Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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Re @BeeFriendly’s list. One thing I saw on the Checklist for Parents of Incoming Freshmen thread is to get medical power of attorney or other appropriate documentation signed by children who are 18+. After reading a couple of stories about parents who were unable to get information about their child’s condition after a medical event, we had D14 get right on it. Her university has a legal office for students, and she was able to fill out the correct document for her college’s state, have it notarized and have copies made, all for free, in a 20-minute appointment.

(Also, the lawyer mentioned a living will and I had to explain to her what that meant – she was confused why she would need to designate someone to inherit her meager belongings – so other discussions of legal matters may be in order.)

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@jmek15 I’d get a 21 essay rescored if he got a 30 previously. I think it’s become clear that the error bars on the essay just from who grades it are so large that they make the score mostly unusable. I hope that is also clear to colleges.

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Introduction
Mom of two daughters: D13 and D17. I went into college application process for D13 rather blindly, so I’m sticking around to learn more for D17.
We live in north of Seattle, WA.

D17 is smart and wild. She enjoys getting good grades but doesn’t like school or study very much. She wears jeans with thousand holes, her midriff is always showing, her mini skirt is so short I don’t think she should bend more than 30 degrees and her knowledge of make up and contouring is the level of Kim Kardashian’s. She loves to hang out with her friends so I see her less and less after she got the driver’s license. She is a good kid, though.

She studies for school, but never studied for ACT and SAT, so her scores were meh. She hit the target score for ACT the first time but seems like it was a fluke. She is always hugely lopsided toward English/Humanity. Her ACT Math and her ACT English have 13 points score difference. I don’t know how it’s going to play out in the admission process.

She is aiming for colleges that are in or near the big cities. We are lower middle income family. As long as the schools are 100% need met schools, we can manage financially. That means, no merit can cover our need so our list may be lacking the good target schools. But her list doesn’t include any top 20 schools or have less than 25% acceptance rate, and her good ACT score is at the 25%tile for most of the schools, so it should be OK.

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Intro
Father of 3 here, S14, D17, S20. We live in the NW suburbs of Chicago and children attend a large, generally well regarded public high school.

S14 and D17 are high achieving students and good test takers. Both are pretty self driven. S14 is a little stubborn and D17 has a bit of a perfectionist streak.

S20 is different. I think he is probably just as bright as his siblings but he doesn’t care about school. It is hard for him to to follow S14 and D17. If he’s not quite as academically ready as they were, it might be easier to act like he doesn’t care. He has a lot self-sabotaging “quirks”. Does the homework, but doesn’t manage to turn it in for credit. Still working through all of this.

As an aside, you swear you raise them all the same, but they each bring themselves to the party.

S14 attends Pitt majoring in neuroscience. He’s doing well and enjoying his experience. Started on pre-med track but doesn’t think he has the passion for medicine so right now he thinks research and academia. He has a research job this summer and his supervising post-doc is scrambling looking for a permanent position. The post-doc has just had a baby. I’m glad he gets this view of the reality of modern academia.

Personally, I think he is perfect for an MD/PhD track, but he doesn’t. His choice.

D17 is focusing on occupational therapy. She started volunteering at a hippotherapy center and found her passion; they have hired her and promoted her about as far as possible for a 17 year old without credentials. Previously she was focused on special ed.

S20 is trying to play lacrosse at high level and has just entered high school. We are in the midwest so our high level might just be average. He’s finishing his summer school class tomorrow. It’s an easy class, but he is on track for an A which would be a nice start.

We are a merit chasing family. S14 was successful; we hope for similar results for our D.

QOTD

I am not completely naive about parent denial, but I don’t think S14 or D17 have ever consumed alcohol. They both toe the line with regard to rules. They have been offered alcohol at family functions and have refused it. D17 was recently offered cocktails at dinner while in Boston with us; she refused even though it is legal. My W recently asked S14 if he was ever going to try a beer when turns 21 and he said he would. We were actually surprised. Neither one likes anything carbonated and both only drink water. S20 is the one we will have to watch. S20 drinks tea, coffee, pop, energy drinks (when out of our sight), etc. We aren’t sticklers about social drinking as adults at all, but we are serious about designated drivers.

