Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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If there is money left in the college savings then it’s the kiddo’s to keep after college. The NPCs for the various colleges are all over the map - some of them predict it will cost everything in the 529 plus a few thousand per year, others are significantly below. We don’t mind kicking in that extra few thousand but I do have an upper limit. I do worry about the NPCs being unreliable and I’ve discussed that possibility with the kiddo - that he might get in to a college he wants but with no aid available. It’s all a ‘we shall see’ at the moment.

But he’s got to get to college first. He is taking an online course at the community college this summer and it’s not going well. Three missing assignments, the book didn’t get here until yesterday, and he’s currently getting the first F of his life. Sigh. He’s written the instructor to see if there is any chance that he could pull his grade up or should we drop the course now before the deadline.

It’s a good preparation for how colleges work - the assignments are due when they’re due and they don’t remind you in any way, you’re just supposed to get them done.

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I think there’s some truth to the idea that some kids will succeed regardless of how much personal financial investment they have in their education – and alternatively, some kids are hard to motivate. I’m grateful to have conscientious kids, although the jury is out on what kind of student D25 will be…she’s a bit more of a pill.

I was actually thinking recently about the question of how to motivate a kid with little ambition. I have two friends who both have sons in their early 20s, both of whom graduated from high school (barely) but have done little else. So what do you do? One mom seems to be trying to keep herself very Zen about it and has let her son work on his desired career as a YouTuber, and the other mom keeps getting people to take on her son as an apprentice in a trade or some sort of workplace setting, and he never sticks with anything. I’m certain that for all the “Well if MY kid were really non-academic, here’s what I would do…” ideas I could come up with, it’s all easier said than done.

D19 sent me a text out of the blue in the middle of the day: “Why don’t you like Junipero Serra?” No hello, no context. It made me chuckle. I’m pleased that she seems to be stimulated intellectually and is enjoying her peers. It does seem like she’s connecting better there than she does at her high school, which thankfully supports my theory that she’s just not a good match for her own high school, and if we do a better job of matching her with a college, she will be happier.

@carolinamom2boys Full ride to his first choice?? Wow! How glorious is that?! That’s got to be a good feeling for all.

@ninakatarina Ugh sorry about the slow start for your son with his online class. I hope he can drop it or rally his performance. Must not be a subject that’s grabbing his interest?

@amandakayak And ooof, sorry to hear about the GC change, just in time for college applications. And a middle school one too…hmm. Hopefully being new will motivate that person to do a great and thorough job!

D19’s primary recommendation letter writer has disappeared. Sigh. She was hard to track down last winter but she did re-emerge after a few tries and was very apologetic about her initial non-response. Then she was in touch for a while and even donated to D’s fundraiser. But she’d offered to take D19 out to lunch the week after school got out, and she didn’t get in touch nor did she respond to two emails from D19. This flakiness makes me a touch nervous about getting the eventual letter out of her. Plus she’s early-career and was already at a different high school, so I’m concerned that she will move out of the district entirely and our work email for her will not be valid anymore. D19 really likes her so the fact that she bailed on this lunch invitation irks me.

On the topic of letters, I’ve asked this before but I’m sure it got buried in my wordy posts. Those with kids applying to schools that want 2 letters: are you planning to include any additional letters? There’s the two teachers in academic subjects, but then what about volunteer supervisors or coaches or other folks like that?

Read today that Google is adding some search features for gathering info about universities. My concern with the info is that it’s not super up-to-date. For example, D19 will look on a site like Prep Scholar and find info about acceptance rates and stats, and it’s all a bit behind.

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@SDCounty3Mom son will only submit 2 of the 3 letters of rec he asked for. He asked for letters from 2 STEM teachers and 1 from a history teacher. No notes from coaches or anything, if the school’s coach wants to talk to our coach son has provided contact info.
I’ve been to multiple admissions meetings and they have reinforced the concept that too many LOR don’t do anything to add to the package and it’s just a waste of their team to have to read them. So if that’s what they said, I’ll believe them.
I actually don’t think the LORs matter all that much unless your kid was truly outstanding in a particular subject and did something remarkable during the year, or overcame some difficulty and achieved success in the end. My kid’s LORs will be boring. He’s a nice, normal, good student but that’s about it. He’ll probably get the standard LOR, with hopefully nothing bad mixed in, LOL.

