Well…I wonder how common it is to have a very high achieving child and then another child (as equally intelligent) who has a 504 Plan or an IEP?! I keep telling myself to enjoy this long and arduous college search/process with my older son because it might go less smoothly with my S20. We are celebrating the scholarship offers because S16 has earned those, but part of me is glad that my boys don’t overlap in high school. Comparing children (siblings, strangers or friends) is a fast road to unhappiness, but I have to work to avoid this sometimes.
@txstella - that is really a good point. My kids are 4 and 5 years apart, which I think does make it easier to avoid the comparisons.
@fretfulmother S21 has an IEP for a variety of issues related to his ASD/ADHD conditions. He has had occupational therapy as part of his IEP since he was much younger. Printing words for him is painfully slow since he essentially draws each letter in several parts. The OT never really seemed to help that much, it was almost as if he is hard wired to do that. Cursive was better, but of course the schools are phasing that out. He loves the computer and technology, a bit too much, so it befuddled us as to why he would not try keyboarding when it was offered as an accommodation. It ended up being like potty training with him, he finally started to type one day when he decided it was time, lol, and that is helping in some ways.
Verbally he is very expressive, to the point that when he takes verbal tests he is off the charts and can more than hold his own in conversations with adults on school subjects. Grammar, spelling and punctuation in written form are his huge bugaboos, even with spell and grammar check on the word processor. Some of it really is the way he is wired, he doesn’t mirror social situations well and likewise, when he reads he doesn’t learn to mirror the grammar, etc, just the content. Mrs. Skates is working on getting him to read and enjoy more fiction books, otherwise he is like me in that he will read non-fiction stuff all day long and watch his fiction in movie form.
D16 never had an IEP, but the school worked some issues like her handwriting problems into her GIEP, while S21 has both the IEP and GIEP. She also has some ADD (no hyper activity in that girl, some days barely any activity in her teenage mode, lol), but I can see shades of her brother’s issues in her social interactions, except she can mirror amazingly well, so no one would ever guess it. As S21’s therapist says, it truly is a spectrum and we are all likely on some part of it, but only part of that spectrum comes with a diagnosis and name. S21 is really big into genealogy, which is interesting because one can find people on his Mom’s side who would likely be diagnosed as ASD, including his maternal grandfather who ended up registering 21 patents and invested the original formula for iron-on decals and images, quite by accident while working on a project for Xerox.
@Skates76 - that is so interesting!
My son also loves cursive more than printing (his printing is horrible, and excruciatingly slow). My son does also have expressive language (speech) struggles, stutters, etc., so it seems that is where his trouble is focused. Luckily for us, he does like to read fiction (pending books of his interest, not “boring” books that I happen to love 
).
How fascinating about his grandfather with the patents for Xerox!!
Aloha, Threadmates!
Have any of you noticed the CC world talking about selective colleges that have extended their deadlines? It appears to just be a handful, but I was curious if this is typical of previous years or a new strategy for colleges?
FAFSA: I don’t know from experience (jeez, I promised myself I’d get that done this weekend), but my Google search shows AGI is correct.
I believe the virtual party is supposed at my place. Per the sign-up sheet, we may have more booze than food, so I’ll set-up the tent in the back yard, no impaired virtual drivers will be allowed to leave!
@happymochi you were my LOL for the morning. You described a lot of us! I thought about you on New Year’s because I ate way to much good luck mochi, including mochi brownies. Yummo! I should be very lucky in 2016. 
@me29034 your comment, “sometimes the reaction you get, isn’t based on what you said, but what is going on in the mind of the person who heard it” is perfect. Thanks, I needed that!
Regarding FAFSA net or gross: I guess I should clarify what I meant by net. I used the number after deducting insurance premium, 401K, flex plan, and misc. I think it is box 1 on W2. The amount is before taxes which we mostly call it gross. Sorry didn’t mean to confuse people.
Some place on this thread, which is moving too fast for me to keep track of, someone mentioned looking into class registration and class availability at potential colleges. I just wanted to point out this thread about honor’s priority registration at A&M
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/texas-m-university/1830302-tamu-registration-is-all-messed-up-right-now-p1.html
Looks like even if a school says they offer priority registration is doesn’t always happen.
I think this is a great question to ask current students about!
I found the FAFSA to be very straightforward. It is quite clear about what you need to provide as long as you are not self-employed. Just remember that 529s are parent not child assets. Just dive in and ask questions as needed.
@Cheeringsection - I asked this on the FA board but will also ask you - how do I deal with the fact that my bank statement says X for my balance, but I know there is a check outstanding (or whatever) so the amount of money I actually have is Y?
Aw, thanks everyone! The irony is, we’d long since moved on from the specific question to general college application strategies. So it wasn’t even that I was giving specific advice to anyone!
@petrichor11 , I’ll PM you, and we can talk about what exactly you think would be helpful to know.
@cakeisgreat - are you a cake decorator? That’s my hobby-been at it for 40 years (gak!). I love it.
@fretfulmother My understanding is that the cash balances should be accurate as of the date you submit, so if the check has not yet cleared the amount should be included in the balance reported. If the check is large enough to matter, just do not hit submit until it clears. I am no expert so feel free to correct me if your other sources tell you differently.