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Love the intro idea. I’m the mom of three, D17, D20 and S22. We live in a small town in MT and the high school GCs are more interested in keeping kids out of trouble than prepping for college. I had never heard of Naviance and I’m sure they have no clue, so I’m learning a lot here. D17 has about 4.2 GPA; took 3 AP courses last year as a junior. ACT composite of 34 on second try; waiting on SAT scores. She’s a great team debater, and has placed 2nd and 3rd in the state in our class the past two years. She’s interested in psychology/gender studies/neurology or something along those lines but her scores are higher in reading and english than math, typically. She’ll be leaving in a just over a week to attend a 3-week summer program at Smith; the third week is devoted to understanding college admissions and working on the CA essay, so fingers crossed she comes home in August with a decent draft!

We’re looking at LACs mostly, and will likely qualify for at least some need-based aid. Of course merit would also be fantastic. I work for Stanford, and am a Stanford graduate (grad school) so we’re going to apply there (possibly through EA, which is non-binding at Stanford) despite the slim odds. It would be fantastic to be able to see her on my trips back to the office for work. I will receive some tuition reimbursement from S, but it will mostly just reduce our need (and loans/work study for D).

Other schools on our maybe list include Smith, Reed, Whitman, etc. The usual suspects. She’d like to be in or relatively near a large town rather than someplace very rural, which will probably knock some places off the list (we’re touring Whitman next week because we’ll be driving right through, but it might not make the location grade).

Health concerns-- we aren’t dealing with any chronic health issues, fortunately, but D will need some fairly serious reconstructive surgery to correct a jaw deformity that began to develop when she was about 8. We had hoped to have that done by the end of this summer, but it’s now looking to be more like early fall. That makes things pretty hairy for the start of senior year, cross-country season and, of course speech and debate. She’ll have about two weeks of intense recovery and then an additional four weeks or so of non-solid food. Ugh. But that’s a great incentive to get as much college prep stuff done as possible before then.

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S17, is our third, with two D’s who have graduated OOS public Universities. He is our best student. We live in California, and our S attends a midsize suburban HS. Financial aid/merit will enter the picture this time around. Wasn’t worried the first times around, but things change. Earnings not as robust post recession, and changes in life continue.
While I consider myself knowledgable and well read about this stuff, this time thru is tricky. S has a high GPA, good rigor by our HS standards (however, compared to rest of world, he seems short on AP. He will graduate with 7 and 2 DE). His EC’s are very focused. ASB officer all 4 years, Sports 3 years(is quitting this year as ASB will be too time consuming), full timesummer job out of town, and works during year. Has major passion for Music, but doesn’t participate in school music. He prefers contemporary to classical…

Prestige is important to him. Not his parents. He feels he worked hard, and wants to go for it. Wants a school with a healthy mix of great academics, low nerd quotient, school pride, prefer sports(would forgo that for ivy), and a healthy blend of social/party. Location matters little, prefers to have access to events, concerts, and city nearby. He will try one school ED, another ED2 if needed, and we will hope they are fair on money. We have set aside a fair amount in 529. Need around 50%. He will also apply to some good merit schools.

We are proud of how hard he has worked and he has set himself up. However, I am now concerned that he is not quite good enough for his goals. I consider him generically outstanding, in a time of needing to be extraordinarily outstanding. Time will tell…
My posts here are not as frequent as others, tho I do follow regularly. You can count on me for a few weak attempts at sarcasm and humor…
On Drinking subject…He started this past school year. Mild by comparisons, and less frequent than many of his friends. He learned a lot about his limits, as he prayed one night to the porcelain gods. Thank god it wasn’t our house…Compared to my high school days, he is moderate…

There you go. Welcome to all the newbies.

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@ynotgo, I agree - I’m going to have to pony up the $$ for the rescore. It was quite a shock to see that number this morning!

Seeing some online pics of my son at camp (his first year as a camp counselor) and it looks like he’s having a blast. Well, at least one of us is stressing about his college future :)>-

We recently left D15 home for 5 nights. The house and dog survived, but there was an emergency call to the locksmith when she locked herself out, and maybe a little bit of partying with a couple of friends even though we asked her not to allow drinking in our home. My container plants were forgotten about and lawn was not mowed. It’s a learning experience for everyone. Keeping a sense of humor is important.

