S has 3 out of 4 paragraphs for his CA essay done! The 3rd paragraph needs work, but he is almost there!! I will be so relieved when that essay is DONE.
Public Transportation: We live in the SF Bay Area and I take BART to work everyday so my kids know how to get around by BART. DD17 last year had to take a bus to some of her ECs and got on the wrong one the first time. It was a good learning lesson though and she hasn’t done it since. She much prefers BART over the bus. She was able to navigate public transportation in Penn and NY and DC with the help of her chaperone so I’m sure she can figure it out wherever she goes. Her and her friends sometimes take Uber too.
There’s comfort in knowing that we aren’t the only ones without any essays started. @bigpapiofthree and @caroldanvers, we are sailing on the same (sinking?) ship. S is at camp for two more weeks, but he joined our family vacation last week and knocked off 2 out of 9 summer reading books, so that’s progress, I guess. He’ll have 8 to 10 days between when he gets home and when school starts and insists there’s not a problem in getting it all done. He is a very productive kid when he puts his mind to something so I’ll have to trust him and try to back off.
I really like the idea of a weekly to-do list that some have mentioned! I used to give each kid a list with their chores every Friday afternoon, and the kids had to complete the chores by Sunday at 8 PM or there would be some sort of consequence. Everything got done without me ever having to remind or nag.
S has decided to try out for soccer but doesn’t expect that he’ll make the team. Last year he made it to the final round of cuts because he can certainly run down a field (he’s a LAX kid), but there’s no way he has footwork skills good enough for varsity soccer at his school. He’ll be up against kids who play club soccer year round. He just wants the workout and to pick up some skills for the co-ed soccer winter rec soccer league he does with friends. Plus he’s friends with many kids on the soccer team so it will be fun for him to reconnect after being away all summer. I think the time would be better spent on college apps, act prep & finishing summer work, but see above comment about backing off. :-SS
Public transportation? Ha. We drive everywhere but when we do go on vacation and it is available, we use it. DS had a little business card sized subway map once and used it to navigate. He loved having access to public transportation in Salt Lake City and had to use it everyday to get from campus to the dance studios downtown. Life in the suburbs means driving and he finally got his driver’s license last week. He is at school picking up his schedule and parking permit right now. Hurray!
He is working on his Apply Texas essays this week and is finally ready to get back into the swing of things. He had his wisdom teeth out on Thursday and feels 100% better now.
@flatKansas I am sorry to hear about the registrar and the transcripts. Since TAMU COE is now holistic review, are they waiting to review everyone at the same time or will they review as the apps are complete? I admit I didn’t pay as much attention during that part of the session since DS isn’t going the engineering route. Thanks for sharing that they no longer require the ACT/SAT with writing. I have some friends that will be happy to hear that info.
Public transport
My oldest D is a public transport expert and has offered to “train” D17. Probably a good idea no matter where she ends up for college.
Too much stuff to do
I’ll join the “glad I’m not alone” club. No movement on CA rough draft essay, no supplementals even looked at (thank goodness she doesn’t have as many as lots of the other kids here), barely started CA, hasn’t done required online finance course, hasn’t started AP Physics summer homework. Where did the time go?
@mtrosemom, Knoxville! I grew up in a small (pop=10,000) town about 30 minutes away from Knoxville. And yes, it was generally considered a big deal to go there. Going to the mall in Knoxville would be a big weekend plan. I think my parents took a different view, being displaced damn yankees from NYC and Chicago. After church we would frequently drive in to Knoxville to eat Sunday dinner at a fancy place like Red Lobster – big city elitists! Now D’s HS (not her neighborhood HS, she’s open enrolled) is a little over 30 minutes away.
Future Internships: Ok I know I am way ahead of myself here but I thought I would throw this out there now. DH works for a large corporation. Every year he deals with a least a couple number of interns on a regular basis. This summer is done and he was asked to review 2 interns. #1. awesome could start immediately and make a positive impact. would definitely hire. #2. knowable, competent BUT stayed in cubicle. Almost all communication was done through email or txt. So if your DC has a internship remember to tell them to talk to people face to face. I know that with the current generation they are used to email’s and text but that’s not how you build business relationships.
Finally we opend the Common Application.
I have one question.
“List of all courses you are taking this year” … this means senior classes, right? My D signed up for several half-year electives and she will not know what electives she will be assigned for the second semester until the end of the first semester. What do we do then?
@HiToWaMom We just listed our best guess for some of the electives. I think colleges are mainly looking at reqs and rigor, and aren’t going to crosscheck when the year is over.
@jedwards70 As far as I know they review the applications once complete. That was the story someone shared (on the TAMU board maybe?) about how the fancy dorm was already full by Oct 1 due to all the people who had already been accepted by then. I emailed admissions and they said S “should be fine” having to wait for the transcript, so I guess we’ll see.
Public Transportation: not much in suburbia. Orienteering experience with scouts should help? ;))
DS has taken subways/buses from airports in other cities and in other countries. Flied solo multiple times but not involving connections yet. So not much worry here.
My colleague used to say he is less worried about getting to hotel from airport in Japan than traveling to a US city.
E-book: I love both E-books and paper books. When traveling, definitely E-books are better for packing.
