It is a tough it sounds like, she’ll get through it positive vibes.
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After some Zoom issues and a pivot to FaceTime, the scholarship interview went well. She was so nervous and then the tech issues nearly sent her over the edge, but she pulled it together. She will hear if she gets it by the end of February. 
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Same for my kid! It doesn’t help that we’ve had straight-up icy (rather than our normal packed snow) roads most of the winter, but even without that I suspect it would have been hard—the child just kind of doesn’t care about getting a license. And honestly, I don’t really care about the driving—it’s just useful to have a license!
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Got the admitted student visit day scheduled for President’s Day. It’s an overnight visit so she will end up missing part of Tuesday at school also. I expect she’ll have a decision by the end of that week.
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My D25 has had to make similar decisions with the college/dance admission and application process (as if college decisions aren’t hard enough). She ultimately has decided on an academic major and dance minor, with possible dance team so we have bypassed the audition phase for college programs but I can’t imagine the additional layer of stress and anxiety that would have entailed (and all the travel during an already busy senior year). I’m sure she will end up exactly where she needs to be, and as we always tell our kids - there’s course correction if not! Good luck on some big decisions. Merde!
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Muhlenberg is on my D’s list too. Definitely one of the most affordable options. So far, she hasn’t seemed all that interested, but I’m hoping to take her to an admitted student day. We can’t visit until April though.
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Last summer, we did a Lehigh Valley schools tour (Muhlenberg, Lehigh, Lafayette) when visiting family that lives outside of Philly. Lehigh is gorgeous, and Lafayette is very nice, but the fraternity culture at both was a turn-off for S25. Muhlenberg is sweet, small, warm, and welcoming. The dorms and food are great. The kids seem happy. It’s easy to get to Philly and NYC. Out of his choices so far, it might be his favorite. I hope you get to visit.
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I mentioned this to S25 last night. He still wants to go to Rose. He said, “I’ll drive to Bloomington, if I have to.” He will be fine. Emotions are just running high this week.
He asked if he could stay home today. I think he’s taken a grand total of 2 or 3 sick days in all of high school, so I told him it was fine. I think he needs a mental health day.
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One of my best friends is a professor at Muhlenberg. I’ve been very impressed with the efforts they seem to go to, to assist students with transitioning to college and to help them be successful. I don’t think it’s just my friend, from what she says, it’s a definite culture of providing assistance and support.
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That’s so nice to hear. I would really like her to sit in on classes once her list is truly set. She wants to be at a college where the students are engaged and not just passive. I know she’s worried that she won’t get into a college where that’s the case. My fear is that her application doesn’t adequately reflect this and that her shyness makes her appear more passive than she is. Just really crossing my fingers that she gets open-minded and that one of the places she was accepted turns out to be a better fit than she realized or that one of her RD colleges accepts her with decent FA/merit. There are two that could be good fits that she would be more excited about than anything else on her list. And one reach that she would love, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.
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same for my younger kid no interest
My oldest went to Muhlenberg and absolutely loved it there.
None of my others have been SLAC-type kids, but if they were I’d’ve had no hesitation sending them there, as well.
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I just had a realization that helped me make sense of something on the boards that’s confused me for a while.
Every spring, as results start to come out, threads pop up here where high schoolers engage in portal astrology. I find the entire prospect silly, but what I find especially … maddening? … is how inscrutable the conversations are, compared to most of the threads here.
As an example, here’s a recent conversation.
Why write like that? Staccato posts and all-replies-all-the-time. Nothing more than a sentence. Blerg?!
The realization I had: The kids posting in these threads are treating the boards here as if it were a chat on a Discord gaming server, where it’s kind of a non-stop, context-less, keep-up-or-you’ll-get-left-behind-but-whatever chat. I’m not critical of that style of use of the forums, and I’m glad they have a place to share their close reads of javascript, but it’s definitely different than the typical “let me wrap a point in some larger context, tie it in to the existing conversation, etc. etc.” approach that most posters here have. Just wanted to share that sense-making, in case it helps any of you.
(Also, thanks to @gumbymom for splitting that off into its own thread! I would have gone nuts if that were part of the normal Class of 2029 Discussion thread.)
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Since the portal astrology has become a “thing”, the last couple of years the Forum champions have decided to make a separate discussion thread for that purpose and not derail the regular Freshman discussions.
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I live near West Chester and I wouldn’t worry about that at all. The only issue re: WCU is not enough housing. Otherwise, nice school in an adorable town.
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SO! Still waiting on Virginia Tech to release EA results (this is somewhat ridiculous) but tonight S25 heard that he got in the Pitt Honors and he heard that he got a very nice scholarship at JMU.
He’s still waiting: (1) to hear merit award at Clemson (told to expect it in March); (2) whether he gets in to Virginia Tech; (3) whether he gets the Stamps scholarship at VT.
If he gets the Stamps, then inquiry over, he’s going to VT. But if he doesn’t, he’s going to have some hard decisions to make. He really loves Clemson, but they don’t give out much merit aid and it will be so much more expensive than Tennessee, VT and JMU. It’s under the threshold we set, but is it worth the cost differential? And that “is it worth it” is going to be the issue for JMU too. If husband and I lose our jobs between now and May 1, then JMU might have to be the choice because, with this scholarship, his 529 covers the whole cost and then some. But if we don’t get RIF’d, does it make sense to ignore all that money on the table? I think so, because it doesn’t have his top choice major and he really hasn’t vibed with the school at all. But I just wish we had a magic money wand and none of this mattered.
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D was accepted to University of Delaware today for instrumental music ed! No mention of merit yet so hopefully soon. I’m out of ice cream but we have Girl Scout cookies that seem to look at me whenever I’m near the kitchen to celebrate with.
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Awesome! Is he going to the admitted students day engineering thing on Presidents’ Day? If so, we should find each other. 
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He’s not engineering college there, he’s Arts and Sciences. But that aside, I need to ask if he wants to go to an admitted students day. He did the really robust tour last Spring Break and, tbh, I thought Pitt had dropped down enough that it was out of his top 2-3 so I wasn’t really pushing another tour. But given how things change with him, who knows. So I should check and see if he wants to do one, before I just ignore it for him.
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I was saying recently my kid wanted to something like 9 admitted students days…I think we are down to 4 visits with a clear leader (RIT). I suspect if their deferral comes through, they may want to revisit that, but I think others are better fits…we shall see, but feel like we are getting closer..
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