Junior prom at my child’s school is for 7th through 9th grades. Senior prom, 10th through 12th grades, is tonight.
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Ours is also combined junior and senior prom. I think it’s next weekend or the weekend after that. S26 is not sure yet if he’s going.
He’s had a busy week. Took the ACT at school earlier this week, said it was good, but he always says that and it doesn’t mean much 
Then went straight to Model UN conference and returned a while ago. He is now fast asleep 
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My kid applied for a couple of summer jobs, didn’t get one after the interview round. Hasn’t heard back from the second one.
Second semester does not seem to be going well so far in quite a few courses. We have a D and a C. He is trying hard to bring those back up. He really tries, but struggles with class tests, and in general being organized, being on top of things, misses turning in home work on time.
This brings me to something that has been on my mind lately. Anyone here whose kid was diagnosed with ADHD late, like in high school? I am not saying my kid has, but I was curious to know what things/symptoms made you get them tested for ADHD ? It can’t be just the performance in school or not very good with staying organized right?
I didn’t grow up in US, never heard of ADHD before coming here so I don’t know much about it.
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April 12. We have a dress, working on shoes. It’s junior-senior prom at our school. My D26 does not have a date yet and typically goes with a group of friends to the dances, but the last homecoming/sadie was drama-filled with various friend group tussles, so I’m holding my breath. She is terrible at navigating this stuff and would rather just hide in her room than deal with it.
You could not pay me enough money to go back to high school, lol.
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This is poor executive function which is absolutely very common with ADHD. My kid got diagnosed during 9th grade, where they had a bunch of poor grades almost all due to just not doing homework or not handing in completed work. We put an IEP in place in sophomore year and, along with appropriate meds, it has made a huge difference.
I would suggest getting your student assessed. If your kid is pretty smart, could be like ours where that’s been enough to carry them through elementary/middle school without realizing there was an issue until they hit a wall with the volume of work in high school.
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Not late diagnosis, no – but I’m very familiar with early diagnosis! We suspected in kindergarten that D26 had ADHD, based on several things. For example, she would be given 9 words to write out and illustrate. She’d work on the first one until it was perfect and then run out of time to do the other 8.
This was also true for timed math and all kinds of things – she was a really bright kid, and whatever work she did was good, but she never finished anything.
We actually didn’t have her evaluated until the summer before middle school, though. She has a twin brother who has some significant disabilities, plus severe ADHD (I’ve never mentioned him here because until very recently, we didn’t think he was college-bound) – and their early childhood consisted of putting out fires with him, while she coasted along.
It came to a head that summer, though. Message me if you have specific questions!
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Ugh re friend issues. Hope this one is drama-less.
We are dress shopping too, which is a surprise to me as C26 has not worn a dress since I think middle school, but I’m going with the flow! Will get shoes after that. And yeah, the dances are usually just friend groups, though from what I recall for D19 when it came to senior prom everyone had a “date” (often just a friend they’d paired with).
So I’m not really familiar with US high schools (other than the movies) as we didn’t grow up here either but from what others have posted it seems separate junior and senior proms is not that common. Maybe because our school is pretty big? It’s quite a big deal because unlike other dances (in the gym), the proms are held at special venues and the kids are bussed from school.
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May 31st for our daughter.
As she almost always does for school related functions that require a dress, she found a dress on Amazon.
Was just brought into the tailor yesterday.
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We are late April also! D26’s school does a Jr/Sr Prom. This year the prom date conflicts with our state math competition. Juniors do not tend to go unless they are in a “serious” relationship so it does not affect her but several of the Seniors chose not to compete at regionals due to the conflict
Aww that sucks fingers crossed it is drama free this time!
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No junior prom here, just senior. Will deal with it next year. 
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I second the recommendation for an assessment. These are pretty classic ADHD symptoms, but of course could be stemming from other things as well. I do have experience with late diagnosis and am happy to share personal and professional experience (lots of ADHDers in my family, and I’m also a therapist that works with neurodivergent children) if you’d like to message me privately.
