I agree with your girls that Google Keep is AWESOME! I love that my D26 can add me as a collaborator if she needs me to review something or add something to a list. Also, she can easily download a Keep list to a Google Doc.
Thinking of you as you and hoping that everything goes well.
Got our hotel reservations all set for our week in Anaheim in August. On one of the days, weāre going to the D23 convention. YAY! Iāve wanted to go for a very long time.
Iāve decided to dress up as Dory. Gonna wear a dumb Dory hat 
that Iām gonna DIY so it looks like Dory, a Dory shirt, and a big sparkly blue tutu. And Iām going to DIY some fins to pin on each sleeve of the tshirt.
D24 has agreed to team up with me by wearing a shirt that says āIām with stupid.ā
D26, meanwhile, is saying that sheās gonna pretend that she doesnāt know me. Sheās going to wear her Moon Knight tshirt.
Iām certain that my kids will see me in the outfit and declare, āYou look ridiculous.ā Yes, dear daughters, that is the whole idea. 
Thanks to Costco Travel, Iāve also got a rental car already reserved for the week for a decent rate. However, the 3-day minivan rental for D26ās college move in the following week? Same price as a week long rental for our vacation week. Boo.
Thatās ok though. Iāll just keep checking car rental prices and will rebook if prices drop.
In the meantime, Iām stupidly excited about dressing up for this convention. 
My husband and I share Samās Club and Costco lists on Google Keep ā heās the one who shops, and I just add things to the list. 
We love cosplay in our family, lol. (Well, the kids and I do ā DH has to be convinced.)
Iāve been going to Dragon Con for 20+ years, but I donāt usually dress up because Iām there for four days, and I want to be comfortable. I did dress up as Jayne Cobb one year, though, complete with hat.
I took D22 with me for several years, and I couldnāt even tell you what she cosplayed as ā internet characters that I didnāt always know, lol. One of the Sanders Sides characters? Someone from Dream SMP another year, pretty sure.
My best friend who I usually go with often wears a tweed jacket and fez as the Eleventh Doctor. One year she was tempted to wear Elevenās pink dress under it in an Eleven-Eleven mash-up, but she couldnāt find a pink dress to fit right.
We went to WDW about 3 yr ago w/good friends of ours. EVERYBODY in our group dressed up for the Halloween party except for Spousal Unit. And we ALL dressed up as Star Wars characters. Spousal Unit was the only one wearing normal stuff. He was kind of a party pooper about it, said dumb stuff like āThatās stupid. Iām not dressing up in a costume.ā Itās too bad. His loss!
Same friends are going to go to the 1 day of the D23 convention w/us. Theyāre going to drag out their Han & Leia costumes from 3 yr ago and wear that! 
D19 is a big Dr Who fan.
C26 will be in cosplay for Comic-Con. DH and I, not!
Now I just have to convince D26 to cosplay as Moon Knight. 
DH made one snide comment early on (like 20 years ago) about the sort of people who went to these ānerd conventionsā ā hoo boy, I was irritated. Heās a scratch golfer and plays golf at least 3 or 4 times a week. I told him that if I am not making comments about how unbelievably stupid it is to spend 16+ hours every week hitting a little ball into a hole with a stick while I am home taking care of our kid (only one at the time) without complaint, then he should probably keep his trap shut that I go enjoy my fun weekend ONE time per year.
That was the last time he said anything, lol.
We all have weird stuff we like. Let people enjoy things!
Tell him to dress up as a sleeve of Pro V 1ās. Heāll probably agree to that.
DH and I dress up for the Renaissance Festival but thatās about it. The only convention Iāve been to was The Office convention back when pregnant with D26. I would have loved to go to Comic Con for the Firefly or the X-Files reunion panels- I may have done a little cosplay!
D26 is getting better grades than she ever has, but then again, sheās in a more positive place mentally. Sheās also in the phase of not caring what people think since sheās going to graduate in 6 months anyway. She does say that school is pretty boring and they donāt do anything but better that than the angst-fest it used to be. Now if I can just get her to get to school on time!! They give them a detention after three tardies and then a detention every day that theyāre late. Itās tough.
Every teenager in the 80ās wished detention was like the Breakfast Club.
D22 went twice to the Texas Ren faire this year, once with her regular friend group, and the next weekend with a friend who was visiting from out of town. It involved visiting many thrift stores beforehand to put together two full outfits, lol.
We ordered ours from a combination of Walmart and Amazon. D26 made her own henin- it was as tall as she is.
Why are HS counselors / guidance dept notoriously bad?
I donāt think it will matter for EA decisions. For Mich/BC if she is deferred theyāll ask for mid year grades . She will also get to write a LOCI where she can discuss the great things she accomplished this school year. But for now I think wait until it matters? She could get in anyway, and if itās a defer esp at Mich that is almost expected given their admissions history and not a reflection of her 1st semester transcript.
I assume itās because they arent paid well relative to the stress and multiple job functions so it may attract less experienced/knowledgeable employees with high turnover.
It may also be concerning if you have an incompetent HS counselor and need to rely on their recommendation letter. Or you dont know them that well and their letter is too generic or they wont/cant espouse effusive praise.
That must be brutal.
These are assumptions of why they may not be great because many HS counselors are fantastic.
Our HS counselor is amazing and both our kids absolutely love her and they have a great relationship.
Counselor-to-student ratio too high + counselors having to spend a lot of their time dealing with students who have a lot of pretty serious problems (i.e., problems not in the realm of applying to college).
In general, theyāre overworked and underpaid.
This. Our high school moved to a dedicated college counseling office precisely for this reason. There is a huge difference between the support D19 got and what C26 has been getting as a result. Of course, it is somewhat of a privilege to have a public school with dedicated college counselors, and I donāt imagine this is particularly widespread.
Re letters of recommendation, we had a couple of schools on tours say they donāt place a lot of weight in rec where there are high student to counselor ratios as they understand the counselors donāt get to know each student well/workload etc.
College admission officers recognize that many guidance counselors are overworked, do not know the students past a cursory annual meeting, etc. I would not stress about the counselor LOR ā many are boilerplate. If the teacher LORs are strong and personalized those will be important.
I think too it depends on the counselorās actual role. In our school, there is no guidance counselor only for college applications. There are four counselors and each one has a section of the alphabet so they each deal with all four grade levels. We do have a Director of Student Services (heās like the head counselor) and his assistant does a lot of the college stuff, like booking schools to come in and meet with students, informing students of scholarship opportunities, etc. And there is a crisis counselor who is there for serious behavior or mental health issues should they arise. But generally the regular counselor is responsible for everything from scheduling questions, to emotional support, to college applications for about 300 students (there are 1200 total in the HS). S23 and D26 lucked out because their counselor is absolutely amazing, but I have heard complaints from other parents about theirs.
Itās been a rough couple of days for our district. A graduate from 2024 was killed in a car accident yesterday morning and then just a few hours later, a senior passed away in a separate accident. They had a delay this morning so the school could get grief services mobilized. D26 was friendly with the senior and she is really shaken up. So very sad.