Congratulations!!! I am so very happy for him and you. What a wonderful outcome! Time to start planning open house visits 
S22 has two official acceptances and 1 unofficial one. At this moment, he knows he didn’t make the first (and likely last) round of offers of one of the top programs. He is still waiting for quite a few more.
Congrats to all your kiddos that have some acceptances, especially with funding! That’s amazing. I wish the SLP programs would get it together, lol, but most don’t notify until mid-March.
It’s official:
Son accepted NYC Bloomberg Software Engineer full-time job.
He’ll be just a car ride away, instead of a flight.
Who’s looking for a great roommate in Manhattan?
Yay! very happy for you and your son.
Adulting lesson today for S22 - he lives in off campus housing. It’s a very old house, built in 1913. The first floor is an apartment for four guys and the second floor is a separate apartment for four guys (although they are all friends). Both apartments have four bedrooms, one bathroom, all the relevant stuff for a kitchen, and a washer and dryer.
In late January sewage started backing up into the basement of the house - they found it because there were smaller backups into the toilets and shower drains, but it was a bubbling pool in the basement. They called the landlord ASAP. He had a plumber come out. It was clearly something in the main pipe to the street. The house still has all it’s original pipes.
For nine days they could only flush each toilet 1x/day, couldn’t wash dishes, shower, or do laundry. And the 1x/day to flush the toilet was in certain hours when he didn’t have “workers coming”. The eight men living in these two apartments were instructed to use the toilet at the gas station down the street, or to use toilets on campus, and to shower at the rec center on campus. On the third day they texted the landlord to tell him they would be withholding $90 rent per day (that’s the monthly rent divided by 30 days for the two apartments combined) until this was fixed. The landlord wrote back “yes”.
It took nine days to fix. They texted the landlord that they’d be reducing the February rent by $810, per their agreement, and the landlord went bonkers. Threatened to take them to court, threatened to charge them for the sewer repair costs and something having to do with the power company (I gather there is a pole in the way of the repair?). Was all “we have to work together, I’ve never worked with anyone so greedy, this is so expensive, I will never give a good reference for you, let’s go to court.” Never mind that under MA law they house was uninhabitable for nine days.
At the end of the day, it’s not a huge amount of money - $810 across 8 guys. But they are so so mad. To them, this is a principle thing, and they aren’t willing to bend.
The apartments are not nice. They have wallpaper that appears to be from the 60’s or early 70’s and the formica counters to match. The appliances look like early 80’s. There are stairs that aren’t up to code, wiring that I can’t imagine is recent, rooms with no power outlets. They’ve had mice several times, that they’ve dealt with on their own. So many problems. But they pay their rent and don’t complain. This home owner is getting $2700/month from these kids. That’s $32,400 per year. I feel for the guy, having an expensive repair bill, but he bought the home in 2012 for $172k, and no evident improvements have been made, so he should have plenty of profit from the rent he’s charging. Besides, it’s his responsibility. He gets equity in the house (it’s worth more like $430k now) and renters get nothing. The lease is pretty clear that the renters have no responsibility, and MA housing law is pretty clear about what constitutes a habitable residence.
Anyhoo, I spent some time today with S22 helping him draft a letter to the landlord. He is SO mad. Eight guys. No working toilets for nine days. Walking through the below freezing cold to a gas station to use a toilet. Showering on campus. Can’t blame him for being mad. But what a PITA.
He will likely win as MA is very tenant friendly. If they are mad enough to follow through - it might be a long slog.
Holy crap. Literally.
I’m amazed all eight of them were willing to use the gas station bathroom and shower on campus? No one wanted to check into a hotel and find a way to bill the homeowner for it later? Especially as you said, MA law is clear about a habitable residence. Gah.
Good for your kid for fighting the good fight! That situation sounds so horrible.
D22 just got her first acceptance for an SLP master’s program – at UVA! She would do the “orange path” for out-of-field applicants, so it would be 7 semesters starting this fall, with the first year being primarily prerequisites. She’d finish her clinicals/externship by December 2028 – and then take the certification exam, I think.
(I mention all this because speech-language pathology programs vary widely.)
YAYYY – she applied to 10 total, and this is just the first one she’s heard from, but it’s a solid one in terms of location and reputation. They’re all expensive, but it’s a public school, so it’s quite a bit less than some of the private schools on her list.
I’m so relieved!
As a Virginia resident, I am very pro VA schools! 
. UVA is a fantastic choice to have.
