I am hoping to get a winter visit in- any school that has an extensive tunnel system that needs a map (see below link) probably needs to be seen at its best and worst 
FY25-00169_Tunnels Map_Horizontal-mlb-02072025.pdf
D26 has been singing âSecret Tunnelâ (from the Last Airbender) since she found out about the tunnels. I do not think the impact of the need for these has sunk in yet 
So whatâs funny is they have tunnels under the residence halls and under some academic buildings, but where you see âQuarter Mile Walkway?â If I understand correctly, there is no tunnel for the quarter mile between the dorms and the academic buildings. Oof.
My daughter is super excited to buy an awesome coat and pair of boots, lol. We live where 35 to 50 degrees in the dead of winter is the norm, and if there are five snowflakes, the city shuts down and declares a state of emergency. (Maybe every two or three years.) So yeah, she is also not getting the full implications! My husband went to Syracuse though, and he is shaking his head. 
I giggled at your Last Airbender reference. Iâm not super familiar with the show, but my kid loves it â and every time someone mentions Avatar, we follow with, âBlue People or Airbender?â
We are huge Last Airbender fans in our family (the animated series, not the pathetic M. Night Shamalan movie). I love that your kid is singing the Secret Tunnel song!!
We are also huge fans!!
I remember when that movie came out- we were so excited. Even pulled our oldest out of school (for an appointment 
) to be among the first to see it.
So, so sad⊠
LOL- That is usually why I default to the Last Airbender vs Avatar 
saves time 
For RIT- we are reaching out to people we know that went there in some capacity just to get a general feel of the place.
Everyone seems to say the same thing- winters are brutal- but the area handles it well and students get used to it really quickly.
Everyone is supportive and it is a great school!!
But I swear they all say the exact same thing in the exact same way. Like- is this a cult or something. 
D26 has been sick the last couple of days. Ugh. Missed a shift at Wally World today because of it but she did a bunch of written brainstorming on all of her supplemental essays, so thatâs pretty great.
My weird & nosy neighbor has put their house on the market. So that makes today a really awesome and amazing day. I really really hope that somebody normal moves in next door once it eventually sells. 
I hope she feels better soon! How is she organizing her brainstorming?
My S19 went to RIT and we were from GA. He talked about how the snow was different colors LOL. I dont think he ever wore the boots he had though. They do a great job on the education front and with the co-op program he was able to build a bit enough resume to do well after graduation.
Not sure every student need a great LOR. For some large public schools, it may be challenging for some middle to lower range students to find two teachers with glowing letters, especially if limited to a specific year (junior). A meh letter may be unavoidable.
She created a Google doc for all of the supplemental essays. Copied the essay prompt onto the doc. Started with what she thought were the easier ones (in other words, the ones with smaller max word count), and then she did this sort of âthink out loudâ thing where she was talking while she was typing. Saying out loud what she was writing. She asked me for some suggestions, so Iâd brainstorm a little bit, babble on and on a little and sheâd brainstorm out loud, too.
then probably over the next 2-3 weeks, sheâs going to go back repeatedly and write, revise, and revise again.
Weâre in GA. I may have to pick your brain if my daughter gets in and chooses to go!
When we toured in Feb, we clearly looked out of our element, because the woman at the front desk in admissions turned around and told everyone, âTHEYâRE FROM GEORGIA.â And then everyone looked at us to see how we were coping. It was kind of hilarious.
RE Amount of supplemental being insaneâŠ.my daughterâs ED school (signed the contract last week) requires 7 supplementals.
Just read through the convo about the chance me threads. I did post one for my daughter a while back and actually had REALLY helpful advice. I didnât see the snarkiness. We tweaked her list a little and added a UDel based on the feedback there, which is a school that sheâs pretty excited about now!
Maybe I need to make some popcorn and go read some others though!
Nice to hear your chance me was helpful.
One of My daughterâs top choices that sheâs applying to EA has 6 supplementals. Seven! Wow. On the bright side, she did that one first, so most of the others seem more reasonable in comparison with 1 or 2. She does have a few others with questions I find a bit much though, in terms of what they are asking.
If you havenât seen them, go read through UChicagoâs supplementals. And one of their things is that if you donât like any of the topics, you can answer any from previous years.
The list is so fun to read â but my D22 was somewhat interested in the school, and then she saw the topics and was so burnt out from writing a million essays that she said, eh, itâs not in my top five anyway, so not worth all this effort.
We are a nerdy enough family that we love the topics for dinner conversation, though!
Those questions are unusual enough that my kid would have read that list and said, âNope. Forget it.â
D26 really liked the U Chicago questions, and only isnât applying because we canât afford that school. S23âs best friend from HS goes there and loves it, though.
My D26, too â sheâs not a natural writer, and just writing standard things is like pulling teeth for her, so these would have been a hard nope. She will totally discuss them with you though, lol!
She has one friend that LOVES to write, and sheâs applying to UChicago (and Duke and Notre Dame and maybe Vandy?). I think she has 14 supplemental essays to write. She has a different college advisor than my kid, and hers insists on reading every essay, making suggestions, and then reading the revisions. And then she wants her students to sit with her in the office while they hit submit on their applications.
Good grief, Iâm glad my kid didnât get that advisor! It would not have ended well.
Itâs a fantastic school for the right kind of kid! They offered a particular foreign language that my D22 was interested in, which isnât offered at any other university in the U.S. (that she could find, anyway).
I think C26 would much prefer answering these than the typical college essay questions!
My S24 is at a school in the south. They got slightly less than 2â of snow last year and the entire county and university shut down for 5 days. Most of the dining halls were closed b/c there were no staff. He was walking to gas stations to get beef jerkey and gross snack food. It was a mess!! The issue was that it snowed and then warmed up just enough for the snow to turn to water and then there was a deep freeze so they lacked the infrastructure to be able to sand or salt the roads. He was so upset and couldnât believe what an impact it had down there. I said you are forgetting that that is not normal weather and they donât have snow plows sitting around waiting for snow like we do. Where we are we can get more than 12 inches at a time and within four hours of the last snowflake hitting the ground, the plows are out in full force, and the streets are drivable.
I can imagine, because similar scenarios have happened where we are. It is upsetting that universities arenât more prepared for this kind of thing, though â I would be worried if my current college kids didnât have access to food for five days!
I donât know if anyone remembers the Atlanta âSnowpocalypseâ from January 2014 â the entire city was paralyzed. I swear we were the laughingstock of the country. But itâs forever etched in my brain â it was D22âs 10th birthday, and my DH had taken cupcakes to the school for lunch, then ended up bringing her and D26 home when the school closed abruptly.
Meanwhile, I drove across town in the opposite direction to pick up S25 from his school, and getting home was the scariest thing Iâve ever experienced. Later that day, we saw his classmate on the news (he was 6 at the time), because the kid had been picked up by his nanny, but they reached a point where the streets werenât navigable, so she ditched the car, and the two of them walked the rest of the way home, like 20 miles.
We really are NOT prepared for any kind of snow or ice.