Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
8501

My funny for the day.

Just got the mail in. We had a “personalized” letter from a local SAT/ACT tutoring service, with a “handwritten” address. Inside was a letter talking about how wonderful their tutoring service would be for my child. However, whatever mailing list they got their info from mixed up my husband’s first name with my son’s. So it talks about how wonderful it is that he seems to be a smart kid, and how they can tailor their program to his strengths.

I can’t wait to show it to him this evening. “Look, honey, YOU can prep for the ACT too!”

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@ninakatarina maybe all 3 of you could take the class together and get a “group” discount.

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We also got a bit of a chuckle in the mail yesterday. My D19 got a mailing from Boston College yesterday. Pretending her name is Sarah Smith, it was addressed to “Sarah Female Smith.” Hmm. It was otherwise a nice mailer. I enjoyed joking about how people disapproved of our choice to give our child the middle name “Female”, but we thought it was a lovely addition to her name. No one else found this as amusing as I did…

When D19 was a toddler through about 1st grade, I used to get a kick out of handing her a hardcover picture book and then watching what she would invariably do. Every single time, she would look at the book, open it, then remove the paper cover and toss the cover aside. She just had this amusing idiosyncratic dislike of the paper covers on hardback picture books. I could set my watch by this and I had a stash of the covers in a cabinet. Counting down…five, four, three…and the cover is tossed. So basically a similar thing happens with the college mailers. Hand it to sweet teenager. Teenager accepts it, kind of half-opens it, maybe turns one page, and then…five, four, three…sets it down. So last night I did this again and I seriously want to make a video of her doing it. Oh here, Kiddo, here’s something from Boston College. Five, four, three…aaand it’s on the counter. So this time I tried asking Kiddo why she doesn’t read them ever, even from schools we’ve discussed as maybe ones she should consider. Her answer is that all the schools “seem exactly the same” to her. Hmm. She also said she doesn’t like “how they market themselves.” So literally these schools can’t win. In our household at least, I’m the consumer of the college mailings, basically 100%…

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The most disturbing mailings we got with D1 were from a school that rejected her. They kept sending her info about what a great school it was! Luckily, it wasn’t anywhere near her first choice.

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If colleges all peppered their mailers with internship opportunties at Disney World, I think my d19 would memorize every one.

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@mom2twogirls Even that wouldn’t work for my D19. Last night I held up the spread that showed a group of BC students in a class on self exploration and pilgrimages taking a 200-mile trek through Spain, and she didn’t blink. Some of this is proof of the adage that “youth is wasted on the young,” where kids have poor perspective on how amazing their opportunities are. I’d love to get another bachelors degree at practically any of these schools my D is considering…sigh. :wink:

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I KNOW! When we went on tours this year, every program sounded amazing to me. And since I was a psych major with a minor in English looking at different engineering programs, it’s saying something!

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Resume – DS11’s was 1.5 pages, but upon further review, we could have squeezed it onto 1. DS14’s was 1 page. For us categories were awards, educational highlights (AP classes, online classes not on their transcript, class rank, test scores, etc.), community service, (other) activities, work experience. I think we re-arranged a couple of times for specific applications. If you are going to go beyond 1 page, be sure to put whatever is most important to making your child stand out up front. Most people won’t look past the first page, maybe even the first section or two.

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Wow. I really had no idea that so many kids did resumes. Everything I’ve read up until now says to not attach any more stuff to the app unless there’s real reason to do so like maybe a theater or music student who has been super involved outside of school or maybe an actress or a dancer who danced semi-professionally or professionally.

S19’s resume wouldn’t look any different than his Common App activity section. I guess maybe he should do one for interviews. The only interview we’ve scheduled so far is with an admissions office while we visit this summer. The electronic form asked for ECs so I just assumed that’s enough and they were asking so they have a starting point for the conversation. He was just planning on bringing his transcript but I think he’ll make a resume now too. He can at least offer it up and they don’t have to take it if they don’t want it.