Well my oldest son has dyslexia and auditory processing disorder. He always had accommodations for school. He’s also super smart, but man did he hate school. He’s very happy in the Army now and is now saying he is ready to think about college when he gets out. And yes, he is followed by S16 who is a high achiever. Having said that, he’s also had his struggles with test scores.
@me29034 I understand how you feel. It was hard for me to visit back when NMSF announcements were coming out in the Spring. DS16 had pretty high ACT scores which were equivalent to SAT scores that many of these kids, but because he didn’t score well on one test, he missed out on great opportunities. It’s also hard for me sometimes when people discuss all of their children’s admissions to selective schools in the NE and in California . At times, I feel like Southern schools are looked down upon ( except Bama, Vanderbilt or Duke) Just my personal , selfish perception that I am usually able to handle, but it does sting occasionally. I don’t see it so much on this thread but in many threads it’s much more obvious.
Count me in as another one with a high achieving (IEP) child followed by a very very bright but academically disastrous (IEP) child. My S20 started off in life with severe phonological speech issues, which turned into reading and writing issues, which turned into dysgraphia, and then throw in a horrible case of ADHD which made the classroom unbearable for him. When he was in school we were constantly trying him on one drug after another, all with side effects, he was assigned an FM system which is a hearing aid and microphone, in the classroom just to be able to concentrate on the teacher words. He also was assigned a school supplied iPad. So many accommodations just to survive the day.
Then he was assigned the SpEd teacher from hell, and her extremely unsupportive principal and the downward spiral happened. Now we homeschool! No more medication. It has been replaced by a trampoline. No more FM system most of the time because his coop class has 7 kids! He just uses his laptop for assignments. Most importantly, now I have a happy kid again.
@sseamom I have one of those mom groups as well. Our problem is that we have a parent who did the college search last year and who has turned into a know it all and it is getting unbearable. I can post something on the board and she will answer with an explanation of how I am doing everything wrong. One conversation turned into a huge argument which ended with her telling me maybe my kid was not ready for college. It was bizarre.
@carolinamom2boys The NMSF/NMF thing certainly has a ring of randomness to it and I say that with D16 likely to be an NMF. She is an incredibly good standardized test taker, as is most of our family, though unfortunately there are no standardized test careers to go with that skill. With NMSC’s system, one great or bad day or where you live can make such a huge difference, that although it isn’t truly random and there surely is correlation to achievement at some level, there most certainly is a luck aspect to it as well.
On the Southern school issue I think it varies by place and a lot of high achieving kids want the big name schools, with the ones in the NE having old school/old money names and CA having the bright and shiny feel of the ultra modern university system. That being said, a ton of high rank kids at my D’s school this year and last have looked south. There seems to be a real connection between our area and North Carolina and not just Duke or Chapel Hill, but lots of schools large and smaller ones, plus a sprinkling in SC, GA and Texas. A lot of times kids just want something different, so up here in the NE that is either in the South or CA/Washington.
D16 refused to look at most Southern schools not because of any implication or thought that they weren’t good schools, but being very liberal in her political leanings the culture wars of the last few years made it impossible for me to get her to consider any Texas or Alabama schools, even with their NMF offerings. Now U of Central Florida is in her top three, admittedly FL can have a more NE feel to it with all of the transplants, and Tulane is one of her financial reach schools. Why those two of all of the southern schools she could have picked from? Who knows, I stopped trying to figure that out a long time ago, lol.
@3scoutsmom I saw that thread too! It was very interesting to me because we had a similar experience on the opposite end of the spectrum from the giant sized state school. It seems like the problem in both cases has been that a “popular” major became oversubscribed for the available resources/planning of that school. In my DS’s case, I found a self study report from 2007 in which the heads of the department of my DS’s major were already complaining of inadequate resources for the growing population of students in that major. Well nothing changed in the ensuing years and this year the graduating class appears to be at least double what it was for that major in 2007. In this particular school’s case the problem was compounded by a sabbatical and teaching schedule that resulted in many visiting profs who were there one semester and then gone. It was really an unexpected experience for a very small LAC. Other students there who had different majors, esp. those in more BA leaning majors, had very different experiences at the school so it did seem to be a “major” driven issue. @AsleepAtTheWheel mentioned some similar sounding registration issues at Emory too, though his son sounds as if he has had reasonably good luck due to his honors status.
This is the exact same situation with my son. My son is an extreme liberal in his political beliefs and he simply refused to consider any school in a red state. Period.
@LKnomad We have been blessed by our decision to move to the public school system we chose because it had a great reputation not just for high achievement, but for being super supportive of families and kids. We did that before we were even aware of S21’s oncoming issues. The school district has an awesome Therapeutic Autism Support system with two different TAS classes at different levels of support and plenty of teacher and paraprofessional support, plus the kids in the school really support the TAS kids and kids in other kinds of learning support structures. I can’t call the school perfect by any means, none are, but the programs there have allowed S21 to thrive, with plenty of bumps in the road mind you, when I doubt he would have at most schools.
Doing what you found worked for your son and made him happy again and liking to learn without dealing with the rest of that stuff is wonderful. It sounds like he is really hitting his stride now. (-:
@me29034 Please continue to join us in this thread. There are many reasons for us to revel in your D’s accomplishments. She got into at least 2 schools and both gave her merit awards! Congrats to her!