Paper cards will be harder on the receiver due to DS’s 3rd-grader handwriting :))
Public Transport: First some trivia: Rochester NY is the smallest city in the US to build and then subsequently abandon a subway… so not a whole lot of mass transit close to home, unless we time-warp back to the 1940’s. However DD17 has traveled enough to have lots of experience w/ public transport in NY, Boston, Washington, Toronto (sports tournaments and family trips).
Thank You Notes: Receiving snail mail slows me down; I’d prefer to have the email if I were on the receiving end. If the college is using any contact-tracking system, it may be forwarded into the system and it may help establish further “demonstrated interest” if the college values that in their admissions process (this is just a guess – do college admissions departments track prospect contacts like a sales organization in the business world would? I don’t know, but if I ran a admission dept, I’d want it set up that way).
It’s not 20 per day. One hike (out of the total 100 miles competed) needs to be a 20 mile hike, completed in one day. It does not need to be a through or pack hike.
We know a guy who was doing 50-60 miles a day and a through hiker. And the yes, he did break an assisted PCT record lol.
@flatKansas OK, I guess that’s what we have to do then - list our best guess. Thanks for the suggestion!
Requirements for hiking merit badge:
D17 and S20 got back a while ago from their first day of school! As D so eloquently put it, this is her last first day of high school and S’s first first day of high school. I took a great picture of them before they left, so I now have all of D’s first days of school from pre-school onward documented. I spent a little time looking through them and couldn’t believe how quickly time flies. It feels like just a few months ago that I would hold her on my hip and now she is 3 inches taller than me!
Somehow, we totally forgot to fill out the brag sheets for recommendations. The counselors apparently want those in as quickly as possible so looks like I have a little bit of homework tonight as well!
Public Transportation Suburbia here too. My kids don’t have any idea how to use public transportation as there isn’t any available. Even parking in the city is a challenge for them (finding an paying for a lot sport or parallel parking at a meter). And the driving practice for my D17 is pretty non-existent night now. Still crossing my fingers she’ll be ready to pass the test before her permit expires again at the end of this month.
Thank-yous I would be thrilled if my shy disengaged D would actually speak with anyone at all during a tour. At this point we have no one to thank 
However if we did I think a short timely email would be ok by me. I am an email and e-book person.
Too Much Stuff The anxiety is building for me. School starts tomorrow!!! I know for sure D is going to have too much on her plate (work, 4 AP classes, Lax practices, Hosp. volunteer, driving practice, studying for the Sept ACT, plus all the college apps!) She is a procrastinator and somehow she always manages to get everything done…but I just don’t think she realizes how much time the college apps are going to need. We (or really I) still have 20 colleges on our list. Mostly because I’m at the point where I need her to start thinking about it seriously. There are some obvious ones that should fall off - but I need her to start making those decisions on her own. I have a feeling that the number she applies to will be determined by when she gets burned out. I just hope at least the first few are good fits and she gets accepted.
I am very worried that she is hung up on NOT going to a small school (this seems to be the ONLY thing she has an opinion on) - when really the only thing I am certain about is that she will do best at a small school. I am trying to help her recognize this without pushing her so that she rejects the idea just to prove me wrong
I have stopped nagging out loud completely. However typically each morning I send her a short text with a reminder for maybe one thing she might consider trying to get done. I have no idea if she even reads them, but just sending it makes me feel a little better And I am resisting the urge to ask her about them when I get home at night.
She did however somehow get Brave New World read, and was halfway through 1984 last night. So there is a small chance her AP summer homework will be complete.
I am grateful I have found this forum to share my anxiety…as my husband completely does not get it.
Another procrastination day for D and she finally realized that I was right and she’d missed an entire long summer assignment for Spanish (because mom never knows what she’s talking about, yet she almost always ends up being right :-)) ). So now she has to add that to the list. At least I found out that she did start her AP English Lit reading over the weekend. Good luck to her in finishing everything up. Time is getting very short. She has this week’s to-do list, and it includes a few items that weren’t completed from last week.
But on the positive side, she has one LOR ready to go. She just has to wait for the LOR section of Naviance to open up. She had to reach out to another teacher for an LOR through social media, becuase apparently the teacher changed schools and didn’t leave contact information with the old school. Hopefully she hears back soon about that. The good thing is that teacher already has a previous letter of recommendation for her in her files and will only need to tweak it. D is also requesting a third letter from her GT teacher, and that formal ask was sent last week.
We are still sticking to the plan of waiting for NMSF announcement before submitting any more apps so I guess she won’t have first pick of housing. I think that’s fine, however, since most schools don’t send out honors acceptances that early and she definitely wants honors housing at every school she’s applying to.
Her transcript still hasn’t been fixed, so its time to ask her new counselor when its going to get done.
Trying to get everything lined up before school starts.
Common App - very interesting the information that ends up in bold in preview mode. Hrmph!
Driving distance - I drive a lot and will hop in the car and drive an hour for a good restaurant or more for entertainment. I drive up to several hours almost every weekend for events (race, rallies, concerts). D is not a huge fan of long drives, but she has learned to suck it up.
D17 just finished filling out the basic info on the Common App and selecting her colleges! Her essay is probably good to go but the GC has to approve it before it’s uploaded. Progress!
Driving distance - I would call a 550 mile trip a day trip. stopping for gas once.
Back when DH & I lived in the east, we broke a 500 mile trip into two days and stayed at a hotel in the midpoint because we thought it was too far =))