We start August 23 or the nearest weekday after. By state law it cannot start sooner or it will interfere with kids showing at the State Fair. Our school is done by Memorial Day. We’ve started counting hours instead of days, and the hours scheduled are more than the minimum by 8-9 days worth, so we can have that many snow days before anything gets tacked on to the end. I love that we basically know when school will be over so vacations can be planned, etc. It wasn’t that way when the kids were younger.
I think we’re going to paint DD’s room this weekend! It will go from tween girl deep blue & purple sparkly with Disney & Marvel posters, to white/blue/brown map & travel look. She got a push pin map for Christmas that will be the inspiration. Another stage in life!
S19 really needs a break. So many projects and tests this week. He just texted me and said he fell asleep during a movie in French.
Spring break starts tomorrow and, even though he has to get up to go to track practice by 9:00 for the next five days, I’m hoping he can have some fun for the rest of it. He has one science project due when we get back but it doesn’t seem that bad. He’s also agreed to be the “Head of Design” for the new TEDxYouth club at school and needs to design a logo by next week sometime but I don’t think it will take too long.
We are home for five days and then off to Davidson and W&M (and Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg, and DC). Six day trip and just two schools so I think it won’t stress him too much. We are meeting one of S19’s and his mom in Davidson for dinner (they are also visiting from our town) and she’s lured two current Davidson students she knows to come to dinner with us so we can get the real scoop. Very curious to see how D21 responds to these visits too.
I’m looking forward to a little warmer weather and some family time!
@InfiniteWaves Well, after having a second flight to Philly cancelled yesterday while they were at the Phoenix airport (they were supposed to fly through SFO, and the SFO-PHL redeye got canceled), they made it to Detroit at 1 AM, and to Philly at 730 this morning. My wife said the fact that the hotel beds (we couldn’t cancel the reservation) were the most comfortable she’d ever been in had nothing to do with her poor sleep over the night, but I don’t completely believe her. D19 went to her Swarthmore math class, then they both sat in on the info session (the school canceled the morning sessions we’d originally signed up for, but invited everyone to the afternoon sessions). I think they’re finishing a tour now.
I did get a text from Ms. Borgity saying the student body was small. Which was interesting, because I’d been thinking the 1,600 Swarthmore students was the same size as Carleton/Macalester, each with 2,100+. But they’re not, duh. Swarthmore is 25% smaller. (And just wait until they visit 1,300-student Haverford tomorrow!) I’ll be interested in hearing D19’s perspective on the size. It’s one of those questions that’s easy to answer on paper (“X is smaller than Y”), but I think on-campus visit is helpful to get a sense of size and how comfortable you are with size. Even if she doesn’t apply to Swat, knowing that she does (or doesn’t) like a school that small might guide her applications to schools she might not apply to beforehand.
Swarthmore’s campus is apparently very pretty after snow, though.
@BorgityBorg I definitely want a full review after these visits! I’m very curious if 1300 or 1600 feels much smaller than 2000. Would your wife and daughter even notice the difference on campus if they didn’t know the numbers?
A full review, as best I can do from pictures and texts from 2000 miles away and sleepy follow-up reports are definitely in my plan, @homerdog !
I think Swarthmore felt small to my wife – she didn’t know the relative size. She now knows that Haverford is even smaller and Bryn Mawr is the same size now (because I told her). I don’t know if the comment was also based on campus size and if the snowfall meant there were fewer kids walking around.
@BorgityBorg looking forward to hearing a review as well; especially for Haverford. We saw that school and I left a review on my thread, that MANY people seemed to disagree with. So much that we have decided to take another look! So I’d love to hear your Ds thoughts.
@homerdog - that seems like a long spring break! Excited for you to see Davidson. I spent time there the past two spring breaks, once for an initial visit and last year for a scholarship weekend. So pretty!
@eh1234 Did you see the Hokie Preview at Virginia Tech this weekend was cancelled?!
We are scrambling now to go see another school. I told my husband we planned to go away this weekend to see a school so we should just pick one of the others. Right now we are between Lafayette which is about 3 1/2 hours away and William & Mary which is about 4. My son wasn’t impressed by WM when he met with the College rep at his school but I think seeing it he might feel differently.
