@payn4ward @RightCoaster Since 2006 Northeastern’s mean SAT score has risen from 1230 to 1426/1600.
https://accomplishments.northeastern.edu/assets/docs/IA16_6x9_FNL2_LR.pdf
Pulled into Bloomington, IN late. I65 sucks. Dark. Can’t see boo! Cubs are losing. Boo too!
@Fishnlines29 How do you do a year abroad freshman year? Or do you mean a gap year?
Re: Essays, I still haven’t heard anyone else’s kid mentioning tampons in their essay.
@MotherOfDragons My goodness, what DID you do? ^:)^ :-h >-)
Sad the Cubs are losing!
@hadmeathello – Re: year abroad freshman year. I don’t think this is what @Fishnlines29 had in mind, but some schools offer freshman admission if freshman enrolls in campus in London or Spain or wherever. This option is sometimes offered for one semester. Student has a spot back on campus after completing the semester or year abroad, and will graduate on time.
These students are ones who would not be admitted otherwise, but still allows student to enroll with her graduating class and allows university to fill those beds that are empty by second semester (if not sooner).
I have heard of this at NYU, Brown, Hamilton, and USC. I know there are many others, but the names are escaping me now.
While on this topic, Middlebury allows students to apply to be considered as Jan freshmen. I think they enroll 100, maybe 125, which is a significant group, given that the freshman class number fewer than 600. These Jan admits graduate in Jan, and grads and profs ski down this big hill wearing grad gowns.
My D filled Northeastern University Common App partially. They asked if she was interested in spending the first semester abroad. She said YES.
@hadmeathello I think N.U.in (Northeastern U. international) offers freshman abroad program. IIRC Colby College offers one too.
Ok. here comes google. freshman year abroad.
http://www.internationalcounselor.org/archives/1732
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/23/freshmen
Thanks for all the freshman year abroad info! :ar!
Cubs lost. Screw Case!
FB has little Halloween icons for Ha Ha, Wow, Sad, etc. We so need Halloween icons here!
@hadmeathello “$$ IT’s FREE $$” =))
@MotherOfDragons “we may take a break in November from college chat until December” =)) =)) A whole month?? No way.
QOTD: For there is one, non-CA, school for which I can’t even figure out how one would check the status and take comfort in the fact that I am not the only parent who wondered. I have learned from other CC posts that there is NO WAY to check but the kind folks at admissions send automatic emails when things are posted to the account (hello, your transcript, school report and counselor’s rec have arrived.) That doesn’t tell me if the LORs arrived but the GC did say she was mailing everything together in one package. Thank you GC. 
Then, after seeing @payn4ward’s post, I went to CA to make sure there weren’t any mishaps with selecting submit twice (great info @payn4ward, thank you!) I noticed the “downloaded” notation for the school report and counselor recommendation and became more curious. I went to the application portal and…it’s down for maintenance until Monday! =)) Just their way of toying with parents I guess. Seems like a long maintenance window to me.
Well guess who doesn’t want to finish their apps? I had to tell D too bad. We had an application strategy at the start and will be executing it to the finish, so she will be finishing her apps. Teens are fickle. I want her to have options and to explore all her options before committing anywhere.
@itsgettingreal17 D has some acceptances rolling in and is dropping schools left and right from our list. I’m mostly OK with it, but it’s not easy.
My Dd dropped several from her list. As long as she has options she can afford and she is willing to attend, I am ok,with that, too. Her POV is that she can only attend 1.
Yup, dropping schools like falling leaves. Essay fatigue.
No dropping schools here… he only had 4 to start with. (3 if you drop the instate one he doesn’t want to go to.) :((
Recent developments brought this to mind. Sharing, with love…
THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON
By Ogden Nash
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.
Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.
Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.
But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.
The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.
Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.
@paveyourpath – when you say
" I went to the application portal and…it’s down for maintenance until Monday! Just their way of toying with parents I guess. Seems like a long maintenance window to me."
Do you mean the college’s own app portal? Or some part of CA? I just logged into CA without issue, so perhaps it is a section that is down until Monday? Two more apps to file this weekend so hope CA is up and running!
I think she means college’s Check my status! portal. They must be busy updating all the things received and don’t want to be bothered by do you have my test scores? questions. @CT1417
More important would be having power and internet service ;
which get often affected in our area [-(
Anyone else have Halloween weekend plans? The two D’s and I are going pumpkin-picking and will carve jack-o-lanterns today. Then as many scary movies as we can stand. Tomorrow I’m going with the D’s and S18 and some assorted friends to a psycho-killer escape room. We will have an hour to find clues and solve puzzles to make our way out, no doubt psychologically damaged but still alive! >:)
Portals
I have set up the portals for all the schools that have emailed info on how to do so. On all of them, her app and scores show up as received. Right now the HS info hasn’t even been sent and I know to expect a delay of at least several days (probably more) before it shows up. Once I think they should have the HS info I’ll be checking more often. As it gets closer to decision time I envision myself checking three times a day or more!
Essays
Essays have been a bit contentious from the start. I.e., I’ll point out a comma splice. D fixes it by changing it to a semi-colon. I insist it should be a period. She argues that a semi-colon is allowed. I shoot back that a period helps the flow and makes more sense. She stalks off. She’s very defensive about her essays, but she still wants my help (usually). I want to help, but I know I’m going to get some teen attitude. We look at each other like two gunslingers in the old west and get started.
Having said all that, I thought her CA essay turned out very strong as well as the one “Why college X” she had to do. She had to do six 100 word (very cliche) essays for one school and announced she wasn’t going to show them to me. Kind of a relief really. She did want me to look at the honors essay for the same school, but ONLY FOR PUNCTUATION, SPELLING, AND GRAMMAR! It was hard not say anything. It was good, but looked like it was pretty much copy/pasted from a school report. Which I suspect it was. But it answered the question!
Excitement
D is totally over high school and very excited about going to college. She wants to be away from home (unlike oldest D was/is). But she also knows she’s going to miss her sibs, her dog, and even her parents.
I’m trying not to be too spoiler-ish, but tread with care if you haven’t seen Game of Thrones yet!
Remember that scene where a naked Daenerys stands proudly with the flames behind her and the Dothraki army spread out before her? Remember what she did just before that? I think maybe that’s how @MotherOfDragons ended up in jail.
Does anyone know if MyCalPoly portal shows SAT score status anywhere? I can’t find it.