Well, we just left at 3:30am to drive to get to the Rhodes college tour by 8am, then turned around and got back home by 7pm same day. And since my D is still scared to drive my car I did it all by myself. Traveling 1-3 hrs one way for a soccer game or gymnastics meet and back has been at least a monthly occurrence for us for years now.
I like to drive. If I am in a car, I am driving. Don’t sleep in things that are moving so it makes sense. Round trip cutoff is probably 5-6 hours each way. Most hours driven in one day was about 17. Did two days of 15 hours each with a visit to Minneapolis in between driving back from Yellowstone.
@itsgettingreal17 Would you like to share more about the bolded text in the app review? I don’t think most of us have finished the CA and school questions for any schools yet…ok, we haven’t anyway… 
Without doing so, you can’t get the print preview. Is it an actual PDF you can print/save?
@flatKansas TAMU Admissions told me that they would admit you to the University first so you could apply for housing then they would admit you to engineering in December. I had the same question as you and called them directly.
Cross post from the 2017 3.0-3.4 gpa thread where I posted this by mistake (she is not in that gpa range…)
Maybe I need to vent here more often. We had a breakthrough tonight!
- I printed out my timeline to paper and we talked about due dates and the college lists.
- She told me she does have the CA essay typed, but not done, but that I could read it and give her some input.
- she decided on who she would ask for LOR this week at school.
- she narrowed down the list!
Reaches: Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Boston College (all pretty dependent on raising ACT in sept)
Matches: Rhodes College, UofRichmond, Wake Forest, Lafayette College
Safeties: Truman State, MissouriS&T, Pittsburg State, Drury University (we still need to visit these and narrow down to 2)
She agreed she was going to focus on learning to drive and Studying for the ACT until the Sept 10th test. And maybe a little bit of work on CA essay and Activities Resume (neither of us have any idea what this is) if I don’t nag
Then come Sept 10th after the ACT she will focus on the rest of the application stuff.
It seems ambitious to me, but she does have 10 days off school for Fall break in Oct…so if she procrastinates she will just have to spend her break working on college apps.
I’m just relieved that she has a plan!
@eandesmom My son completed the hiking badge, but this September will finally complete the back packing badge. His most difficult backpack was 21 miles in Philmont new Mexico for the order of the arrow trail crew. I believe the name was Baldy. It was very difficult as he did it but after he did he felt such a sense of accomplishment that he can’t wait to go back as a trail crew foreman when he is 18. He hopes to do that If they will take him. He is now obsessed wanting to climb mountain peaks. He says the stars will never look the same here in Maine compared to out there.
@fun1234 So has the mountain west suddenly become a college destination of choice? 
So with all my sons college tours he has not taken any colleges off his list so far. This is going to be a long process since he has none of the essays written. With my son’s 5 AP’s along with anatomy and physiology Union college interviewer was very impressed with his schedule. I hope he has a good year. Can’t believe that school starts soon and he is still not done with his homework. Any suggestions on how to get a kid to be able to whip out essays. When it comes to writing he just cant think about what to write. He is always like where do I start. He read the book how to write the college essay but I guess it wasn’t really helping much. I guess he will have to prioritize the schools he wants and If he doesn’t finish oh well.
@fun1234 what does the backpacking one entail? Philmont is supposed to be amazing.
Well, what you do for the order of arrow stays secret ;))
@eandesmom The backpacking is very extensive 3 3day trips and a long 5 day trip and is important piece to earning the national medal in outdoor achievement. Most kids don’t earn the medal it so he is hoping it will help him stand out on the college applications. He has lead a lot of trips too I guess you can say he has worked on it for 6 years since that is how long it took him to reach 125 nights of camping and we live in Maine so some of the nights were below zero. It helped him put to use some of his 99 merit badges. Those medals may be common down south, but up north is so cold.
Well he loved all the mountains in California. The university of san diego was amazing so he definitely could see himself there. A few hours to mountains. the weather was beautiful
He says he wants to be a doctor or a dentist, but I am thinking a college professor with summers off to do research since he loves the outdoors get his doctorate degree and specialize in something. He could be an expert in snakes He loves nature and travel and animals the more dangerous the better
Speaking of touring…
is anyone still doing it this month or are you breaking until Sept?
we i am in panic mode and feel compelled to hunt high and low for some financial safeties so we need to tour a boatload of places, but i got the impression that there isnt a whole lot to see this month. its enough driving that i dont want to just walk around ourselves–i think we need something slightly more organized–maybe not a formal tour, but at least setting foot in some of the major related buildings.
i dont want to waste time if everything is shut down-that will aggravate me more.
What’s the best way to fight jetlag @5:30 PM IST 5:00 AM Pacific)? Read posts in this group ( in a moving taxi) :))
@RightCoaster wrote
Yeah, same here. We live OTP (Outside The Perimeter) and asking us to go ITP (Inside the Perimeter, where most of the cool stuff is in Atlanta, lol), is like, ohhhhh, do we want to spend all night in the car to eat out at a cool restaurant? Nah. We can actually walk to a coffee shop, a froyo place, and 4 restaurants, so it’s hard to get us out of our neighborhood, lol.
Growing up in MA, everything was an hour away. Grandparents were an hour away, in each direction. Supermarket, hour away (finally they built one closer when I was a senior in HS). I remember a lot of cold, dark nights in the car.
I had a Kindle, but I found that having 500 books on the kindle encouraged me to start too many books and finish too few, so I switched back to paper books, one (or two) at a time. It’s now a brick because I forgot to plug it in before Amazon’s drop dead date earlier this year.
@flatKansas I would explain the TAMU situation to the registrar and ask him/her to explain how their policy of not handing out transcripts until 9/20 will work in that situation.
@stlarenas wrote
Me too. Otherwise the Swear Jar would be completely full by now.
@fun1234 wrote
Have him try starting in the middle (in medias res). A lot of movies start this way now, and it’s a legit literary technique. At the very least it’ll get him writing something, and then he can refine it to be appropriate for a college essay. The movie Deadpool is an excellent (if super gross and hilarious) example of starting in medias res.
Curriculum night is this week. I’m conflicted about whether to trot around and visit all of their classes. On the one hand, it’s fun to see what they’re doing and meet all of their teachers. On the other hand, I’m trying to obsolete myself as a Sikorsky Super Attack Helicopter Parent ™, and going to curriculum night for a senior and junior feels a little helicoptery…
** NYC TRAVELERS CAUTION **. Avoid Laguardia Airport for the next 2-3 years (yeah, you heard me) at all cost. I just dropped off my son for a trip to visit friends. The traffic due to major construction was so bad it took 60 minutes to get from the entrance to the drop off point. And another 90 minutes to get back to the exit. Strongly advise you folks to use JFK or Newark when traveling to NYC.
Joe Biden’s "third world airport " comment about Laguardia seems like a nice compliment after my trip there.
@snoozn I like your theory but for me I am a big fan of my e-reader but make my kids send written thank yous in the mail.
@kac425 …we are done with tours. We just ran out of time and honestly…out of $$. The colleges she has not seen will just have to wait until we see acceptances and offers (if any).
@kac425 I think it will all vary by school. We are out of time for the summer, but will probably fit a tour (3.5 hour drive) in early September and then another in October. Then that’s it I think, unless a fly-in comes through. Seems like lots of our kids here are headed back to school soon, although a few I’ve seen were September. If that’s you, you could have college kids on the campuses you visit before HS starts.