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QOTD: Sort of echoing off of @Dave_N’s comment, “As an aside, you swear you raise them all the same, but they each bring themselves to the party,” our kids all have very different personalities and we pretty much know how they are and what they will and won’t end up doing (often far more predictably than they do themselves. Not that we converse with them that way. It is just that sometimes when they make decisions that shock themselves, we aren’t quite so shocked. :wink: )

I know our oldest Ds drank in college. No doubt. But that is also they type of kid he was growing up. Ditto to our oldest Dd. She has been the most “pushing the limits” child and has to live with some of the life choices she made. (They are both great adults. :slight_smile: )

Ds14 has told us that he did not at all his freshman yr and did only a couple of times this past yr and then only a small amount. Again, nothing shocking there bc that is also who he is.

D17…Modest to the core. Firmly cemented individual principals which are equally reserved. Not drinking is one of them. Unless her core personality takes a complete 180, which I cannot fathom since she has been this way since she was little, I think drinking is a non-issue.

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@coloradomom2015 Thanks for the info. Too bad S17 really has no time to visit this summer. Sounds like a good fit for him. It’s hard to get him enthusiastic till he visits. He’s off in the wilderness for a month and when he gets back he is busy until the start of school. S17 really wants something west coast, near wilderness/hiking. Not required but is interested in schools with Marching Bands. Engineering is on his radar, but still only a one possibility. We are keeping our eyes open for Engineering programs he can get into. (He doesn’t have a top GPA, but is very strong in math, excellent SAT, SAT II Math) Currently Oregon State is very high on his list. And I think I convinced him to consider Boulder, it’s only a little step to get him to apply at Fort Collins.

We have no Naviance information about Fort Collins to help judge his competitiveness there. Naviance shows Boulder as a match, but he wouldn’t make it into the Engineering program.

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Another long-time lurker, finally taking the plunge today!

Thanks to all of you - I have learned so much reading these boards over the past couple of years. Mom of 2 boys (but you probably guessed that!) DS15 is at the U of Minnesota and had an awesome year.

DS17 is a STEM kid. Probably NMSF. Considering a completely different set of schools than his brother, so it feels as though this will be a completely different experience. I very much appreciate reading everyone’s experiences and insights.

QOTD -

The last check-up DS15 had with his pediatrician before leaving for school, she related to him stories of alcohol poisoning, and how she didn’t want to see him experience that firsthand! She suggested that before he leave, he decide what “his story” will be. Did he want to be the one that says, “no - I don’t drink”, or the one who carries around the same beer can all night long… I loved that suggestion, and also that it came from someone besides his parents.

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Intro Mom of two, but this “feels like the first time” in the college app process, as D14 only applied to one school (instate, guaranteed admit, lucked into trickle-down merit). Aside from CS major, S17 doesn’t know what he wants or likes (other than he “doesnt want to be too close to home”), so that makes the search interesting. Can’t afford our EFC so we’re chasing merit. Pretty sure I found CC from trying to hunt down National Merit info. S is likely NMSF which helps the $ situation, but that adds more schools to the potential pool. Double-edged sword!

S is a regular smart kid at a HS full of overachievers. (Think we sent 2 to Stanford last year?) 3.8/4.2 gpa leaves him teetering on the edge of top 15%. No cures for cancer in his ECs (a lot of band) so we have realistic expectations for where he’ll end up. Bama is high on our list. We disagree on his “safety” schools. He’s going to take a shot at some reach schools just to see what happens. Having troubles determining what are good matches for him. We can spot the admission/financial matches, but are floundering comparing the quality of schools and programs against each other, if that makes sense.

I spend much of my CC time whining about waits (AP scores, SAT scores, NMSF) and panicking at having no time (thanks to jobs, band, and that pesky school) to visit any of these schools because we should have started earlier and everything is so darn far when you live in the middle of nowhere.

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For those of you interested in Arabic - have you checked out NYU? They have several overseas degree granting campuses including Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi NYU has a lot of funds so grants a lot of scholarships both need and merit. Plus they can also study at the other campuses during UG.

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@jmek15 thanks for the thoughts.

Also, don’t stress about the writing score. My son got a 22 or 23 on 1st time but a bit better second time, and a 29C both times. A lot of schools say they are not considering writing portion next year, so I am in the camp of not worrying about it. Your son has other fine attributes, he will get in to some very good schools.

