D26 just called before hitting the road to come home from school. In the college counseling class today, they had to vote on 2 options for their senior trip:
1 day at the beach + 1 day at Magic Mountain. Magic Mountain includes free food.
1 day at beach + 1 day at Disneyland. Disneyland does not include free food.
D26 is pretty mad because her gut says that the majority are going to pick Magic Mountain and if Magic Mountain gets selected, she’s not going on the senior trip.
And I 100% support that. There’s no comparison between the 2. D26 hates really intense thrill rides and Magic Mountain is miserable if you’re that type of person.
S26 got into ASU today. It is one of his safety schools and low on his list, but still feels good to get the first acceptance. And it also kind of makes the whole process real!
Both S22 and D24 were in a suite freshman year. They each had 3 suite mates. S22 never connected with any of them and mostly was on his own in his room when in the suite. His friends came from band and classes and he’s doing fine 3 years later. D24 is living with 2 of the 3 again this year and they are friendly and get along well. They all have others who are their primary friend group though. She loves having her own room and that was really important to her when looking.
Nothing happening on the college apps here. School starts in a few days, so hopefully we can get some done still before that happens.
He got his schedule yesterday. It’s wrong. He’s missing a class and they gave him an elective that wasn’t requested or an alternate and didn’t give him an elective he really wants. They are the same class hour, so not sure what happened there. He sent an email to his counselor. Hoping it’s not a big deal to fix it, but things happen so slowly.
Great recommendations on health insurance front!!! S23 went in-state and we have very comprehensive insurance so we were able to decline the school’s. But D26 is looking at a couple OOS schools and we have different insurance this time around so I will need to remember to check all the fine print. It’s also another thing to add to the question list- how robust is the student health center?
Another thing to consider is do you have a POA for your student? FERPA waivers only cover so much and if your student has a severe medical issue where they are incapacitated, it may be difficult to get info unless you have a POA.
I don’t have coaster kids either (they get that from me!). Space Mountain at Disney is the max of what they enjoy. My oldest did go to Universal Studios on a high school trip and got peer pressured into riding some of the big ones, and she was okay – but she texted me to tell me how much I would have hated it, lol.
Our middle school used to take kids to Six Flags often, and my kids skipped every time.
When my D22 was a freshman, she bought a textbook for a class that came with a code to access additional material online. Well, the code didn’t work, and she really needed that material.
She went through several levels of customer service online without any luck until I told her, “JUST CALL THEM ALREADY.” She was aghast but finally did it after protesting all day – and she was able to solve the problem by talking to someone. Good life lesson, lol.
Later, she mentioned how it was unbelievable that she wasted several hours of her day on this one simple thing. Haha! Welcome to adulting, kid.
D26 started school Thursday, and so far, so good. There is a brand new STEM building on campus that has been years in the making, and she has two classes in there, so that is a welcome novelty for senior year.
They had senior sunrise Friday instead of Thursday, and she made the decision to skip it – mostly because she had to be at school with band until late (first football game), so she thought the extra hour of sleep would be more important. She felt a little bad that she wasn’t in the class picture wearing the senior t-shirt, but alas. Other kids skipped as well.
Then, the game had a two-hour lightning delay (it was pouring), and the band made the decision two hours in that they wouldn’t be able to march on the soaked field or maneuver their equipment in the slick stands safely, so they packed up. (The teams did eventually play, with the game ending well after midnight.)
I thought she’d come home dejected, but turns out they got to hang out with the other team’s band for those two hours – they invited them back to their band room by making a human tunnel for them to run through, cheered for them, and then all the kids sat in a huge circle and played games and talked. It was nice to see her absolutely vibrating when she got home – she had the best time. So what could have been a disaster of an evening for the band was salvaged!
But then last night when she was going to bed, she said, “Welp, that was a full two days of school. I’m ready for summer.”
Before D26 started her athletic recruitment journey last year, she had only talked on the phone with one person outside of our family. First few calls were rough, but by December, she was on the phone with coaches at least weekly. This whole painful recruiting process was truly beneficial in getting her to get comfortable communicating with strangers and marketing herself.
I started having her make her own appointments over the spring and it’s been great. One less thing for me to manage!
The options for club sign ups got released yesterday. Costs on each went up by $50, others went up by way more than that. A couple of them are pretty expensive! So even this one club that I tried to convince D26 to join last year, which last year was $75 to join, is now $125 to join.
She said, “Heck no” to all of the options. She’ll just be doing NHS again in terms of a school club.
She’s also very frustrated with this one girl in her Spanish class who is pushy & a bit of a queen bee…same girl who organized the senior sunrise by announcing to everyone that it would involve meeting at 4:45 am for a hike on what was one of the hottest days of the year. Like so hot that the local fire & public safety departments were loudly telling everybody ‘DON’T HIKE IN THE HEAT!’ D26 doesn’t care for this student very much because she’s pushy, wants everything to be her way, and has a track record of going behind people’s back and being, frankly, just not very nice.
