S25 starts the IB exam gauntlet tomorrow and…he’s got a cold. Ugh. As much writing and analysis as he’s going to have to do for the next two days on just physics, I hate that he’s stuck with a foggy head and a runny nose. 
Here’s hoping he’s in better shape in the next two weeks with all the others, plus the AP exam.
Hang in there, my friends. We will get through this…
oh my gosh, EXACTLY THIS! My D25 spent all day in bed sick yesterday, but she had to finish an I.B. 10-page final paper, so she did it from bed. Tomorrow is the I.B. Physics exam, so in between drafting the paper she was studying. It will certainly make the transition to college easier that they have to push so hard right up to the end of their senior year.
If my child’s future roomates’s parent reached out to me on Facebook, I would be thrilled. The more communication/support, the better, during this exciting, yet stressful time. My guess is they haven’t read it—living in limbo is so hard. Keep us posted!
Hope your D25 — and my S25 and all the other kiddos gearing up for IB physics tomorrow — get the rest they need and head into the exam with clear heads and feeling good about being able to show what they know. Good vibes 
, and good luck!!
I will admit to lurking here for the last few minutes of down-time, in-between some other things (while avoiding reading up on the national news lol) and your posts are bringing a lot of memories up for me.
My D was a ‘21 HS graduate and is now getting ready to graduate from college. So many of those high school senior anxieties and emotional roller coasters (that you are now going through with your kids) very quickly resolved themselves a month or two after freshman year started and came to nothing! College has been…not exactly a breeze, but, wow! Such a great thing…and I hope that will be the case for all of your kids.
The finding a roommate thing: a dreadful task for my shy (back then) kid, yet she didn’t want to go random. After a few weeks of putting herself out there (not easy), chatting with various people, she finally got the guts up to ask, in turn, two people to room with her and each had just asked somebody else. Then she thought she was all set with one, and then another future roommate when each of THESE finally decided to go to a different school. Back to square 1 again. Number 5 was the charm. They’ve stayed together all four years, two in a dorm and two years in an apartment with two others (one from the freshman dorm). Tney actually still like each other. So, you never know!
My D is an only child, and had more than a year of non-interactive online school (with spotty WiFi) all during Covid. In the end she even chose to forgo potential college credit, not taking a couple of her AP tests at all because of the stress of that. During the worst of covid, she didn’t get to be together IRL with friends for months on end…she only saw mom and dad and screens. That summer before college , even after being vaccinated and newly able to be with people, she walked around in a daze saying she didn’t know if she would ever be able to feel normal around other people or even remember how to have friends. She wanted to go away to college (most kids in our small town stay local) but the night before move-in, cried at the thought of leaving home. Staying in a dorm seemed really weird to her, no matter how much fun I told her it could be. She also had no idea what she wanted to “be” when she grew up.
Well, fast -forward four years….the kid has absolutely flourished in every way…socially and academically, now on a strong professional path. I knew at the time she was a reasonably capable young person but she has stretched herself in ways I never would have anticipated and exceeded any expectations that I had. I haven’t lost anything or even really missed her being away because it’s so fun to find out what she is doing. These kids grow up SO MUCH in college….your will too! Hopefully these days of super-stress growing pains and jitters will soon be in the rear-view mirror (though make sure to enjoy every moment of it that you can 
)
As May 1 approaches, am I the only one starting to panic that we missed something and that we aren’t really enrolled or we missed some financial aid thing and that he won’t really have an affordable college to go to? I suspect this is just my anxiety talking and I am keeping my crazy away from my kid. He has an email address for the school. We got a receipt for the enrollment. He completed part 1 of the housing application. I have double (triple) checked the financial aid.
I have issues.
LOL, me too! I hacked into my kid’s college portal tonight to poke around and see for myself that they’ve accepted the financial package, no obvious loose ends, etc. Took screen grabs of the accepted scholarship and commitment.
Kiddo chose a full-ride school, so there’s been no deposit made (therefore no financial paper trail) and that was making me nervous. This school doesn’t issue email addresses until mid-May.
