Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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Private driving tests: That’s the default here in (relatively) urban parts of Alaska for standard car and motorcycle licenses—you can schedule a test with the DMV, but there are so few slots available that it isn’t worth the bother to save the ~$10 less it costs.

Kids at the same school: None of the schools on D17’s list offer the program(s) D19 is interested in. Amusingly enough, though, Kansas and Alabama are on D17’s list—and two of the schools that offer D19’s interests? Kansas State and Auburn. Hmmm, this could get interesting.

Kids on CC: None of my children are on CC. D17 doesn’t do message boards (she does spend an inordinate amount of time on Tumblr, though), and D19 is averse to pretty much all forms of social media in all its guises.

JOTD: As many of you know, I’m a linguist, and I’m pretty good at it. In fact, I’m so good that I used to consider myself the father of structuralist linguistics—but now I’m not Saussure.

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@dfbdfb: I had to look up Saussure because I only remember Chomsky from my Intro to Linguistics class :wink:

As always I am days behind in reading but caught a few QOTDs. Here we go …

Driver’s Ed: When taken at High School, no real DMV test is needed. Once the class is over and passed, the student only picks up the license upon turning 16. There are private driving schools and you can take the test on their car after practicing at the ONE and ONLY location in town. The tester is a DMV person though.

AP LIT Homework: “A Thousand Splendid Suns” as well as a package of literary devices/definitions. Test about the book to follow this week.

SIBLINGS: My DC will apply to some of the schools the other two applied. No danger in overlap!

FIRST DAY: Apparently went well but for the parking. Someone else parked in the reserved spot …

COMMON APP: Started but needs work, a lot of work. And a first application within the CA, of course. Waiting on NMSF … but ideally once that’s decided, the first or first and second apps should be sent.

Good luck to all the wisdom teeth candidates and LAST first day of school Seniors.

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@CA1543 I have also been wondering where @2muchquan is. Hope he and his family are OK.

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@VickiSoCal Did I say this before? But your D20 sounds similar to my son. Testing comes easy, filling in all the little boxes on the homework sheet is like pulling teeth. He’s a one & done kid. We are giving away his SAT books as I type this. But turn in all the homework to get the a good grade. SIGH… I keep telling myself he will get in somewhere. I just hope it’s somewhere he will be happy.

But there is hope for your daughter. Freshman year for S17 didn’t got well but he has matured so much in the past two years it’s even astonishing to some of his teachers. (And yes… he’s getting those teacher to write him letters of rec.) And his grades are much better sophomore & junior year. (Thus UC’s are a better bet than other schools.)

Even the organization has gotten better. He’s been cleaning his own room the past week. Although I think it’s to procrastinate from the other stuff that needs to get done. (cough, College essay, cough) I peeked in his room when he was gone and he has a handwritten note of everything he needs to do.

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@dfbdfb I groaned out load when I read your linguistics joke. Good one!

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Yes, I think we compared them already. Her room is where nightmares go to die.

I pray her high school grades are better than middle school. I mean, math is awesome. Go math. A’s every quarter last year in A2/Trig. As an eighth grader in a high school class! But there’s more to life, and school, than math.

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@MotherOfDragons - days and weeks from your question about checking the box on the CA for applying for FA -

Our perspective is we are not going to get any FA, but we are going to check the box. From what I have gathered from the financial aid forums, if you have not applied for FA as an incoming freshman, whether or not you get it, has an impact going forward. If you are not already in the pipe and subsequently have a life changing financial event, it can be difficult/impossible to be reassessed.

Just more forms. Oy.

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@VickiSoCal Yup the only two classes that got DS though junior high were math (8th grade was H.S. honors geometry) and Band.

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HS open house tonight. It was frustrating because you have to run through your kid’s schedule with bells and all. But I have 2 kids at the school, so I had to decide which teacher of the two to go to each hour (7mins)

I did learn they just hired a GC just for college counseling. New person and position this year. She said she is meeting with all seniors in their Sr. Eng classes this week and next and she will encourage sign ups for individual office hrs with her then. I am really hoping she will be helpful. Without Navaince or anything similar I am really starting to stress that we don’t have a realistic list. I would really appreciate if another knowledgeable adult could look it over and reassure us that her list is good.

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@starlenas ^You can post your list here or start a new thread, that is a pretty common request on cc.

My D does not read cc, but sometimes she googles for information and finds the answer here.

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Hoping the flooding in Louisiana doesn’t make for double the driving time next week when we visit Tulane

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@fun1234 …how are you approaching Louisiana? That whole area from Livingston parish to Ascension parish looks to be heavily under water. Are you driving to Tulane after Rice??

@stlarenas …you should put your list here. You are likely to get a lot of experienced feedback that could be helpful.

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Catching up on replies:

@mtrosemom Did ASU-Tempe seem physically large? My question (and dd’s) is the walkability. It’s so difficult to tell via online maps. I noticed lots of bus stops, but then again our local state flagship also has lots of bus stops yet is still walkable.

@BigPapiofthree @itsgettingreal17 Thanks for the IU scholarship information. I read the IU forum last night, waded through all the Kelley posts (good gravy), and saw the $11K amount mentioned by (almost every) oos poster. It seems that amount comes with acceptance and then others (honors $6-8K, school/program/major bits and pieces of $1-3K) follow in February-ish. D will dig more deeply into their programs.

@mamaedefamilia Thank you!

