@RightCoaster I’m right there with you. S19 has just three more essays to write and he can hit send on thirteen apps. I just want it done so he can get it off of his plate. He made some comment yesterday about how they aren’t due until 12/1 and 1/1 but I don’t care. Why would he sit on them? I’m not wishing away senior year. But I am wishing away this application process.
One benefit of the student procrastinating right up until the deadline is that the wait will be that much shorter lol, though I’m also afraid of deferrals.
@carolinamom2boys or any other experienced parent re: dorms
your post about overnight guests led me to call housing and clarify overnight visitor policy at schools on S19’s list. I’ve talked to USC and UT Austin housing offices, and both say limited overnight visitors are allowed if agreed upon by both roommates according the the Roommate Agreement (which needs to be signed within the first two weeks). What happens if they don’t agree?
Sorry for the ignorant questions. This is our first time 
@romns116 My D14 just graduated and lived in college housing (I.e dorms & college apts) all four years. This situation can be a problem especially if roommates take advantage and/or avoid conflict and not speak up. Each school’s housing office is different. In my outspoken daughter’s situation, she told her roommates in the dorm, that she was not comfortable with male guests staying overnight, so no males could stay. In the apartment situation, each student had their own bedroom & bathroom. Her roommates frequently had guests stay overnight, but it didn’t bother my daughter because the guests only stayed a night or two and she could escape into her space. If any roommate was uncomfortable, they could simply say no guests and that’s it unless the roommate wants to press the issue and enter into mediation where all the roommates meet with their RA. Even still the answer can just be no.
@romns116 it can make for a very uncomfortable roommate situation either way. You have to also understand that roommates can have guests that don’t stay overnight and still engage in sexual activities. You need to also understand that each school has different policies . Another thing to consider is students only have to sign in guests from another dorm or guests that don’t attend school there. Students who live in that dorm can come and go. My suggestion is to be very truthful on any roommate questionnaire. Many students also use social media and group chats to find roommates with similar beliefs. @4MyKidz how would the situation of a same sex couple be handled?
Thanks for the information. I completely forgot about the questionnaires. That’ll help people find like-minded roommates. Thankful S19 isn’t the passive aggressive type, so he doesn’t have problems communicating with roommates.
In fact, his summer program at Emory was perfect training. The first day his roommate had clothes everywhere, dirty socks, and sports equipment right up to the midline of the room. After they talked it was better.
@homerdog - Yes, Hamilton would be a bit of a pain to get to if you had to fly. I realized that when we were visiting Colgate this summer., which is even a little bit further from any metropolis. And no merit aid is also a problem given the sticker price. Seems like it would be a good fit for your son, though. I also hope the rep visit goes well. We didn’t have the best tour this summer. Hopefully I’ll be able to get DS back on campus at some point while school is in session. I think you miss a lot touring the small LACs when the students aren’t there, and I don’t see any Hamilton reps on our guidance office’s calendar.
No problems here being sick of the application process, we have barely begun yet! Lol.
Funny story you guys will appreciate:
We are considering moving in a couple of years, so on our way home from a hike last weekend we decided to drive through a town that is on our possible relocation list.
While we were in the town, we drove up to the middle/high school to let our 10 year old see where he might go to school.
10 year old asks, “Can we go inside and look around?”
And S19 immediately jumps in with “No, Mom hasn’t had a chance to schedule a tour with the Honors program, or a meeting with your possible major, or a one-on-one meeting with an admissions officer to discuss scholarships.”
Lol. I think he might be over college visits.
@carolinamom2boys Not sure how my D14 would have handled that situation. Knowing her it would have been a no go in the dorms, as the bed is a stone’s throw away and in full view. Regarding her school’s policy, they do not care whether the guest is female or male. If the roommates do not agree, the RA will lead mediation and it may still be a no go. I have heard horror stories from other parents at other schools that claim a certain policy but do not enforce the policies…it can be a very uncomfortable position for roommates. TBH, my daughter had more issues with roommates selling or smoking marijuana, but that’s another topic for another day.
@homerdog not sure why Hamilton would be considered a particular challenge with respect to travel. Direct flights are available from O’Hare to Syracuse, and the drive from there to campus takes under an hour. The entire drive would be about eleven hours. Hamilton would appear to be the closest, easiest of the NESCACs for you to reach. In contrast, my daughter attends Kenyon. Our drive is longer than yours would be to Hamilton. It takes us about thirteen hours, and we have done it several times without any difficulty. Considering all factors, with particular attention to your son’s stated academic and college setting preferences, I believe Hamilton would be a great fit for your son. I would not be surprised to see it rise to the top of his list after a visit to campus.
Thanks @apple23 Compared to other schools on his list, Hamilton is more difficult to get to. Kenyon and Carleton are six hour drives. Grinnell is four. Bowdoin and Davidson are just 30 min from airport. He’s got others that are difficult as well like Midd and Williams. I worry about all of the NE schools that are an hour from the airport because of winter weather delays and fewer options for how to get to the airports since they aren’t close. I could never imagine driving 13 hours anywhere! If S19 went to Kenyon or Carleton, he would fly after our initial trip to drop off his stuff.
This all being said, I do think Hamilton could be a very good fit. And we have no idea how the chips are going to fall with acceptances so we don’t know what schools he will be comparing in the end. The Hamilton rep is coming to his school and he is signed up to meet with him. I hope they hit it off!
Spent the day yesterday dropping S17 off at college! He did a gap year, so he’s starting as a freshman this year. I was (pleasantly) surprised at how little programming there was for parents on the day – it’s all about the kids and should be that way, but I would have thought that all schools would have bowed more to the helicopter parents of the world and had them more involved in the first day. Kudos to Dartmouth for not doing that!
