DORMS – S17/DH/I always look forward to the dorm room tour 
With all else being equal, S17 wants a Jack n’ Jill style dorm room – similar to what we have in our home – 2 dorm rooms (w/2 people each) connected by a shared bathroom. At a minimum he would want a dorm room with at least a sink. TBH, I don’t blame him – who wants to get out of bed in the middle of the night & walk down the hall to use the toilet? For the U’s on the list, 1 requires 3 years of living on campus, 1 requires 2 years on campus, and the rest require only 1 year living on campus.
Dorms: D17 doesn’t care that much. The food, however…!
Absences for college visits: D17’s school has a structured 1 week spring break as well as the regular Spring Break that coincides with Holy Week. Seniors, instead of doing a structured program, can use that time for campus visits that are farther afield.
Her school is pretty supportive about college admissions absences in general, as far as I know.
carachel2 I am driving from Huston Texas to Tulane. I was told that it still possible to drive there. What do you know?
@carachel2 see above note
Tours & Applications: I believe we have visited seven schools, and I think D17 application list will be about 7 - 10. I can see once she goes back to school (on Tuesday!) her list might grow based on friends school lists. Or it might shrink based on school work load and lack of time to finish applications. We’re not chasing merit aid (not going to happen) or specific coursework, so it’s pretty wide open where she would be happy (preferably a small liberal arts college, far from home, with generous financial aid!)
Absences for college visits: I’m not sure if the school has an official policy, but it’s very tough to miss a day of school because of the heavy workload. Plus D17 has a very challenging year ahead, so missing school isn’t likely for a visit. That being said, while she is free to apply to a school sight unseen, she isn’t allowed to commit to them until they’ve been visited.
Dorms: Back in my day, this was the most important thing around any decisions, I wasn’t keen to share a bathroom down the hall and was adament that I be in a suite. Luckily, it worked out for me! And now, I would be fine running down the hall! I think D17 prefers dorms with a bit of character to them (and really hated the 1980’s style dorms at the University of Minnesota we saw to the point that they are a dealbreaker in her attending (but she will be applying.)
College Talk: Nobody has questioned the list of schools D17 is interested in, at her school, kids tend to go out east so the list isn’t unusual. My parents seem to have done some of their own research and have stopped suggesting Stanford - I think as long as it’s a school that they have heard of, they will be happy (and they will be helping to pay a bit, so I want them to be happy!)
@dcolosi Welcome! There are currently 13 schools on the list. It was 14, 2 were removed then 1 was recently added. I don’t think S17 will apply to all 14 because he may take a couple more off the list but we’ll see how it goes. We have visited about 15 schools, all of which are on the east coast. Things are definitely different than when we were applying to college.
QOTD: When S17 is asked what schools he is applying to he has two responses. For curious individuals, he lists 2 schools and then goes into the geographical location response. After we left a Dr appt, I told him I noticed this question made him uncomfortable. He said it does because everyone acts offended that he doesn’t want to go to one of the “many excellent schools right here in your own back yard.” When asked by family and close family friends, S17 is comfortable discussing colleges he’s applying to. It’s a very varied list and our family and family friends love to get the update on schools on the list. They want to know what he liked about these schools and what he didn’t like about schools that didn’t make the list. They ask him a lot of questions and actually haven’t expressed any opinions other than excitement.
QOTD2: Students can have 5 days off to visit colleges. They kindly remind everyone, as they did last week, of the multiple long weeks between now and December that they would prefer kids take advantage of rather than miss school but there are the 5 days. That’s 5 days pre-app submission. It seems to be a more flexible policy for admitted students visits with kids taking another week or more to visit schools in April once they are admitted. There are a list of colleges coming to visit at S17’s school and the students are excused from class to attend the the info session. The students are not excused from missed work but they work it out. All kids have laptops and all work is posted to the class sites so the kids can travel and keep up easily. School is very supportive of kids and the college process.
Sick days: Illness is an excused absence at our school. Parent needs to contact the school. No doctor visit is necessary.
S17 is back at school and they are doing a very nice job of making it fun for the kids. The seniors are being treated pretty special this week, they have a 3 day senior trip coming up and started taking fun pictures for the year book already. I think it’s helping relieve some of the stress.
I volunteer in the attendance office so this one rule I do know about. lol.