Driving Delaware drivers ed is handled through the schools. Everyone takes it sophomore year, no matter their numerical age. For those is small schools w/o enough sophomores to make a class or for homeschoolers, free drivers ed is available in the summer after sophomore year. Unfortunately dd was out of state for every session this summer (on paper she was still a sophomore this year; we changed her status with NM in January to be “year before graduation”). She’ll need to shoehorn evening drivers ed—and we’ll have to pay for it—through either the Y or the “adult” night school. No private drivers ed here; all programs, regardless of the location, are run by the state.

Figuring out scheduling that is on my running to-do list.

Kids at same schools My older two attended the same school with a 2 year overlap. Every once in a while they’d run into each other while crossing campus. D will not be attending that school because it does not fit her language needs.

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@oldbrookie thank you for that advice-I think that’s the route we’re going to go. H says “why wouldn’t we try for fin aid?” And I was like, ‘um, that’s a good point.’

Both girls got/will get their driver’s licenses through a private company. They can take the test through them. D17 got her license as soon as she could, D18 turns 16 tomorrow, should get her licence in November so she can take turns driving to school.

Last year D18 had a bit of a fear meltdown about the idea of driving and refused to get her permit, and we said, hey, the permit is for the beginning of learning, you don’t need to get your license until you’re ready, but you DO need to start learning. Most of the time she is afraid of the unknown and is a control freak (like her mom), and our policy is it’s ok to be afraid of the stuff you do know (I won’t get on trains after having been in a very bad train accident), but you can’t let the fear of the unknown keep you from living.

Once she started practicing with H she became a lot more confident. In a few weeks she needs to do the 6 hours with the private company on-road driving, but she wants more practice with H first since the driving company tends to really throw them in the deep end with regards to driving. Which I don’t love, but it seems like they all do that.

Same school: Nope. They’re very close in age and they HATE when teachers compare them. At least they look nothing alike, other than that faint sense of “oh you two are definitely related” when they’re standing next to each other (same height now, but one has long black hair and green eyes, one has short blonde hair and blue eyes).

Louisiana: Prayers for all the people there. I wish some of that rain could go to southern california. Prayers for them, as well.

D18 posted a hilarious photo on Instagram this morning of a kid building a wall made out of boxes of instant mac and cheese as his mom talks to him about his responsibilities at college, never noticing the giant wall of food products going up between her and her kid. D posted “I can relate”. Lol, kid, you have NO idea how easy you have it this year with regards to college stuff…

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@stlarenas Post your list and some basic stats about your senior, goals for college experience, and what you can afford (this can be generalized to protect privacy). People here are very helpful and experienced and will offer pertinent suggestions.

The open house with two kids is no fun! Mine are four years apart but attend a combined middle/high school so we also have to do the divide and conquer approach.

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So it now seems that the kids need to quickly “make up” everything they were suppose to learn this summer in AP Computer Science from the missing email. Last night DS17 had to watch over 3 hours of videos about CS. He was not happy. I can see an hour maybe 2 but over 3 in one day? Good thing he didn’t have a lot of other homework last night. Once he got done he saw there was some assignments on blackboard that the teacher hadn’t mentioned so he did them too. He thinks that might have been today’s homework but given the way the class is going he figured it was better to do it in case the teacher “forgot” to tell them about it… I think this is going to be a long year.

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Heading out in a bit with son17 for hopefully final college visit of the summer and meeting with a coach. Son also told me he wanted to work with an essay coach to finish/review his essays. His friend recommended her, so they will meet this work, that’s progress! After this week we are going to try to go up to the mountains for a few days for some fun and rest before school starts.

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@RightCoaster Good luck with the visit!

@MichiganGeorgia Is the APCS teacher new to the class? If not, I’d have my kid searching for students who had the class in the past!

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Can’t remember who but someone a few pages back asked that I share our thoughts on OK State after touring OkU. My DD did not like OK State at all. I am not sure if it was because of the incredible day we had just experienced at OU or what but early on she knew it wasn’t for her. It was the first day of classes, so the campus was active and there was lots to see. We started with a good sit down with the Dean of the Honors college. He reminded me of the guy in Jurassic Park who builds the park. He looked like him and had a Scottish accent. Honestly he was exactly what you would want in that position. From there we did the standard info session and four. I like when colleges preassign tour guides based on potential major or hometown or something. We ended up with the two guides that DD could not relate to at all. And to make it worse, they only spoke at stops. I felt like I was playing Follow the Leader. Oh, and the campus seemed very spread out, which wasn’t fun when the guides didn’t engage much.
I will say OK State has a beautifully landscaped campus. It really is pretty. And the dorms! We toured a suite which was two single bedrooms with full size beds and a shared bath. Common areas for gathering were in each hall. The traditional dorm that we toured was absolutely the nicest traditional dorm I have seen in about 20 tours. If all the dorms at OK State are as nice as the ones we saw, then that should be there selling point. Dining is a debit type system where it just deducts the amount of your meal from the total in your account. There is no typical dining hall on campus.
Stillwater is a cute town but definitely in a remote area. American Airlines is starting service from DFW into the Stillwater airport this month.
DD was so turned off by the day that we left before our academic appointment.

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@disshar That was me! Thank you for your honest review. We had many of the same feelings, but we visited over spring break while the campus was pretty empty so it was – reinforcing? – to hear that wasn’t the whole cause. S didn’t hate OkSU, he was just “meh” after having been at OkU the day before. Funny about the honors dean – I totally agree – but S didn’t care for the honors setup much at all. Your tour experience sounds like ours, although we did make it to the academic session, which was also impressive but somehow not appealing.

In the end, OkSU felt more to us like a place S could be happy at if he had to go there but wouldn’t be the top of his list. I’m not sure if he’ll end up applying or not since we don’t really need it as a safety.