Privacy is in the eye of the beholder, right? And it’s not a rational assessment but a more general feeling around personal boundaries and protectiveness of them, that might come from something unrelated to the college process. S25 wants my help and is happy to let me read and weigh in on everything related to the process and the common app, but I personally would be like your kid (and still am in my adult life, mutatis mutandis!)
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Glad to hear it seemed lovely! S25 is now maybe interested in it since they joined Tuition Exchange this year, and we’ve been looking on the website and watching videos of it. S25 is deciding whether he wants to include it on this list.
A couple more acceptances today. Central Mich official yes w/ the 3500/yr merit we expected along with invite to apply for additional 4k/yr essay scholarship. Bellarmine with 23,500/yr merit (Tuition alone is 47k/yr so merit is bigger).
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We are in Ithaca visiting our son right now. He is so happy!! And getting an amazing and very personalized education.
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I so love colleges that are essentially stats-based admission, at least at the higher end of stats.
C25 submitted via the Common App to Western Washington late the evening of last Friday, the following Sunday came an automated (I presume) notice that their application portal had been set up, I don’t think Monday was a holiday for the university but the mail wasn’t running if that makes a difference to admissions offices, and Tuesday came the acceptance notification.
So that was a quick ride.
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Benefits, or lack thereof, don’t really mean anything. Either your kid is ok sharing that info or not. Probably best to just ask your kid if they’re comfortable giving you access.
Took 3 days for W&J for ours. It is nice to not have to wait!
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We are similar. My kids did not go into the portal after they applied, and I am happy they didn’t because they just needed a little distance at that point. I don’t think it would be good for them!
In any case, one college posted a “surprise” supplement that was almost missed. Yale, for whatever reason, never got the transcripts (they were resent later), a couple of other colleges had some optional (nothing is optional!) items listed on the portal.
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Wow, surprise in S25’s email this morning: he’s been accepted to Auburn! As this is the second acceptance, we now know that he will at least have choices for where he studies in college. 
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D25 is in at Univ of Oregon!
This is a great choice that is OOS, but not too far from home. I really hope she stays on the west coast.
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Can I just state that I find it really interesting which schools market my child until the bitter end and which ones have fallen off? D25 got so.many.mailers from UChicago, but I haven’t seen any recently. Yet Harvard continues to send her glossy pamphlets in what–back in my day–would have been acceptance size envelopes. After opening it, she came into my room and said, “They’re emotionally manipulating me! It makes me want to apply!” (Well, she actually started out with “They’re gaslighting me.” but my husband talked her down to a more accurate description.) Why, Harvard, why? I can understand Creighton’s mailers/emails, especially since she opened them early on as she was refining her list, but Harvard has enough applicants, and my kid does not fit an underrepresented demographic in their pool. I mean, she’d be open to being a humanities major as her second choice, but that’s the only different thing about her.
The reality of the work to be done over the next two weeks (er, twelve days, gulp) has hit her and she’s trying to keep her head about her. Notwithstanding, she’s at the studio for eight hours today. I love watching my kid dance, but I will not miss the entire fall being taken up by Nutcracker rehearsals.
Hope you are all well!
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My S22 was home for 5+ days for fall break (got home at 11pm Sunday, got dropped off at 10am this morning.)
It was so nice to have him here, even though we didn’t do anything really special. I want to be one of those families that go on family hikes, or play board games together, or just do fun family stuff. But that hasn’t been us for a long time. With S25 having school during the week and lots of homework, we pretty much just had dinner together. I did telework a little more than usual, and I took Friday off to run a few errands with S22, but still, didn’t feel like enough.
And next year, the three schools my S25 wants the most are 6-9 hours away in the opposite direction. I know it’s good that my guys are confident and ready to be out of the house. But I am really not looking forward to having them both gone.
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How do you help your kids decide what they want to major in? D25 has said for over a decade she wants to be a vet. I never thought that was a good fit for her and I think she’s starting to realize that. She has also been mentioning lawyer for the last couple of years and she’d be fantastic at that. So I’m pretty sure she’s really leaning towards law but wants a major that she can do something with if she ends up not wanted to go to law school.
Originally she was thinking biology then she could decide later between law and vet but she doesn’t really like biology as a field and wouldn’t want to be a researcher. She doesn’t want to do poly sci or history because she doesn’t feel you can do much with those degrees if you don’t go on to law school. So now she’s thinking nursing and then continue on to law school.
She was having a panic attack about it last night because she is trying to fill out scholarship applications for one of her top schools and there are many major specific scholarships she can apply for but she has to declare a major.
So how do you help them decide?
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When I was a freshman in college my dad sat me down with the classifieds (yes, I’m dating myself) and told me to find jobs that looked interesting and explore them at college through classes, internships and maybe a major. Importantly he taught me to think about where I (perhaps) wanted to end up and make a path to get there rather than follow a path first (i.e. decide a major first) and then find a job that fit it. Maybe this is old school, but I have encouraged my D25 to do the same. She doesn’t have to 100% decide on a future job, but envisioning or experiencing what some jobs look/feel like helped her think about what her path towards those might look like. It also helped her think about what major(s) might get her closest to the job(s) that looked appealing. I guess it helped change the theoretical into something tangible. It also will (hopefully) lead to gainful employment 
. That’s not a direct answer to your question but maybe it’ll help you frame the question of major a little differently for her. Her major doesn’t have to be a direct fit to where she ends up but just get in her the ballpark. Let experiential learning like shadowing and internships do the rest.
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S25 is not interested in any pre-professional track; he is more of a writer, artist, helper, and talker. I think law school may be in the cards for him as well. I told him to pick a major (or double major) that they will love taking classes in and that will teach him to be the best writer and thinker he can be. He’s settled on political science or sociology, depending on the school.
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An important thing to consider is that, if she wants to go into a science or health related field, she’ll likely need a year of bio, chem, physics and calc prior to taking any upper division courses. It is important to start at least a couple of those classes early (freshman year) so that she can graduate on time.
At many schools, it is easier to transfer out of a science major than it is to transfer into one.
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We bought a used copy of the College Board’s Book of Majors (the most recent edition is 2017, but that’s fine) and went through the possibilities.
For lower (and arguably, for most kids, healthier) degrees of intensity, don’t help them decide, but let them enter college undeclared and take gen-ed courses in a wide range of subjects that might be of interest. The kid will figure it out.
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As a lawyer, married to a lawyer, we would both say, “Don’t do it!” Haha
That advice aside, majors for law school don’t really matter that much. So, pick something that they enjoy and are interested in. Grades matter more than major.
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I teach anthropology at a local community college and my students often say something like, this is really interesting, I can see myself getting an anthro degree, but what will I do for a career. The reality is is that in most of my classes, I’m not training future anthropologists, but thinkers. There are only a handful of university degrees that are job training, so if they’re not headed into engineering, computer science, business or maybe a couple of other majors they are probably preparing for some sort of additional training, grad school, teaching credential, law school, some sort of certificate etc. The beauty of that is that students get to explore a wide range of classes before declaring a major, and they’ll all provide students with the opportunities to do research, think critically, and write logically. I tell my students to find something they love. It doesn’t really matter if it’s anthropology, history, or comparative literature, all of them are great places to learn to be a better student and prepare for the next step in their learning. The world doesn’t employ a lot of historians, but history is a great spring board for any career that works with people. If she loves it, that’s what will make her successful. Just my two cents.
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My daughter told me she wanted to be a cop for years. I knew it wasn’t for her. What really helped her was our last college visit where she got to talk to 3 professors in different majors. It really opened up her eyes. Kids have no clue about what jobs are out there!
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