@payn4ward The clothes shopping gene has not been passed down to son17. I could complete his entire wardrobe shopping in 1 store. Go to Dick’s Sporting Goods. Walk to Nike section. Buy shorts, shirts, hoodies, sweats in a variety of colors.
I love the Chicago prompts. S17 and S19 would like them too although different ones would appeal to each.
S17: 3,4,5
S19: 1,2,5
SD14 and SS11 though…would absolutely choose not to apply with those or go for #6. As would H!
For me, I think I’d pick 5 but 1 is tempting as all get out!
Unless S19 gets his rear in gear on the GPA I don’t expect it to be on our list. I’m sure we couldn’t afford it anyway lol.
@Tgirlfriend is Community Service required for graduation? It is at our school but if not, I agree with the rest I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Stage crew counts as a volunteer activity at our school, as does working sound/lights etc for the various events they have outside of drama so S17 has a ton of hours that show on his transcript. S19 on the other hand is working to fill his doing things like volunteering at the MS district track meet and other things. I think he may be able to get credit when helping out on other kids eagle scout projects but haven’t really looked into it as I figure the scout aspect will speak for itself.
@payn4ward, I shop for my S the same way. It’s the only way I can get him to wear clothes that fit him (he’d rather wear whatever’s in his drawer no matter how it fits/looks than ever set foot in a clothing store/dressing room).
@payn4ward That’s a good one and a perfect one to work on over the summer. DS would prefer that either DH or I accompany him and hold things out for his approval, which we haven’t really done for a few years. I do sympathize a little, given that he has a 30" waist and a 36" inseam. (He has learned that a quick way to make me crazy is to tell me when I arrive home from work that he needs a special pair of pants to wear to school/event the next day – we need to be able to order online to even find the few pairs of 32/36 or 34/36 he usually wears belted tightly around the waist/hips. If he grows any more in the leg, he’s making his own d*** pants.) He’s also colorblind so we have to be careful that clothes that do come home can be worn interchangeably. (Left to his own devices, he tends to dress like a bag of Skittles.)
ETA: Do you think we can put that on a college roommate search site? Must be able to advise when clothing choices make others dizzy.
Yeah, I wish past comments would keep your old avatar. Maybe I’ll change it to the UChicago logo…to which we are not applying either. Kind of a misdirection play.
So I’m working from home on work’s secure laptop. Forgot the power cord. Short day!!!
@2muchquan My work computer was a laptop. Some Mondays I would go to work forgetting to take laptop (or badge key, more frequent 
) Fortunately, most docs were on network son I worked using a loaner laptop.
For a each work laptop, I purchased 3 power cords. One permanently stays plugged in the office. The second cord goes in the bag (use it in the conference rooms during meetings, in the bus.) The third cord stays at home.
I once found an extra cord at office so brought it home and left one in the upstairs and the other downstairs in my house, to lazy to upstairs/downstairs to fetch the cord :))
Whew, still trying to play catch up. This is such an active group.
QOTD: Our school also posts a .pdf of the college profile on their website. The two page document lists all of the classes offered, details about class size, grading, APs, etc., and though they do not rank, they give tables for both weighted and unweighted GPAs in roughly 0.25 increments. They also include the test averages and a list of the colleges that the last three classes of students attended.
D17 had a bit of a hiccup with her senior class schedule. Three of the classes she wanted are only being offered B and D period, AP Gov, Latin V, and AP Micro/Macro. She wants to pursue business, so Micro/Macro was a must. The AP Gov teacher is a phenomenal teacher (D had him for APUSH), so she didn’t want to drop down to Honors Gov. She will be the co president of the Junior Classical League, and thought that she needed to be enrolled in Latin or else step down from the position. She went and talked with the principal and was assured that she can still hold office without being enrolled in Latin, so AP Gov and AP Micro it is. Now she had one other class slot to fill, so she picked two single semester classes through Global Online Academy. She’s not real thrilled about it, but it’s the best she could do.
@IABooks WOW on the sizes. I thought I had it bad with 28x32 and 29x32. I actually need to upgrade both kids to 28x34 and 29x34 for fall clothes. I literally have 4 stores I can find pants at. Hollister, PacSun, Zumiez and American Eagle.
The 30’s fall off even tightly belted and we have to get super skinny ones for S17, slims for S19.
S17 is definitely Mr. Fashion Plate…metro hipster wanna be all day long. S19 on the other hand “upgrades” when he chooses khaki shorts and a hawaiian shirt (or jeans and a flannel) over tech shirt and gym shorts. He rarely matches but…it is what it is.
I try to buy everything online and let them pick it out. They get a budget in the fall and can choose how to spend it. It saves money, time and headache. Especially since the mall will rarely have their size! S17 does like to rummage around goodwill and the like though and does pretty well. Especially with shoes. As long as S19 gets new running shoes for fall he will be happy enough.
