Kiddo at the state thespian festival even as I type.
He signed up to compete in the musical performance category with another boy. They didn’t get around to choreographing their piece until Wednesday. They’re doing “Putting on the Ritz” from Young Frankenstein. I had previously been unaware that there was a musical of that movie, but there is.
My kiddo is very short and his partner in the dance is very tall. I am hoping someone tapes the song and dance, because I bet it will be hilarious.
Since they rehearsed it a grand total of twice I doubt it will win any awards. But they had fun and I hope the judges appreciate the ingenuity.
My son19 joined DECA this year, as if he didn’t have enough stuff to waste time on. He hasn’t taken a lot of business related classes, but he is interested in learning more about the subject. Today his school took a bunch of kids, including son19, to compete in some sort of event. He said that wherever he decides to go to college he will join their entrepreneurship club. So it was cute, he got all dressed up in fancy clothes for his presentation. Hopefully he has a good time. It’s a good learning experience no matter the end result.
Looks like this is the week that the college mailings and emails start to happen. S19 is on mailing lists for the schools on his tentative list but now he’s getting mail from all kinds of schools. Trying to decide if he should actually look at any of the hard copy mailings. Boy, they are pretty. All of the emails are going to his spam. Thinking of just leaving them there if he’s ever curious/
Well I guess I posted the note a bit too early, because I just got a text from son19 that he somehow qualified for the State Deca meet now, ha. Good for him.
^^. Yes the mailings have picked up, but mostly from schools not on his radar at all- some LAC here in New England, Tulane, some schools in the Carolinas and Georgia, Nothing really of great interest.
Yesterday D19 asked me: do you think I can get into Harvard? I said realistically no, you have a 3.5 uw gpa, but there are lots of selective schools you CAN get into. A few days ago we met with her GC to talk about senior course selection. D is adamant she wants to stop at 2 years of Latin. GC and I agreed that was fine for her target range of schools, which are our in state publics and maybe some CTCL’s or other mid-range options. D19 wanted to know whether her sister, D15, had applied to Ivies. D15 was high stats with strong EC’s and would have been a plausible applicant to Ivies, but preferred LAC’s and got into her top choice ED. I know that D19 feels in her sister’s shadow. It’s hard to walk a line between telling D19 she’s smart and capable and encouraging her on the one hand, but also being realistic about the college list. Her sister got lots of awards and prizes and recognition, and I know D19 craves some sort of external validation to show everyone she’s smart too. I’m sure she thinks “going to the Ivy League” is the ultimate validation.
That’s great @RightCoaster! Both of my kids’ eyes glaze over if the topic of doing/studying anything related to business comes up.
I haven’t noticed much of an uptick in S19’s college mailings, but I guess it makes sense that the colleges are just now starting to target juniors (plus he now has new ACT scores - not sure if that leads to extra mail). Sure enough, he said he has tons of emails from the last few days.
S19 just got an email from Swarthmore. Hilarious and very U of Chicago-like in its quirkiness.
“We have learned that you recently suffered the indignity of squandering several hours answering dozens of irritating multiple-choice questions. Sorry about that. But, as a result, a large standardized testing organization gave us your address, and so we are able to send you this cheerful email.”
@Corinthian I hear you about wanting external validation. I’m afraid S19 is already feeling the pressure from his peers to throw his hat into the ring for some uber-selective schools even though he’s not sure they are the best match for him. I told him that, if he dares apply to some Ivy that he won’t attend, that he’s paying the app fee.
We just hired his AP Lang teacher to help with essays over the summer. He only takes three kids. He’s been doing this for eight years with awesome results. He helps them brainstorm for the common app essay in June. S19 needs to come to the first meeting with ten adjectives that describe him. They will make a few attempts at different essay topics before honing in on one. He also helps them write their supplements. In an ideal world, he should be done with all of them before Sept. Crazy!
D has been getting a little bit more mail lately. We’ve started to get the mail from schools we haven’t signed up for. I know she doesn’t read them but I wondered if she even looked at them before tossing them on the floor next to her bed. Her only parameter so far has been “no southern schools.” (which to her means traditional old southern feel - girls in pearls and dresses at football games, towns where you may see a lot of confederate flags…) The other day I walked in her room and she looked at me and said, “Seriously? The University of the South?!” So I guess I’m glad she at least looks at the return address!! :))
She does not look at her emails either. We set up a new email just for college stuff so every few days I check it out. She is getting tons, I try to click on the places I think she might like just in case they are able to tell if you have even opened them?
I know for sure that some do track whether they’ve been opened. My d had one…RPI? I think… that right after the email was opened and the link they had sent in the email clicked, they sent a follow up email specifically mentioning that they noticed.
