In my experience most of the people saying things like that don’t have kids applying to colleges yet or they want to control their kids lives 100%.
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Went with D26 & D24 to see Nuremburg today. Really really good movie. WW2 history nerd D26 loved it. Her history teacher recommended she see it. 
2 more weeks to wait until the last college admissions decision comes in for my kiddo.
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We finally started Stranger Things tonight, lol. Two episodes into season 5. I’m liking it so far. (Just mentioning because some people here thought the season started meh.)
Somehow we have a plan to power through the remaining 10 hours of the season before D26 goes back to school Monday, but we all have a ton of other things to do, so we’ll see if it happens. 
D22 took the GRE today. It’s interesting taking it from home – the safeguards in place to keep people from cheating are intense. She had to show the online proctor the entire room, close the blinds, unplug the TV, and sit at a desk with absolutely nothing on it backing the door to the room, so the proctor can see if anyone walks in. No paper or pencil allowed – you are allowed one small white board and one dry erase marker to work out math. Ears have to be uncovered, no jewelry, hair tied back. It was really something!
But she scored 166 verbal, 162 quantitative, which is sufficient for the programs she’s applying for. (Lower quant than she was hoping, but it’s probably fine for SLP programs.) There’s also a 30-minute essay for which you’re given a statement for a prompt, and you have to write a thesis agreeing or disagreeing and cite examples.
Well, her prompt was the following – “To become well-rounded individuals, all college students should be required to take courses in which they read poetry, novels, mythology, and other types of imaginative literature.”
(You can find all 300 or so prompts if you Google, so I’m not giving away anything.)
Well. I mentioned that the kid is a double major in linguistics and classics? HAHA, she said she had no trouble with this essay, and she quoted the Aeneid along with citing several concrete examples. She won’t get her score for the essay right away, but she feels pretty good about it.
So one major hurdle done, now back to the remaining 14 essays. 
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Which programs is she applying to that still require the GRE? Outside of Vanderbilt, it seems the list of SLP programs requiring the GRE is very small anymore.
Yes, only Vandy and UT Dallas on her list still require it, which is so annoying – especially since it costs $220 to take, and she spent a chunk of her winter break prepping for it. 
GRE is optional for Delaware, so she’ll submit it, and it’s optional for South Carolina, too, but she already submitted that application, so I doubt they’d still accept it.
She’s applying to seven other schools besides those four, and none of those even list it as optional, I don’t think.
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D26 experienced a bit of a set back in her attempts to get a ‘site placement’ lined up for her senior project. She had a meeting scheduled with a professor for this morning and not only did she not wake up on time, but she left the professor a voicemail saying that she’d overslept.
OH. MY. GOSH, child, WHAT THE HECK?!
So after I calmed myself down after my initial freak out, she & I chatted about:
- If she’s going to mess up, I’d rather she do it now, when she’s 17, than down the road when it’s for a big post-college job interview and she desperately needs the job in order to be able to pay her rent.
- the importance of recognizing that sometimes, being an open book and totally honest is not in your favor and this was one of those times where you should NOT just say exactly what happened.
- how you’re asking this professor to do you a favor and now you’re making it harder for that to happen because the professor is going to think that you’re flaky and unreliable. So don’t do that anymore.
- Now you need to follow through and reach out to that other college professor at a different school who a different person recommended you contact.
- be prepared for NOT having a senior project site placement lined up in time by the end of January and be prepared for classmates throwing you some shade over it. Think about how you want to respond to that.
- register for the online Python programming class that you’ve talked about taking so you at least have SOMETHING lined up to do since you won’t be able to walk on 1 foot for 3 months.
- pay attention to your tone in emails. Especially when the email is for non-personal reasons. This is something that you kind of have to learn by doing it (1 of her recent emails had a tone that made her sound a little irritated/mad, so I had to explain why it sounded irritated/mad…she had literally no idea that it would be taken the wrong way).
- AND…most importantly, in the grand scheme of things, everything is going to work out. This is a small bump in the road. The high school senior daughter of a mom friend of mine (our kids swam on the same swim team years ago) is having cancer surgery today. And facing the possibility of maybe needing chemo & radiation, too. Yes, while applying to college. So when you compare today’s goof-up to what this other family is going through, you know what? Today’s mistake is not so important.
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Oh dude. You just have to facepalm when they do stuff like this. And yeah, better they learn now when the stakes are low.
Although, I don’t think it’s inherently bad that she told the professor the truth – I think making up something entirely isn’t advisable. But it could be something like, “I am so sorry I missed our meeting this morning. I had an alarm issue, but I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Is there any possible way we could reschedule?”
This is just stuff that they’re learning as they go along, though!
My D26 once told her band director while she was auditioning for something that she had only started learning the piece a couple days before. 
(Why, WHY would you volunteer that?!)
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S26 got a college interview lined up and I had to explain to him why he should compose an email that had more than 3 sentences. They should have a class on how to properly communicate when you are asking for a favor.
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Totally.
