Thank you @crowlady, your avatar reminds me of a book my children had when they were little. It had all the folk tales about crows and the meaning of seeing any given number of crows. The illustrations were superb, I wish I can find it now. The pages were large sized and glossy but thin, and it was not very thick. I don’t remember the author.
I hope all goes well with your mother. That is a fear I have since mine is so far away, even though she’s doing great, at her age one can expect any kind of surprises and she’s at a 10-hour flight distance…
Thanks all. My mom was working full time at age 77 until a fall last year. Work was keeping her lively. It is hard assessing from a distance and she likes to keep to herself anyway.
I feel very fortunate to have only a 2 hour direct flight and have the means to handle last minute travel. And live only 25 minutes from airport. Dropped off S14 this morning to head back to RIT and now I’m back again!
Rest assure everyone that at no point anyone here has made me feel uncomfortable with their successes or their children’s successes. For what I have deduce, a lot of the parents here are very, very successful professionals. Well, I got my BA just a few years ago from my local CC, one of the few BA it offers. Rest assure that by no means have I been offended by your degrees and/or careers. Hey! I’m kind of flattered to be part of such an accomplished virtual community 
This is a point I have made with my S now that he is on his way to college. Most people at those colleges are going to be from different background than him. That’s fine. The fact that someone is wearing certain brand of clothing doesn’t mean that they are doing it to highlight your clothes. They just dress the way they dress. It’s not personal. The world doesn’t revolt around you. Not everything is about you. If someone plays golf, it doesn’t mean that they are mocking you for never setting foot on a golf course. They practice golf for the same reason you play basketball. Do not live your life thinking about how what someone does/wears/eats/plays reflect upon you. Needless to say, there have been many, many conversations concerning matters of this kind in my house.
@ReminiscingDad I have an illustrated counting crows picture book by Heidi something. I’m sure there have been several. The avatar is a photo of a tile on the wall in a NYC subway stop.
Once D makes a decision I’ll definitely broadcast it … with pride! She has been very low key regarding her acceptances, sharing only with close friends and family, barely anything posted social media.
We’re somewhat closer to a decision…sort of…insofar as I’ve spent the last hour putting together a spreadsheet of accepted student info.
In particular, I realised that one of S’s accepted schools, with FA, will still cost a couple thousand more per year than his very acceptable in-state safety would *without *any. Given we’re expecting some from the in-state safety…eventually…whenever they get around to letting us know (they have a reputation for being rather eleventh-hour about it)…I’m not sure I can justify a difference in cost equal to a couple of study-abroad programs all in the name of going out of state so he can the world.
@EastGrad To do italics, you put a lower case i in the square brackets before the word, and then forward slash lower case i in square brackets after. Like you do with colors, but with an i instead. So it’s [ i ] only with spaces removed.
Ha ha ha! You and your family need to take in a Cubs Cards game with our family and we shall see. Perhaps the fan with the losing team should have to change their avatar to the winner’s.
It helps to really see things in print @petrichor11. Hoping clarity comes soon.
Did most of y’all whose kids have committed know which way s/he was likely to go before it all sorted out? I kind of have an idea where S will end up, but right now it’s dependent on “if this, then that”.
Don’t get me started with FA issues 
Pretty much all our options EFC range anywhere from high ~30% of COA to ~50% of COA. It is what it is, but where did they get that we have that kind of money? Well, I guess it was FAFSA and its ridiculously high EFC.
@petrichor11 I think you and I both know the answer to that question for my son.
Best wishes for your mother feeling well again, soon, @crowlady.
@petrichor11 my D, who has all but committed to ASU, did buy her only college T on a visit there, and put a sticker on her computer. I should have known then … We were awaiting one more school at the time, and a final run through the financial numbers, but the writing was kind of on the wall.
(PS, because it was ASU, the T was actually a barely-there tank top for layering. As we await yet another deep freeze, I am appreciating the possibilities of our future wintertime visits…)
@petrichor11 Most of friends who haven’t committed yet are leaning towards one or two school over the others or know where they will go if they don’t get into their remaining schools. @kittymom1102 ~X( FA wasn’t as good as we thought it would be either. My high merit award eliminated any other awards from the school and we didn’t get any federal or state aid-just loans. I thought I would have gotten work study because it seems extremely common at my school but I didn’t. I’m incredibly bummed about that since there are no non work study jobs on campus and a tour guide is a work study job and something I would have been good at. Oh well. My family will make it work and hopefully yours will too.
@readingclaygirl Best luck to you and your family. I understand what you mean. I know we are not in the worst possible situation but still, it’s not easy. Forking $25K+ a year for a regular, working family requires a bit of creativity and belt tightening. We’ll make it happen, as well as your family, but boy …
< anyone offended or jealous? yeah I didn’t think so…maybe ya’ll can board the SS Judgement with me, a high of 46 and rain today…Every time I check the weather report I am like “What the heck were you thinking D16?”.
I can honestly say that I, for one, am so excited/interested to see where our Class of 2016 kiddos are picking, it is absolutely fascinating. I will be the first to admit that I sometimes think “Gee, I wonder why “x” picked that school”, but not because I am judging, heck there are innumerable reasons why our kiddo’s pick their final harbor, but because I am truly curious to know what the tipping point might be.
Maybe I would have felt differently if my kiddo had been reaching for one of those top #25 schools (I gave that dream up the day her first PSAT score came home!). Maybe it would have hurt my feeling to see that “Suzie” was accepted at Stanford while my D16 was shut out. But we have had lots of practice with disappointments; academic, sports, social, we learned long ago that you pick yourself up and solider on. If you can’t be happy for the success of others in the end you are only denying yourself happiness.
I guess I am on the same page as @carolinamom2boys, college admissions is what it is, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, all a kid can do is to be themselves. The university that you choose doesn’t define you, how you spend the time at your school of choice defines the university.
@kittymom1102 and I have a twin sister too so oh boy for sure. My parents are trying to make it as stress less as they can for us- all the talk of money is triggering my anxiety and I don’t know why.
@readingclaygirl Best, best, best wishes for you guys. You’ll definitely need it!
Thank you! @kittymom1102