@JenJenJenJen , Montreal is one of my favorite cities. Summer time is the perfect time to visit! We spent wayy too much time at the train museum (my son is a quirky kid, what can I say), loved visiting McGill and ate wayyy too many crepes while there, and the downtown area has a wonderful vibe. She’ll love it!
S19 is running XC every day and taking drivers ed Monday-Friday in June. He has art class every Tuesday and Thursday as well. He has a summer reading list for his upcoming AP Language class, so he needs to get going on that reading. And he’s prepping for the SAT to take it in August. Took a College Board practice test yesterday and got a 700R/730M. Working towards a 1520. He works during the spring and fall as a soccer ref and that is finishing up now. I think I’d rather have him spend time studying for the SAT this summer and not work.
We’re visiting some schools locally this summer and taking two trips to Minnesota and Ohio to check out schools too. If I can convince my husband, we will maybe head to NYC for a fun weekend before school starts on August 14th. So early!
I couldn’t convince him to go away to any sort of college camp this year. I’m hoping that next summer he will zero in on an interest and want to take a class or two. Art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago or some sort of environmental science college camp are most likely. I’m sure he will also want to find a job next summer too.
I forgot to include the AP summer work for Lang and USH. She has that too.
We weren’t going to add the job, she was going to do a library volunteer once a week instead. But then this job opened up and it was exactly what she wanted and exactly where she wanted to do it (town Rec program uses her high school’s pool) so it seemed too good to pass up. It worked out also because when I called for the library volunteer on the morning it opened, there was only one spot left. We let my d22 have it since she doesn’t have so much going on and wanted it a lot more anyway.
The job isn’t as busy in August since swim lessons are over. That should give her more time to get the AP summer work finished up.
Reading your kids’ activities… I think my D19 is spending too much of her summer enjoying herself, and not enough time doing set activities. I might sock her with a volunteering responsibility somewhere, out of the blue. I don’t think “surfing and chilling with friends” fits onto the EC section of the Common App, haha! Although, she wants to go to UCSB, so, maybe.
@JenJenJenJen ha! maybe she’s just fine. Honestly, running 50 miles a week and taking drivers ed isn’t exactly curing cancer over here. And S19’s art classes are only twice a week. He’s got lots of time on his hands. I just feel like he needs a breather from school and, with some downtime now, he has a chance to read for fun (which he never does during the school year) and to study for the SAT. Believe me, there’s lots of disc golf and hanging at the local pancake house going on…but he needs that in order to recharge a bit.
My D19 swims about 20-22hrswk, teaches swim lessons 8-10 hrs/wk, and fills the rest of her time with IB summer reading and catching up on Netflix! She needs to complete a 30hr online drivers ed, and peruse some SAT/ACT guidebooks and practice tests. She will be taking an online elective next year so she can leave school early for swim practice. I am hoping she can get started on that before school begins. Our school starts Aug 1, so the pressure is on and summer feels very short!
@Acersaccharum August 1!!! Wow! my D17’s college starts later than that. Maybe you live in a state which assumes and schedules for snow days.
@homerdog We don’t have a pancake house right off the beach, but if we did, D19 would be spending all her time there.The only easily walkable places from her surf spots are sort of gritty, like a biker bar called Neptune’s Net (actually, that one is VERY gritty, like, straight out of Central Casting) and restaurant she liked to go hang out at and chow down closed.
When she wakes up I’m going to talk with her about volunteering a few hours/week somewhere.
D19 finishes school this week. One week from today she starts Behind The Wheel classes (2.5 hours a day for six days, and then a driver’s road test). Then she is in a four week/30 hours per week arts/theatre program (runs until early August). Then she’s on vacation with us for two weeks. Then she has just under two weeks off before school starts. Somewhere in there she needs to squeeze in ACT prep along the way.
D19 is frantically pre-reading her AP world history textbook, but in a few weeks will be leaving that home to go (along with all the rest of us) on our massive D17’s-heading-off-to-college trip. (D17 is our oldest.) Other than that, though, it’s a pretty chill summer for her, and I have no regrets about letting her have quite so much relaxation.
Yeah, things just happened to fall into place this way for us. We definitely prefer more relaxation and don’t feel guilt over it either.
@JenJenJenJen , @mom2twogirls, we are with you here! No summer plans except visiting DH for 4 weeks. He travels a lot. Such vacation is our family time! We cherish this time a lot! We have planned rafting, kayaking, and hiking as a family. D19 and her friends spend a lot of time in local cafes. They go for hiking, mountain biking, swimming. She has started a bit of SAT prep on her own, nothing significant though…
Only 2 more days of school/exams. Final exams going well so far, so I think son19 might pull out all A/A- grades for the year which would be excellent. Very happy for him, he works hard.
