@dyiu13 …“There was very little evidence of academics in these girls’ rooms.”
There was an episode of “Modern Family” a couple of years ago where the oldest daughter goes off to college and flunks out. They were packing her up and she referred to the desk as “my vanity” and it set up as such.
We aren’t supposed to link blogs on here but there’s one that shows pictures of decorated dorm rooms, almost all girls, and you can search by college name. Google “F Yeah Cool Dorm Rooms.”
Since I’m sending a son who is an accomplished camper to college I’m sure he will be a minimalist.
@dyiu13 I do not think they give you all the tee shirts but sell them and all the kids end up buying them to be part of the culture. Some may give you one when you are accepted or when you arrive but I believe you are paying for them one way or another. My S14 now has 8 Clemson shirts (football, frat, etc)…and I do not think the school “gave” him any of them. One school sent my D one just for sending her scores to them and in the end she did not end up applying their but she really does love the school but felt it may be a better option for grad school instead of undergrad.
@OspreyCV22 Mine too. When I commented on the less than attractive small
dorm room at one of his top choices, he said " I just need a place to sleep and shower and it’s all good." I guess all of those years in Boy Scouts paid off.
@dyiu13 "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 son got two for free in a one week conference he attended last year. When I was in college it was dorky to wear college shirts. One of my friends was disdainful and said “I already know where I am.” I have been surprised to see so many students wearing college shirts on campus.
D16 uses most of the T-shirts she received or that we bought on college visits for night shirts, which is the only time she routinely wears T-shirts. Oddly enough, the one school she managed to buy a sweatshirt from was in Florida, not any of the colder weather schools we visited. It might end up being her winter jacket at school if she decides to head for the sun for four years, up here she wears it around the house because her cheapo Dad keeps the thermostat too low (-;
She loved seeing places with new dorms, especially suite or apartment style ones. S21 came along on a few visits and in true Boy Scout fashion was just happy to see a room with indoor plumbing, the rest was all gravy as far as he was concerned. Hopefully he keeps thinking that way five years down the road.
If D wasn’t a good student and very involved in helping others, I would be worried about her being too superficial. But she really is well-rounded, I swear. We are big thrift-shoppers too, and always looking for a good deal, so while she knows where those $17 lipsticks are found, her goal is to find something similar, but for much less money.
Her hobby has provided me with some great savings-she has taught herself how to cut hair and has been doing mine for the last couple of years. With very thin hair that is thinning on top, I really need a good cut, and she does a great job.
D has a whole collection of those free tee shirts from her various adventures-she sleeps in them. She had one week-long program last summer where she got a new one each day! I figure at this point she must have 15 or so in every possible color family.
@sseamom, I’ve always thought hair cutting/styling is a great skill to have in college…a way to make spending money, perhaps!
My daughter is definitely a minimalist, and will actually get annoyed when we get her things, which is stressful at gift giving occasions.
We flew all night and day, and I dropped her at a college tonight for a dorm visit before scholarship interviews tomorrow. She is no doubt going to be tired, but there was no other way to work this out. I’m sleeping off and on in a hotel, as family and friends from back in our earlier time zone keep calling and texting
My S had a good day yesterday - passed his lifeguarding exam after a 2nd try so he can finally start working part-time :). But his end of semester final exams start this week, including the dreaded AP Calc (he’s got a 73 in there now, so I think he might just pull out a C for the semester hopefully!)
@carolinamom2boys, you’re whiny? I never noticed. I always thought I was the only whiny one on here. However, you did fool me again with the USC dorms comment. For a second I thought you meant the Trojans.
In regards to clothes, S has told me not to buy anything school related until he gets in somewhere
I did the FAFSA yesterday and made DH sit right there and help/watch. When our EFC came up he said ok not bad. I had to tell him that was just for DS’16 and that DD’13 would have her own EFC of about the same amount. He kept asking me if I were sure. Unfortunately (for financial aid purposes) we made extra money this year that we won’t be able to make next year so that hurts us on paper. At least the CSS profile asks how much we think we will make next year.
