@InfiniteWaves - I wish there was a “love” button for your post. So funny. I sent my S an e-mail yesterday with a bunch of things to do and one was to work on his room. I’m sick of it and want him to get rid of a bunch of things. This was his response: “Mother, the room is the least of my priorities, as it is already clean and studies show that lack of organization is a sign of intelligence.” Please pray for me.
@momtogkc Congrats on the license and sorry about the test scores. It’s so easy to get caught up in this testing madness and feel the need to keep trying. So stressful! Have a great trip and I hope you will share details about your college visits.
@JenJenJenJen - I don’t know what the rules are about how colleges have to report institutional data, but I know they always want to put themselves in the best possible light so I would think they would report the higher score (super score composite). However, they may have to keep it consistent with other schools.
@elena13 If lack of room organization is a sign of intelligence, then my kids are geniuses.
We visited VA Tech this week and loved it. S19 has a small, solid list of schools he likes and I think we are ready to stop visiting and start focusing on applications.
Now I just need to get both my teens to finish their personal finance course this week so they can take the exam by the 31st.
@momtogkc we were in your shoes regarding needing the license to get a pass. DS19 got his two weeks ago and got his parking pass today. He also had a same score experience with the SAT. It can be so frustrating. Enjoy your trip.
I don’t know why many schools won’t superscore the ACT, but I also think that admissions counselors can’t ‘unsee’ anything. Meaning if you send multiple score reports, even if the composite didn’t move up, they will see the highest sub scores and that could subliminaly help an applicant even if officially that’s not the score they use.
@JenJenJenJen could you just call the schools and ask? I’ve found that students generally answer the phones in the summer and, if they don’t know the answer to your question, they just put you on hold and ask someone and then come back with an answer. It’s not like you talk to the head of admissions and they have caller ID and keep note of who asked. If you’re worried about that, maybe just have a friend do it!
@mountainmomof3 Depending on the D1 school, your son just might be able to run. S19 has two D1’s on his list and it looks like he may be able to run at one of them. When I look at the times of the kids, he’s not completely out of the ballpark. Just don’t know that he’d want a D1 athlete experience since it’s more travel, etc. In the case of these two schools, he also would join a running club. S19 isn’t fast enough to be recruited by Ivies. Unfortunately, he’s a late grower so he will probably hit Ivy times this coming spring but that will be too late. He’s about 15 seconds off of the mile time he would need right now.
Each school he’s exchanged emails with is different. We’ve got the one that invited him to campus, two that sent emails saying that his academics are stellar and he’d be a valuable member of the team and told him to keep them updated on times and scores, and one that said his academics are strong and he’d be welcome to try out for the team if he attends the school. I feel like there’s no rhyme or reason for these differences. These are all top 20 LACs. I think they all just do things a little differently for the type of runner/student he is. If he were a superstar, I think he’d have a lot more invites to visit. Our college counselor friend said that some of the coaches won’t support him in ED with a spot on the team because they think he has a good chance of getting in RD and they could take him for the team then. Who knows. He expects his 5K XC time to drop considerably from last fall since he’s grown four more inches and has trained well for the whole year. Things might change if his times drop. It’s all very exciting!
DS has a test scheduled this afternoon in his summer community college class. I forced him to it.
I’m proud to say he got up early, finished writing up his notes, then was feeling antsy so he polished up his common app essay, wrote up his activities section, and started working on a few short answers. I read what he had done and it’s definitely beginning to come together. Not done yet, but looking good for this stage of the game.
He wanted to get started on individual college applications but I told him that the common app would be wiping those out in a week so he’ll have to wait. I think that blunted the momentum because now I’m hearing video games from downstairs instead of the tap tap tapping of creative writing. But hey! Progress!
S19 is also gearing up/ignoring college chores by refining his video game scores. He is busy moving up in the ranks on whatever game he is playing. I think he got a little burned out on the process after so many visits in a short period of time. Next week I’ll strongly suggest he set aside some time to think about college again. School is coming up in mid August!