Also, FWIW, Charlottesville is a great place to live - both for college students as well as young families and even retirees (because the hospital is too notch and with the college there’s a very vibrant downtown scene). It’s an incredibly well respected school throughout the state (and further) and when I see my doctors, or my kids teachers, or any other professionals have UVA diplomas I walk in feeling confident in their skill set as I think the school does a tremendous job preparing their students.
Congratulations to all 2022 grads. D22 received a full-time offer from a reputable company and an Ivy League acceptance to an MSCS program. Waiting on others.
Well, the graduation portal opened this week at S22’s school. He has ordered his regalia and requested his tickets. His school is on a quarter based system and the third quarter ends in three weeks, so it’s getting more obvious how close the end is. His schedule for his final quarter is really challenging - he’ll have the hardest course in both of his majors and the final quarter of his yearlong project. So he’ll need to push hard to get to the end, but it’s looking good.
I can’t believe how quickly these four years have flown by.
Is it too early to talk graduation-dress-for-Mom?
I’m not a shopper, nor that stylish.
High school graduations were pretty low key for my kids; we didn’t have graduation parties, we attended a bunch of them.
I am so proud of my soon-to-be-college-graduate that I can burst, and I want to look really great at graduation and the graduation party we’re hosting.
All the dresses I see are:
What is a Mom to wear?
Dad’s got his Kenneth Cole blue suit.
Something in the college’s colors. I’m browsing ideas, too! The Best Graduation Dresses For Moms - The Mom Edit
Congratulations! Glad to hear that the first acceptance is on the less expensive side! What a huge plus. Fingers crossed for the rest of her applications.
S22 is hitting open houses in the next few weeks and will hopefully be a bit wiser after a few visits. He has quite a few options (eight total) to choose from, but there are also 2 PhD programs he got waitlisted for that he would prefer to any of those he got in.
My HS2022-er took a little time off and switched schools so will not be graduating with this cohort, but I know right now, no parties for her!! She would hate that. I’m not even sure she will walk at graduation. Probably not. Which means no dressing up for me, not that I would have dressed up to watch her walk with 5000 of her peers anyway. I am always super uncomfortable playing dress-up.
We will have to think up a suitable gift for her. Maybe a little trip or something for her apartment or something for getting started in life.
I want something nicer than the super casual dresses I have, but not like the stuff I wear to work. I know I’ll want some family photos, and I’d like to look nice in them, so I need something new. We won’t do a party, but my sister and her family as well as my mom are traveling to the college town with us to go to graduation. We’re paying for the AirBnB for all of us, and will pay for the nice dinner out after graduation and any other group meals. So that will be “party” enough for us.
In terms of a gift - when my dad passes away 12 years ago he left S25 his Rolex. I’ve been holding on to it. I’m going to take it in to get it serviced and gift it to him. That will be the tangible thing. We’ll all probably give him some $$ to go towards his big post-grad trip that he’s taking with his friends.
I wore flowy pants and a t-shirt with an interesting neckline for D22’s HS graduation and will probably do similar for college graduation. I like the way the pictures look. If I manage to do a bunch of ab exercises between now and then and lose some belly fat I might consider a cute dress but right now I’d rather stick to flowy pants and top! No way am I wearing shapewear for an outdoor graduation at the end of May.
One thing to consider is whether there are 2 ceremonies (whole school in the football stadium) with separate smaller school graduations. You could be in the sun for hours and have a very long day! I also wore flowy/wide pants from Anthropologie and a crisp white cotton blouse that was dressed up with a nice belt and had a scarf under the collar of my blouse
Hi all! My D22’s job search has taken an unexpected turn. LostWife and I have been pretty certain that D22 would remain in the UK after graduation but she now has an offer to work in Japan. If she takes it up, we will be in the same country again! 
Since leaving the UK for Japan a couple of years ago, I’ve been a bit worried that we are now so far away from D22 that we can’t just come to her aid in an emergency (although we do have friends in the UK who will gladly lend a hand). And I miss being able to see her regularly, rather than for short stretches once or twice a year. In this regard, I am excited by the prospect of her working in Japan.
The only downside is that Japanese work culture is quite brutal. D22 has an offer with an international firm but I believe the vast majority of the staff is Japanese so the corporate culture might lean Japanese rather than Western.
In any event, we’ll leave it to her to decide (she also has another offer in the UK), as it is her life after all. After an exhausting process for D22, I am highly grateful that she has a couple of attractive options.