Oh man, I didn’t know there was such a thing as accepting the financial aid package. I didn’t see anything except the enroll process so I don’t think there is anything else for him to do. I will have the kid double check tomorrow. This type of thing is such a trigger for my anxiety. I am a checker. If I had a life quote, it would be “i just want to make sure”.
You might not have to accept the financial aid. My child’s merit money says it will be automatically applied in 2 parts when each semester’s bills post next year. No need to formally accept it. Maybe loans you have to formally accept?
But I’m also a checker and do not have my child’s login. This is part of me letting her figure it out and developing that skill. But I did just double check right now the deposit receipt she emailed me.
I’m pretending that it doesn’t make me nervous that so many of the next steps rely on my kid checking his new college email address. And, worse (for me) that I won’t even know that there ARE next steps that he should be checking for. I get that this is part of adulting, but I wish there were an easier lead in to email management. Like my kid has never had to monitor an email box before, and yes, he needs to learn that. But do we have to learn with time sensitive important things?
This is definitely the challenge. My kid is good at managing emails for the most part, although he can get a little aggressive with deleting things. He has notifications on his phone, which is good except that sometimes I think he may only read the first line of any email. I do not have access to the new email because I know he needs to manage this. I just worry with AP exams and senioritis and now having to check in with 3 emails (school email, “professional” email that he used for colleges and his job, and now new college email), it is a lot. I teach medical students and residents, I will say many of them frankly suck at the email skill. It is my mission since my kid was in elementary school to teach him to advocate for himself, reach out to teachers, and learn to organize himself, but he is young for his grade and not as organized as I would always like. Neither is my husband, he says I have high standards.
My kid logged on to his 2 emails on one of our devices a long time ago so I do have access to those. I don’t check regularly, but have done spot checks when things have come up. He knows I have access, but doesn’t rely on me to be checking. It has helped us have some teachable moments throughout the years, as in, yes I think you did get that email (because I saw it but didn’t say anything and let him feel the consequences), but you trashed it for some reason. Maybe don’t do that and read your emails fully!
I have checked less and allowed him to have more “oh, sh**” moments over the years, because I figure those will teach him more than my nagging and warning him what the consequences would have been. I will admit though, I have checked a bit more lately because there are so many end of year things that I need to know about. Graduation tickets. NHS ceremony date and other things I may need to get out of work early for etc.
My son’s is all merit money so I think we are good. I try to shield him from my crazy brain because he already tends on the anxious side. He didn’t have a chance with being an only child of 2 anxious parents. But I did tell him that he may want to make sure there isn’t anything we need to do for the financial aid. It is too much money to leave entirely up to the 17 year old. It is a transition for sure. Appreciate hearing how others are navigating this process.
My son doesn’t have time to worry about anything because he has finals now for all of his AP exams before the tests. It’s annoying because typically if you have As both quarters you are exempt from finals, but alas you aren’t if they are APs.
I just need him to focus on freaking prom.
@DW98 - Yeah, my son also logged in to his gmail account that he used for jobs and college applications on our home computer, and saved the info so that I could help him with that. And for this year, I’ve basically managed that account for him - cleaning out the junk emails from other colleges, calling his attention to other things that he needs to do. But with the advent of his new college account, he’s going to have to learn and that account is going to phase out. That’s basically what happened with my older son - we co-managed the gmail, then once the .edu account came into being, that’s where most of his important communications happened. I just try to follow the school instagram accounts, or sign up for whatever parent newsletters they have, so that if there’s something really important I generally know and can ask him about whatever it is. (Like “remember the deadline to elect housing is coming, you need to commit by date” or I can forsee for next year “don’t forget to register for graduation tickets”).
