Hi @amandakayak. Hey, palm trees narrows things down a bit! (And she is correct that she won’t find any in Pittsburgh).
I am dealing with a kid whose criteria for college include “has the major that I want” (he has no idea what this might be) and “has a campus” with “dorms” and “food.” I would welcome palm trees to the equation!
@amandakayak plenty of palms in SC.
Well, palmettos. 
I still remember talking to Floridians who informed me, in all seriousness, that South Carolina’s palm trees at the entrance to the state on I-95 were fake. :-?
Ah, @dfbdfb, I don’t think any Floridian could give accurate info about South Carolina; right, @carolinamom2boys? 
I believe there are palm trees in Arizona. Maybe we can check with @MidwestMomTo2, whose D16 is somewhere around there, I believe. Or we can ask some advice from quintessential palm expert, @palm715.
Fairly certain the trees in SC are real @dfbdfb . They’re not plastic. Are they all
native , I’m not sure, but our state tree is the Palmetto Tree.
http://remarkablejourneys.net/2010/02/19/what-is-the-difference-between-a-palm-tree-and-a-palmetto-tree/
Palm trees are a wonderful filter criteria.
I was so happy when kiddo came up with the “no high rise dorms” thing, before that every single place we looked at was “Yeah, that would be a fun place to attend”. I am still adding to the list, but it’s great when you can knock something off the list too.
I believe most of the palm trees you see swaying in Irma are non-native to Florida. The palmettos that are native are the short stubby ones, mostly. Those royal palms are not native. But I don’t think any kid cares!
Interesting criteria. DS19 said NOT a hot place, so No palm trees for us.
S19 too - hates hot.
My husband gets a kick out of some of this criteria kids have. He’s telling our kids they are lucky to go to college and to have to paid for. Period. No griping on the yacht.
Just in case any of you are worrying that you are behind in the college search for your junior I was talking to a senior yesterday who told me how much she was looking forward to going to college. I asked her where she was thinking of applying. “I don’t know. Anywhere I can live in a dorm.” This from a kid taking numerous AP classes.
I know we’re not behind here. My D tells me that her guidance counselors are amazed at how much she knows.
I worry at how few of us there are, though.
@mom23travelers Lol. I’m actually surprised at how many people taking the September ACT are seniors. They are cutting it really close to the deadlines if they are taking it so late.
I was talking to one senior who was signed up to take the September ACT I assumed he was just doing a retake to get the last few points he needs to have a better chance at getting into his dream college. Nope, he was supposedly a good student with good grades, but he never realized he needed to take the ACT./SAT until now…
Well, I think I took it in the winter of my senior year. I had no clue where I was going to college until the spring of senior year when my high school had a college fair thing and this school I’d never heard of said they’d give me a scholarship. Ah, those were the days!
Got back for touring NU and Marquette this weekend - very interesting days at both locations. I don’t have a huge amount of time to give long, detailed descriptions but I’ll do my best to relay some of the insights…
Northwestern - this was a quick admissions talk and campus tour, no dorms/eating/academic discussions or tours were given. They are on the quarter system so classes have not even started so campus was quiet. I’m not sure if it was just because school had not yet started or if this is a big major on campus but 1 of the 2 admissions students that were giving the talk and 3 out of 5 of the tour guides were all some sort of theater majors, which made for some interesting tours. The admissions talk was lively and very detailed and gave a really nice overview of the school, majors, etc., pretty much the usual spiel. We were allowed to pick whatever tour guide interested us and D picked one of the theater major guys who actually had already graduated but still wanted to give tours (or was waiting for his lease to be up on his apt, lol). He was leaving for NY in Oct and he said he was sad to go because he loved the school so much. I can tell you for sure that D’s attention was immediately peaked when she realized just how much of the campus sat on Lake Michigan! She loved the fact there is a walking path that will take you all the way to Navy Pier (almost 14 miles, so definitely not close!). She loved that they had a beach, and sailing and other water activities. She love the proximity to Chicago which is interesting to me because one of her requests was that she be as far away from Chicago/Illinois as possible! Love the mix of very modern and very Hogwarts-ese building styles. D was also very intrigued by the quarter system which would allow her to explore many subjects, a positive thing in her book. I haven’t really done a lot of research, but the Education school is their smallest college on campus so would need to find out more on requirements and such. It is the most transferred into college though, so not sure how that plays into anything. Overall it was a beautiful day, great tour, just enough to get you excited and wanting to learn more. I normally would not have even looked at NU, but they are a meets need school and D, of all my 4 has the stats to have a small shot at getting in. I’m being very realistic though and know it is a reach for anyone and everyone.