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QOTD:

I have a funny one for this one-drinking. D18 (my 15 year old) put about a 1/4 cup of vanilla extract into a cup of tea one day to “make it really vanilla-y” About ten minutes after drinking it she was like, I don’t feel good-I feel dizzy and it feels like the sound is slowing down. I said “what did you drink?” and she showed me the 1/4 cup (which I think is like two shots?) of BOURBON based vanilla extract (I only use the good stuff, and it comes in a big bottle). I said (not angrily, just matter of fact), you just made yourself drunk on vanilla extract. She was horrified-she had no idea.

So, yeah, it was about an hour of, this is so unpleasant, I don’t feel in control of my head or body, and laid on the couch drinking a lot of water.

Older D thinks wine smells “icky” and beer smells like “horse feed”, so for her the cautionary tale will be for those candy flavored vodkas (bluch!) that are so popular right now. We drink rarely (there’s another thread out there about this subject) so we won’t be introducing either kid to drinking, and our advice to them is to not do something that’s illegal and has some pretty bad adult consequences associated with it.

Plus it screws up their frontal lobes as teenagers, and they know that because we’re nerdy and we’ve had endless talks about permanently rewiring the developing teenage brain for the worse with drugs, alcohol, and sleep deprivation. When the two of us drink in front of the girls at dinner (and in general) we stick to the one drink per hour, and rarely have more than 2 drinks over the entire course of the evening. We’ve talked about it with them-it’s pretty hard to get drunk on one drink per hour unless you’re really, really drinking for a looooong time. And that kind of drinking is its own bigger problem. So, they know why not to drink, and how slowly to drink if they choose to drink, and they know to get their own drink and not to drink frat punch, beyond that it’s up to them.

intro
Oh, I feel like I super overshare constantly anyway, but the TL;DR version is:

2 daughters, 17 (D17) and almost 16 (D18) (rising senior, rising junior) Both smart, older one is academic and merit hunting, is very like her dad (my husband) computer science-y and rational. Younger one leans more towards my artistic all over the place temperament, although not actually interested in being an artist (me). Both are strong willed and extroverted.

Umm,what else? We live in Atlanta, but I’m from Boston and H is from Wisconsin, although he’s lived in Atlanta since he was 14 and culturally identifies as southern. Both girls are Georgia natives, and neither one wants to stay in Georgia for college. I like Atlanta but we are SO ready to move close to an ocean and escape the horrendous traffic.

I should have my BA in studio art (chose BA rather than BFA for more flexibility in the job market) by this time next summer. I’m hoping to be able to help contribute to the girls’ college costs by working full time once they’re at college, and for H to be able to ease up on his very challenging job a little.

We’re already full-pay, so we’re looking for merit for older one and will probably use the HOPE scholarship for the younger one if she can get her GPA up this upcoming junior year.

@srk2017 what is French Laundry? That sounds like a punishment, not a reward, lol!

If I hadn’t found CC, I would have been making my kids’ lives WAY more miserable than I already do with regards to college-I really had a lot of very provincial, mmm, maybe snobby? attitudes about elite schools and prestige. Thankfully, I have really grown and learned a lot over the past year about what to do and what not to do with regards to college planning. I don’t think I can give back as much as I get on CC, but I do try and entertain…

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QOTD: Both of my kids are much different in personality than I was. I didn’t drink until college, but liked a good party anyway. D1 has had the ‘pleasure’ of babysitting drunk and hungover roommates both on a high school trip to Costa Rica and in her own suite this year at school. Even if she did like the smell, which she doesn’t, I think those experiences might have turned her off the idea. (One of her suite-mates told me all about the lecture she got from my kid the next day – it was hilarious!)

D2 doesn’t drink and regularly lectures other people about smoking. Where did these straight arrows come from???

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@MotherOfDragons The French Laundry is an awesome restaurant in Napa Valley (I think, or maybe Sonoma). I’ve never been there, but DH has. I’d go without alcohol for awhile if someone promised to take me there (and pay).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_French_Laundry

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@Ynotgo that looks amazing!

