Parents of the HS Class of 2026 (Part 2)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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I was a journalism major, too @SpreadsheetMom :slight_smile: I work in corporate communications now, and I didn’t work in journalism beyond my first job out of school (which was quasi-journalism, tbh, as it was for one of those city guides in the dotcom days of the late 90s). I hopped around from copywriting to marketing to corporate comms, where I’ve been for the last 20 years. D22 did a corporate comms internship last summer, where she was paid handsomely and then some, but her takeaway from that experience was: “I’m glad to know I can use my degree in this way, but I want to spend my early career pursuing journalism. I’m young, I don’t care about having roommates or a crappy apartment, I have no major responsibilities and I have no debt.” I agree that she should pursue her dream and see what happens. Today she is going into her internship to tell them that she’d like to start freelancing for them and be paid to do it (her formal internship with them ends next week, though they would gladly keep her working for free if she wanted to). But she has proven herself to be reliable, efficient, and good at the work, so if they want to keep her, they will have to pay her. Of course, she’d love a staff job when she graduates and she’ll see if that’s possible (but it’s unlikely as the magazine keeps a tiny staff, a lot of freelancers, and a rotating cast of free labor in the form of interns).

As for her coming home… I’d be happy if she did. But I know she wants a city life and living in our boring suburban Bay Area town would make her depressed after a while.

To catch up with the other conversation about subsidizing her life, we pay for everything… rent, health and car insurance, cell phone, and $450 a month for food and utilities. She pays for her social life and clothes. We would likely subsidize her life in LA or NYC or wherever as long as she is working and contributing. She has about $40k in her bank account so she isn’t broke. But I know she’s worried about the future and how long it will last if she’s unemployed.

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We have a similar background! My first job, too, was the only “journalism” job I had – although I did intern at a newspaper for two summers in college, plus a couple of magazines. I discovered pretty early into the first job that I loved to write, but I was really horrible at picking up the phone and calling people, and I was even worse at asking the hard questions.

I was able to land jobs at big media companies in NYC right out of college – but I also took advantage of the dotcom days of the mid/late 90s and switched to Internet project management and online fulfillment for magazines.

I was able to do that remotely even after DH and I moved out of the city, but I quit after D22 was born, and I haven’t worked since then. I was lucky to have that freedom when our twins came along, as S25 had numerous health issues and then developmental challenges, and the first decade of his life was filled with full-time caretaking.

But now, as D26 is about to launch, I really need to figure out what I want to do with my life! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I have been that overachiever volunteer mom who sits on all the boards and does all the school committees (minus the tennis skirt), LOL. But…now what?

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103

I’m a little anxious today about the timing of everything that’s coming up in the next few months.

Ok, so some good news first:
D26 had foot dr appointment today. That went fine. Dr said she’s a little behind schedule with wound healing, so needs to keep wrap on until Mon of next week. Then can use a boot with cane or crutches. And OK to put weight on it at that time. But light weight. Have to go back in 4 wk for another follow up appointment. So total healing time from start to finish is going to be just like the dr predicted: 3 months.

End of 3 months from foot surgery #1 will be 4/28. Graduation is 5/14. And D26 & my sister depart 5/15 for Cool Aunt-sponsored graduation trip. :slight_smile: …which will be good because she’ll have an extra 17 days of healing before heading off to London & Florence for 10 days.

Now for the “will it all fit in the schedule?” part:

  • Mon 5/25 - this is when D26 & Cool Aunt return from their trip
  • Fri 5/29 - earliest possible date for foot surgery #2, assuming the dr doesn’t take that week off on vacation himself. He’s in the OR on Tuesdays & Fridays.
  • Mon 8/10-Sat 8/15 - family trip to CA.. Fri 8/14 would be the start of post-op week #12.
  • Tue 8/18-Th 8/20 - freshmen/first years’ move in at D26’s college
  • Th 8/20 - D24 & I have to drive from AZ to TX so she can move in to her housing on Fri 8/21.

Realistically, I think that for the 8/10-8/12 dates of our family trip, when we’ll be at Disneyland, we will probably need to rent a scooter for D26. Because, realistically, on a good Disneyland/DCA day, our family easily walks 10-13 miles (sometimes 15!). And I don’t think that her foot will be ready for 13 miles a day at that point after foot surgery #2.

…but this is ok because we’ve had to rent a scooter before for other reasons on other Disneyland trips…just once or twice, but enough that I know that we can make arrangements ahead of time to have a scooter delivered to the hotel at the start of our stay and the company will pick it up at the end of the stay.

AAAHHH!

If surgery #2 doesn’t happen until the week of 6/1, then the timeline shifts by a week and we face the possibility of D26 moving into the dorms and having to walk all around campus with a sore foot.

…and I forgot to ask the doctor about all this in this morning’s appointment.

The alternative is doing this all in summer of 2027, which means that D26 basically wouldn’t be able to work anywhere all summer, so there would go her tentative plans to live on campus and work for the college’s housing dept all summer. AAHH!

None of this is convenient.

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104

That seems tedious for kids and the committee. Who would want to get all of those separate applications?

We have a handful of local scholarships and they all have their own applications, but I think they have their own committees, mostly. I know there are one or two that use the same, but that’s it.