Those Chicago prompts would have caused 17yo me to hyperventilate 
Power tools! The kids all spent years in Odyssey of the Mind so they are pretty happy using hand power tools. Plus, their dad was a furniture maker before he was a pastor so they’ve all become comfortable with table saws, chop boxes, drill presses, planers, and jointers, which is a little terrifying for me but he’s a good teacher. Everyone still has all their digits, anyway, even DH #:-S
U Chicago: I think that DD’14 applied there because of their prompts. 
She was waitlisted, though.
@srk2017 As for Cornell, my kids feel very sorry for the premeds there and advise their future premed friends at home to go somewhere else. They love the school for themselves, but they say that the premeds suffer too much at Cornell.
@payn4ward I hate clothes shopping too! But I’m blessed with a Magic Closet. Every time my MIL comes to visit, I find new things in it 
.
@IABooks I sympathize! DS’17 has 29 waist/ 36 inseam and everything has to be ordered online. Wrangler.com for jeans, forthefit.com for track pants, and I’m about to put an order into Lands End for a pair of dress pants. All I can find at LE are 30x36, but they’re a slim fit, so we’ll hope for the best. It’s hilarious when DS tucks his shirt in and wears a belt, because then he really does look like a young giraffe. Especially next to his older brother, who’s the same height (and 50 lbs heavier) but whose inseam is 4 inches shorter. It’s easy to see then why one played football but the other runs distance.
@eandesmom and @IABooks you both made me feel much better about S17’s 30x32 (which are just getting a little too short on him, and are a little too loose too but are the closest fit I could find). I will have to try some of the stores you mentioned, as I think 29 waist will fit better, but where I shop, I can never find any that are long enough in the inseam.
In Florida a minimum of 100 hours of community service is required for the Bright Futures Scholarship which currently cover about 1/2 of in-state tuition. The organization you volunteer for must be on the school district’s approved list and the volunteer hours approved by the GC… Thanks to the work of a prior parent, our church is on the list and all of my D’s community service hours have come from week long service trips. Since you must volunteer for an organization on the list and you must volunteer at least 25 hours at that organization to get any credit, sticking to one organization for Bright Futures was the path of least resistance.
My D is leaving at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning for her fourth service trip, this time to rural West Virginia.
@262mom the skater shops are best for the 28/29. Otherwise I have to get the boys a 30 and that just doesn’t work well at all!
Surprisingly if you order online there are some decent non denim pants/khakis and dress shorts as options. Not cheap but I dig around for coupon codes like a crazy person.
They are also better for slim cut shirts so things aren’t so boxy.
S19 kept wearing size 12 kids shorts for the longest time. No joke.
Underwear shopping is a nightmare!
RE: List of things to teach before college. DD will have a long list to learn. I just got her a credit card for the first time. Next up laundry… well, let’s start with making bed and close kitchen cabinet door after taking out a glass…
@dfbdfb, agreed with your post #6884 regarding ED.
@MichiganGeorgia enjoy Alabama! My daughter and I visited last month and she loved it! It is her number one choice right now!
@2muchquan thanks for the tip.
Interesting stats on the profile
-90% attend college or university after graduation
-Avg ACT 21
-Avg SAT 1550/2400
I guess a lot are going to cc
Thanks, @eandesmom! I don’t actually know what a skater shop is, but I will look into it! (Sad situation when fashion-impaired son has to rely on fashion-impaired mother for clothes that somewhat fit haha; luckily or unluckily, he doesn’t care one iota about his appearance).
My kids school hasn’t updated their SAT profile since 2013. And those scores seem pretty low. Ds school is crazy diverse in everything from socioeconomics to cultures/race.
Does it look better to be a high stat kid at a school like this or is it better to be amongst the many high stat kids at a high stat school?
@CaucAsianDad … BF sounds like a fantastic program. Do most kids take advantage of this?
@CaucAsianDad our youth group leader gets our service work approved through the school as well so often some, or all of it can count. S17 has stopped turning it in each year once he hits the silver level which seems a little silly as I suspect he could qualify for gold lol.
I just had DS read the UChicago prompts and he got all excited about #5. Something about P = NP that I didn’t really understand, and that it hasn’t really been proved so he might need to turn it into #6 but :-@ I didn’t understand much of what he said. Chicago isn’t on his list (mostly because of the weather and I’d guess it is more theoretical in physics). But, perhaps we’ll look at how many other essays besides these are required. I think they are a non-restrictive early action school.
He loved that Milo and the tollboth made it into prompt #4.
Our school ACT average is 26.6; state is 22.5. Old SAT average is 1625. I guess they will need to fit in old SAT and new SAT averages next year. 40% going to 4-year college; 54% going to community college or at least say they will. Our community college is now free tuition to local residents.