We’re right there with grade struggles. One early February sports competition meant tons of practices, which led into another EC in the spring and now tryouts for sports. This next week is going to do us all in. At least the Winter of Sick seems to have stopped.
Prom was last night. The dress worked great and she wore heels for pictures and then wore high tops to the dance, praise the heel gods. Her favorite part? The bus ride to and from, lol! Apparently, her friend group placed themselves in the back and were surrounded by boys, who then connected their phone to the bus audio system for some music. D25 said, “I laughed when the ads for Spotify came on.” She doesn’t have a ton of practice with the opposite sex and said, “They talked for like 15 minutes about the best route to take. 15 minutes!” Welcome to men, my sweets, they are very practical beings.
0% studying for AP exams. Hope the classes have prepared her somewhat. I’m sure these next three weekends will be studying.
I go on a whirlwind trip for 80 hours, and come back to 50 messages! I have another thread asking for help with D25, so won’t rehash it here, except to give more emotions. But first, the statistics:
80 hours from start to finish
5 states other than my own (+3 for layovers on flights)
4 colleges (+1 quick car drive to a 5th)
15.5 hours sleep in the time away (do not recommend. I’m dragggggging today.)
5 cups of coffee
5 smoothies between D25 and me
6 flights
580 miles driven
I waffle between “I am woman, hear me roar!” and “What in the world did we just do?”
More seriously, I’m super glad we went. D25 rejected a school I thought would be great for her, added one I never would have picked (bc she had previously said it would be too intense), was able to do a vibe check and say “no” to a different school, and liked one I thought she’d like. I’m back to the drawing board for more safeties and matches, but she was able to steer once she saw the options, so I feel really good about that. She was far more decisive than I thought she’d be.
I echo the concern about the intensity of the workload right now. We visited while her classes were in session, so every drive, every flight she was cramming work in. Now she’s as sleep-deprived as I am and working on AP Bio and AP Macro. Prom is this Saturday.
Yesterday we went to college fair put on by probably the top two public schools and top two private schools in our area. It was fine. They only had 3 out of the close to 20 schools on D25’s list. And we had actually visited all 3 before. I’m surprised they couldn’t get more schools from outside the Midwest to come.
D25 was accepted into an environmental field training program associated with Wash U for this summer and coming school year. She’s pretty excited.
Our district is having a college fair this Friday. 30 colleges will be there – a couple of which are still on C25’s list. I’m hoping to convince them to go, but we’ll see if they’re up to it after a full week of classes… I just wish there were more schools from outside the PNW region represented (same issue, different area…)
The Friday before our spring break college visit in Washington my dad was admitted to the hospital, he had stopped taking his medication. D25 and I already had plans to stay with my parents arriving to their house Tuesday night. Once dad’s meds were restarted and he was coherent I asked him if he wants me to just drive straight to his house Monday after we arrive in Seattle. He said no, go enjoy the college tour and he’ll see us Wednesday morning at the hospital. College visit was awesome and it was great that we did it before going to see him. The first thing he said to me at the hospital was, get me out of here I don’t want to do any of this anymore. I explained that stopping the medication will hasten his death. He said he was ok with that. Mom agreed through her tears, the doctor agreed too. So we spent the next couple of days bringing him his favorite foods and having his friends and family visit. My husband flew in. He passed away Friday night.
D25 and H flew home the next Wednesday but she missed the last 2 days of school that week to try and recover from everything that happened. Plus they would have her take all the Friday quizzes. I stayed until the next Thursday because the funeral was Wednesday. I’m the responsible, rational person in my family so everything fell on me to organize, arrange, write, call and manage fairly unmanageable sister and brain injured mom. I’m so glad to be home and am grateful for all the friends and family who did help.
OMG you just saved us a trip from the mid-Peninsula to Folsom (so, not just a drive: an hotel reservation, a horrible post-work Friday commute through the East Bay, a sleepless night, a tired kid, etc etc.) Just checked and found a seat in San Jose, just a 20-minute drive from us. THANK YOU!
Has anyone here canceled an ACT test after registering? It appears it is not possible, which is a bummer because the test site is full and I am sure a kid would be psyched to get an opening. D25 did well on her first ACT and no longer wants or needs to take the second one (unfortunately scores had not yet been released when we registered).
Yeah, I just got off the phone with them and there is no cancelation option and no refunds available. I also asked if I could transfer the test to my younger child and that was also a hard no. LAME! They seem to intentionally make the test registration deadline right before they send out the test scores from the previous test so you feel pressured to register. DOUBLE LAME!
It depends on the sport and the level. But for a lot of sports - hockey, swimming, soccer, etc. - it’s customary to commit as early as junior fall for D1.
For the most part contact and offers can be made any time after June 15 of sophomore year. For strong D1 programs rosters this is actually pretty late in the game in many sports.
Still, while it feels early, recruiting is a full time job. Junior year is brutal and often heartbreaking. And there is a lot of disappointment along the way. It just happens earlier and no one sees it from the outside.
Iron clad might be strong wording but pretty certain. Coaches are experienced as are admissions officers doing the pre reads. There is no reason for a kid who is not on the academic bubble to feel uncomfortable going public. Selective D3 do pre reads in the summer after Jr year, so you don’t see those announcing as early.
For those whose kid took the SAT during the school day, how long did it take to get scores back. My daughter took it 3.5 weeks ago, and she thought she would have them by now.
Potentially dumb logistical question about CC. I just found a thread from four years ago with a poster who has a similar kid to my D25. She/he has a hidden profile, so I can’t message the person to see what the student chose, and the thread is locked since it’s been years. Is it ok to just @ them to ask a question? I’m going to here, but if anyone reading this thinks this is not allowed, let me know and I’ll edit!
@Driverof3 --can you let me know where your daughter ended up going? What her final list ended up being? Thoughts about ballet at those schools? (Feel free to DM if that’s easier!)
We’re back from our DC trip. Walked a ton, but I’m not sure it was enough to make up for all the awesome food we enjoyed. I am going to post our combined observations and thoughts about the three college visits on the college visit thread, but to sum up, GW left a much bigger impression than I thought it would. So much for our theory that being on a fully urban campus would not appeal to him! We sat him down and really started to drill down on the financial part of this process and how that can impact what happens after college. I had been dreading this part, but I’m relieved that we’re addressing it now so that he can better understand how all the pieces could fit together (or not). Now we have to make a decision about whether or not we need to do a swing through some of the more southern schools on his list or if he can rely on the online resources and visit if he applies and is admitted to any of them.
On the motivation front, DS was in the same boat a few weeks ago with low motivation/grades taking a hit. He hadn’t really been studying for APs either, but now he’s got a plan for where to focus his energy, or so he says. The time between now and the exams is going to go quickly, but after the APs are done, I am not sure what they’ll be doing until the end of school in mid-June… that should be interesting.
And I envy those of you with access to good college fairs! S25’s school (local public) is too tiny to host, and a late season snow storm got in the way of attending one at a school about 45 minutes from here. S27’s boarding school just hosted a fair that I thought sounded pretty cool. It was an anonymous college fair where the reps kept their school affiliations hidden, so students were able to engage without any preconceived notions. The reps did reveal themselves at the end of the fair and do the usual thing, but it seemed that kids really learned a lot about schools they may not have known about or would not have considered before the event.
