I had signed my S25 up for an extra week of orientation for this very reason – I thought he could use that week to get acclimated to the school, meet people and get comfortable.
Unfortunately, the orientation week was associated with taking one of three specific freshman seminar classes (a freshman seminar class is mandatory for everyone, but you get to choose from like 20 different topics). He was already registered in another one that he really wanted to take (film-related topic) that gave him access to an intro English class taught by the same film professor and open only to film majors.
There was no way to take the optional orientation and still stay in this film freshman seminar class. So alas, we canceled the orientation. At least he’ll get an extra week of summer, I guess.
Mine is very much not – she struggles with writing papers. (It’s an ADHD thing – she wants everything to come out perfectly so can’t get started.)
We’ve been advised in the past to let her dictate her thoughts into a speech-to-text app so she has someplace to start, and we’ve never really followed up on that. Maybe this common app essay is the time to do that.
Yes, a whole pile of AP Lit summer homework – read two books (1984 and Player Piano), annotate the heck out of them, and then do an associated writing assignment for each. She’s not excited about it. But it’s tame compared to the pile of homework some other kids on this thread have!
(ETA: my daughter was woodwind section leader the last two years, and this year she’s band president. The director kind of made up a new leadership structure to incorporate the kids he had – so there is a cabinet with her as president, a vice president, the two drum majors, the head color guard leader and the head house leader – they have a social structure like Hogwarts houses. And this cabinet will descend upon our house the day after she gets back from her game design camp for a two-day bonding retreat in our basement. So the MAJOR priority is to practice up on Mario Kart World on her new Switch 2 so she can kick her drum major friend’s arse during the retreat. Yeah, this essay is never going to get written, LOL.)
My son may be a writer, but he’s a procrastinator too! It drives me crazy!! I wanted him to fail so much last year, lol (what?! I know, right?!) so he’ll learn that procrastinating is not good. But he manages every. single. time. I guess it’s how he operates!
My older son does that, does speech to text and it helped him a lot!
I can’t believe your daughter has AP summer homework. It’s making me nervous that my son MAY have AP homework I don’t know about! I’ll need to ask him when he gets back from Kenyon.
That’s awesome that she’s band president! Helps give her more leadership skills!
LOL at the #1 priority for the summer - practicing Mario Kart Parenting is not for the weak LOL!
I hear you. Mine has sadly only been on summer break for a couple days since they got out so late and between her week at nursing camp, four days away with friends and babysitting, I am really wondering when she will get her summer work and common app essay done. And then of course the supplementals…Oy.
Add me to the “kids not working on Common app essay” group!
She says she’ll start next week when she has a better idea of where she sits recruitment wise. She might need to reach out to a new batch of schools if her first batch doesn’t work out, and that might derail things for a bit.
Can’t remember right now who it was who was talking about their kid’s AP Lit summer HW. D26 took AP Lit last school year and said that all of the novels they read over the school year were options on the AP exam to use in the essay questions. If your school district has a later start to the school year (i.e., early Sept), that might be one reason behind the frustrating summer HW nonsense.
my kids are baking together this afternoon and it’s adorable to watch.
it’s 109 outside at my house right now and good grief, it’s as hot as a mother trucker.
met up w/D26 during her Wally World lunch break today. She said that 11th grade was a “grind” and it burned her out. And she’s grateful to have a break this summer from it. She also said that she’s frustrated w/how her grades turned out. We’ll find out in a little over a week what her final GPA will likely be after AP scores come out.
D26 said she’s looking forward to an easier senior year. 5 classes instead of 7. School day from 8:25-2:45 instead of 7:30 am-3:45 pm.
D26 said she’s looking forward to seeing D24’s dorm room and is happy she gets to help her big sister move in for sophomore year.
@sbinaz I felt like it was 109 degrees out! I was at an LAX tournament all weekend and I am such a baby when it comes to sun and heat! It was only in the upper 80’s /90’s. My D26 came back from France and has been quite productive- maybe too productive her common app essay is currently over 1000 words and it not quite finished:woman_shrugging: girlfriend has a problem being precise. I will be fully entertained with the crazy that will occur as she try’s to get it to 600 words! Her wisdom teeth have started to come through- so now we have to try to squeeze getting them out this summer the plan was for over winter break!!
oh the heat! S26 and I were in Charlotte last week to see his favorite team play in the soccer club world cup, the game was at 3pm, no shade at all in the stadium and it was a 100 degrees - holy moly. Then on to a soccer tournament in Dallas where he played and it wasn’t much cooler. But he’s my youngest and I will miss the miserably hot soccer weekends after next year
While we were in the Charlotte area (it seems like such a great place to live, it was my first time in the area). We briefly stopped at Davidson College but just did a drive through of the campus. S26 wasn’t interested in the school but was almost swayed by the pristine state of all the athletic facilities (priorities of a 17 year old!!!).
