My S19 is going to Germany with orchestra in January (the top orchestra goes every other year and this is his one and only chance), so I was relieved when he said he wanted to skip the regular orchestra trip later in the school year. Between Germany and trying to save for him to do some summer programs next year, the second trip was not going to happen anyway!
@homerdog S19 likes Preacher & his Playstation, D20 watches a bunch of S. Korean shows(good friend is an exchange student from S. Korea), I read ALOT but love watching GOT, Real Housewives, Shooter, and Football with Hubby!
The talk of TV made me realize I havenāt shared that my job is changing, at pretty much the worst possible time. Iām gonna be working nights and weekends for the forseeable future 
My days off will be Tues/Wed, and I start work at 5. Unless there are school-related events on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I am effectively shut out of Dās junior year. NOT TO MENTION COLLEGE VISITS.
Iām so bummed.
@Gatormama I clicked Helpful for āHugsā as there are no Hugs button. =(( We used Helpful as Hugs in '17 thread.
@Gatormama {{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}
@Gatormama {{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}
I notice S19 is starting to prep SAT doing CB book a section a day (at a time, as some days are skipped) :!!
I grade each section afterward, he redoes the incorrect ones, and then I let him read the CB answer explanation for the ones he still misses the second try. He claims ābad question!ā or BS on those :))
We are not going to do a full test at one seating at home. Not going to happen. So his August test will be a full seating practice 
multiple post.
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@Gatormama - bummer about the job days/hours, esp. during jr. year. Your are living my greatest reason I have not gone back to an office job after seriously considering giving up my at-home business. While I could probably make more money being an underling again, I just hate the possibility of missing out on all the school and social related stuff that junior and senior year brings. And with D19 being my last, I want to relish the next 2 years. So BIG HUGS to you!
Thanks - I like the idea of H for hugs and I also liked @4MyKidz and @payn4ward 's oodles of hugs 
@Gatormama I hear you about missing things. Iām a math tutor so I obviously work during times when kids are out of school. I try to make my appointments while our kids are at their ECs so I drive them around and then head to see my students. Still, there are plenty of nights when Iām not home from 7-9. I leave my husband in charge. 
DS19 is signed up for his SAT prep class that runs for 6 weeks starting the end of August . Heās not taking an overly rigorous schedule . Heās firmly entrenched in the top 10% of his class so he is not threatening anyoneās rank. Itās a nice place to be with decreased pressure.He is taking 1 AP class next year, APUSH. The rest of his schedule is Chemistry 1 H,Art 2, Image Editing, Spanish 4 H, Precal H and English 3 H. His ECs will be Scouts( working on Eagle) , Science Club and Team, Academic Team and Youth in Governmemt. They may also be starting a Historic Preservation Club that he will join. We still have TV time at night . Our busiest night is Tues.
UVMās top award is 18 so it just depends on how much you need. Overall weāve been quite pleased with the school, Iāll let you know how it goes once school actually starts!
@eandesmom Good to know. We could probably make due with a $10-12K award (more would be nice!) Iāll add it to the mental list for now. At the very least, maybe weāll have an excuse to visit Vermont during the 2018 ski season!
S19 took another SAT practice test today and keeps getting more or less the same score (a little lower than expected based on his PSAT and the year thatās passed since he took it). Now heās thinking about looking at the ACT after all. I wonder if he should just take it with minimal prep in September before school really gets started. D16 did pretty well on the ACT without prepping for it.
@homerdog regarding AP Studio Art, I am worried about the amount of work that D needs to finish. She had a hard time last year keeping up with her Drawing & Painting Honors class due to a combination of ADHD and just plain procrastination. She tends to think up overly complicated ideas and then gets stuck,and her anxiety and perfectionism holds her back from declaring a project done. Thatās something she really needs to get a handle on for this AP class. Right now her plan is to be pre-med, not art school. So like your S she will submit a portfolio just to show interest and ability in art.
@carolinamom2boys our tv is on as well. I actually donāt regulate it. My kids tend to moderate it themselves as needed and always have. They are much better at it than I ever have been. If they have homework that needs focus and/or they need to study, they choose to leave it off. Otherwise, if they want it on, then itās on.
D19 did a proctored practice SAT at our library this week and did very well. She has gotten through 2/3 of her prep books. I told her that if she does as well as she did on the practice, then she only needs to take the SAT once. She really liked that idea.
She also has her APUSH done. She still has some AP Lang to do, but likes to wait until closer to school starting (after Labor Day for us) to read the book because otherwise she wonāt remember enough minor details for any quizzes/tests. She has to read The Glass Castle, which sounds interesting and there is a movie version coming out this weekend.
Hi everyone - we are back from our 2 week vacation to Mass and Maine to visit family and friends. D19 did not do even one practice SAT questions while we were gone - uh oh! However I think she may be a little more excited about the college process now because we visited two colleges. When I was setting them up and talking about them she seemed almost nervous. Every time we would talk about what she might want in a college she said she didnāt know. I would tell her not to worry that she would start to figure it out as she saw some but she didnāt believe me. I could tell within minutes of getting to the first stop that she started to understand what I meant by āyou will just know what feels right when you see itā - she went from looking nervous to looking completely excited and happy.