Spanish teacher’s rule is no speaking English in class. Makes sense given the level of spanish they’re all at right now. D24’s senior yr french class had same rule. The past couple of days they had an in-class essay writing assignment. D26’s seat in class is at a table with Queen Bee and 1 other girl. Queen Bee & Other Girl are friends.
D26 said the entire 2 days of the in-class essay writing assignment, Queen Bee spent the entire class period talking to Other Girl in english. Spanish teacher told the class multiple times to not speak in english. Queen Bee allegedly would switch to spanish briefly and then go right back to english.
D26 is very frustrated by this and mad at Queen Bee because she (D26) doesn’t want to get in trouble w/the teacher by geographic association. I told her not to worry about it because teachers, generally speaking, know who are the chatterboxes in class and who aren’t.
Same Queen Bee allegedly created a bunch of drama in the school’s Kpop dance club 2 yr ago (D24’s BFF told all of us all the nitty gritty teenager drama details )…so much that the faculty advisor had to step in and mediate the arguing all over Queen Bee wanting to do a solo dance with a boy she had a huge crush on.
Oh, to be young again. This is stuff I don’t miss about those days.
Question (because D19 didn’t let me near her common app so I don’t know). Probably a dumb question. If you are applying to a school that doesn’t require essays (or whatever), and if your common app isn’t complete because it’s lacking the essay (or whatever), can you still use the rest of it to submit - in other words it will only submit what the school needs, plus any optional part that you indicate you want submitted?
(I feel like I’ve phrased this question badly but trust you guys wil understand what I mean!)
After a week of vacation, followed by a crazy week at work (while simultaneously helping my middle return from Europe unpack and repack to return to college), I have only skimmed the last 200 posts or so… But it looks like we have our first admittance (congrats @momsons2) and lots going on with schedules, summer homework, and the start of school. I missed a lot!
My D got her schedule while we were at the beach and it looks pretty good. She applied and was selected for dual credit English (she opted not to take AP Lit) and dual credit Anatomy and Physiology. These have limited seats and get weighted like AP, so it was nice she got both. She will also take AP Bio (which is also dual credit), AP Govt, AP Calc AB, and will be a buddy to a student in adapted PE. Overall it seems like a rigorous but good schedule. Most importantly, no third period lunch. Our school is so large that, even with an open campus, lunches are spread out over 3, 4, 5, and 6 periods. Third period lunch starts at 9:40 a.m.
Classes start Monday and we are in summer homework crisis mode. D has done very very little and has an AP Calc test on Wednesday on the summer work. What is she doing now, you might ask? Napping, of course.
But, drum roll, she submitted her first app today to Pitt. This is one of her top choices and it’s rolling, so I will be anxiously waiting for news…
Congrats to your S26, @momsons2 !!! There is nothing like that first acceptance. I’m sure he feels a little bit relieved!
I haven’t posted in a while because we have been crazy BUSY! Band camp, then everyday practices the last two weeks for S26. This coming Monday will be his first day of school and he is furiously trying to get most of his essays done. He got most of the things on the Common App filled out, just a few that I need to fill in with my info, plus LOR. He is retaking the SAT next Saturday and he swears he will study this time. This will be the last SAT. His schedule is scary to me (all AP but one!), but he’s happy with the classes he got. Labor Day weekend we are visiting 1 college on his list to tour, then to interview, then driving 30 minues to interview at one of his top colleges that we already visited. Unfortunately, we have run out of weekends to visit more schools that popped up on his list due to marching band competitions.
Can we just fast-forward to spring already? All of this is driving me insane.
I could be wrong, but I believe that you have to attach an essay to the common app application. If you are applying to a school that does not require an essay. I think you need to use the school’s application.
I tried to do a search but can’t find it. Did someone say you can upload a transcript to the common app to fill in the STAR? We can’t see anywhere on the common app that explains how to do it?
Do you have a parent account? This has been my solution to the kid not wanting me to look. I can play around with mine and see what the questions look like.
I don’t know if you can submit without anything in the essay box but you could type N/A and then hit the “don’t send the essay” box. Then just remember to edit the essay box before you hit submit on a a school where you do send an essay.
My kid’s question that he can’t figure out is the school he plans to submit first asks what your back up major is if you aren’t admitted to your first choice.
But he can’t figure out where to indicate his first choice major.
Also he picked EA and it told him he wasn’t eligible because you can only apply to musical theater rolling admissions. But he is not applying to musical theater.
)…so much that the faculty advisor had to step in and mediate the arguing all over Queen Bee wanting to do a solo dance with a boy she had a huge crush on.
This is one of her top choices and it’s rolling, so I will be anxiously waiting for news…