Congrats @ShrimpBurrito! How entailed is the Barrett app? My daughter needs to do that, too.
Does anyone have a handle on what’s going in St. Louis right now? With the rioting, I mean – the news paints a pretty grim picture.
The reason I ask is that my D18 has an airline ticket in-hand to fly to St. Louis in 2 weeks (traveling by herself) to visit Wash U. Someone from the school will pick her up from the airport and take her to campus.
Has the violence reached that part of town?
Good/Bad idea?
Should I pull the plug on this trip?
I don’t want to open up a political can of worms on this one – I’m just concerned for my D’s safety.
Thanks
Congrats to your daughter @ShrimpBurrito on the ASU acceptance. Good luck with the Barretts! Once that application train starts rolling things just fly by! It’s nerve wracking to see which stations the train stops at between now and the final.destination!
@LMHS73 it’s most likely that STL will be calming down by the time she visits. Tension is much lower in the surrounding areas of STL, but WashU is rather close to the city, so I can see how you’re worried. Regardless, she should not meet any violence in that area. The campus has its own environment and is safe, as is the airport. As long as she stays with the school, she’ll be just fine. I’ve been around that area during times of deep conflict and it felt relatively normal.
@trish02 the problem wasn’t with the math. She took BC as a junior and is taking MV Calc as a senior. Without sounding too much of a braggart, as Darth Vader said, “the force is strong with this one.” 
Congratulations @ShrimpBurrito!! That’s great.
Congratulations also @lifegarding at getting the first one done! Big step
Update ones say: D has TWO ideas. She won’t share them and that is fine. She is emailing lit teacher to meet with her and her her feedback. I am happy she has ideas! I need to step back and trust in the universe that she will get the help she needs from her AP teacher
Above post is supposed to say essay! Stupid auto correct
Trying to get college applications underway and finally made some essay process this weekend (still a lot to do though).
Question about awards/honors on applications. If your DS/DD won end-of-year school awards (e.g. Biology Award or Spanish Award), do you list that or only regional/state/national awards?
@Kayak24 If you have the room, list them. The more the merrier, I say. 
My D listed hers @Kayak24 she doesn’t have any major awards so the school level ones will have to do Just honor roll, and believe it or not the PE Award freshman year ;
She’s completely embarrassed by it and didn’t want to list it, but I said, hey they only give these to one or two kids each year, be proud and just list it. So she did. But honestly, those awards annoy me a bit, her sophomore year the English teacher chose the recipient in class by pulling a name out of a hat - literally. 8-|
In our house this weekend there is drama. D is working one school at a time on the shorter questions. Her school for this week (and next because they have so many questions) has her tied in knots, and I’m getting frustrated again. She has spent nearly all day on a (up to) 200 word essay “why your major?”. D is undecided so she just has to write about why she’s undecided and as a side bonus, what about this school she feels could help her “find herself.” Pretty basic, I wasn’t asking her to get fancy with it, just write it. I swear I could’ve written it in 20 minutes without breaking a sweat. She’s not done. Not even 100 words. I. can’t. even. X( She then decided to try to refresh a bit by trying some of the school’s “short response” questions. These are things like “what song should we listen to while reading your application?” and stuff of that nature. Yeah, she spent about an hour, maybe came up with one answer and yelled at me when I told her she was over thinking it. ~X(
@sushiritto I love that brag.
Life can be hard so it’s nice to have opportunities to appreciate and share success.
I think one of the competitive merit schools might be off the table. One of my younger kids was spotted wearing the the tshirt D was given when visited. I don’t think that would happen if D was still considering the school. But it is an unusually ugly shirt, like actually repulsive in the literal sense. It seems to be advertising not to go there.
@sushiritto I’m sorry if I sounded negative about your D, that wasn’t my intention at all. I was speaking generally about the difficulty some kids have with physics. I guess that’s what I thought your comment/questions was about… difficulty of physics in general. I apologize whole heartedly!! BTW… your D sounds like a math rockstar!! Awesome!
@ShrimpBurrito I’m not sure if she’ll run into a problem on the AP test. I asked my son about the test and if he could have used Calculus. He couldn’t remember… said it is all a blur. LOL. Sorry, I know that’s not helpful.
@trish02 it was a good question and no worries at all.
@1822mom I can relate! This process is so painful for kids that aren’t natural writers. The number of required essays is overwhelming when applying to a large number of schools, and that is before even getting started with scholarship essays. And don’t get me started on the colleges that come up with absurd topics like “tell us about your quirk.” Really?
I have been trying to get S3 to just start google docs with essay questions and then whenever he has a bit of time to just pick one and throw some words on the page–anything! An hour later he will have a sentence and a glazed expression. I haven’t done the math, but I estimate he has 40-50 essays to write. How is this going to work?
My oldest S could literally sit down and write a complete essay in under half an hour. He didn’t rewrite, he didn’t over think, he didn’t ask for editing or input, he would just hit send. At the other extreme S2 refused to apply to any schools with supplemental writing.
@LMHS73, I would not worry about the visit. We are slated to visit in October, but if it was in 2 weeks I’d still have her go. I think she’ll be fine and I’ll be interested in any feedback you get.
S has a final draft Common App essay done. It is a completely new topic that he started and finished today. I read it, and I think the essay is pretty good in the sense that it says a lot about him, he is the only one who could have written it, and has good structure. He is going to have one of his teachers review it. The only concern I have is that it doesn’t directly answer any of the specific prompts. It’s close to the adversity / obstacle prompt, but not exactly. How much do you think that matters? I guess if all else fails, he can submit it under the catch-all prompt.
omg yes @planner03 ! The crazy thing is I never thought of D as not being a natural writer. She’s in an IB program which requires a lot of writing. She’s had a few issues with that but it just honestly never occurred to me, I think because she does always get it done, and done well. I even told her today that if a teacher assigned this and her grade depended on it, it would already be done. But, upon reflection, I think you are right. She writes well, but it is not her natural state. That’s hard for me to wrap my mind around because I am a natural writer.
I haven’t looked at how many essays she has to write but there are only a few that have these twitchy ones, most just have “why us?” and that’s it. We have the “quirk” essay as well, that one only has RD so those will be her last essays. I wonder if she’ll end up dropping the school or by then she’ll just roll with it?