@3scoutsmom, I was just reading our school district 2016-2017 course thing. It said that if the kid has a 4.00 GPA that the kid could take any unweighted class as “Pass/Fail” so it will not drop their GPA
Here in Texas, class rank is very important unless the kid is NMF and going to a great NMF school, right?
Biking, swimming, and ice- and inline-skating can be great as social skills as things to do with new friends. My D16 gets very frustrated and disappointed when she invites a new kid to do one of those activities with her and they tell her they can’t because they don’t know how. She doesn’t judge them, but she wishes they could join her.
Thought I had dodged the bullet this time round with regard to of Class of 2016’s recent bouts of “teenage angst”, alas tonight we had a huge meltdown. Breathe, just breathe.
Yes in Texas rank is everything! Our school does not do any pass/fail but only counts classes taken in the school building during the regular school year. DE college classes don’t factor into rank nor do any online classes. Orchestra is not weighted so four years of A’s significantly brought down her GPA.
Glad to hear S isn’t the only late driver. Kids can get a permit at 16 now (I think). S was 17 when he got his. He’ll be 18 in June. I think he has spent less than an hour total driving. I have rescheduled the driving test once already. I would hate to have to be on hold for 30+ minutes again to reschedule. D18 is itching to get her license.
Congrats on all the scholarship news!
Yesterday was very tired after visiting Hanover, NH. It was 550 miles trip a day but it was a worthwhile visit. It reminded me how relaxing in a remote place even though it is work related, which I totally forgot last few years.
A couple of weeks ago, DD asked me whether driving is hard. It was the first time she asked about driving. I am not sure whether it is a good idea to teach her driving while we live in the metropolitan city with good public transportation. Maybe later.
Great news on the scholarships indeed!!
DD’s interview this evening went very well. The alumni they chose is a med student with similar EC activities and interests as D, though the interviewer didn’t know much of that as she seemed to have a standard sort of script to get the interview started. Pretty much all of D’s essays for the school were on areas and things the alum interviewer did, so D had a lot of knowledge about those. We have no idea how, if at all, this interview impacts some of the still increased, i.e. full ride, merit scholarships she applied for there, but it definitely brightened her evening in any case.
We are still getting emails from a lot of the same schools as before, not quite as much since some deadlines and extended deadlines have passed, but the snail mail we are getting in now tends more towards small LAC’s and some schools I have never heard of, rather than the typical stalker schools who mailed us things earlier. DD and I are keeping tabs to see who is the last stalker to send her something in the process (-:
Did anyone hear the Holy Cross adcom EA decision meeting covered this morning on Morning Edition on NPR? Two minutes per app! Yikes.
Our mail today contained a “no” on the Faculty Scholarship to Baylor. It would have made the NMF full tuition scholarship a full ride, which would have been very attractive. As it is, I think this eliminates Baylor from the list. She didn’t like the area or program well enough to go for tuition only (which sounds kind of spoiled, I guess 
) It’s actually nice to get a school off the list though.
She also got her admission packet from another school (had received online acceptance news a couple weeks ago) and a reimbursement check for our recent fly-in to the school in PA. I think she hears about that scholarship this week.
Interesting e mail about one honors program in her box today. She received notice of acceptance last week, but today’s e mail said that there are limited spots, so if she doesn’t confirm enrollment before the program fills, she won’t get honors. Huh. She’s not ready to commit yet, so I guess she’ll have to run that risk.
@dyiu13 - I heard that segment coming on and hit the button to go to a classic rock station. I was driving, and didn’t think that would be the greatest thing to be listening to! Two minutes. Ouch. Our kids are putting their hearts and souls into these things, and … two minutes.
@waitingtoexhale D started the whole thing. Her older sister is MUCH older and I found CC after she’d already left for college. So when I found the Super Match through I blog I followed, I had D, then a 6th grader, pretend she was old enough for college to try out this amazing college-finding tool. When we got to the question about diversity and HBCU’s, I swear an actual light bulb went on over her head. Right then and there she decided that was the kind of school she would apply to, and she’s never wavered. Not too many get up here to Seattle, but there are small HBCU college fairs here each year and we’ve gone to them since middle school. Then we went on a tour after freshman year, and she did another one last spring. She’s narrowed down her list that way. We never did get any HBCU recruiting mail.
@midwestmomto2 ASU Barrett is still a great financial option for D, the campus and facilities are really nice and it’s just a short flight/doable drive from home. D had an excellent (and long) meeting with a professor in the dept of her intended major. However, some of her other schools will most likely be a better match in terms of her specific area of interest.
Sorry to hear about the meltdown @labegg.
Glad to hear you are making progress @GoodGrief16 even if it did mean missing out on the full ride. A better fit is out there!
Is everyone setting up the email accounts at acceptances as they come in? Some schools start communicating that way once the student is accepted. I feel I am losing track of who that is and we are likely to not receive those communications timely since DS does not check them often.
@dyiu13 Honestly I never looked at it because it was too far from home for me.
@GoodGrief16 So sorry about the scholarship , but in glad your daughter used that info to make the decision to narrow down her list.
While rank in SC is not used for auto admit into state schools, it is used for state scholarship money . One of DS16 schools is using rank and GPA for auto admit to schools in the surrounding counties, so I’m wondering if the state may go to this.
So glad our college visit was last weekend rather than this one!
Congratulations and happy birthday to those with good news! @GoodGrief16, sorry about the scholarship, but cutting down the list is always a nice thing. @Cheeringsection thanks for the heads up about the mail!
One of our state schools (not a flagship but one which aspires to be) offers auto-admit to the top ten percent. A few kids avail themselves of that each year-- mostly the kids who are in the top of the class but have surprisingly lackluster scores. The greatest majority go to the flagship school, and then a few go to the local directional, with a few more heading off to private colleges/universities.
I’m starting to find the waiting time easier than the filling-out-applications time. We can actually put thoughts of college aside for ten minutes and do other things. Of course, ask me about this again in late March, and maybe not so much.
@sseamom: A lightbulb. That would be thrilling to see, about so many things.
Thanks.
D had a panic attack last night about going off to college. I think its really beginning to sink in that the childhood part of her life is ending. She is getting nostalgic about lots of little things that she never mentioned before and now she says will never be the same again.