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@SDCounty3Mom he was very fortunate. He fell in love with the school on his first visit in the Fall of his Jr year. He went to an info session from the Honors College and came out of the meeting determined to be accepted into their Fellows program. He worked hard, retook the ACT to make him competitive for the highest scholarships and was invited to scholarship weekend. A month later, he was invited into the program via SKYPE by the Dean of the Honors College. It is not a highly selective school that many people on CC have on their radar, but it was competitive to get into . He turned down several very sought after schools in state , and received quite a bit of feedback from other students and their parents about it, but he knew what he wanted and this school was always the best fit. At first I was a little concerned that he was only making the choice because of finances, but watching him navigate the campus , interact with the other students and really discussing it with him, alleviated any concerns. We both are convinced that he really made the best choice for him . I only hope DS19 finds a school that he is equally excited about that he is accepted to.

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@ninakatarina Hard decision to make,but I think that I would drop the class.

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@SDCounty3Mom Almost all of S19’s schools ask for two teacher recommendations and one from his GC. He’s asked his APUSH teacher and his Earth Science Honors teacher. It was important to him to have a science teacher and a humanities teacher because he believes he could go either way for a major. (Or maybe a double major in both). Each teacher sent him a list of questions to answer and it took S19 a long time to write his answers. I met with both of these teachers during teacher conferences and I feel very good about them writing stellar recs for him.

One of S19’s schools only asks for one rec. He will send the one from his APUSH teacher. One of his schools asks for a peer recommendation and he’s already asked a friend to write it this summer so that friend doesn’t have to deal with it during the school year. My husband thinks S19 should write the recommendation himself so it’s not a burden for the friend. The questions being asked are pretty specific and this friend knows S19 very well so I think we should just let him answer the questions.

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@SDCounty3Mom I would think that unless there is something reeeeeallly compelling about an extra letter of recommendation, I would stick with the requested number, no more no less. I’m exaggerating when I say it should only be from a Nobel Prize-winning professor who a kid did research with (and who thinks that kid is the next Albert Einstein or Marie Curie), but not completely. It has to add a completely perspective to the application, IMO. Why submit, for example, both a chemistry and a physics teacher recommendation if the application only wants 1 science teacher rec? [Edit to add: I realize you specifically mentioned volunteers/coaches, not an extra teacher, but I would think that in most cases the student could emphasize in their essay/ECs how committed they were to that EC.]

@ninakatarina Another vote for dropping the class.

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I agree that schools really want to see just two letters plus the one from the GC. We generally stuck with that for D17 , but for a few schools that allowed or suggested an extra one, we did have a letter sent from one of her drama teachers.

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Just catching up now on the recent discussions. During my time at college my friends and I were avid AMC viewers. I didn’t skip class though - I taped it on my VCR- which I begged for at Christmas for this sole purpose. It wasn’t a hard sell though, at the time my whole family were loyal AMC viewers - even my dad!

But the best soap/college memory I have is when my friends & I discovered that the Tad, Dixie, Billy Clyde storyline was being filmed a mere 20 minutes north from UMASS Amherst (my school). We booked it up to the secluded location - only to find the crew picking up and getting ready to head out. So disappointed!

Who remembers this AMC scene? (Hope the link is accepted)

https://youtu.be/4Uh227fDiYE

In the last year we have put so much thought, planning, time and touring into the college process with my D19, this was a fun college memory I had forgotten about.

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One of D’s schools asks for LOR’s from the GC and one teacher. At an admissions forum, a parent asked the dean what they should do if their GC doesn’t know their child well. He said to let the GC know not to send a rec, only the HS profile, and send two teacher LOR’s instead.

Now we’re second guessing our plan. GC (large public HS) doesn’t know D anywhere near as well as her teachers do, but she has already written D’s LOR. I don’t want to tell her not to send it, and I don’t know how that would work with the other schools which want the GC rec and two teacher LOR’s.

I think we’ll leave the regular plan in place. This is one of D’s favorite schools, though, and the GC rec will likely be on the generic side. Hoping D’s personality will shine through with one teacher rec and the essay!