Son19 has a pretty busy summer planned, but some down time thrown in too.
He starts off with a week of drivers ed.
Then on to volunteer at a track camp.
Then we will head to the mountains for 4th of July.
Then he heads out to RPI for an engineering camp.
Then to Tufts for a weekend camp.
Then he will try to get his driver’s permit.
At the end of summer he is going to a weeklong soccer camp with his high school team.
He also will try squeeze in some volunteering. Maybe we can get him to go visit a few local schools just so he can get a better vibe of the different types of schools he can choose from.
My son has already attended Youth and Leadership Training with the Boy Scouts. He will be taking drivers Ed, working on finishing up merit badges needed for his Eagle Scout, taking an SAT prep course at the end of the summer and reading his APUSH summer reading . He will also be pet sitting for 2 weeks. We will be heading to St Augustine for a beach/history vacation as well as a tour of Flagler College. Otherwise, he will be relaxing. My DS16 had laid back , relaxing summers and managed to be admitted to all 5 schools he applied to, as well as two honors colleges with substantial merit . I’m a strong believer in the need for downtime to prepare for the next school year. That philosophy has seemed to work for him. He’s attending his dream school on almost a full ride and made Dean’s List first semester and President’s List second semester .
Everyone is so busy! DS19 applied for a few summer jobs, but nothing panned out. My H has been really perturbed that he’s not working. DS volunteered at a week long school sponsored youth program last week. July is pretty chopped up between a family wedding out of state and then a week to the SITE Engineering program at Univ of AL. When he gets back from AL, he will start the swim team. School is back in session August 9th. There goes summer.
Since he did not get a job, I managed to get him to agree to visit Washington U-STL for an Engineering Day later this month. It is local & we have a college tuition benefit worth considering if he was to garner admission. It will be nice for him to have this private school visit done before he goes to Alabama. I have a long weekend in September targeted for Purdue. That leaves Missouri S&T (Rolla) for our other in-state engineering school (We visited Mizzou last fall). Other visits I am a little hesitant to put on the calendar until maybe we see how Junior year and the ACT proceeds. I’d like to see him also winnow down what kind of engineering degree he is most interested in. With these pieces of data, we might visit another round of schools as needed.
We’ve been working on his driving skills. I thought he was ready, but he failed the driving test this morning. So we’ll be out practicing in earnest for another week. Getting him driving independently will be a GREAT achievement!
Best of luck to all of you!! I read regularly but just don’t post too often!!
Well, first, S19 has to take all his finals this week (school ends 6/23). Mr. A minus seems . . . unconcerned. All As/A- grades are still possible but he seems to be leaving that to the power of positive thinking.
He has a 4-week long required online class (iEconomics & Personal Finance taking all of July. They can take it during the school year, but hardly anyone does). It’s pass-fail but I gather there are a lot of units to cover. That runs through August 2.
SAT studying and some driving lessons from his dad will hopefully happen all summer. He’s not ready for the behind-the-wheel class just yet. He needs to practice his instrument pretty much daily. Also, he needs to watch ALL the YouTube videos apparently…
No one seems to want to hire a 15 year old. No job this year. I might make him do some volunteering with our favorite dog and cat rescue just to work on his people skills a little.
Trips will be to Cape Cod to see a relative and to Colorado to drop D16 back at school. Oh, and five of his friends seem to be planning an unsupervised trip to the beach, lol. We might try to visit a college or two. I feel a need to nudge him towards VA Tech so I guess I should make sure it’s a place he would actually want to attend!
I don’t think most 15 year olds have jobs outside of babysitting here either. My d19 turned 16 in December, otherwise she wouldn’t. Some of her friends are 16 and have jobs but none of the 15 year old friends do.
FWIW, for those of you who have kids gearing up for applying to those (rare) schools where ECs and such count, babysitting and lawn mowing and those kinds of things are fine, and they apparently count big, based on some of the feedback my D17 got.
So if that’s the sort of school that’s on your radar, you don’t have to worry about getting your child getting a Highly Formally Structured Job or anything.
DS19 just got a 32 on his June ACT. Last year that would have been good enough for free tuition at UA but now it’s not. It would have been nice to know there was one affordable college out there for him. I guess I should be happy they made the changes this year so he has time to hopefully get a better score. He just finished driver ed… So next month he can get his drivers license. I am not looking forward to the extra 1,000 a year on the car insurance bill…
@mom2twogirls – my D19 has found the only summer job available to 15 year-olds like her is lifeguarding. Unfortunately she will be in an activity for four weeks in July, so lifeguarding would not work out for her. She is hoping to have a summer job in 2018 so she can save up some $ for college.