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Here’s our chuckle, but it requires some backstory. So:

D17 was in the top 10% of her class, which means she qualified for an automatic halfish-tuition scholarship to any University of Alaska school. The scholarship lasts for four years if you’re admitted to a UA school right out of high school, but you can then defer admission and the scholarship for a year—so students who qualify for it but go elsewhere for college are generally advised to apply to a UA school (they’re all noncompetitive-entry), defer admission, and then if wherever you go doesn’t work out, you’ve got money waiting for you. But, crucially, you are not allowed to defer the scholarship any further than that.

So that’s what D17 did (to UA Fairbanks).

And then yesterday she gets a call from UAF, congratulating her on qualifying for this scholarship and for being admitted to UAF, and reminding her that she can still register for classes this fall and use her scholarship then (as expected), or defer her admission for a year and start using the money the following fall.

So it makes me wonder if maybe my D17 didn’t graduate from high school last year after all.

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Don’t we get until June to have an excuse for forgetting that we are in 2018 and not 2017?

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I am just completely ignoring this resume discussion. Not mentally prepared to go there. Lol.

@SDCounty3Mom Too funny. My kids did the same thing with book covers, but I didn’t find it as amusing. I just eventually relented and threw the covers away after they got kicked around the house long enough to get ripped and dirty.

I feel so bad for S19. He has one week of school left. He’s kind of supposed to have been skating along since taking the AP exams, but his AP Lang teacher has been pouring on the work. She had them shift gears and try a literary analysis paper. He’s just so burnt out and done, and he’s having a really hard time caring about it. Meanwhile, he had me read it, and we’re going around and around with our recurring fight that we have every time I read one of his English papers:

Me: You need to break this up - this is a new thought and deserves a new paragraph
Him: No, we have to take lots of thoughts and tie them together somehow.
Me: Yes, I understand that, but all the thoughts don’t have to be in the same paragraph.

Him: Yes they do, that’s the way the teacher wants it.
Me: Well, then she’s doing you a disservice (and I kind of don’t believe you - I think you must be misunderstanding)

Me: You need to develop this paragraph a little more. I don’t have any background to the story and don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Him - well my audience is my teacher and she know what happens in the book.

Me: But you need to learn how to write to a wider audience
Him: She’ll be offended if I treat her like she doesn’t know what’s going on.

Oy vey.

And then he went on a rant that literary analysis is useless unless you are going to be an English teacher and teach other people to do literary analysis, to which I responded that writing is a valuable skill that will translate to all areas of his life and work. I said, even your Dad (in IT) has to write - he has to write proposals. Well, then why don’t they teach me to write something useful like a proposal or a business paper?

At that point, I took a deep breath, and said “I’m confused. You are very attracted to the undergrad program at UChicago, with its core curriculum, liberal arts approach to education, and that includes literary analysis, right?”

I had him there. He went from clenched fists and red cheeks to a knowing smile and then we had a good talk about how to organize at least the first part of his essay.

And now I hear him in his room giggling. He’s probably on snapchat. What are you gonna do?

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@Trixy34 After AP Lit DD is so done with literary analysis. And she is a words person. It was a struggle over many papers! So glad it’s done.

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I agree! This end of the year rush of assignments is bring us to the breaking point. Why can’t the kids just watch movies in class like they are supposed to?

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@Trixy34, your editing conversation cracks me up! So similar in my house. The biggest thing with both my girls is getting them to write less but edit more. (Or just start the paper early so there is time to edit.) In middle school, D21 wrote a paper about James K. Polk. She had 22 pages and he was not the president yet.

We are also skipping the resume for now. D19 has an interview at the end of June with a rising senior at one of her favorite schools. They know nothing about her other than name/address, but they didn’t ask her to bring anything. She’s going to walk in empty-handed as if meeting a friend for a chat. I think that’ll help her psychologically, and from what I’ve read from the school, that’s the atmosphere they want–conversational. Hope that’s the right thing.