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I know this topic is covered ad nauseam elsewhere, but how many total schools will you feel comfortable letting your kids apply to? What number is too many or too few?
I know some of it depends on reach/target/likely status. My D22 applied to primarily reach schools (she was a very different student from D26). She had 10 on her list, and of those, she got into 5, was waitlisted at 4, and rejected from 1.
In hindsight, there were 2 schools that she should have skipped altogether, so 8 would have been the right number.
D26 knows more about this process going in because of D22’s experience, and she’s pretty discerning about what she wants and doesn’t want – so far, she has 3 schools on her list that she would be excited to attend. Two of them are target/likely (she’s likely to get in but may not get her first choice major), and one is more reach but still accessible to her, not a crazy reach.
We’re having trouble adding more that she’s even willing to consider – mostly because she’s looking for a particular major that isn’t found most places, and definitely isn’t found with the other combo of things she wants.
If we manage to add 2 more schools, is a list of 5 too small?
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My D26 is thinking that it’s probably around 10-12 schools. She’s mostly fixated on just 3, but we’ve told her that she needs options that aren’t just pure likelies (although she does like, but not love, her likelies right now). But I expect to see a lot of change in the list over the summer since she hasn’t had a ton of time to think about it.
Sorry, meant to add - 5 wouldn’t be too small in my view as long as there’s a couple of likelies for the school and major. I’d be concerned if it was just for the school. Plus, my take is that opinions will change by next March, so cultivating some options is probably good.
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That’s a good point – who knows how she’ll feel a year from now, lol.
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We are aiming for about 12, based on the advice from our school’s college counselor. Probably about 3 reaches, 2 likelies and the rest targets.
A couple months ago, her draft list was nearly 20 schools. She recently decided she absolutely doesn’t want to be in a big city, so her list is shrinking nicely based on that (off comes USC, UCLA, Ga Tech). Still working on getting some likelies she’s actually excited about, that’s the toughest part for us!
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I don’t think 5 is too small if it’s a well curated list with a true, affordable safety, that your child would be happy attending.
One of my d’s friends applied to exactly 1 school - a regional safety with rolling admission. She was admitted in September. Least stressful senior year of the entire friend group. And she had a great college experience, graduated in her first choice major and is gainfully employed.
My D applied to 8 schools. In retrospect she said it should have been 6 (she didn’t need the second safety and the high reach was a terrible fit and she only submitted to have one on her list “just to see”). Those 8 applications required 19 unique essays between the “why us” and honors/merit extras. It was a lot of work!
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My D22 was like that – everything that excited her was a reach. She ended up applying to our state flagship plus one small private as her likelies, but both would have felt like settling. Thankfully one of her reaches worked out.
My D26 is more excited about two target/likelies, and her most reach (Ga Tech!) is actually third on her list, lol.
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Struggling with the same thing! My 26 has a whopping total of 2 possibly 3 schools she is interested in applying to. That being said we may look to add 1 or 2 more schools. Her number one choice has a high acceptance rate, and it is affordable so we will not add a ton of schools to her list. She may have another school added to her list after she attends a summer program there, it is a reach school, so we will likely look to add another target / safety school.
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I think it also depends on major/program. My D is looking primarily at direct admit nursing programs. These are very competitive (even at safety schools) because they are such small programs. Iowa is a good example – it is frequently used as a safety in the midwest and is a great school. The overall acceptance rate for Iowa is around 80% but its direct nursing pathway accepts about 18%. My D will have to cast a wide net.
My boys, who had more typical majors (Chemistry and International Relations), each applied to about 12 schools. My Chem major kid was not sure what “type” of school he wanted at the time of applying, so he had a big state school list and a mid-sized university list. In the case of the IR major, he applied to a lot of smaller liberal arts colleges that had 25-35% acceptance rates. He was a match based on stats, but with that low of an acceptance rate, it was a toss up so he applied to many.
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