I hope your son recovers well and is soon on the mend.
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I hope your daughter feels better soon. It can be a challenge - make sure she is gentle with herself.
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Today is my daughterâs 18th birthday. She applied to 17 schools and has heard back from all but one which was Florida State. She has been leaning toward Ole Miss (which offered full tuition) for months now, but still considering 5 others. Anyways, today was the Florida State decision day and she got into the University. She was also accepted into the Honors College which awarded her a full out of state tuition waiver. She also received another scholarship on top of the tuition waiver which makes everything a very attractive offer pretty close to the Ole Miss offer. We are going to fly over and take a look in a couple weeks. Happy Birthday to her!
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Congratulations!
Today is also my sonâs 18th birthday. 
(But no exciting news for himâŠ)
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Wow! Congratulations on an amazing birthday for your student!
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Waitlisted at Reed. D24 indicated that they were still in her top three. So now waiting on six more schools, decisions not coming until mid to late March. St. Olaf is still in the lead!
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The wait is starting to seem interminable at this point. Iâm ready to be done.
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Just donât start asking Siri how many days untilâŠsheâs definitely growing tired of telling me.
D24 added another negative to U of A yesterday. She tried to reset her student email login password. Tried many times unsuccessfully. The website requires you to enter part of oneâs student ID # from the back of your student ID card. And sheâs not officially an enrolled student yet, so she doesnât have a student ID card. And thereâs no other option other than calling the U of A IT help desk and waiting on hold.
And itâs through the universityâs email portal that they send you, the admitted student, all of the info on enrolling, signing up for stuff, etc.
Some of what she ranted about yesterday made me laugh, though. She said, âWhat the heck? Theyâre basically run by the government, so they should be able to develop a website that actually works!â 
âŠand then I was thinking about this a little last night. It made me think about how easy (or difficult) is it for the prospective student to navigate the normal, regular college process of GSDâing (getting stuff done) when comparing College A to College B to College C, etc. Is it a general campus culture & environment in which staff and the related systems are helpful, easy to figure out, someone will offer to connect you up to the right person if youâve started out at the wrong office? That sort of thing?
Or is it like my sisterâs description of having to spend 5 hours (literally) at the California DMV when she moved from elsewhere back to CA about 4 years ago? And yeah, it really did take her 5 hours to register her car and get a new driverâs license.
âŠbecause right now, U of A is starting to feel a lot more like that CA DMV example.
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God help us. I have not gone to the DMV in California, but my experience with other stateâs made me want to shudder.
During COVID, the state where I lived changed a bunch of procedures to help manage social distancing. I found it remarkable how well they managed to redesign the experience from scratch so that there were no longer any crowds and more could be done online and YET the redesign somehow managed to reproduce all the misery and futile waiting of the original system.
Because they no longer took walk-ins and you had to make an appointment to go at a scheduled time, the clerk:customer ratio shot way up. Under pandemic rules, there seemed to be 5 clerks for every one customer in the building. Youâd think that would be great, but the DMV was completely changed and simultaneously, the pain was exactly the same. It was kind of surreal actually.
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Yeah, I hear ya! My sister said it was an awful lot like the DMV scenes in Zootopia. Meanwhile, when we moved to our current state, getting car registration and new driverâs licenses issued took about 30 minutes.
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It does make me wonder whether there are any very large universities that are especially well run and managed. Not talking financially here, more along the lines of what your DD encountered with U of A. Like the Office of Circumlocution.
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Happy Birthday to your D24 and Congratulations! What an amazing birthday present for her! 
Sorry to hear about your daughterâs concussion and subsequent issues. Glad to hear her HS an ED school are making the accommodations needed to help her recover at her own pace. Best wishes for continued progress to full recovery.
I was pleasantly surprised at my recent NY DMV experience. Much more streamlined, quick turnaround time. It is annoying that they donât take walk ins anymore but the time I made the appointment, they had availability for the same day and multiple slots.
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S24âs second quarter grades just came in last weekend (2/10). Some of his RD and deferred EA schools want a counselorâs report on them. With a snow day this week, and robotics season ramping up, S24 didnât hand in his request to the HS counseling staff till today(2/16) 
. Unfortunately, his school goes into a mid-winter break and the HS will likely not send in the grades till 2/26 when they come back to work.
Should S24 email individual AOs and tell them the grade report has been requested and attach an unofficial copy?
In other news, S24 got into WPI and got a sizeable Presidential scholarship. That was exciting but wow still a significant chunk after the scholarship. Waiting to hear from UF next Friday and that will be the last from his Nov application. He and dad are going to checkout Purdue this weekend. Hoping it will be a good fit!
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Question for the masses: D24âs academic team recently did very well in a state-wide competition and will be headed to nationals in Washington D.C. in April. Weâre elated (itâs been an extremely time-intensive commitment all year), but is it worth sending a brief update to her RD schools?
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I think it goes into the mantra of - likely not necessary and wonât move the needle - but I donât think these things hurt - like, so and so sent an extra letter, letâs reject them.
So if it gives comfort to the student, then why not??
Congrats to the student and hope they have a wonderful time in DC.
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I would add if this competition/award maps to major or oppty at the college - all
the better to personalize the update to the area AO.
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I think so. If they donât feel like they need, they will not look at it. Otherwise you will benefit from sending. You will only stand to gain in the process. So just send it. Thatâs my take.
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