Stamps interview is over and S25 feels good about how it went. Who knows if he’ll actually get this, given the odds, I’m going to guess probably not, but I’m really proud of him regardless. Being nominated was great, but it sounds like he really prepared well and presented himself well in the interview. I’m proud of him for going through the whole thing and getting the experience. He’s had such a year of blows to his confidence with his sport, that it’s nice to see something that clearly made him feel like he did a good job.
No idea when we’ll find out if he got it (heck, I also don’t know when we’ll find out if he’s even admitted to the school… EA is supposed to be notified by “the end of February” which feels like it’s taking forever), but things are out of his hands at this point.
We’re still waiting on the following:
(1) Virginia Tech - Admittance decision and any potential merit scholarships.
(2) Clemson - merit aid info, which should come out in March, per his admittance letter.
(3) UCONN - he applied RD there, which I believe comes out in March. (Although nothing is hinging on this, really. It was intended as a safety school and, given that he is in at Tennessee and has a large merit award there, I can’t see UCONN topping that. But I guess you don’t know until you know.)
If he were to rank his schools today, I think it would be: Clemson, VT, Pitt/UTK dead heat tie, JMU, UCONN, but there’s a lot of variability in there still depending on $$ and whim.
Music to my ears! I called the school to ask if they were concerned–not one iota. So we’re headed out as planned assuming the weather forecast doesn’t dramatically shift tomorrow.
I’m on the side of your gut instinct. I fly reasonably often, including a flight from the Midwest to Ohare scheduled for tomorrow on American. I too received an email offering to change the flight with no change fee. This offer covered flights over several upcoming days across about 15 destinations. At least with American, you had to retain your original airports, they just were allowing a shift in days / times.
I don’t recall this happening before, but that doesn’t mean much.
It spooked me enough to fly to Chicago today rather than wait until tomorrow.
My kids and MIL did a cruise around England, Ireland and Scotland ending in Copenhagen. They said it was great, and they got to explore a good number of places in a short amount of time. Last year my daughter did Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Slovenia. She said Slovenia is in her all time top 3.
So, ultimately I agree with the above responses that suggest you let him skip. Your question asked “what would you do” and I’m pretty confident that is where I would land for all the reasons others mentioned.
Honestly, however, for one part of me it would be a major struggle.
(I’m not being critical here, as I could easily be your son. I’m just reflecting on your question.). My struggle mostly lies in time management skills. In particular, he is running out of time to develop those crucial skills before he leaves the nest. In your message you say (or maybe I’m reading too much into your post) that he really did have time to study for his test but was doing other, more fun, things. Now, he isn’t quite prepared for the test.
My question would be is anything being learned from allowing him to skip the day? Or will the pattern repeat. Specifically, will he actually study during the time now gained by skipping?
All that said, I would certainly allow the skip, but it would nag at me when doing so.
Regardless, good luck on the interview and scholarship opportunity!
Wow! We could never, ever afford that with the costs of college looming above us. Wonderful that so many have that kind of $$! I suppose college confidential skews higher-income
The storm is supposed to be done by about 4am on Thursday morning in IL. I would think a flight later in the day on Thursday should be absolutely fine!
D25’s Mock trial competition got cancelled for tomorrow. They are having a rough season with a lot of rethinking of their case. They really could have used the practice but I’m also glad it got canceled because I don’t want them driving around in a bus in a blizzard.
There is a winter dance (it’s a Sadie Hawkins deal) in a little over 2 weeks and I’m trying to get D25 to ask the guy she’s been talking with but she is just so nervous about it. I don’t want her to regret not giving it a go.
Well, we have a dilemma. A great problem to have really but I’m not sure what to do. S25 is a finalist for Furman’s Duke Scholarship which is fabulous. But, he has to go out for an interview day in March on the same day that he has a mandatory senior thing at school. I can probably get him out of the senior thing, i can’t imagine the school is going to require him to miss the scholarship opportunity, but he’s going to be upset. AND I’m not sure he wants to attend Furman. He loved our visit last year but has since moved on to wanting a more business school experience like SMU Cox over a liberal arts experience. But do you turn down a potential free ride?! That would be nuts right?
He’s still at school so we haven’t really talked yet. I guess I just let him lead on this? I’m worried he’s going to want to skip it because of the senior event which just seems like it’s not thought through. AHH I wish this college process was over.
You nailed the issue on the head. It makes me unhappy to have allowed the full-day skip when a good part of the reason he needed it was because he didn’t prep enough ahead of time. This is a consistent issue and we’ve talked a lot about how to turn over management of his EF and time management skills to him, and not me. We agreed that with the start of the third quarter, I wouldn’t nag him to do homework, or check in on assignments, or remind him about things that were overdue. That if he asked for help with scaffolding, I’d help, but that the onus is on him now. And I want and need him to take that responsibility.
I do think that he used his time well today. He slept in later (he’s up at 6:45 for school and didn’t get up until 8:30) but he’s really needed the sleep. The time between about 9:00 and 1:00 I think he really did spend working on studying for the chem test and prepping for the interview. Of course, it’s all stuff that should have been done Saturday or Sunday, but at least it got done.
If it had been just skipping because he wasn’t prepared for the test I would’ve said no. He needs to figure this ish out. But, trying to be pragamatic, I decided the time to take a stand wasn’t when there was a potentially life changing scholarship on the line.
But thank you for your thoughtful response, that really helps me because it’s a lot of where my head was/is.
I spent 1½ days in Ljubljana several years ago recovering from jetlag and then wandering around before catching a train to a research conference.
I never thought I’d find street food to displace döner kebabs in my heart, but then I had Slovenian burek. Dang. I want to go back just for that. It was that amazing.
(Well, and the city’s school crossing signs. Those were pretty delightful, too.)
Congrats on the scholarship opportunity. If he doesn’t want to attend, it may not be the right place even if the money is there. It may not be a popular opinion. Is it OOS or in-state? I’d focus on if this is a place you both are really considering.