Or like when D24 was interviewing for her 1st part time job. She did, like, NINE job interviews before she was offered a job. NINE! Every. Single. TIME she would say something dumb and then she’d be surprised about why they didn’t offer her the job.
Like the time she interviewed at Panda Express. Interviewer asked her what were her goals for senior year of high school. D24 said she wanted to hang out and have fun with her friends.
I told her that what the interviewer basically heard from all that was “I’m into partying w/my friends and I’m going to be a flaky employee and won’t show up reliably.” Told the kid that pretty much ANYTHING other than what she actually said would have been better.
On a positive note, each of those separate interviews where she messed up, she didn’t make that SPECIFIC mistake again.
But oh my Lord, it drove me bananas in the process.
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OMG, communicating professionally via email is such a blind spot for these kiddos.
That was the one silver lining with athletic recruitment, it forced D26 to learn how to email adults, write a cover letter, speak on the phone and sell herself. The personal growth over the last 18 months was immense.
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My oldest didn’t learn these skills until college, and even then, not really until she executive produced a show – and she had to work with different university groups and various adults to get funding, secure rights, etc. She’s doing another one spring semester, and she mentioned to me that 90% of the job is sending emails and following up, lol.
Once as a college freshman, she spent two days trying to get some code to work so she could download additional material she needed for a class, and it wasn’t working. She was horrified when I suggested she call customer service at the textbook company, but she eventually did it. This generation just does not have this skill! And then she lamented that she had wasted hours of her life on this one stupid thing that wasn’t working properly. I was like HAHAHA welcome to adulting. Wait ‘til you have to call an insurance company!
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I have to say, I felt your whole post deep in my soul. Like in a shared generational trauma way of us parents. And your response of turning it into lessons, being appreciative that it is happening now, and putting it into perspective and that everything will be fine, is a parenting tutorial! I strive to handle all the blunders so well. Sometimes I do. But other times . . .
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Caught up after a relaxing new year’s holiday!
Oh the pain of this generation and their communication skills. D26 still uses me for backup despite writing multiple emails asking for recs, thank you notes, etc. And S24 cannot have a phone conversation with an adult he doesn’t know. Is the growth of AI going to make this worse? I’m glad their calculus skills far surpass mine but I do worry of the basic things that are being left out.
S24 had a 7th grade lang arts teacher who forced them to communicate since they “all have their heads in a device” and I’m glad he did. Wish he didn’t retire…
We watched Stranger Things finale in the theater. I’m so glad I binged the whole series starting at Thanksgiving because it was a real family bonding moment. Something you don’t get much with older teens. If you are finding g season 5 slow stick with it . The finale is worth it.
We’ve gotten no swag from Duke yet but honestly our house has so much we are fine. I know D26 would love something. Our counselors got S24 a Duke blanket when he was admitted so I assume holidays are just slowing it down. On that note , we threw out all the Auburn orange cups and stickers (sorry @coastal2024 ) and GA Tech swag. In this UGA house that felt good. I am glad
To not have to become a Tech fan for the sake of my child. I would hae totally done it poor DH would have been conflicted . And big brother while still genuinely .excited to have his sister with him , has gone back to his normal obnoxious self
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Good for her! These fiercely independent girls are going to go far in life.
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This is brilliant. And as a self proclaimed nerd
And lover of education I could see myself doing the same.
Maybe it will be easier in the fall once you are truly an empty nester?
Amazing you can save that much and get better insurance . Tucking this one away in case it’s needed in the future.
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We watched three more episodes last night, and all five of us are enjoying it. The plan is two tonight, and then the finale tomorrow. I agree on the family bonding! We don’t have time or common interest in shows/movies much anymore, either. We used to enjoy watching Cobra Kai as a family but never finished the last season or two – I think everyone has lost interest.
Haha, we are close to a family whose D22 is at Tech and whose S25 is at UGA. (He has a guaranteed transfer to Tech, but he’s having a good experience at UGA and isn’t sure he’s going to do it.) Their Christmas card said “house divided” with a pic of each kid in respective gear, LOL. But parents are both Virginia Tech alum, so they’re chill about it.
I went to Florida, so I would have grudgingly sent a kid to UGA – but no way could I have worn the merch!
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This house is a “no orange” zone - with multiple meanings lol!
Also when we visited UNC with s24 I had to walk out of the bookstore because I literally almost puked from all the Carolina blue.
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I think one of the biggest benefits of teens working in high school is the learning that comes from things like this. I once was on a team who interviewed a woman with a master’s degree for a professional position. When asked “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” She answered “Hopefully married, do you know how hard good men are to find? . . . “ and then continued to ramble about the poor state of available men.
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I think D26’s one and only acceptance package has arrived. I’ll have to wait till she gets home to see what’s inside.
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My kid attends a similar school. The school has been so good for him in so many ways, I don’t regret it, but the culture around college can be really toxic. My kid wants a really specific degree, and a specific kind of environment, and that combo isn’t available at the highly rejective schools. He has a bunch of acceptances, including his two favorite schools, so he’s feeling pretty good, but he hasn’t told a single friend from school because he knows they’d be horrified. That makes me sad.
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