One of our previous (from the mountain time zone state) neighbors’/friends’ S19 and D20 wanted to visit middle-of-nowhere-U at 6 hour drive from our town. The kids enjoyed the time together. We sang Hamilton songs, talked, and laughed a lot. Friends’ S19 loved the U. His sister did not like it. D19 is not a big fan of such locations. Or so I thought… turns out she was ok with the U thanks to the funny, and articulate tour guide. It did not make it to the list to apply though.
I liked vibe of UDel. D19 was not sure. Both the friends’ kids were not sure either. He would consider it if he gets in the honors program. He liked the easy commute to DC.
Our state U was empty when we visited. D was there earlier in the year. The friends’ kids did not like it.
We are planning to go south to visit Clemson and U of S Carolina. I am trying to find if she can get any merit money in Clemson. The OOS price tag comes pretty high.
Quick for the Eagle Scout parents…we’ve started the common app and we are trying to figure out where this should go. The honors section specifically says that it should be academic in nature and it seems it is more than an EC.
@carolinamom2boys so then are you putting the description of leadership activities (i.e. patrol leader) and the actual award of rank in the description?
I am envious as DS19 has not been into Scouting much recently. We will still list his rank in EC: Life scout, elected Order of Arrow (Patrol leader, librarian, various service projects, etc if space allows.)
I am back after more than a month and behind thousands of posts.
We are all well although the weather is #$%& hot.
Hope all is well with everyone. Onward and upward!
On driving, @ninakatarina DS19 has no interest in driving and is waiting for a self-driving car.
I suppose I will take him to get a state ID at some point. No need so far as he is still 16.
@payn4ward that’s pretty much how S19’s scouting EC will read. Will fit in 3 50 Miler’s if room as he is more proud of that than his life rank. NYLE as well. Sad to get so close but we picked our battles and Eagle wasn’t one of them. The dynamics change so much as the younger scouts come in…it’s hard. Ran into another troop family tonight, their S18 petered out about the same point, the Dad and I shared our sadness but also the need to support our kids choice in the matter.
@homerdog So exciting! Are you all those emails happening this summer?
D19 started volunteering this week at a children’s museum. They are giving her the most boring tasks. She has reiterated to them that she is not there to get service hours (our school and others around here require 10 service hours for seniors) so it’s unclear why she’s unwrapping items for the gift shop and tidying up exhibits instead of doing what she said she was interested in, which is interacting with children in the exhibit spaces. Sigh. I guess you win some, you lose some, and this particular gig is turning out to be a dud. She’s so painfully obedient about everything that she actually lamented, well, I guess we can’t have this on my resume as “volunteer work in education,” which is how it’s currently framed. I assured her that volunteering in a children’s museum will still “count” as working in education, even if the work is pretty low-level. It’s far from a highlight of her volunteer work anyway – just one of those summer mini-internship types of things. I told her to think of it as observational research and to pay attention to what the kids are doing and not doing while they’re there.
Saw a pair of signs in Target today: one said “Back to School” and the other said “Off to College.” Kind of hit me right there. One year from now the chatter will be about dorm decor…sounds kinda nice actually.
I’m finding that D19 and I seem to have our most productive conversations lately while on walks with our dog. Yesterday she re-affirmed that she’s okay with going away for college, which was the feeling that she’d confirmed on our recent college tours trips to the midwest. She added that once she’s far enough away that she has to take a plane, then it doesn’t so much matter to her whether it’s a 2-hour plane ride or a 5-hour one. We had held out some hope of adding in one last trip to the East Coast at the very end of the summer to check another campus or two, but we ended up devoting a lot of energy to S21’s Eagle Scout project and there’s just not going to be time or energy for that second college trip. She’s therefore only going to apply sight unseen to one East Coast school based on research alone, and should the chips fall in such a way that that school becomes the frontrunner, there’s always admitted students days next April.
Taking mental notes about documenting the Scout experience on the CA, for my S21 down the road…