I think D19 is only a few straws short of the one that broke the camel’s back, with the last theater show of the year and projects/papers due, so I’m trying to avoid all college talk.

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Hahaha!! @Trixy34 it’s like you’re sitting in my family room! That sounds exactly like what editing my D19’s essays is like. She has a reason why my advice is wrong, and it’s usually that they’re not “supposed to” do something a certain way. Your description made me LOL. Good to know there are other bright and successful kids who say these same silly things…

D19 has two interviews and one “meeting” (not sure what this means) booked! She’s not especially happy. I think she will feel better after we practice. She’s the type who could either look a little stumbly and not that confident or she could be absolute BFFs with the interviewer. It’ll all depend on how well she clicks with whomever she gets. I need to put in a request for “social justice-loving religious studies major with side interests in linguistics and philosophy who eschews social media, loves travel, can’t wait to find someone who actually gets Waiting for Godot (that will be a lifelong hunt), and once cluelessly asked at a Major League game if the pitcher can steal home.” If she gets that person, she will have the greatest interview of all time. :wink: It’ll probably be a mixed bag.

I finally did a NPC and was pleasantly surprised. Full pay for years 1 and 2 as expected, but heeeey, nice discount happening there for years 3 and 4 when little brother is in college too. Hmm. Should’ve held D19 back so they’d overlap for 3 years instead of 2…hee hee. And then my D25 doesn’t overlap with anyone. Sigh. With all this college talk and visits, my little D25 has made her own “college list”, which is super cute at this point and based, I am not kidding, on where her favorite YouTubers live. So she’s apparently headed to UU, Cal State Long Beach, or maybe U of Hawaii. I just enjoy the fact that she’s making a college “list” at age 11, all transparently because of all the college chatter.

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I’m still laughing about that editing conversation! I have had so many similar discussions. Do you ever wonder what happens to the kids whose parents don’t edit their work?

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@gallentjill, I know our high school has a writing center, staffed with student editors who have had some training. But parent editing is a lot more convenient.

D19 didn’t want me to edit for awhile, until she submitted a paper to an essay contest with a several mistakes her teacher didn’t catch. Maybe because he’s a history teacher? I enjoy editing and I love when my kids get to pick their topic and we can discuss something that really speaks to them. Still, we do butt heads.

Me: This sentence doesn’t relate to the topic of the paragraph. You’ll have to start a new paragraph with examples about this.
D21: But I don’t have anything else to say about it.
Me: Then, take it out.
D21: But I like that sentence. I worked really hard on that sentence!

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I don’t edit S19’s work. So, what happens is that he doesn’t take AP English classes and he gets B/B+ grades in honors English (I think he’s taking regular English next year because he has 4 APs in things he actually likes). He’s good at grammar and his comprehension is fine, but he doesn’t enjoy reading most assigned books, he does not see the point of literary analysis and I can’t make him the point. When he takes freshman English, I’ll encourage him to use his school’s writing center. The only thing I do is remind him to carefully check his rubric so he does’t get deductions for not following it.

@3SailAway 22 pages?! If my kid is given a suggested minimum word count, the teacher will get exactly that number of words - not a syllable more. A 5 page paper means that the paper goes onto page 5 but doesn’t cover than entire page.

I do think I’ll need to intervene somewhat with the college essay and at least give him a lot of great examples of what AO’s are looking for. I’m afraid he’ll be too literal about the topics so he’ll need to be steered towards the more open-ended questions.

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@eh1234, yup, 22 pages. D21 is an “everything but the kitchen sink” writer with a very chatty style. She once got marked down for being sarcastic in a hilarious paper about a Roman emperor. Accuracy, citations, organization and rubrics are not her strengths, however :wink: .

I will be highly recommending the college writing center for all my kids. I don’t think I’ll edit for them once they go away because they wouldn’t learn from just accepting suggestions in Google Docs vs arguing with me.

The application essay is another thing. I’m not sure they’ll want me to be the one to edit, and I’m not sure I should be.