications has helped their DC mature. I felt like the process was extremely difficult and time consuming for my two kids but in the end it seemed to push them to clarify what they wanted in life and why. I know they write a lot of essays in school but so many times those are summarizing what an author thought or was trying to convey or what the teacher thinks the author thought and wanted to convey. It seems like they are so busy they don’t always have the time to really think about what they believe is important and why they feel that way. I felt like both kids came out the other side of the essay writing process a little wiser and more mature.
This thread sure has been busy over the last two weeks. I had to spend time the past two days trying to catch up. Congratulations on all the acceptances! Good luck to those who are waiting for ED/EA results next week. S has a couple of EA schools that should announce sometime next week.
He did get good news from one school with a merit scholarship, so he’s definitely headed to college next year He also did get good news from another school for musical theater - so he has choices already. He is working hard on getting the rest of the apps done and as predicted by yours truly, some of the schools came off the list this past week. Burnout with lots and lots of apps, plus the fact that he has acceptances led to this. Just keeping my fingers crossed that he will complete what he needs to and still stay sane!
Someone asked about acceptances on fb - I would only post where my kid was headed once the decision was made. I had one friend who listed every ivy league school that the kid got into before saying she was still deciding. That to me, is just bragging. I do have some other friends who’ve posted about their child’s first acceptance - can understand the thrill/excitement!
Not sure what I am going to do about posting on Fb. Definitely will post once D has decided. May post 1st acceptance just to let everyone know she’s going somewhere!
@themommymommy I do think the essays helped D grow a bit. She’s a good writer, so it wasn’t difficult for her to get the formats down, but the different topics and lengths helped her look at herself in different ways. A bio of 250 words vs. 500 makes you look at what you really feel is important to your background. Writing about your greatest success AND failure might make you reflect on both in a new way. The two that I think were hardest for her and did help her mature was the one on what she thinks youth today can do to withstand the negative influences they encounter, and the one about the piece of writing that most inspired her and how it relates to her goals as well as picking THAT college’s honors program to meet those goals. Listening to her read them (after she sent them!) I could sense more of a strength to what she’s long professed as her goals, and I could tell that she put a lot of thought into WHY she wants to do what she does. The kids faced with issues today are her age or even older, but her insight into why they choose to go in one direction or the other were incredibly mature.
And there’s some light at the end of the tunnel: the school missing the recommendation and got the transcript with no GPA now has everything, they will consider her in the EA pool, AND she is tentatively accepted. It is her first choice, and being in the EA pool means that she will be among those first considered for merit aid, which would be substantial if they award it to her. Community service is strongly considered, since if you get an award you commit to a certain number of hours of service. She has many, many hours in many different aspects, so I am hopeful. Final decision comes in January. If the merit is good, we are done.
My son really likes writing. He did the journalism track at Boys State and is the yearbook editor. I would cringe when I saw some of the essay prompts, but he actually seemed to form a better impression of the school based on the complexity of their prompt. I think he felt like ‘ok now they want to really see what I can do.’ Having said that, it was a process. The final common app essay is, in my opinion, miles better than the first go, which did get sent to a few colleges. I don’t think it’ll make a huge difference for those with the exception of Northeastern. I do wish they could’ve gotten the final version! Oh well, I try to not second guess all of the steps. It is such a good learning experience for sure!
Thank you to everyone for your kindness to me. I am thrilled and truly hope all of of your children have or will experience the ecstatic feeling I did and still am
Congrats to your daughter at @sseamom . @MommyMommy I wish the essays that my son had to write were more self reflective topics, but unfortunately many were not. I’m a cynic, and unfortunately many times I think they’re used to see how committed the student is to attending their school.
@CAmidwestMom I know how you feel about the iterative improvement in the essays. I definitely felt that way with S14, and wish we hadn’t submitted it for the first time to his ED school.
For S16 his main CA essay plateaued and though I thought it could have been better he was ready to be finished with it. I worried about the supplemental essays I didn’t get a chance to see before submission (my inner English teacher saw clear improvements to make but it was as the buttons were getting pushed). I came to terms with the fact that the ideas and the writing were truly his. I’d like to think that his big acceptance so far was because his thought process and values shone through in his own voice and stood out. And they don’t even know about the cool things that I wished he had mentioned but that he didn’t feel like writing about. It is telling that I had to keep my own opinions to myself because he took a stance in his main essay that I personally disagreed with. His essay made me want to argue the other side, but I didn’t think I could effectively marshall my thoughts, and my grad-school-influenced arguments might deflate his youthful idealism. So I’ve waited to restart that discussion (about whether all human actions are selfish).
Congrats to everyone on all the wonderful acceptances happening around here.
Its a tough night in our house. The facebook groups D is in with her friends are unusually quiet. With so many of them applying early to schools that posted decisions today, its nerve wracking. She’s second thinking all of her college choices because if her friend X didn’t get in to school Y then there is no way she’ll get into school Z and she’s over shooting because they are so much better than her… This was one situation I hadn’t anticipated. It was so different with S15. He was oblivious to the world around him and didn’t compare himself to anyone else.
Regarding parents announcing acceptances on FB. Last year I publicly congratulated S on his decision to go to his school on FB after he made the announcement. The parents who announced every school were cute in the beginning and annoying by the end. When I did announce where S decided to go, I got some weird responses: ‘I thought he was a smart kid, couldn’t he get in anywhere better? I’ve never heard of it’ or "Really? Why would he want to go there?’ or my favorite ‘Too bad he didn’t think this through, I would have been happy to help him find schools’ Just remember that no matter what your well meaning friends and family have to say, no one loves or knows your child like you do, no one researched your child’s college choices like you did, and no one has your child’s best interests at heart like you do.
Congrats @dyiu13 !
Received our first result…deferral. This means Mongolian BBQ in our tier restaurant system. Although we are trying to talk my husband into the fancy restaurant anyway.
Congrats @LKnomad in our house deferral means ‘still in the running’ Enjoy your night out!
Sorry for the deferral @lknomad - hope you get the fancy restaurant :).
Have a wonderful dinner @LKnomad . It is so stressful to watch those results coming in. 4 kids from DD’s summer program got positive results today. And only one kid from her HS as far as she knows.