@LoveTheBard CONGRATS to your D. I am happy to see the caliber of students and parents chosen for this scholarship…my D is in awesome company !
@snoozn Now that’s keeping it real!
@LoveTheBard congrats!
@Cubanmom3 If they based anything on me then my D unfortunately wouldn’t be accepted any where 
Funny story a friend took her son to his dorm in college and when she made his bed she put a $100 bill under his sheets without him knowing to see when he would change his sheets to find it. Needless to say he never found it, I found this to be too funny and disgusting at the same time =))
@RightCoaster, that sounds like my S, although not as much into music. He sits at his computer playing games and skyping, so he does actually talk, just not to anyone in the room.
@Dolemite You are hilarious…I am glad to see you have kept your sense of humor during this “interesting” process. I seem to have lost mine lately but your posts always make me chuckle. My D is heading to WASHU solo so I hope she meets your and @LoveTheBard Ds. Cuban girl from Florida …hard to miss 
@sdl0625 I am feeling some sympathy freaking out for you and your D. Please know that we all hope it works out in the end.
Dorm bathrooms D14 preferred the older dorms with the communal bathroom solely for the cleanliness factor. However, she found that her own standards were higher than the cleaning service’s. Long hair and shower drains do not combine well, and she decided in hindsight she would’ve rather dealt with her own and one or three other girls’ mess instead of everyone’s. S17 is looking at suite-style rooms and we have had immersion sessions with canisters of Lysol wipes. He also typically changes his sheet once every couple of months, which is not often as I’d like but more often than I expect.
@socalmom007 - First, sorry about our alma mater SDSU. Bummer to not get in.
As far as roommates, my S18 has the same requirements are your D. He is totally OCD and cannot handle any clutter or dirt. He is a clean freak! No smoking, No drugs, No drinking and absolutely NO BO!
RE roommates: at least most colleges ask questions about lifestyle and habits, or let freshmen find their own matches. (Dating Game, anyone? “I’ll choose Roommate #3!”)
Remember when it was purely luck of the draw? :-S
@smcirish – I’m not sure that Grinnell was DS14’s first choice before the weekend there but it was very high on his list. He had visited there Junior year and was quite taken with it. One of the things that most appealed to him: no gen ed core requirements which meant that he could take classes across disciplines for “fun”. He was also appreciative of no Greek presence and no major sports presence that people get a little crazy with at other schools. (We visited VA Tech where people honk and yell “Go Hokies” all over town…drove him a bit crazy!) He is very introverted and doesn’t like large noisy crowds.
He is a double major – Comp Sci and Music. His favorite thing is probably how well he has gotten to know the professors due to the small class sizes but I am may speaking out of turn on that! (That is my read on it.)
My D17 is not attending this weekend due to a sport commitment but also due to not having a direct flight available on those days. As @LoveTheBard said, it is a long trip for a short time. Fortunately, she has been there a few times with us. I hope that your DC has a wonderful time!
@cubanmom - betcha there are a few more Cuban girls in/from Florida than there are in/from California! 
@mtrosemom We’re in Michigan, so each FRC team has to participate in 2 district competitions, then if they earn enough points, they move onto States. From there, teams earn more points that are added to the previous point level to determine which teams make it to Worlds. It’s a complicated system at times & I will say that even 2 competitions gets exhausting. We also host a tournament (don’t compete in it), which makes for a very long March! Good luck to your son’s team. If we make it to Worlds, we’ll head to St. Louis. Which last year, we didn’t make it, but I was almost glad since I was exhausted after 3 competitions.
@RightCoaster My son would die and go to heaven for a room mate like that. i think my son would want the private bathroom and convince his other spoiled room mates that they need maid service.
I want to add that aside from eating/drinking/skyping/texting/facetiming/gaming/music listening my son will also be doing homework simultaneously with kids on his group text/chat groups that he has established for each class. They review each others work and help each out. So while it looks like he’s just sitting in his room with Beats on his head attached to multiple electronic devices he’s being somewhat productive.
I would imagine in college he will go to class, then do some mid day activity like sports/clubs and then come home and repeat this same routine. He likes to come home, shower, grab some snacks and then hunker down in his room until he finishes his homework. It’s a fascinating process. Might not be the BEST process, but he’s gotten thru HS this way and will attend college, so he’s done something right.
Congrats on those great admissions offers from Grinnell, @smcirish, @thinmints and @LoveTheBard, and any other.s.
My S16 did an overnight, in October of Sr year, as we live 4 hrs away (with @thinmints S14, it turns out!) and really loved the sense of community and intellectual camaraderie; all mixed in with a lot of creativity and fun! It quickly became his #1 choice and he applied ED. He is shy, so it’s taken awhile for him to feel at home in little Grinnell, IA, but he finally feels he has found his home. He actually sang and played guitar - In Front Of Other People! at their musical showcase, “Showvember” and has been joining more groups on campus. He especially likes the frequent “dances” (low key at the local student center) and playing nerdy games with his friends.
Regaring roommates - He was well matched with his roommate, so that has been a nice thing to not have to worry about. Grinnell has a pretty detailed housing questionnaire, and the school said they work very hard to look at each group of students (early risers v. night owls), etc. and creates brackets to narrow down good matches. Our DS16 decided to follow @thinmints’s S14 advice, and asked to be placed with someone more outgoing than he is, and he is definitely coming out of his shell!
Other nice perks is a very strong alumni network. As a freshman, S16 will be spending part of his spring break staying with an alum who works at Amazon/Music, in San Francisco and will be shadowing him at software development job. The open curriculum was a big draw, as he will be able to major in CS and still have at least a minor in one of the humanities - probably history.
Weather is headed up to the 60s, this weekend, so hope your students have a great visit to Grinnell! (Restaurant recommendations: Prairie Canary for good $$ food, Lonnski’s Deli for burgers, and pretty good Mexican foot at La Casa De Pancho (I grew up in S Calif). Also, a local fav is the Dari Barn, on the far east end of town, but I don’t know if it’s open in March, as it’s a walk-up place. Grinnell is small, but tidy and pretty friendly. There is so much to do, that most students who don’t have cars, spend most of their time on campus. My son is on a budget, and is happy to not have too many temptations to spend $ off campus!
Sorry for the long post!
@snoozn I was an RA many years ago on a floor with communal bathrooms. If someone was going to projectile-vomit on the floor/walls/sink – anywhere but in the toilet – it was inevitably on a Friday night when there was no housekeeping until Monday 
During the week, the bathrooms were typically spotless. Usually they were OK through the weekend, except when they weren’t.
And for the record, the women’s room wasn’t trashed as frequently as the men’s but it wasn’t immune to being disgusting.
@snoozn Ha. Ha. I know he needs a reality check so I will happily send him off to the dorms with community bath. I was no neat freak in college and have gotten much neater as I’ve gotten older. Actually, I was a total slob and hated doing laundry. I did wash and change my sheets but I would wait until I had no clothes left before doing laundry in college.
My older son takes quarters back to college after every break. Either he is doing laundry regularly or sharing with the apartment-mates. I do not know how often the sheets were changed freshman year. He likes to have enough towels to run a full towel load, so he would bring another towel back to school after each break.
I haven’t thought about the off-campus bathroom cleaning but hopefully someone has developed a cleaning schedule. Two girls and two boys, although different composition this semester with study abroad. Best not to think about it too much…
Does anyone know whether it’s possible to get a single room at UCSD for a freshman? I’m an only child and do cherish my space.