Here the Seniors also carry little kids’ backpacks all year. 6ft athletic S26 is proudly carrying a bright pink princess backpack that lights up when touched
Re: dorm rooms, we actually saw the best dorm rooms at a state directional that CC would call Podunk State . They had the largest rooms and all doubles had really cool dividers that provided privacy. Some dorms had huge common rooms that were more reminiscent of ballrooms. Some of the newer dorms were apartment style with a common pool for that complex. None of that would sway S26 to apply though. I don’t think dorm rooms are high on his selection index.
Re: dorms -
At D24’s college, a couple of the parents on the college’s parent Facebook group make me smile because a couple of them use lumber to construct lofted bed units for their kids and then at end of the school year, try to sell it to other parents.
The college DOES have the ability to loft beds. But some parents want to go all Home Depot on it.
Then there’s all the talk about curtains. None of the boys’ parents ask about curtains. Just a girl thing. One parent said the other day that they just drill into the wall. Um that’s not allowed! Meanwhile, my daughter is like “curtains? What?!”
A friend’s son was in a freshman dorm where there were 2 bunk beds per room. They all ended up with privacy curtains!
I think some colleges ban using outside lofting systems or sometimes any at all, given that deaths have resulted from lofting (rare but has happened). I know we heard this at one tour but not sure which college now (not about the deaths but just that lofting was banned.)
I have heard recently (on social media- so has to be correct ) that a student should guard their essays to prevent them from being stolen/copied/ uploaded to AI? (and then can look suspicions if admission counselors see duplicates or very similar topics)
Is this just a new fear tactic?! Or is there actual merit behind this?
It does make some sense- I could see a student or two stealing ideas and or good passages from essays during the peer review that many do in classes. But is this actually a thing to worry about?
D26s English teacher said that even though they do not work on collage app stuff in class- that she always provides time for peer review of essays and such. I swear that Tik-Tok spies on me because that same day a random advisor was on there talking about not sharing essays.
My assumption is that they want to fear monger this so that you may hire them instead of relying on peers (for free ).
I think there is always a risk of things like that being stolen - that is why students wanting essay help on CC don’t post then publicly but direct to the reviewer or team of reviewers here who help. And I think it predates ChatGPT etc and goes back to turnitin days.
Edit: oh, I read too fast and I see you’re taking about peer reviews. I think it’s odd anyway to do peer reviews on common app essays (I assume that’s what you mean?) given that they often have quite personal components that you maybe don’t want classmates seeing?
C26 got the schedule they wanted, so that’s a relief. So this year is:
AP Calc AB
AP Physics 2
Gov/AP Macro (1 semester each, they can do a maximum of one of these AP)
English 4
Chamber singers honors
Stagecraft
Yoga (has to do 1 semester PE to graduate - will switch to peer tutoring or maybe TA for sem 2)
I never thought about college essays being stolen and uploaded to AI – but now I’m thinking about it, lol! I guess yeah, never a good idea to post it anywhere.
I, too, have never heard of peer review for college essays. Our school doesn’t do it for sure. I also think some essays can be intensely personal – I know many kids who won’t even share with their parents.
As an FYI: one school that my D26 is applying to has this statement:
"if you apply via the Common App in early August , your data will be sent to Mines in approximately three weeks . You will receive more information on how to access your applicant portal once we receive your application data from Common App. "
Perhaps this is across the board for most schools?
CTCL has a college fair today in our metro area and I’m a little sad to report that we won’t be going to it because D26 isn’t interested in any of those schools. 2 CTCL colleges I looked at do have cybersecurity programs but they don’t meet D26’s mandatory geographic criteria. Oh well.
But college counselor DID spend time yesterday in class apparently talking up some of the CTCL schools because D26 talked about St John’s College and Southwestern. I really love how the counselor introduces a wide range of different types of schools in this class so they all can see that there’s more options out there than just T20/T25 colleges.
Off campus lunch privileges start today. D26 and BFF have plans to go to McD’s close to school for lunch. D26’s TA’ing also starts today, which will be on Tues, Wed, and Thurs.
1 of the bio teachers is writing both her and BFF’s STEM LOR. Counselor told them last Fri that they all need to go and personally thank those teachers for agreeing to write a LOR. D26 and bio teacher bonded a lot in 10th grade AP Bio over Marvel and Star Wars stuff. And that same teacher is their “Human Health and Disease” capstone teacher this year.
D26 also said that her APUSH teacher seemed pretty excited about writing D26’ humanities LOR. D26 regularly would stay after class for a couple of min to nerd out about history stuff.
This evening, she has to fill out 1 questionnaire each for the 2 LOR requests. It’s a few open-ended questions designed to provide more info to the LOR teachers so they know stuff like what majors are you considering and why, personal growth types of questions, etc. D24 went through this same process and struggled with this assignment a lot because she felt like she was bragging and that’s not in her nature. D26 has decided that she wants me to read her answers before she turns it in.