Marquette - A little old background: I applied and was accepted at Marquette back in the days of the dinosaurs. When I went on my tour, I was really turned off by 1. the REALLY busy street that intersects the campus. It basically divides the campus into residence halls on one side and academics on the other, and 2. how dirty/grungy the campus and city were. Total turn-off. WELL, I can thoroughly say that Milwaukee and Marquette have totally stepped it up and transformed the campus and area into a real destination! The campus was just beautiful, the streets and sidewalks are wide and easy to navigate as well as very safe to cross and the buildings are absolutely stunning. A complete 180 turnaround from what I remember (and it must have really been bad to still make an impact on me from that long ago). Are you still in the middle of a major metropolitan city? Yes. But the school gone out of it’s way to make sure the campus feels warm and inviting and safe. It’s a long campus but not wide so it feels more compact than it looks on a map. D was completely blow away and says she really could see herself there. The Education department takes the teaching profession very seriously and their graduates are sought after for the rigorous classwork and outside practicum experience they must have in order to be licensed. Interestingly, at least in the group we were in, 90+% of the students sitting in the Education discussion were from IL. They must be aware that it’s easier to go from WI to IL than visa versa. And maybe that there are not a huge number of good schools in IL to get a great teacher education. At any rate, D liked it so it will stay on the list for now. If anyone has any specific questions feel free to PM me or just ask here - I’ve got to get back to work so apologies I couldn’t go into more details.
I had planned to have my kid take the SAT in the spring with all the others in her class, but you’ve got me wondering whether I should sign him up for December? He’s taking the PSAT/NMSQT in October, of course, and I had always said that we would see how he did on that before getting any formal SAT tutoring in math.
Tonight is the first rehearsal for the play, and it’s going later than our usual bedtime. This could get grueling. I want to pile on an additional bit of prep time or homework time in the car ride on the way there and back, but at the same time I don’t want to become Mean Mom.
My S will be taking the PSAT this fall. This will be his first encounter with these tests. We don’t plan to have him take the SAT or ACT until the spring. We will also will base test prep off the PSAT results. While early testing seems to be the norm here on CC, its practically unheard of at our high school.
A quick hello from the great state of Florida. We were very lucky to not have damage to our home but our town looks like it was hit by a tornado. Thousands with damage, thousands of beautiful trees down, and thousands without power.The whole state is a real mess right now 
Hoping the best for other hurricane survivors!
So school is officially canceled for 7 days now, without having to be made up. My huge concern is for the 4 AP & 1 AICE classe my D takes. How in the world are they going to be able to make up an entire week of missed work? Final AP exams are already scheduled for next April/May. Has anyone ever dealt with this? School was canceled so quickly that teachers didn’t have time to assign homework, which would have been so helpful. I’m so worried for her that she’ll have even more homework than usual (and usually it’s a ton!) once school starts up again.
I am LOL about the student who wants to see palm trees at college. Currently D19’s major criteria is no cold weather. I think a lot of Floridians are weather wimps! I grew up in the north and don’t want to have to visit D in a cold area either, so I get her, but that really limits us in her college search. Anything north of Orlando is cold to us
@SunnyFlorida22 What about the college students as well. those taking a class this semester will be shortchanged by over a week. Will that affect them down the road when they take the next course in the sequence. I wonder if they will just lengthen the semester and shorten exam schedules. For eample, my daughters school, which is not in Fl has exams from the 13th of Dec to the 21st. Would they add in classes until lets say the 16th now if this happened to her school?
Welcome @SunnyFlorida22 Glad you made it through safely and at least have Internet. My D16 almost chose a school in St Petersburg last year - I guess she would be on a break now if she had.
I can understand the concern about the AP curriculum, but a lot of schools do start after Labor Day (a full 3 or 4 weeks later than the schools who go back in early to mid-August) and still make it through by the national exam dates. If your D already got a couple of weeks of school before Irma, it should probably be OK. If they had a post-Labor Day start, it might be a tight squeeze.
Or the teachers could just follow the lead of some of the AP teachers in my kid’s school and not bother with the AP curriculum. (My D had a World History teacher who assigned a single essay during the entire school year and only sporadically asked them to read something!)
We do not start until after labor day so have a compressed AP schedule every year. It isn’t ideal and can make the start of the semester a bit more challenging in some classes, depending on how the teacher handles it as they try to ramp up but it really does work out. S19 has only been in school for 4 days so far with 5AP classes, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.