@homerdog, that’s great that your son’s LOR teachers sent him a list of questions to answer! D19’s asked for nothing. GC said if they ask for nothing, you should give nothing, which is hopefully true. The teachers have had her as a student multiple years, and with semester long projects.

@SDCounty3Mom, does your D have another LOR teacher in mind to sub in case this one “ghosts”? It was inconsiderate of her to flake on the lunch without notice! I have had people do that and then surprisingly come through in the end though, so fingers crossed.

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Ok thanks for the feedback on # of letters. I’m thinking that the classroom setting tells you something about a kid, but other venues tell you other things. For schools with holistic admissions, I’m surprised they don’t seek more insight from letter writers regarding anything but academic performance. Since my D19 is a soft-spoken kid, most teachers only know her by her solid academic production and don’t have a lot of insight into the full picture. An AO at Scripps College said they’ll read whatever you want to send, and one applicant sent 12. She did acknowledge that the 12 was overkill and basically all twelve letters said the same thing.

Thankfully I tried reaching her primary letter writer via Facebook today and she did respond immediately, so I should stop worrying. She did flake on her work email but at least she responded now. Turns out she’s getting married in less than two weeks so I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt. I remember being young and planning my wedding, and how all-consuming that felt.

I think @RightCoaster may be right that it’s really only the “Oh my god, this is the greatest student I’ve encountered in my 40 year career, bar none” letters that really push the needle a lot, and the others just confirm what would’ve happened anyway. D19 was grinning and energized when she got her sweet responses to her requests for letters, so I wanted this to remain lined up for her and I’m glad this teacher is back on the radar.

@3SailAway So basically when there’s not much GC relationship, as is not atypical at large public, this AO said skip the GC letter and replace it with a teacher letter? That’s interesting. D19’s GC letter will be a little poofball of nothingness so I had written it off as a non-factor. It didn’t dawn on me to ask if one could forego that letter. Interesting.

@homerdog Good call to get letter writers from diverse fields. I can confirm that when I read letters of recommendation for boys in their Eagle Scout boards of view (five letters each), I do find myself wanting to hear from different categories in the boys’ lives. There are guidelines for where the letters should come from but the boys aren’t required to follow those. The occasional boy will produce all sports/coaches letters, and one recent one had all letters from people in his LDS church. In his case I pointed out this out to him and asked him what one of his teachers at school would say about him (since “How would other people describe you?” is a standard interview question). D19 asked her Honors Humanities teacher from sophomore year and AP Spanish, so nothing STEM, but in her case she will sooner grow a third eye than major in a STEM field so it’s of less importance. We gave some thought to having her math teacher for two years write a letter, since she has glowing things to say about her but gave her two B’s this year (sigh…if you took math out of D’s GPA she’d have a spotless record…it’s an obvious weak spot in her application). So it would be a strategy to address the weak spot via positive anecdotes. Neither she nor I ultimately had the huevos for this strategy in the end, however…

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In ny experience some colleges require the GC letter, it is not an option to skip or substitute. We’ve always left that one alone and the sent up to 2 teacher LOT if 2 are allowed.

If apps are read in what, 7 min or less, I can’t imagine anyone wading through lore letters than that.

While it’s nice to have balance (stem and humanities) it’s far more important to pick a teacher who knows your kid, and can share that connection and insight in a personal way in the letter. Being a good writer helps.

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Back to the road-trip topic from a few pages ago: last week, I flew to meet S13 and drive with him across most of the country. He just finished a post-college fellowship year and is beginning grad school this fall. What I learned from this experience is never turn down the opportunity to road trip with a child who has left the nest. It was fantastic to have him all to myself for about 40 hours. We took turns driving through lots of rain and some sunshine, had wonderful talks, listened to (his) music and (his) podcasts, saw some beautiful sunsets, and found that we both preferred eating fruit, yogurt, cheesesticks, and sushi from grocery stores rather than eating freeway exit food. I felt really lucky to have had this time with him after he’d been far away for five years. We were on I-80 for about half the trip, @SDCounty3Mom. Lots of road construction in Wyoming and Nebraska if I remember those stretches right.

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I wanted DS to ask 3 teachers for letters of recommendation, on the theory that some teachers are better letter-writers than others and getting 3 of them would mean that the counselor could read them and send the best 2 out of 3. He asked 3 teachers before summer started - his drama teacher, the English teacher and the psychology teacher. I’m slightly worried that that leaves us with no pure STEM recommenders, but kiddo is very non-STEM so he’s not likely to get a stellar recommendation from any of those teachers anyhow.

