S25 took UVA off his list (W&M doesn’t have the majors he’s interested in). It pained me - a lot - because UVA has an appreciably better program for urban planning then any other school he’s applying to (urban planning being one of his two main interests). But we visited and it just… reminded him of all the things he doesn’t like. And I 100% respect that and he knows the trade offs of taking it off the list. But it’s so hard for me to mentally get past. It’s just a better school… I need to remember But Not For Him and what he’s looking for.
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Good news on the admittance front - for the school where S25 was already admitted via rolling admissions (Pitt) he heard tonight that he got some pretty solid merit aid. This brings the cost of attendance down to just about equal to the more expensive of the two in-state schools he applied to. Of the seven schools he’s applying to, I’d probably rank this one as sixth in terms of fit for what I think he wants, but it’s the only one that has an urban planning major, which is an appealing option to him. If this were his choice, I’d be much happier with it now that the cost is dropped.
(Editing because not equal - don’t know what I was remembering. It’s still about $22k more over four years than the in state school. But it IS a better deal that’s easier to swallow if that’s what he wants.)
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This. I think he has zero attachment to the idea of Madison and it’s falling away, as did Pitt. I expected this. I know that these aren’t totally rational decisions – they’re decisions made by a tired boy who has too much on his plate. And he can only go to one school. It’s fine. I’m letting go of Madison.
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Son turned in 3 music prescreens tonight for the 11/1 EA deadlines. Finally feels like he can breathe for a bit. He just has 2 more due later next month, unless he decides to add more schools.
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I wish our grading was that lenient. To get an A at our school you have to have a 94. My daughter’s one and only A- was 1st semester freshmen year with a score of 93.4.
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D25 received her first admission today: an auto admit to KU. Super excited to have a solid option. It’s not her first choice, but it’s a great school (and by far the cheapest).
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If a family fills out a CSS, does every college see it, or only the college that required it?
Our turn for the big blowup argument about deadlines!
I’ve been out of town this week, and despite every effort to loop my husband into what he needed to keep tabs on when it came to apps while I was away, it didn’t happen because he got sucked into work obligations. So here we are on 10/31 with the SRAR not complete and the supplemental for his ED app in need of some… improvement. Just really poor time management on S25’s part this week, and I get it, he was feeling cooked on Sunday after his state championship and had a lot of school work on his plate (we won’t discuss the most recent grades on two big assignments), but then the first part of this week should have been way more focused than it apparently was while I was out of town. He has plans to go out with his team tomorrow night, and I told him not a chance unless I get a screen shot of a completed SRAR by the end of the school day. Hope he can pull that off, since he’s having issues with it because of his weird transcripts (two schools, two grading systems, plus some additional high school credits awarded for remote high school classes he took through the state’s online platform during Covid). If he had dealt with this two weeks ago, or even one week ago, or heck on Monday when he had his meeting with his GC, well, maybe this morning would have been a little more pleasant.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue or whatever other vice you want to put in there (hopefully some of you get the Airplane reference)!
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I took my D for a visit to the University of Delawares school of music. It was a beautiful day and it’s been unseasonably warm and in a drought but made for a good day to walk around some. The performance spaces are really nice but the rest of the school is a bit dated. The building was built in the 1950’s and was very warm in the main center of activity. I think the classrooms are air conditioned fortunately. She had a music lesson which was great and he’s definitely an instructor D would be happy to work with. It had been mentioned to D that while UD doesn’t really consider showing interest for admission, individual departments do especially for merit but not in every case. D had already applied and just waiting on the school to process her app before she can schedule the audition, we had no plans to visit until we got that tid bit. One of D’s teachers went to UD and said it was the best time of his life and longs to go back to all the fun.
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You have to pay to send it to each individual college. it’s a complete money grab so no, other colleges won’t see your numbers.
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I would definitely ask your child to check the portals. A few years ago my son’s ED school did not send any emails saying that his high school hadn’t submitted various letters and he/the high school were never notified.
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I hadn’t realized until this college process but a lot of schools seem to only have A, B, C no +/-. I had someone try to tell me +/- were only for university gradings!
FWIW I think a 93 should be an A even on that scale! To me a 90,91,92 …and my kids school rounds up too..so an 89.5 is an A-…
UD wasn’t initially on my kid’s radar until this week, but then we checked out some town/school videos and it didn’t catch on. Maybe we need an in person visit.
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My college…
Scale Grade
96-100 A
92-95.99 A-
88-91.99 B+
84-87.99 B
80-83.99 B-
76-79.99 C+
72-75.99 C
Less than 72 F
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Some college admission offices that recalculate high school GPAs will simply get rid of the +/-, such that A- = A.
Edit, sorry this reply was meant for @L_NewEngland
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I’ve taught at colleges that do and don’t have +/- grades. (The one I currently work at does not.)
I very much do prefer +/-, because there is a meaningful difference between a high B and a low B student. The only issue I have is that everywhere I’ve been a student or faculty at that had +/- grading didn’t have an A+—and I figure that even if they don’t want to give you a GPA bump from an A+ (so that the scale still tops out at 4.0), there still ought to be a way to reward particularly spectacular work.
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We didn’t walk far beyond the music building but the students we spoke to all said they are happy there and really like the Main Street area with all the activities and food. There was a few places to eat across from the music building including boba which is necessary for D. Some of the dorms don’t have AC and that would be a dealbreaker for D if she couldn’t get one with at least a window unit. She’s very heat averse. I can’t get her to sit through any college videos to save my life!
Annnnd I thought S25 was doing so well..just one more school to submit for 11/1 (plus uploading his portfolio which is mostly done). No problem, plenty of time!!
and then I took a look at his SRAR, which he submitted to all three schools that require them two weeks ago.
U Del says complete, but Pitt says incomplete and Penn State is not even listed under his schools!! ■■■!?
It turns out that he used a personal email to complete the SRAR, but used his school email to complete the applications, and now the two are not linked. 
How do we rectify this? I could not figure it out on the SRAR site. I have reached out to them, but am sure I will not hear back by tomorrow’s EA deadline.
Details are not my kid’s strong suit.
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Oh, fore sure. I meant someone told me once, adamantly, that no HSs had +/-s and that only colleges did. Meanwhile I had only ever heard of colleges NOT using +/-.
The scales are all so different I am not even sure why we bother sometimes.. the Idea a 90+ can be a B+ is wild to me! Goes against ALL my pre-conceived notions of grading.
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I think you can change the email address for your SRAR account. I think my son had his set up with an icloud and switched it to a gmail.
In general I think it’s better to use the personal account and not the school account, but I don’t know if you can change the applications. Maybe start with trying that - see if he can go into his portals and change the personal info/contact info? Or maybe just call/email admissions?
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