@dadotwoboys it is my understanding that UM gives a NM scholarship if you identify it as #1 choice by the deadline, and that qualifies you for Benacquisto (must have a NM award). The funds dispersed by the state for UM are for the max COA for a public university (FSU’s?) minus the NM award amount and minus Bright Futures amount (even if you don’t get BF). This means if you get a NM award through an employer, that would also trigger Benacquisto to qualifying in-state privates that don’t do NM awards themselves… such as Florida Tech. Please be sure to double/triple check though as I really am only just getting up to speed myself. This is currently limited to florida HS graduates. YMMV. Caveat emptor. Etc. 
Thanks @NamePoster I figured that must be how it worked at UM, but wasn’t sure. Frankly, S’18 would prefer UF or FSU, but good to know.
@1822mom Willamette does have men’s cross country and track. http://www.wubearcats.com/landing/index
Sorry, I meant to direct my last post to @1518mom, not @1822mom. @1518mom, Willamette does have men’s cross country and track. http://www.wubearcats.com/landing/index
@NamePoster; @dadotwoboys; @wustl93 - good for you for having zero or almost zero costs for AP exams! That’s a tidy sum saved over the course of high school.
@DiotimaDM - thanks for filling-in that final piece (the stacking question) of the UNM NM Scholarship package!!
I had my water heater replaced today & then had to call a guy to come and fix the garage door. We’ve been on this crazy streak of calamities this past 4 months. First, a guy hit my (old) car from behind and bent the spare tire that is mounted in the back - he was actually a nice guy, but an undocumented worker with no insurance so I just let him go on his way. Then, my wife’s new car was hit by a high school girl who was driving her mom’s BMW (ouch!). Again she was a very nice kid (sincerely sorry for the damage caused) & the insurance took care of that one. Then just in the past 2-weeks, our TV in the living room went out, the microwave stopped working, the stereo amplifier died, the water heater sprung a leak, and the garage door decided not to open or close.
I wish I was one of the lucky folks saving all of that money on AP testing - that would have covered a bunch of our recent expenses!! But, I’m keeping my head high and I keep repeating @my2caligirls AP mantra: “No pain, No gain!”
I feel some of your pain, @LMHS73! My transmission went out in one car (ay yi yi was that pricey to fix), and then D got into not one but TWO fender benders in the space of a week and a half, both caused by her inattention. Luckily the other drivers were nice and let me pay out of pocket for the repairs because otherwise my already high insurance rates would have skyrocketed. My mantra became, “Hey, at least no one was hurt!” but yeah, that hurt.
I was shocked at how much our car insurance went up for a girl, even without adding a third car. I can only imagine how bad it is for teenage boys! Next summer we could have two female teen drivers on the roster, assuming my youngest passes her test.
There are some things I’d love to get done around the house. New flooring, for one. But then I start running NPCs, and realize I can live another 8 years with my torn linoleum and you-don’t-want-to-know-how-old carpeting. 
@bearcatfan , when we added my D15 to our policy, our auto insurance doubled. Quite the hit. So when S18 was ready, I was prepared for another huge increase. But it turned out to be very reasonable. Apparently, many insurance companies have a teenage driver penalty they add to policies when you add the first teenager, that is only applied once. So the second teenager is not as expensive. Counter-intuitive to me but whatever.
Insurance makes no sense to me! You’ll might be interested in this thread
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1972913-renters-insurance-p1.html
I mentioned that when we add renter’s insurance next year for D16’s apartment it will cost us $97 a year but we’ll get a $120 annual discount on our umbrella policy. How crazy is that?!
@NolaCAR That’s weird! They told us they didn’t…which means they should educate their tour guides better, a ding against them from this parent’s perspective. I don’t think my son will change his mind, though. And, that’s fine. He needs to thin his list a little more.
I know a number of people say you can’t judge a school based on their admissions staff and tour guides, but, I strongly disagree with that. If they’re giving out such blatantly incorrect info, that’s a problem for me.
I don’t know @1518mom I mean, I agree that interactions with guides and admissions staff is important, but I also think it sometimes plays too big a role when none of those people will be involved in our kids lives once they matriculate. It’s true that the guides are students and thus representatives of the campus, but they are only one person. And I agree giving wrong info is not a good look for any school, the guide should have directed you to the website if they didn’t know the answer.
That said, I do know that guide interactions are influential. D & H had a terrible guide at L & C, though they swear they didn’t hold it against the school and gave it the benefit of the doubt, I think that truly was the end for that school for D. The visit as a whole was bad though, so I suppose in this case the guide was the icing on a really bad cake. 
But I also know that you and many others on this site have had great visits there, so I am still somewhat mystified by the level of awful they experienced on the day they were there. Sometimes I think it’s luck of the draw on these visits!
But like you said, thinning the list needs to be accomplished somehow, so a bad guide is as good a reason as any!
@1822mom I think he was just not feeling it in the first place. And, we didn’t know the information was wrong until today. I will tell him, but I don’t think he’ll change his mind. I think part of his selection method on the tour is to take it all in and imagine himself there while we’re walking around. He couldn’t do it with Willamette. I actually liked the school quite a bit, but I’m not the one going.
The way I look at it, to a certain extent, is that colleges are a business and the admissions office is part of their customer service department. Bad customer service is a big turn off to a lot of buyers.
^^agree!
The way I see it, if a school puts proper care and attention into their admissions staff and presentation, it gives me confidence that proper care and attention are being put into other areas as well. If they are sloppy with their first impression, I’m going to assume that sloppiness exists elsewhere.
I have to disagree a bit. My older D now attends a college that has offered her incredible opportunities and mentorship. It’s been so much more than I ever anticipated. The college visit though? The info session was fine, but the kid leading the tour did not do a very good job. He was hard to hear and couldn’t answer a number of questions. Maybe he was having a bad day, but it didn’t leave the greatest impression. I’m so glad she disregarded that visit when choosing where to attend!
@ShrimpBurrito Exactly!
Well, Stanford can have The Tree dance around and thru campus, not say a word (which he/she doesn’t anyway), on our tour, and it’s not going to dissuade my D about applying there for 2018. =))
Thought of another thing my child is going to do this summer … her own laundry. :)>-
Maybe she will understand my irritation when the pile of CLEAN clothes on her window seat gets so high from not being put away that it falls on the floor, to mingle with the dirty clothes there.
It’s a small problem in the grand scheme of things, and I’ve learned to just shut my eyes when walking by her room. But part of me getting her ready to launch is making sure her future roommate doesn’t want to kill her. :))
@NolaCAR @1822mom Lol, when I told my son about Willamette’s XC/T&F teams, he responded in typical teenage fashion: “W T F?” Then, after a long drawn out pause: “Why did the tour guide say that then? Well, I didn’t like the school anyway, so I’m still not going there.”
@suzy100 I’m glad it’s working out for your D. What we’ve found, though, (in our vast experience, lol), is that there is more than one school that will provide those opportunities. I want my kids to listen to both their heads and their hearts, and, if they’re just not feeling it, move on to the next one, especially when their lists need thinning. Right now, I’m completely happy with S18’s top two choices and I think he’s likely to be admitted with merit to both.
When we visited S18’s top choice last summer, D15 expressed regret that she hadn’t considered the school because she was just done with college search and selection. But, she’s amazingly happy where she is. It was a rare opportunity to point out that this was a perfect example which demonstrates why having a dream school is a mistake and that they can be happy in more than one place.