Am thinking of buying a big Costco cake some time soon to take to school for all of the teachers to say thank you. My kids have been at this school for 8 years now and once this school year is done, it’ll be an end of an era for our family. Aside from a couple of duds here and there, all of the teachers have been awesome and they work super hard.
D26s College Application workshop at school started yesterday. Happy to report it seemed to motivate her in a way I haven’t been able to. She has put all of the supplemental essay questions for all of her schools into a google doc. Downloaded a planner app last night, so she can plan out timelines for getting all of the EA and ED supplementals and applications done and seems like she is going to start knocking them out.
On the list front, she is now not sure if she will ED and will meet with the counselor to talk about it. In essence, she has three schools she loves for different reasons (They are a reach, a target, and a very likely admit, which is great). Has to decide if willing to give up the other two now if EDing to 1. On the plus side, the very likely school she loves has EA, so even if not applying ED hurts her chances at the other two, she still will likely be able to go to one of the schools she loves.
Also, on her list, she is currently not inclined to consider adding Bryn Mawr, a school we think she’d really like given the others high on her list, mainly because she doesn’t want to add schools at this point. We really want her to consider it. She also still has a few schools lower down on her list that we don’t think are the best choice for her (mainly due to location). But, given how likely one of her top three is to work out, I’m not sure how worth it is it for us to push her on this when all signs point to her being able ot end up at one of those three.
That would be really nice to show appreciation! When I worked in the middle school, we would love to get cookie trays and donuts and other gifts; it wasn’t the food itself (although that was great!), but the fact that they thought we were doing a good job.
Well, D26 did not make the volleyball team, but they offered her a position as team manager along with the other senior that played JV last year. I was so proud of her because she told the coaches that she was majoring in film and asked if she could also be the media person and record some of the practices and games to make a film at the end of the season. They loved the idea. So its really the best of both worlds- she’s a part of the team, she gets to practice and go to the games and participate in senior night, but she doesn’t have to deal with the pressure of sitting on the bench and being frustrated that she’s not getting playing time. She, of course, still feels bad that she “got cut”, but it will be better in the long run. We think the reason they did it this way is because the last couple years, rather than cut the seniors, they would put them on varsity and then not play them at all. It always causes rancor with the families and after last season, one of the seniors wrote a scathing email to the coach. I do think this is a better solution really.
In other good news, D26’s schedule was fixed- they moved her into Art II.
The only fly in the ointment right now is that the guidance counselor is still on summer break so D26 can’t complete her Point Park application. I hope they come back at least a couple weeks before school starts on September 4!
What a mature and proactive response by your kid to the volleyball situation. That type of resilience and ability to come up with creative win-win solutions will serve them well in life.
Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m so glad she’ll still be a part of the team and be able to use her creative skills, and it sounds like a great opportunity for her. But I know it still stings right now.
We had a similar situation with marching band – my D26 had her heart set on being drum major this year. She’s qualified, and she’s the only 6-year senior in the band (they start marching in 7th grade at her school). She didn’t get the position. But the band director restructured the entire leadership and made her band president, with the individual section captains reporting to her. She was initially really upset – but turns out it’s actually a much better fit for her skill set. She’s at the same level as the drum majors (according to the director), and she’ll have her name announced at football games alongside the drum majors. Plus, now she gets to actually march which she loves, and she has a solo in the halftime show. So it’s all good – in fact, really better for her – but it still took some adjustment to be okay with it.
Of course her father is furious; we had issues with coaches promoting underclassmen over seniors with S23 and he doesn’t think it’s right, but he understands that if D26 is okay with it, he just has to let it go. He wants to stand up for her, but if it’s not going to help her, he needs to stay quiet for now.
Seems like it was a good first day at school! C26 is thinking of switching VPA electives, from stagecraft to musical theater, so that they can be in the musical (before, auditions were open to some students outside MT class but looks like they are changing it this year). They’re in the same period so it shouldn’t be an issue from a schedule perspective. Also, I thought they were doing gov first semester and AP Macro 2nd semester but it’s the other way round.
So, they’ve submitted a class change request to move to MT. We’re assuming it will be approved as it’s the same period and there shouldn’t be a space constraint. The other thing is they will be auditioning for a part that does a couple of solo songs on stage. I cannot describe how happy this makes me - this kid has suffered MAJOR stage fright in the past (even refusing to take part in piano recitals) and just being in the ensemble last musical was already a big step up for them (they have volunteered for musicals since middle school, but until the ensemble role always on the tech side). I know we talk a lot about how our students grow in the last couple of years of high school, and this is a major leap for them. Of course we won’t know for a couple of months what part they’ll get, but just wanting it is a big step.
. They had the largest rooms and all doubles had really cool dividers that provided privacy. Some dorms had huge common rooms that were more reminiscent of ballrooms. Some of the newer dorms were apartment style with a common pool for that complex. None of that would sway S26 to apply though. I don’t think dorm rooms are high on his selection index.
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