I think I have to become a major nag. He has given no thought to his essay nor to other colleges besides the five that are on his list. He has started wearing one college’s t-shirt, so I almost feel he has made up his mind. And while this school would be the easiest on my pocket book (and a sure admit), I know it won’t give him the college experience he seeks. But what does mom know…
My D26 is behaving as though she’s in the college admissions scene of 1987 (when I was a rising senior) instead of 2025, in terms of essay writing and “summer residential program” urgency. She’s relaxing, socializing, and is working on Fridays.
However, speaking of piano, she has some brutal National Guild piano testing next Monday-- something like 8 memorized classical pieces (Debussy, Chopin, Bach, and some others that either sound like funeral dirges or purposeful exercises in dissonance) and 48 scales (12 scales x 4 variations thereof). And the judge has to sit through all of it!
Anyway, she doesn’t seem very worked up about any of it, which is fine with me-- hey, I’ll take a state school tuition over a private one any ol’ time!
So remember all my whining about D26’s crummy guidance counselor? Did I mention she was not asked back for next year? While we are relieved, this now means she has no plan in place, no one to ask for transcript in August before they go back, etc. The crummy counselor essentially forced D26 to ask her AP Lang teacher for a rec, even though she really did not care for him. She insisted it had to be from a core AP class and this was her only option that fit that criteria. Well her report card came out today and that happens to be her lowest grade. Every teacher commented actual real comments like “great contributor to class discussions” or similar. His comment? “Good luck next year” She is of course worried now that he is going to write her a bad rec. I told her that he is not planning on writing it this summer anyway (he told her that) and she should ask either her Spanish teacher or her physics teacher in late August when they go back. She got academic awards from this two teachers and were her actual choices but the counselor told her no. Anyway, I guess we will see what happens in August but praying it all works out in the lest stressful way possible for her. She was truly burnt out after this year. She did let me chat a little ab out essay topic ideas and said she will start thinking about it so that is some progress.
It’s hotter here today than yesterday. 112. Boo! I’m waiting until 7 pm to go outside. should be ‘only’ 108 by then. I have some young moringa tree seedlings to water!
It’s so hot out that warm water comes out of the cold tap.
Does her school use Naviance? If I remember correctly from when I helped S23, you can select which letter of recommendations to send to colleges. Just have her not pick him.
I hope she has a restful summer so she can recharge! That’s great that she’s talking to you about essay topic ideas! I couldn’t get my son to chat about it before he left for Ohio!
The Midwest is no better. So hot! The camp where D26 works as a counselor is all outside, and she bikes to/from. She comes home dripping wet.
Re college apps, she pretty much decided to use an old essay (reworked a bit) rather than start from scratch. I suspected she would, despite her big talk about writing something new. She has not looked at any supplemental essay prompts yet, but should be ready to submit a few basic apps by August.
I just need to vent. My daughter added many more states to her potential list so I just spent TWO hours running NPC on every school that seemed like potentials. Know how many schools I added to her list? TWO reach schools - that was incredibly frustrating.
Oof, sorry to hear. I’ve been holding off on running more NPCs until they get updated with the right numbers for this year. Really hoping to just run everything one more time and get everything as locked in as possible.
Parenting is not for the weak LOL!
girlfriend has a problem being precise. I will be fully entertained with the crazy that will occur as she try’s to get it to 600 words! Her wisdom teeth have started to come through- so now we have to try to squeeze getting them out this summer the plan was for over winter break!!
She is of course worried now that he is going to write her a bad rec. I told her that he is not planning on writing it this summer anyway (he told her that) and she should ask either her Spanish teacher or her physics teacher in late August when they go back. She got academic awards from this two teachers and were her actual choices but the counselor told her no. Anyway, I guess we will see what happens in August but praying it all works out in the lest stressful way possible for her. She was truly burnt out after this year. She did let me chat a little ab out essay topic ideas and said she will start thinking about it so that is some progress.