We went to Bates and Bowdoin with Dās best friend and her mom (my close friend.) We live in FL and they live in NH so the girls only see each other a few times a year. They are super close and I think it was special to do our first tours together.
I was a little worried because as Iāve said before we donāt qualify for financial aid and are not 100% on paying full price for these schools. We talked about it with D so she knew ahead of time but it was still hard to go visit knowing we may not even get to apply. But, we were right there so decided to go ahead anyway.
- didn't realize how long this would be -sorry! -
BATES
This was extra special for us because my dad and brother went to Bates. First stop was at the Blue Goose, the local dive bar that has been there forever - both my dad (class of around 1960) and brother (around 1985) hung out there as students! We went inside and the locals were super nice and took our pictures and even pulled the plastic blue goose from behind the bar so we could pose with it.
Then onto the admissions office. We had a little bit of a hard time finding it because I followed my phone map instead of looking at the signs. Got there with a few minutes to spare. There were about 15 kids there with their parents. We had two tour guides and after they introduced themselves they split us up into separate groups of parents and kids. I was glad D had her friend with her since this was her first tour and she is a little shy.
Our tour guide was great -he was outgoing, told us a good balance of things academics and social life. We got to go in a few buildings but not a dorm room (although we did see the common area of a new dorm.) I thought the campus was absolutely beautiful - a nice amount of open spaces and places to hang out. I liked everything I heard about the curriculum and the traditions - I really love that they have a short term semester. They only have one dining hall and your meal plan is included with tuition - it is also unlimited! There was also a pub type food place but I canāt remember if that is only open at night? They do not have a student union - the dining hall is used as sort of the social hang out place.
We got back together with the kids and rushed out ASAP (had to skip the info session) to get to Bowdoin on time. It was fun to talk to the girls and see what they thought - I loved it more that I was expecting to and they really like it too. It sounded like our tour guide gave us much more information though and we had to tell the girls a lot about what we had learned. Their only worry about the school was that their guide made Bates sound like it was not the most āfun/partyā school. Not that they want to go to a giant party school but they both want a place where studying and having fun is balanced. Their guide kept saying that nobody ever has parties or goes out except to school type events. I told them not to worry about that part yet - their guide was a recruited athlete so may be less likely to go out and party.
The only other drawback was the town - it is a very blue collar town that looks pretty run down. Now we knew that coming in and since we were in a rush we did not get to go all over town, only saw a little bit driving in so we didnāt really get to see the area where the students might hang out.
We grabbed a drink and rushed back to Brunswick to tour Bowdoin.
BOWDOIN
Turned out I looked at the time wrong - we had an extra 1/2 hour to get to our tour. The girls wanted to eat something so we went to grab a sandwich when we got to Brunswick. We stay in the next town over so we know that area very well, yet we still managed to time it wrong and got to the tour a few minutes late. The people in the admissions office were so nice and rushed us over to find a group to join.
This tour had about 12 kids but we all toured together so the group was bigger. Our guide was very nice but his voice was a bit quiet so I feel like I missed more information.
As I said, we have been going to this area of Maine since before our kids were born, yet I had never wandered into the center of Bowdoinās campus. It is smaller than Bates (at least it seemed like it, havenāt looked online to compare sizes) but just as beautiful. My D said she felt like it was very fancy, like we were at a University in England or something. I think the museum with the giant lion statued helped with that! Bowdoin of course has amazing academics and sounds like it has a bit more of a party life than Bates. We got to go in several buildings (only one classroom though which was one of the bigger lecture type halls) and the dorm. The dorms were interesting - there is one main living room with couches, chairs, etc and then a room on each side with two beds. Seemed pretty small to me but our friend who goes to boarding school now thought it was great. They did not bring us in the dining hall but we walked in after the tour to check it out. There is only one but it is always ranked as one of the top schools for best food. They also have a big student union building with a pub type dining area as well as hang out areas, ping ping tables, foosball, etc.
A nice perk for us is that there is a new train station right in town that has trains to Boston. Since we live in FL I am always thinking about how easy it would be for D to get home or at least get to Boston to visit my family who lives there.
Both girls also loved Bowdoin, with our friend seeming to like Bowdoin better than Bates I think because of the surrounding area. Brunswick is the best college town - just the right size, lots of cute shops, restaurants, ice cream places, etc. The only drawback here is that they have been coming up since the were born - us a week a summer and Dās friend all year long as it is her grandparentās house -so it may be too familiar for them.
OVERALL
I am so happy we went, I like that it seemed to get D and her friends excited about the process. D did ask me why I brought her to these beautiful schools first - she thinks that nothing will ever live up to them. I told her she will be surprised at how many great schools are out there.
Both schools are wonderful but are super hard to get into and I am sure they would be reaches both academically and financially. They are very similar - same size, both have no greek houses, both pretty rural, both outdoorsy (which D is not) If they end up on our final list we will have to go back up while school is in session to see what the students are like.
Sorry this was so long!!
@momtogkc love the reviews!ā Thanks so much! Bates sounds a lot like like Beloit but harder to get into. Both Bates and Bowdoin sound lovely and right up S19ās alley. I remain unsure, though, about sending a Midwestern kid out east and about being full pay!!