I’m a non video gaming girl who is not at all into hair, makeup, clothes or beauty. At all. But I am an English nerd who is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. @petrichor11 You know too much about WoW, I know too much about MineCraft. Way too much due to several little boys in summer classes at my internship. I also know more than I care to about Star Wars and Jurrasic Park.
@2filles , my D actually thinks that all of her clothes and shoes are going to fit in a shared dorm room next year. =))
@EastGrad I too could use those beauty tips! In fact I have D researching how to deal with puffy eyes :">
@sseamom Apparently Friends is quite popular at my school. I’ve never seen it.
@sseamom So does mine. Although compared to her sister’s freshman dorm, she might have a chance!
@2filles I hear USC Columbia Honors dorms are really nice .
@sseamom, @2filles : It could happen. They could end up with girls like my D for roommates. I think D has…six shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans that she just keeps rotating (Her newest prize is a “Hogwarts Alumni” shirt she got for Christmas.) Right now she’s curled up in her room in a pair of Godzilla footie pajamas, complete with hood sporting serrated teeth. Needless to say, not a girly girl.
@petrichor11 My D14 still wears these big padded character slippers and one piece footie pajamas, also not a girly girl…she would probably get along with your D!
@carolinamom2boys Hopefully we will see soon!
@carolinamom2boys I laughed reading your post about DH being on the “outside” with the college search conversation. My hubby sounds exactly the same. Devoted husband to me and devoted father to his S14, D16 and our beloved Shih Tzu S31 (JK) but woefully out of touch when it comes to these college matters (and a few other subjects…LOL).
EXCITED…completed and saved FAFSA for both kids just need to submit after final review next week to make sure I didn’t forget, overstate, or understate anything.
Our school picks the top five,# 1 being the valedictorian and they are seated accordingly. I am a bit sore about the way they are chosen with GPA being penalized for taking dual enrollment classes. Oh well.
@2muchquan I think applying fairly widely and if qualified to schools that are known to have large endowments makes a big difference. If there is 1 super top choice it makes it hard because you are stuck with whatever they offer you (though some are able to negotiate) but also because they can easily be disappointed. Applying to a rolling admissions safely school is a nice thing to have an acceptance early to help cushion any potential sadness as the process rolls along.
Exams start tomorrow , and my usually confident son is feeling nervous. He took an extremely rigorous course load and is starting to second guess his decision.
D16 loves to dress to impress, sometimes a little girly girl, but often looking fairly sophisticated in her style. She and DW have had me watching Project Runway with them for years, lol. DD is a huge thrift store shopper as well, so though her wardrobe looks pricey, it is far from it. On the few occasions when she does go dress shopping for something she can’t find in a thrift store, I am usually the one who goes with her. She and DW have very different tastes in clothes and butt heads too much in that situation, so Dad at the Dress Barn and various other places she haunts on those occasions is not an uncommon sight. Thank god for games on my cell phone to keep me busy during those times, though I do offer my best and most honest “Tim Gunn-esque” critiques when asked.
Two summers ago she had a month long program she attended at Pitt to explore healthcare careers. We sent her off dutifully with detergent and fabric softener as the girl will not wear anything twice, sure that she would finally do laundry. At the halfway point DW went to visit on parents’ day (I was in the woods at Boy Scout Camp with S21), and DD talked Mom into taking her to the thrift shop. Come the end of the month we realized she had bought enough things at the thrift store to last the entire month without ever doing laundry - claiming she was too shy because the laundry machines in the dorm were on one of the boys’ floors. I’m pretty sure she won’t be able to make an entire semester that way…well, mostly sure (-;
@Skates76 can your D come visit us and take my d shopping??
D18 and I are big thrift/consignment/clearance rack shoppers. She started out as a girly girl and was big into fashion until she was 12. She was even designing and sewing her own clothes for awhile. Once the teen years hit, she only wanted to wear skinny jeans. Now she mostly wears athletic wear and has a sneaker addiction. Not sure where my girly girl went! I call her Sporty Spice…the sad thing is that she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
@sseamom That is funny about the dorm. Just yesterday, to give my brain a break from the college financial planning, I did a search for “minimal dorm room” checklists.
Looks like, say, 10 shoes might work, including a pair each of flip-flops, ballet flats, nice sandals, bad-weather booties, heels, running shoes, and a few others. We’ll see if my D16 takes her ice skates and Rollerblades.
The dorm room tours I saw on YouTube last week showed massive makeup and beauty collections. …There was very little evidence of academics in these girls’ rooms. I guess everthing us old parents took to college (thesaurus and the like) is all now stored in the laptop/cloud. Very weird to see.
My D16 Will be talking a few tubes of Chap-stick and some Chuck Taylors (despite my fashion-pusher messages), so minimal might work fine for her. 
@sseamom I can totally relate. D came home on Friday night excited about the great $17 lipstick she got at the mall while shopping for a secret Santa gift for a friend! When did lipsticks become so expensive? Am I behind the times?
Fun tip I saw: Freshmen should take only 3 t-shirts max. The college will give you a ton of t-shirts in your first year.
My D09 was in a sorority. It seemed like every time I turned around she needed to pay for a tshirt.