Anxious about the SAT score release tomorrow morning. His score needs to come up but this has to be the last time he takes it. He’s taken it three times and the 2nd time his score didn’t budge. @BorgityBorg best of luck with the upcoming school visits. Hope the weather cooperates!
@homerdog Love Monticello. We are American history buffs (watched the whole Liberty’s Kids series twice for fun). Mount Vernon is a fav also–I’m from VA. Enjoy!
S19 has 10 days off. Plus he had no school Wednesday or today. He has been snowboarding all day but I think he probably has at least one test tomorrow so hopefully he gets home at a decent hour!
The only thing we had planned was a visit to VA Tech Saturday, but they cancelled the event because they expect up to a foot of snow in southern VA. Crazy! I’m thinking about maybe a trip to Temple or Delaware sometime during the week.
And this is why I am leaving the east coast for west coast college visits!!! I will gladly take the 73 degrees and sun after this last nor’easter left another foot of snow.
My heart is full. S19 playing basketball with a bunch of his friends in our backyard. I’m ordering a bunch of pizzas and they’ll come in to eat and watch some tournament games. These boys work so hard. It’s nice to see them just being kids on the eve before spring break starts.
No real movement here, no visits or tours or anything. D’s friends are chattering more and more about college stuff though, which I find interesting. We gave a friend of hers a ride home and the friend was telling us about some of her college tours. She’s been enjoying them, but like d, seems to prefer larger colleges. She likes them because they have more going on, more clubs, extra curriculars and majors, minors and options combining them. It made my d happy to hear a friend had the same sort of opinion. Friends are also commenting on college costs and which ones are affordable and which they won’t qualify for enough merit/FA to expect to be able to attend. That part made me smile because I like that her friends (and their parents) are somewhat practical and realistic about those realities.
She was recently helping a friend understand some AP chem work, in class (the friend had missed a couple classes because of an EC competition). This was in AP chem, during time the teacher had given them to justnwork on labs/weeklies. Anyway, the teacher overheard d explaining concepts to her friend and commented that d could be a chem teacher. I think that was nice and a positive sign about a potential recommendation letter.
We had two snow days off so today will be catch-up all day. Tonight and into tomorrow is the 24 hour play project, where the kids write and produce and perform 7 short plays within 24 hours.
Kiddo had a really cranky episode yesterday morning, it was difficult. He was just chatting with me about writers block and then it spiralled into a full-fledged tiff. We talked it through and we are fine now. I think any length of time being trapped inside the house and only having me and DH to talk to is getting more difficult for him. He needs action and exercise and dynamic people to talk to.
I worry about that this coming summer. He’s taking some online classes at the local community college, but that doesn’t fill up the socializing hunger. He has filled out the paperwork to apply to a couple of jobs, but hasn’t actually handed them in or mailed them in.
But, I guess, it’s really his problem and not mine, isn’t it? He has opportunities, but I shouldn’t force him to take them. If he chooses to spend the summer in the basement then maybe that’s what he needs to do.
Son and I got in a night time snowboard session with some friends last night. He didn’t have a lot of homework because the kids were supposed to finalizing their classes for next year, and he had already done that last week.
We got $10 lit tix and ripped around for 2 hours, stopped for some food on the way home and were back home by 9:15. It was a nice warm night and it stayed light out until 7:20 our so. We had fun.
Easy day of school today and tomorrow is the make up SAT. Son said he’s staying home tonight and getting some rest.
Are you all following the decisions coming out this week for high school class of 2018/college class of 2022? Big increases in app numbers and correspondingly lower acceptance rates, nearly across the board. I’m annoyed because we have some tours next week. Based on Naviance, they were a reach, a low reach/high match, and a match (e.g., last year, all 10+ kids from this high school were accepted to the match). Now according to the info coming out this week on acceptance rates and looking at the CC decision threads, they are all reaches due to massive uncertainty. I am hoping that Naviance will be more optimistic when the 2018 decisions are input. I woke up in the night worrying about this - talk me down please…
@evergreen5 ugh. Yes, following and freaking out. I’m afraid I cannot talk you down. We are meeting with S19’s GC next week and I’ve asked her to put together stats for the 2018 kids for the schools on S19’s list. I want to see this most recent info from our high school specifically.
D19 went to her Swarthmore math class, then they both sat in on the info session (the school canceled the morning sessions we’d originally signed up for, but invited everyone to the afternoon sessions). I think they’re finishing a tour now.