Luckily DD goes to an extremely generous school that also treats outside scholarships very well so we have never had to pay our full EFC for her. We probably will not get so lucky with DS but I did search how his favorite match school treats outside scholarships and found they apply the money to self help (loans & work study) before reducing grants so that is great. We should be able to swing our EFCs but DS will most likely need to chip in with savings, scholarships or both.
@carolinamom2boys thanks for the info. I am going to take another look at all the financial type info again. I would vote for helpful designation for you!
Good luck to all who have finals this week.
Our school has just a designation of honors if you meet certain requirements which are pretty difficult. All the kids take the same classes (except language junior and senior year). There are only about 46 or so in the class. Two, one girl and one boy, are chosen to give a speech or prayer. My DD knew going in as a seventh grader she was never going to be chosen for that honor since she is not religious and chose a religious school. She knew she needed to find valdiation outside the school since there were many who really did not want her there and they were vocal to us and to her. (She is not one of those argumentative atheists- just doesn’t believe and never has. Oddly she chose the school and had refused to switch even when people have been so rude to her she has been near tears.)
It is funny with the superlatives, when I was one of the moms who oversaw the yearbook at an all girls highschool for several years. I tried very hard to get those superlatives abolished. Every year we had girls in tears and parents who were livid about the designations. It would always turn out that some of the girls had come up with sneaky mean-spririted designations that the adults did not recognize and edit out. The year I finally won that battle the seniors did really cute designations of what they wanted to be when they were little and took a photo to go with it. I felt like it was a more positive statement about the kids and the school and it was fun to see how the girls had changed from who they were when they were little. The next year I quit that job and they returned to superlative designations. If they allowed designations at my DD’s school I imagine she would get “most likely to go to hell”.
My D14 is opposed to anything “fashion” or even basic matching. She wears ratty old shirts and worn jeans or threadbare corderoys. When visiting potential colleges, it really made a positive impression on her to see large numbers of students wearing “college” gear. It actually surprised me that she would care one way or another. She felt that the students were proud and happy with their school if they wore the gear often.
@GoodGrief16 one of my college college roommates cut hair to make extra money. Even after I moved off campus and she stayed, I would go find her and have her do my hair. And @carolinamom2boys you are not whiny at all! You’ve been very supportive and helpful here.
@Themommymommy “It would always turn out that some of the girls had come up with sneaky mean-spririted designations that the adults did not recognize and edit out.” At our HS way back when, there were certain designations that all the kids knew did not mean what adults thought they meant. For example, “Friendliest” meant, well, “People Most Likely to Hook Up”. The actual friendliest kids never had a chance. There was another one that meant “Most Stuck Up” but I don’t remember what it was called in the yearbook.
@sseamom that was exactly the tenor of the sneakiness. There was one girl who had been a recruited athlete to a much coveted highly selected school who was voted “most athletic” my first year working on the yearbook. The other yearbook mom and I thought well she is really a great athlete and figured it was kindly meant so let it pass. Turns out it was a slam by other envious girls who did not get in to that school. The girl’s mom clued us in and told us how the girl had been having second thought about attending her dream school because she thought maybe she really wasn’t up to it. The thing is she was also a really good student and was certainly capable of doing well at that school so it was just cruel to undermine her confidence that way. I just hated putting the official seal so to speak on that kind of thing.
@lifegarding, my D and some of her friends would get together for “coffee and calc” last year before midterms snd final exams to go over things together.
I must say for us the free college tshirt thing has come true. When D came home for Christmas break there were at least 5 new tshirts in the wash that I had not seen before, she got them at one event or another. She also wears them to sleep in.
@GoodGrief16 and @carolinamom2boys fingers and toes are crossed for the most luck possible for their respective nerve wracking situations! @lifegarding Super Congrats to your son!
@Themommymommy I can relate to your D’s feelings and give her a lot of credit for staying in that environment even with the backlash she receives. Those people should really go back to the basic tenets of most religions…understanding and tolerance. My S14 too does not and has never believed even though we are and we brought him up Catholic. He doesn’t go out of his way to discuss his personal feelings about it to anyone. He will tell you if you make a statement about believing in reference to him. That has garnered some strange faces from his grandmother and a few other relatives but what can you do. Thankfully, he doesn’t think its strange that others do believe. He’s a live and let live kind of guy.
