D looked good in her scrubs and white coat this AM. She looked tired too. After dinner, she fell asleep on the couch.
And then D was up late reworking her essays. I wasn’t really excited about her essay topics, I thought they lacked the passion everyone here on CC talks about.
Yesterday went fine for S. Everyone on the team performed well, and the rest of the final is tomorrow.
@sushiritto We have been knee-deep in Essayville most of the summer.
I’m a professional writer and editor, and I found I really had to pull it out of her. My main advice to her (and anyone, really) is Tell Your Story. So, she’d start out each writing session saying “What I really want to say is blahblahblah.” I’d respond, “Then say that.” I told her to keep going until she said what she wanted to say, temporarily ignoring word count. She could go back and tighten it up or add more. Just get started and stop when you are done. I also made her put them away for a while, and come back to them. The greatest gift you can give your writing is time away from it, and be able to come back with fresh eyes.
I’m not sure her essays show blazing passion, either. She chose essay 2 on the common app (tell us about a time you failed or something like that). Her personal statement is better. Her nursing essay is much better. You can see how into the topic she was, lol.
I am not convinced how much these things are read, either. I heard somewhere that most AO just want to make sure you can put a couple thoughts together, and have the spelling and grammar correct.
My son’s writing is serviceable but he isn’t going to be writing any essays that will stand out from the crowd. It’s been that way since he was a kid. In second grade he had to start writing “book reports”…age-appropriate, just a few sentences about books he had read. His reading comprehension was excellent, and when I asked him to verbally explain the book he could easily and eloquently describe the plot and characters. Yet he agonized over the actual writing, and it took an inordinately long time for him to get down a few dutiful and boring sentences. He’s worked hard and has come a very long way since those first painful book reports and does great with technical writing, but anything that calls for flair or creativity is still painful for him. Heartfelt personal statements that will give AOs a true insight into his witty personality? Not likely…
Therein lies the dilemma for me/D. I’m a math-oriented person and so is D. D is an excellent student and she can definitely put “pen to paper” and get those “mechanics” (thoughts, spelling and grammar) down. But when you read stuff like “The Pizza Essay” that was posted on CC some time ago, her writing (and my writing) isn’t that type of quality/creativeness.
The fine folks here on CC keep saying the essays are the difference-makers, once the stat benchmarks are met. So with that in mind, I just thought her essays needed to have more personality and creativity and, hopefully, the final product will be improved. Although I get a lot of grief from D, at least she agreed that her essays needed more work and was willing to redraft them. That’s a win in my book. :D/
She’ll be applying to Cal and UCLA, among other colleges, and I have to wonder how many of the 100,000 essays will be read by the UC AO’s. OTOH, some excellent stat students get rejected too, so I don’t know the right answer. But, you gotta give it your best shot.
@traveler98 , that is my Son as well. He is not great at writing, PLUS it takes him a long time. The interesting thing is, he decided to address this weakness head on and become the school yearbook editor. That job is a tough slog for him, and a primary reason his ECs are thin. It takes SO MUCH TIME.
I hope it pays off at some point.
Good for your S, @DavidPuddy. He’ll do well in life. 
With some time at home now to process her two weeks at McGill, D has shot my odds board all to heck. She has asked for my help in adding another American option to her apply list, preferably a big public in a classic college town. I think Indiana U may be our best bet. She’d have a shot at decent merit, they have several Linguistics and CogSci paths, and it’s a large, pretty campus. It’s a 9-10 hour drive from home, so she wouldn’t be dependent on flying.
She had a fantastic time in Montreal, but her perspective on everything changed after spending a day back at home with her local friends. She’s part of a really tight-knit coed group through her sport. They’ve been close for three years, and it’s scary for D to think about letting that go and starting all over somewhere new. One of these friends even said the other day that “College is gonna suck” since they won’t all be together anymore. This is a group of bright, gifted, highly motivated leaders, so I am hopeful that they all can make the transition without too much difficulty and go on to do great things in their respective corners of the world. Still, it will be hard for all of them. D is really feeling it after her brief away-to-college trial run.
@ShrimpBurrito
Yeah, I remember when I was 18 and knew everything -especially everything about the future- and so made decisions based on that infallible knowledge.
Just kidding, mostly. Your daughter of course sounds like a very thoughtful person, good on her for experiencing things and analyzing them in proper perspective.
@DiotimaDM
Did you ever write up regarding your visit to Texas Tech? I thought you did but can not seem to locate it.
@DavidPuddy Here you go! As with some of the others, I added things and/or answered questions a few posts afterward.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20548698/#Comment_20548698
My D’s schedule for next year just came out. I wish her school would post what courses are offered during what time periods, so we could pick and choose her schedule, rather than listing the main classes she wants to take and letting them fill everything else in. As it now stands, some of her classes are really great, but she has both a study hall and an art, and is missing a class in the history/econ/pscyh category. I think her schedule looks way too light and fluffy for a kid who is trying to get into a super competitive school. Unfortunately we won’t be able to change it until the day before school starts, so I have to hold off buying her books until then as almost everything might change. Scheduling is tricky!