@momtogkc I’m totally opening emails. If I think S19 should look at them, I insist on it over the weekends and he clicks on the links. It’s good for both reasons - showing interest, yes, but if he’s truly interested, then he should be seeing these links. My understanding is that schools can definitely tell if emails get opened. I know S19 has little time so he’s really just opening and reading emails from schools he knows he likes right now.
As for emails, what D19 and I did is set up a completely separate email account that she used to sign up for the ACT/SAT and for college fairs. That way, all that spam email doesn’t affect her normal email account that she uses for school work.
She gets a ton of emails to that account. I’m surprised that the mailings only just started for some of you. But then again, we went to a college fair as a sophomore, which is where a lot of them got her info.
I asked S about email from colleges and it seems he has been getting a lot too but just hadn’t mentioned anything to me. He started scrolling through his email with me looking over his shoulder and I’m surprised at the schools. Some are at his level, but there are many that I don’t think he has a chance at. I wonder it these are just sent out to increase the number of apps they receive that they can then just turn them down.
For us, D19 is the oldest and definitely the strongest academically of our 2 kids, and we haven’t seen any desire for external validation (or at least noticed it). She has very good grades, pretty good test scores (though the definition of “pretty good” depends on how long you’ve hung around CC), and fine though not stellar ECs. We had a slightly awkward conversation about how, even though her test scores are great, way better than the vast majority of high schoolers, they’re probably not good enough to get her into the running for tippy-tops (e.g., Harvey Mudd). We told her that she needs to decide if she wants to take the SAT again and, if so, she’ll have to study more for it. (No sense taking it again without doing something different from last time.)
More importantly, we told her the choice was up to her – there are plenty of good schools (CTCLs, some other meets-need LACs) I think she has a good shot of getting into with her current scores. But it was hard to say, in effect, you’re really smart, but you may not have the paper to get into those super-smart schools, but we love you anyway!
She is getting some physical mail, but not a lot at this point… E-mail, most definitely, but she’s mostly been unsubscribing from those that she’s not interested in as soon as they hit her mailbox.
@Corinthian I commend you for being honest and realistic with your son. My DS16 was very smart, top 1% , loads of ECs , leadership , but certainly not IVY material. Our mantra for his senior year was " We’re smart, but not Ivy League smart" and that’s OK.
I feel sorry for kids at schools where there’s a tremendous amount of pressure (from kids, parents, whomever) regarding getting into Ivies. Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be an issue at our D’s school. We’ve tried to emphasize regardless that she can get a good education a lot of places, and that fit is important. I don’t think my D cares at all about prestige.
S19’s reality is that he’s in a group of friends who will target schools top 20 universities, including Ivies. They can’t understand why he would want to go to a liberal arts school. They all know each others’ grades and scores. S19 knows different kids like different schools but the pressure to be like his friends and apply to these schools is maybe starting to rub on him. He knows he wants a less competitive and more collaborative environment. He knows he wants a small school with tons of mentorship from the professors. He knows he has a chance at top LACs. It’s just weird for him to say he’s looking at Haverford or Carleton when his two best friends (with the same academic profile) want Columbia and Dartmouth. He had one “friend” look up the acceptance rate at Carleton vs. the acceptance rate at Chicago just to prove that S19’s list isn’t as tough as his. Whatever. THIS is what he wants to get away from.
He knows it’s his life but kids are judgemental even when they are friends. These boys have no filter. He will have to get a thick skin.
My S isn’t even aware of prestigious schools, for the most part. I don’t know if his friends are talking about colleges yet, although I know that most of them now have test scores and have shared them. His friends are bright students but not super ambitious or competitive types for the most part. I suspect most of them will go to our wide variety of in-state publics.
Unless he matures a lot in the next year, my S should probably take his high test scores and questionable study habits to a low match type of school anyway. I don’t think he would fare well in a super competitive environment as the stakes get higher.
@homerdog I 100% agree with @RightCoaster . SLAC are always trying to keep the gender ratios from skewing too far female (well, except for the women’s colleges, if you’re gonna be pendantic). Skidmore would probably love to have your son there. I really enjoyed my time there but it was so, so long ago – my husband is going back there in the spring for some theater something or another, maybe a theater reunion or the college comedy festival, I can’t keep track. He is a HUGE fan of the school too. At least tour it, what can it hurt?
When I was there, there were students from California and even Hawaii so, you know…travel’s travel. :x
@me29034@gusmahler My D19 has only gotten mailings from schools she’s toured, none of these out-of-the-blue ones. Oh well, I guess we’re helping save the trees or sumthin’.