@skkm0906 - we’re in the same place. Final exam for AP Gov is today, for AP stats it was yesterday, for AP English is later this week. Because seniors are done after APs (they go off and do “senior experience” between the end of APs and graduation - it’s basically time to start an internship or job) all classes that have exams have to give them this week. So he’s also got an ASL final. Which normally he wouldn’t for the same “if you have all A’s” rule, but because of the lack of a second quarter grade when they had no teacher, all students have to take the final. I don’t even know how they are making a final, there was no second quarter teacher, the new person didn’t start until three weeks in to the third quarter, and they will only have had two weeks of the fourth quarter before APs (and seniors are required to take finals before APs). What do they do with that?
I did find out - I think - what they do for ChemLab (the class my son failed third quarter) it looks like they do have a final exam grade… which is their science fair project grade. Kid hasn’t finished the science fair project. He did all the research and data gathering in December, and hasn’t touched it since. As all of his AP exams are the first week, he’s going to spend the entire second week doing the science project and finishing his photography portfolio (that’s the final exam grade for photography). As far as I can tell, he’s basically done nothing on either of these projects in months. Great.
This is so me. I’m fine to let C25 learn on non-mission-critical stuff. But when the missed email results in losing your place for the next 4 years and/or tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money that you’ve counted on? Oh yeah my anxiety is in overdrive. It’s all I can do to not have them log in and then grab their computer and lock myself on my office so I can go over everything with a fine toothed comb and screen shot it for the inevitable “omg did we forget to…?” moment that happens like 2 hours later. 
The number of emails they are getting now is a lot to add on top of exams, APs and remaining assignments. Senior reminder emails about all the end of school activities, testing and graduation (picking up 
and gown today!) and then college emails for orientation, registration, email accounts, housing, etc.
Don’t want to rush the HS graduation, but it will be nice to just be able to focus on college. I think everything is done so far until roommate selection in mid-May.
Are we the last ones who haven’t committed yet? Here’s my S25’s take on his top four choices. He went to admitted student events at MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard but didn’t have time to go to the events at Yale (this was a heartbreaker to me), Brown, Duke, or Penn.
4. Princeton: S25 didn’t care for the vibe here, although I loved it. I suspect the lack of interaction with other admitted students contributed to this.
3. Stanford: S25 liked the school overall, but it may have been a bit too laid-back for him in terms of the vibe and fit. I accompanied him to this one and had a good time chatting with other parents.
2. Harvard: S25 just got back last night and couldn’t tell me much. He likes it, but a big turn-off for him is the fact that Harvard students are apparently not pushed very hard in many of their classes. When we visited several weeks ago, there was an article in the Crimson about “the crisis of academic rigor” at the school and several friends who are alums verified this. For some, this would be a positive, but S25 is looking for a challenge in his courses.
So, all signs point to MIT, but I told him to take a day or two and really think this through. The end is in sight!
If there are any parents here who would like to pay it forward, we are looking for more volunteers essay readers for next cycle! Want to Keep Helping Students with Their College Essays? Join Us as a Volunteer Essay Reader on CC
MIT! You can’t do wrong with my very favorite place in the world.
(Vicariously through your kid b/c mine refused to apply.)
Meanwhile, my DS is now 180 reversed from yesterday and wanting Cornell.
And so we arrive today at the first day of finals, and C25 has finally caught the cold that’s been going around just in time for them.
Fortunately, today’s just a couple hours at work followed by the final for the mathematical proofs class, on which C25 needs a (checks notes) 38.5% to maintain an A, and tomorrow’s final is actually a final paper with no class meeting scheduled. So hopefully there’s time to recover before Thursday, which is the physics final, probably the scariest one of the bunch.
Last full day of classes today for S25. He had two big assignments due today for English, including memorizing and writing out 22 lines from Hamlet. I just took a peak and he got a 10 on the assignment. Out of 100. At this point I just want him to be done, even if it means a C in English. We had it out last night over his lack of engagement with school. He just doesn’t care anymore, and I am so frustrated with him. Still a few more assignments due through the portal by Friday and I have no idea what will happen with those. He is being a complete and total pill about it. I’m not holding out much hope for his AP exams other than Calc AB, since that’s the only class he still cares about. I’m trying to remind myself of how I feel at work a day or two before we leave for a big vacation. I know it’s hard to be engaged at this point. sigh