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Brief intro: I’m the father of four children, all daughters, graduating high school in 17/19/23/25, going through the college application madness for the first time. My oldest is a moderately high-stats kid, which is good, since we’re “donut holed” for costs and thus chasing merit, but the next one down isn’t nearly as likely to get any spectacular awards. She’s interested in neuroscience and conflict studies (and is currently at a competitive-entry neuroscience summer camp, so that’s cool). We live in Alaska, where we have precisely zero college options that are either selective or have either of those fields, so we cast a wide net in her initial search, but she has her list pared down to 11 colleges, possibly 10 depending on how her one school visit this summer goes. (We did a big college tour in the lower 48 last summer.)

Our oldest kids’ college searches have been starting early, as in freshman year. This isn’t so much a function of us leaning on them about it, though, as it is that it’s simply “in the water” in our house—I’m a college professor, and my wife is a PhD who realized in grad school she didn’t want to be in academia, but who has a partially research-based position anyway. My daughter has an academic’s skepticism of things like USNWR rankings, and filtered her list on very different criteria than they use; this makes me happy.

The high-school-age children go to what I sometimes describe as a hippie-granola school 50 years too late—it’s a small (~500 students total) public K–12 school, with the high school part of it being quite small (my oldest is in a class of 28 students), where everybody, students and teachers alike, calls everybody else by their first names. This makes for some scheduling issues, and we certainly don’t have things like the range of AP classes that many on this board have, but there are a lot of “soft skills” that get taught very, very nicely there.

Although I am incredibly jealous of everyone whose school uses Naviance.

The BOD, SOS, &c.: For those new to the list, you might see acronyms that appear only on this thread. It started with someone (@MotherOfDragons? @2muchquan?) talking about the Binder of Destiny (so, BOD) they built with all the college information in it. A number of us have our own; mine is the Spreadsheet of Serendipity, and thus (accidentally, really!) the SOS.

Meningitis vaccines: The basic meningitis vaccine (MCV4, though MPSV4 can also be used) covers four strains, making up about 70% of all cases in the US. There’s also MenB, which prevents a different, rarer strain; when I asked about it at my oldest’s latest doctor visit, I was told that it isn’t available in Alaska(!), but we should ask her college health center if we can get it through them once she arrives there.

QOTD on alcohol: We’re adherents of a religion that forbids alcohol consumption. My oldest is probably the most devout member of the family, so I’m as close to certain as I can be that she hasn’t ever drunk any alcohol. (And she’s the sort of person who keeps communication channels open enough that she’d probably tell us if she did.) I have (and my wife has, separately) talked with her at some length about alcohol and drug consumption, and she’s attended plenty of parties by now (I mean, she’s in drama, right?) where alcohol—among other things—is being consumed. Part of my discussions with her have centered around the fact that if she does drink alcohol while she’s in college, it’s likely to hit her pretty hard initially due to a lack of a tolerance for it, and also that she has some solid family history of alcoholism and so needs to be careful (and preferably avoid it entirely) on those grounds, as well. Interesting: She is very aware—and I’ve watched her at parties, including when I’ve come to pick her up but she hasn’t realized I’m there yet—of the need to guard her drink, whether alcoholic or not, so that’s good.

And I agree with @curiositycat333 that colleges with “no tolerance” alcohol and drug policies are creating problems for themselves—but in some cases, their hands are tied on it. On the subject of alcohol and college, I think it would be worth all parents reading through a series the Chronicle of Higher Education did a while back titled “[A River of Booze](A River of Booze)” (which I don’t think is behind their paywall). It goes into the cultural and legal minefields colleges face on the subject in quite excellent detail.

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@“What!!!” re: NYU … having grown up in NYC, I think NYU is highly overrated and way over-priced. Also, their reputation as far as merit aid is terrible, to say the least. But thanks for the suggestion. I don’t think NYU comes up on SuperMatch for having an Arabic major.

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I think a lot of kids drink to loosen up and feel socially engaged (like be able to go out onto the dance floor).

That has never been an issue with us-we’re often told to “dial it back” in our normal lives. Well, maybe not my H-he’s an introvert (think of Vincent Vega without the heroin crossed with Keanu Reeves without the blankness), but he gets a kick out of watching his wife and daughters erupt into silliness at social occasions.

To not get too off track, we didn’t get the Yale propaganda, but I did send away for some UMD swag because I decided to put it back on the list. I wonder when that snazzy CS building the Oculus Rift guy donated will be built. Really, I put it back on the list because it’s only 8 miles from DC, and D17 really likes DC. And good CS.