I’m excited for him to figure out what classes he wants to take and get acclimated to the campus and social life. But mostly it made me just want to be done with the process for D19 too.
S19 overwhelmed over here. His intense schedule was supposed to continue next semester and he can’t change the majority of his schedule because they are year long classes. He has two classes next semester that are just semester classes - AP Macro Econ and AP Gov. We just talked about him dropping AP Gov. He just can’t see himself continuing this pace for the rest of the year. He will still end up with three years of social studies without it and four years of every other core subject (math, science, French, English) so he’s going to his GC today to drop it. He didn’t have an art class planned for second semester so he’s just going to see if he can replace Gov with art. His art teacher may even just let him do some sort of independent study in her room if there’s no class that period.
Things really do feel like they are ending now. He would never consider dropping a class in the past. He really can’t keep this up though. I look at it as a mature decision. Next semester won’t be easier now but at least it won’t be harder!
@homerdog - glad he was able to adjust his schedule for next semester!!
I just had a similar conversation with S19 last night. He’s feeling very overwhelmed, and that’s mixed with worries about next year. In AP Eng yesterday, they wrote about their fears for the future… brought up a lot of concern about how he and his friends may drift apart, etc etc that I’d hoped to have a few more months before we had to tackle. Compounding this, we just passed the second anniversary of his best friend’s death… been a rough first week of school.
He can’t drop anything, unfortunately (or - he “feels” he can’t), but he did go into his online work schedule and adjust his available hours to some more reasonable weekday times. I was proud of myself for holding my tongue and didn’t “I told you so” even once as he did that ;). I’m just glad where he works is closed Sundays (Chickfila), so he’s guaranteed one day off per week from work, Aikido, school, etc.
He wants to keep the job, but if he keeps stressing out over things after the first few weeks and settling into routine, then it might be time to quit.
My kid was placed into a Senior study hall for a period as one of the classes he wanted to take didn’t have enough kids enrolled and they dropped it. At first he thought about filling it up, but he realized the free period comes mid-day so he has an hour to get some homework done during the day and he has liked that. He usually can’t stat his homework until 7 or 8 each day, and it can be a grind. He’s got plenty of challenging classes, and filling the extra period with an easy elective isn’t going to hurt his college admission chances. in fact it might help because he can study more or review projects he’s working on.
He said a few morning’s are brutal with AP Calc, AP Physics and Physics Lab back to back first thing. 3 hours of brain bust.
The rest of his classes seem manageable, he just needs to put in a good effort.
@homerdog Sounds like a smart decision. He’s lucky he’s not in Virginia - everyone has to take 4 years of social studies and a government class in 12th grade (US gov., honors US Gov, AP Gov or AP Comp. Gov) if they want to graduate.
@eh1234 If that were the case, he would have planned for that. We only need two years of social studies. He used his social studies slot during soph year for AP Comp Sci. So, he will have a full year from each of freshman, junior, and senior year. We do have a new requirement that kids have to take a Government class - either Government or AP Gov - but that requirement started with the kids one year younger than our kids.
@homerdog I didn’t mean to suggest that your son wouldn’t get his diploma! Just observing that it’s one of those classes that is non-negotiable in some states. I think VA is more rigid than many (i.e., you have to take 4 social studies classes in a certain order and AP econ, human geography, and European history don’t fill any of those requirements) My son would not be taking AP Gov if he didn’t need a government class.
I imagine that colleges are a bit more flexible with social studies requirements and will take classes outside of US/world history and government.
@homerdog Oh no I’m sorry S19 is significantly stressed already. Good call on letting him get a little breather at least in the second semester. California too has a requirement to do AP Gov as a senior, or a civics/econ sequence. Yet another thing that has squeezed D19’s schedule this year.
Our big project right now is working our way through the lengthy process required to get the counselor’s letter of recommendation and school report. They want 12 documents involving six people – four teachers who are not her letter writers, a parent, and D19. I went to a “College 101” presentation this week and they said they prefer that both parents submit a “parent brag sheet” and that made me chuckle…no, I am not also going to try to get DH to respond to his own set of 9 lengthy questions. It’s challenging enough as it is. We’re targeting getting her first EA application complete by Oct 1 and it’s definitely going to take this entire month to get that accomplished. The real EA deadline is Nov 1 but I’m building in cushions for everything.
D19 has a lot of interviewy schools. She did three interviews on campus during our summer travels and has an off-campus event in our city booked for later this month, and we need to book two more campus interviews in our region for this fall. Also simmering on the back burner is her arts supplement, a video for vocal music. The clock is ticking on that one too, which needs to be done by her first RD deadline of Dec 1.
D19 is going to try converting a college-specific supplemental essay into her main CA essay to see how that might work. It’s feasible but the essay is not where it needs to be. And then of course if she does that she has to write a new supplemental. The writing is not going quite as well as I’d daydreamed it would. She’s more reluctant to work on it than I’d been hoping, and what she’s producing idea-wise is…only okay. I’m willing to say this is part of the process, but she needs to be actively engaged in it and right now I feel like I’m stringing her along. Throw in the distractions of classes, senior year social life, her impending road test for her license (gosh what a pain that one is…), and the other hoops to jump through for applications…I won’t be sad when this process is done, that’s for sure.
@eh1234 I assume that colleges look at how the high school defines a social studies class to count how many years of social studies the kids have. Any class in the social studies department should be counted. He took a “World Cultures” class freshman year. Then APUSH junior year. And Philosophy Honors and AP Macro this year. They are all in our social studies dept. And this Philosophy class is making him insane…so hard!! The teacher is the guy who wrote the most popular AP Euro prep test book (Freiler) and he is intense!!