@SDCounty3Mom I’ve got another one who is allergic to math. He managed to pull an A in the last quarter of calc AB this year (proud mama moment), but it was through spending every single lunch hour at the teacher’s office going over the subject matter again.

We have been talking up a New England road trip for ages now, but have yet to make any reservations as the list of colleges and the dates keep changing. We are visiting increasingly frail relatives in Charlottesville sometime in the next few weeks and it’s hard for me to think past that next road trip.

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@eandesmom our experience has been the same as yours in terms of schools wanting the number of LORs requested. I completely agree that a teacher who knows your child well will give the best LOR.

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Road trips are how we travel . We take several a year. I love the time spent in the car with my boys. We’ve had some great memories. My family loves history. One summer we did a Williamsburg, DC and Gettysburg road trip . We loved it. My coworkers on the other hand felt nothing but sympathy for me.

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Yeah, getting a humanities LOR would have been a poor choice for my d19. She really doesn’t get close to those teachers. They’d probably write a very nice, very bland letter. They simply don’t know her to nearly the degree her math and science teachers know her. Had she needed a 3rd teacher, her Spanish teacher would have worked. But while she connects to him, the class itself is mostly tolerable. The difference between how much she likes that vs how deeply immersed she is in her science and math classes is extreme. I have no doubt that it would translate to LORs.

Another more practical reason not to choose her more recent English/Social Studies teachers is that they don’t have nearly the same level of organization. We would worry about them following through on time.

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My S19 is getting a letter from his orchestra teacher, which I suspect will be fairly enthusiastic and poorly written at the same time. The other will come from the teacher he had for Alg. 2 and honors PreCalc because he has actually talked to her quite a bit (just not about math). But precalc was his lowest grade in junior year (B). I’m not sure what he’ll do if he needs another academic one. He’ll get one from his bass teacher for the music supplemental applications. He got a short LOR from him for a summer program and it sounded like it was written by a 12 year old.

He had his AP Psych teacher fill out a “teacher comment” form for the GC, which will be one piece of the puzzle to help her write her letter. He still has to fill out the student questionnaire for her and we still have to fill out the parent questionnaire. But there is no “major event that I see as a turning point in my child’s development,” so it’s a bit of a struggle.

It is what it is. Most of the schools on his tentative list are probably on the safety to low match spectrum in terms of his grades and scores, so average recommendations probably won’t kill his chances of going to college.

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Son19 is fortunate in that the teachers who will write the LORs for him all ask for a 1 page sheet of questions to be answered before they start writing the letter. They ask about favorite things learned in class, ask about any challenges that were overcome, ask about continued levels of interest in the subject matter, what ECs the kid does rested to the class, etc.

I guess it helps the teacher make the letters more personalized and helps get to know the kids a a little bit more.

Like I said though, I don’t think any of my kid’s letters are going to “move the needle” much in terms of his particular application. He’s a nice, solid student who tries hard and that’s about it. I don’t think any of his LOR writer’s think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, nor a pain in the rear end blockhead. He’ll get the good ol’ mostly generic thumbs up letter, and that should be good enough.

So, we are sending 2 letters from teachers and then the GC sends a letter and school profile over too. We fill out a parent questionnaire to give her more info regarding son, but she knows him fairly well because he has had to utilize her services a few times and she knows him from sports.

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@ninakatarina - Does your school have the GCs send the letters of rec? Or maybe they go through Naviance? With my D17 I don’t think we would have had the option to have the GC send her letters as they were done through the common app. The common app sent the letter writers a link and the teachers themselves uploaded the letters to the site. I like the idea of choosing the best two out of three though.

S19 asked his History of Americas teacher (also had him for AP Econ) and his IB Psychology teacher to write letters. I was a little worried about having him ask the Psychology teacher rather than his IB lang teacher, but the psych. teacher was also his Theory of Knowledge teacher and is his adviser for his Extended Essay. I do think the best writers and the ones who can really talk about the student’s personality and what they contribute to class are preferable over having cross discipline-writers. Fingers crossed for strong letters!