S26 is doing a decent job, I think. I am happy with his essay responses so far. I hope the scholarship people like them :). He’s applied to a good handful so far. Maybe a dozen? Has a one due Thursday. It’s local and just $1000, but they give out quite a few, so the odds are higher than most. And then he can take a few days off. More due in April, but he can work on spring break on those.

Good luck to your daughter! Hope she gets one!

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Like others, our school has a list of sorts on the counseling website. It’s a list, but it’s very random. Not in date order. Not in alphabetical order. Not in order that they appear on the list. So every couple days I look again and see if there is anything new. They don’t take off ones that are expired, or move them to a different area either. It’s a bit of a mess.

Professional organizations often have some too. S26 did one for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, for example.

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I love seeing all the acceptances roll in! I get to live vicariously through y’all since D26 went ED1 and withdrew all other apps. Congrats everyone!!!

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I took up dancing a few years ago! I love it and I belong to the troupe even!!

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Just an update to say that D22’s conversation with her magazine editor about transitioning to a paid freelancer went well! They are happy to have her keep writing and to pay her!

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Yay!! That’s great news!

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Ha, ha… D changed her mind, now she wants to visit WPI and not CWRU. My guess is that CWRU strikes her as being too stodgy?

Since all of this seems to change rapidly, today I spent some time trying to become more familiar with all the airlines’ cancellation policies.

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Awesome!! :heart_eyes:

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I really liked WPI’s campus when we visited. It was in the summer, though, so everything was green and pretty. I still think it’s a school where D26 could have thrived.

She was unmoved, however. I honestly think we’d toured too many schools by that point, and nothing else was going to sway her. (We’d toured Clark the day before.)

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So listen to this – D26 just found out that a friend of hers got WL at UChicago, but they also offered her guaranteed entry for fall 2027.

It’s not a transfer pathway – they don’t really take transfer credits from anywhere. I guess it’s like spring entry – but “following fall” entry?! I had not heard of that before.

Friend is writing a LOCI and considering what to do. She’s not the kind of kid who would want a forced gap year (because she’s studious and would fit right into UChicago, lol) – but the more I think about it, imagine the possibilities for a gap year! She could research a travel/study abroad program, volunteer somewhere, work and save a lot of funds…

Lots of conversations happening in that family!

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Oh wow - that IS different! Pretty neat!

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I didn’t even know that was a thing! Chicago always doing things I never heard of. Seems like she must be someone they really liked, they just didn’t have space. If it is the right school for her, seems like a great potential opportunity to do something fun and/or worthwhile for a year.

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That’s what I was thinking, too. She applied RD to UChicago because she did REA to Princeton (rejected) – which kept her from applying to UChicago in any of the early rounds.

But from what I understand, they take 70 to 80 percent in the early rounds, so there really isn’t much space left by RD.

I’m hopeful for her that after the Ivies release decisions, many students will go that route and free up their UChicago spots, so she may be able to come off the waitlist.

If it were my kid, though, I’d be researching great things to do for a year! Heck I might do that anyway – her mom is a friend of mine, LOL.

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If D26 had gotten this offer, I 100% would be pushing for a gap year. And, in fairness, I AM pushing for a gap year anyway. Such an opportunity to go do something interesting without worrying about what you’ll do when you get back. D26 has been very cool on the idea, but I’m still pushing it!

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As freshmen, we gave both of my older kids $300 month allowance. We figured that was enough to cover extras. Will likely do the same for D26. Oh, and I also put my kids on my Uber account for college. I always want them to feel that they can safely remove themselves from situations if needed. Both of my older kids attended colleges in cities (DC and NOLA), so the Uber thing was more relevant - might not apply in a small college town?

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I am seeing lots of schools doing some kind of version of delayed enrolment offers.

Spring starts and a semester or 2 study abroad types are what I am seeing the most- this is the first I have seen for an entire year delayed start as an admission path.

All of those seem intriguing to me. If D26s program was not already a 5-yr program- I would have really considered a GAP /semester/year or such. I wish we had done that with S20- would have really helped him out I think.

I wonder if they are using these delayed programs to help address the predicted ‘enrollment cliff’ issues. Cause I do not see how this works for highly selective schools. It seems that just delaying them by a year- then next year’s cohort is going to be even harder to get into if so many spots are already being held?
The study abroad aspect sound good because they are coming in as second semester/year students with credits and filling spots that may be made by those who dropped out of the program.

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So we have had a really weird last week/weekend!!

Wont go into all the details- but OMG. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong this weekend!
It ended Sunday with us having to take S20 to the ER!! He is totally fine so we can laugh about it now. (and all the other crazy issues have self-corrected so the world is good once again in our household)
But he had a Kidney Stone. Obviously, we had no idea what was wrong with him, he woke us up bent over in total pain, so we rushed him to the ER.
When we got to the check in and they asked him what was wrong- he just said:
“I need all the drugs and I need them now!!!” :rofl: :upside_down_face:

I am sure their first thoughts were that ‘we have a cracked-out drug seeker on our hands’ with that response.
However, I think that him being flanked by his ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ helped them actually assess the situation instead of jumping to the conclusion that I would have with that intro!! :rofl: :innocent:

Anyways- I am going through all the post and getting caught up- so much awesomeness over the last few days!!! Can’t wait to see what these next couple of weeks bring- the decisions are all wrapping up soon for everyone! Such an exciting time :slight_smile:

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