Haha reminds me of our Boulder tour when the guide kept saying x is “free but actually you’ve paid for it”.
Of course we are at public school so no tuition. Our tickets were pretty pricey (I think $150) but students can get lower or no cost by talking to counselor if they can’t afford that. That includes bus (they have to take the bus, no exceptions) to the venue (usually an amazing venue, think something like the cal academy of sciences or exploratorium - they recycle venue every few years as D19 and C26 had the same venue!) and dinner and obviously all sorts of activities while there as well.
We actually ended up hosting the photos and snacks for both kids here at home, though D19’s group was much larger.
Same. Mine is autistic and, although he’s pretty social, I think proms, dances, etc. give him a lot of anxiety because it makes him think about how different he feels from his peers. It makes me really sad.
Re: the prom -
It can be great. Or it can be full of drama. Or a mix of both.
For D24’s 11th grade prom, everybody was invited by a queen bee to take photos together at a public park near school before the dance. Except nobody told D24. When some students asked Queen Bee where was D24 and didn’t she tell D24 about the meet up, it was obvious that D24 was purposely excluded. Looking back, I think it all had to do with Queen Bee had a major crush on one of D24’s male friends, who she was close buddies with (but not in a romantic way at all, more like a brother-sister friendship).
Then at D24’s prom, only she and a small handful of other attendees didn’t have dates. She asked me to pick her up super early from the dance because she was having such a horrible time…everybody had couple’d off and were acting like her being near them was detracting from the occasion.
I really really hate it when students get socially excluded. It’s one of the worst parts of middle and high school.
It’s tough with these kids. I’m thankful C26 (who is not that social) found a supportive little friend of group of other neurodivergent kids who are very similar to them. Somehow being awkward together works out!
S23 was (and still is) extremely social and popular. Every dance involved a huge picture taking session at a parent’s house with 50 kids and their parents. Fun, but exhausting.
D26 is the complete opposite. With the exception of her sophomore year when she had dates for a couple of dances, her pre-dance photos have always been a small group where none of the girls had dates. But even in these groups, she was kind of on the outside. I remember one homecoming, the girls were talking about an after party that D26 was very purposefully excluded from.
She’s a little apprehensive about senior prom because she just came out this year and is bringing her girlfriend that goes to a different school. All of her friends know and are supportive but it’s the other kids that she’s worried about. But then again, she also has the senior attitude of “who cares- I’m done”, which is pretty nice actually!
That sounds fun to me! S25 went to our local public school, and his prom was similar – off campus at a fun venue (one year they were at the zoo) with dinner included. I know tickets were around $80, because junior year he won a contest at school and got a free prom ticket, lol. (He was the first person to respond to the school admin with the correct answer for what the March Madness pick was for a particular teacher. Well, it happened to be his history teacher that year, and of course he’d know that guy’s March Madness pick – my son chats up everybody. Polar opposite of his sisters! )
I think they tried to do a bus, but it wasn’t mandatory, so very few kids opted to take it.
I think “happy nerds” might be in their marketing material, and it’s accurate. I’ve never heard happy gnomes.
I’m currently reading The House in the Cerulean Sea, so the gnome thing really made me laugh!
Gotta admit that the residential college thing was one of the main reasons my D22 liked Rice so much. It’s like a Greek system without any of the exclusion or BS. Although she ended up finding her tribe outside of her residential college, so go figure.
There’s so much attention drawn to it, they’re very aware of the situation. People love that airport because LAX is a complete cluster. But it is very strange. Make sure you go to the right terminal because they dont connect.
The airport utilizes stairs at the door of the aircraft. You walk up stairs to board the plane rather than elevated jet bridges and the food kiosks seem to only sell bad $20 sandwiches.
Kids are all the same.
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