We may run into scheduling issues as well. Oklahoma public education is really in a state of emergency. Our district is short 50 teachers and school starts in less than four weeks. D’s favorite teacher, one of the superstars at her school and D’s ace-in-the-hole teacher rec, just announced she’s leaving the profession for a data entry job. Can’t blame her one bit, but it’s really sad.
Anyway, it’s unclear how this all will affect D. D requested her full schedule months ago, but if they don’t have the teachers, they can’t have the classes.
We have major insurmountable scheduling issues. S can either take French 5 or AP Physics. Each only offered once.
We have no knowledge of when things are offered until school starts, around here. Supposedly they make the schedule to fit the needs. There aren’t that many class choices, really.
Apparently the visit to Whitman was great, great, great. I’m eagerly waiting to hear more details tonight.
Well, we actually had a great HS administration experience, which is nearly a first. DS took some frickin’ initiative about his schedule, which is just as crazy.
At the end of the school year, they sent a “here are the classes you requested” letter with instructions to contact the guidance with issues before the end of the year, and it had some severe issues… like including courses he didn’t ask for or get teacher recommendations for. It was signed by an assistant principal. S wasn’t able to get in touch with his GC, and then found out the GC had moved on and that a new GC was being brought in cold. Well, I made S responsible for getting his issues worked out ahead of the first day of school when ~2300 students all try to fix their schedule. And he did it! He looked up the new GCs info on the HS site, which was listed but it didn’t have any contact info. Normally this is where my DS would say he tried and then go back to just waiting for the world to solve his problems. Instead! he reached out to the Assistant Principal who sent the letter at the end of the year via email… and amazingly she actually responded directly, looked up his actual schedule and sent several emails back and forth without weeks of waiting or reminders or anything… AND adjusted his schedule to fit! It was… bizarre… but awesome! He got his ideal schedule and is all set with 3 weeks to spare. I am nearly speechless.
AP Econ, AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Euro, AP Pysch and 1 semester of honors gov and 1 semester of DE Literature (which counts as 1 year of English credit on his transcript). I’ve always said our HS has a handful of great teachers and a lot of AP courses, but is too overcrowded so admin sucks… but now I finally may have learned the trick… skip guidance entirely. We will see how that works moving forward 
Crazy thought of the day: what is this child going to do with 14 total AP exams in his pocket?!
Scary thought of the day: Senioritis is going to suck with that course load!
We encouraged S to take it easy senior year. He’s a B student and nothing he does this year is going to change that. He has the SAT scores to get merit aid at some LACs if he decides to go that direction. The only thing he’s doing to take it easy, though, is replacing a class with a study hall. He’s still taking a couple of AP classes plus regular Calculus.
Scheduling problems here too. Just by chance, I got an early look at S’s schedule, which he otherwise wouldn’t have seen for 3 more weeks, right before school starts. He had asked for AP Computer Science 1 and 2, but they are only offered at the same time as AP English Lit. So they had him slated for a full year study hall. Talking to his guidance counselor, the most rigorous classes he can take are a local history class and Effective Writing, both of which are one semester Honors Classes.
S will be taking it easy over here, too. He only needs two classes to graduate, an English class and government, but he has to take at least four periods at the HS. His plan so far is like so:
High school
AP Lit
AP Calc BC
Honors Theatre (he’s an officer in the Thespian troupe)
Honors Anatomy & Physiology
CC
US Government (Sem 1)
Sociology (Sem 1)
Spanish 101 & 102 (Sem 2/Summer 1)
EMT-B (Summer 2)
He’s uncertain about the Spanish. He doesn’t want to take it at all, but he knows it’s basically mandatory for getting a job both here and in New Mexico. He would prefer to put it off until college except that it will help him get that EMT job he wants if he does it before. In addition, his college schedule with paramedic, pre-med and a double major will work much better if he can knock out the Spanish now.
Ok all this schedule talk is giving me serious flashbacks! D has had scheduling issues every year! She is really looking forward to the classes she picked and is, once again, sure that everything is going to work out. :-SS We won’t see if that’s true for a couple of weeks, about 2 weeks before school starts. If it works it’ll be a miracle. I’ve got my fingers crossed for her!
@ShrimpBurrito I hear a lot about how much it “sucks” to have to start over at college, just as she is really feeling settled with a great group of friends in HS. This is a big stumbling block for her. Change is never even a little bit easy for this kid.
So glad your D had a great visit to Whitman @daffodilpetunia ! I think it looks like such a special place. My D didn’t get a chance to visit but is likely cutting it from her list because she thinks the location is too rural and remote. It’s a financial reach for us anyway so hard for me to want to sell it too hard but I swear if her list of reasons not to consider a school gets any longer I’ll be able to publish it as a book! 8-|
It appears that Walla Walla itself is one of the things DD loved about Whitman, so apparently not at all too rural for her. Also she loves the way voice lessons for non majors work, and the huge grass quad area. She flew home in a Whitman tshirt.