Juniors and Seniors can have 2 college visits a year. They must be approved before hand and they must bring back a signed letter stating they were there. A business card from a the university is not acceptable. What’s the big deal if it’s not approved? well any time a student misses school it’s marked as unexcused. Students have 3 days to bring in a note from home stating they were sick, at the doctor,if they went to court or turn in a college visit letter. If they do not then ANY school work that was supposed to be turned in or a test/quiz on that day is a Zero. So you do not want to mess up your grade.
@2muchquan still MIA? He mentioned D17 was off to band camp. Hopefully he is just enjoying some relaxation time and taking a break.
@fun1234 …I would look carefully before heading out to NOLA from Houston, I 10 looks to be closed at the Texas Louisiana border. Heavy rain headed that way again. http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/03/interstate_10_closed_texas.html
@dcolosi My daughter has 7 on her list and she did 12 visits. We have one more left.
So I just took a look at D’s color coded essay chart and looks like she has these left:
Oklahoma - 3 short answers (only applying if make NMSF)
Villanova - 8 short answer questions (won’t be revealed until after submits app)
NC State - 3 essays (1 won’t be revealed if/until receive invite)
tOSU - 1 essay (won’t be revealed until submit CA)
UT - 2 short answer questions, 1 essay (opens ~9/1)
Ole Miss - 2 essays (1 is in progress)
U of South Carolina - 3 essays
UGA - 2 essays (revealed 9/1)
This doesn’t take into account overlapping prompts, and there are a few.
I think @2muchquan has been hanging out with Jim Morrison and Novimom. Wish he’d come back to us. Hope all is well.
Seeking the sanctuary of this thread before I post something I regret on one of the other threads. submitting post comment on this thread so I am not tempted to on the other. Jeepers. Some people are so judgmental and their posts make it 100% obvious that they are clueless about the realities of what they are being so judgmental about!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek this thread does feel a little like a “safe space” sometimes
Our Mythical Merit list is: Smith & Lafayette
Our not quite as Mythical (I wish we had the “TM” symbol, lol) Merit list is basically RIT, which I have also discovered only asks for the FAFSA, and is thereby deemed our official Safety School of Truth & Beauty
I have been swamped at work and getting kids ready for back to school and this thread moves too fast for me!
QOTD - reactions… We have started keeping our mouth closed and avoided the college question after the initial reactions to Ds list. Friends made fun of her about her #1 choice and won’t let it go - even their moms have questioned me incredulously over and over - they feel that I am keeping from them that she is really going for all ivy caliber schools instead of a popular on CC southern flagship. At first I explained and defended – they continue to bring it up in a disbelieving way (she would be the first from her HS to go in recent history according to Naviance and her GC but i don’t understand the shock). Her grandparents keep driving her crazy with their overconfidence in her – “of course you’re getting into Harvard, why are you wasting your time with U of ___?” um…no.
days off for visits… Her school allows 5 days senior year with proof of college visit (agenda, email confirmation, parking pass, etc…). We tried to use one of the days last year when she was a junior with the “proof” of visit but the school marked it unexcused - they do not permit college visit days during junior year??
D has no idea how many schools she is applying to - at the moment there are just 2 - her favorite southern school and our in state flagship. Both are safeties and we can afford. She is happy with the 2 but continues to look into other schools. She also has been reading CC and believes that I am a different poster because our daughters are so similar and everything the other poster on this site writes could have been written by me!
QOTD - Days Off for College Visits
I don’t know what our HS’s policy is. But what I have done is to send an email a few days before, saying that D has “an appointment”, and with travel time, she will miss the whole day. Not a lie, and nobody ever asks about the appointment.
@novicemom23kids, why do people have to be like that? They can’t see past their narrow misconceptions.
QOTD: Oy vey. We’re going strictly “need to know” basis for any real reach schools (in D17’s case, probably Georgetown, Tufts, and Cornell (CALS)) because I’m really not interested in having the conversation with people who last looked at the college admissions situation 20-odd years ago, and have no clue how much things have changed.
Even my nephew who went through the process 10 years ago is out of touch regarding the extreme level of competition these days for those slots at “tippy top” colleges. Although I certainly think D17 is wonderful and has great grades and scores and dedicated ECs, she’s just not at that “world class” level, and there’s no way to explain what that means to people who are not in the know without them thinking you’re somehow selling your kid’s chances short.
@novicemom23kids …so the friends/moms think you are starting an elaborate scheme to say your daughter is applying to Bama but you are really conniving and having her apply to some major elite schools? Oooh…that is RICH! Girl I’d have fun with that one! But I’m kind of snarky like that in real life.