Have definitely seen a correlation between queen bee moms and queen bee daughters. Elementary school was not particularly kind to C26. Thankfully they found their tribe at middle and high school, so they can avoid those kids AND I can avoid the moms.
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This 100% It is so crazy to hear about some of these girls in D26 class and then I realize who their mothers are and it all makes perfect sense.
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D26 met w/college counselor after school today. They discussed several things:
- D26âs wish list of criteria/decision factors/whatever you call it in a college. So D26 told counselor about stuff like ânowhere cold,â and the other things on the list.
- D26âs preferences on which STEM teacher & which Humanities teacher to write the 2 LOR: AP Bio teacher from 10th grade, and for Humanities, either her AP USH/AP US Gov & Politics teacher, her 9th grade Honors English Language/10th grade AP English Language teacher, or her 10th grade AP Euro History/11th grade Human Geo/12th grade Middle Eastern History teacher. I think it should be either of the 2 history teachers for Humanities.
- what D26 is interested in majoring in and why
- Counselor is going to use SCOIR to start recommending some colleges for D26 to exploreâŠcolleges which meet the criteria
- Counselor asked what did D26 do last summer & what sheâs planning for this summer. D26 misunderstood and thought Counselor was asking about vacation plans just to be nice/social. I explained why Counselor was REALLY asking. D26 emailed Counselor to provide clarification.
- Counselor asked D26 what she likes to do in her free time. D26 mentioned sheâs started reading the Percy Jackson books for funâŠthis is actually a big deal for D26 because she HATES reading for pleasure ever since the summer after 6th grade, the âhighly recommended/requiredâ summer reading book from the English teachers was to read HolesâŠa book which she slogged through and hated and after that, she refused to read anything for fun and would only read if it was required for class.
- D26 forgot to mention to counselor that she also works 15-16 hr/week at Walmart. I explained to D26 that Counselor was asking about what she does in her free time outside of school because she wants to know what extracurriculars sheâs doingâŠbecause sheâs trying to gather info that sheâll include in the counselor LOR. D26 was like, âOooohhhh! Ok!â D26 included that in the email she sent this evening to Counselor.
- what Senior Capstone classes D26 will be enrolled in. Counselor has D26 down for Middle Eastern Culture & History, Applications in Math, Spanish Literature & Culture, and Human Health & Disease. So D26 is pretty happy that she got into the Middle Eastern History class AND that for the science capstone, she doesnât have to take the Physics class.
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I smiled at some of the misunderstandingsâŠI mean, how are they supposed to know this stuff?? Our big junior-year counselor/college advising meeting at D26âs school includes a parent (both parents if available), the student and the grade chair. It takes forever to hash it all out, LOL.
Also, YAY for Percy Jackson â my girls have been fans since they were really young, and they were both heavily involved in the fandom for a long long time. I took my D22 â a musical theatre kid â to NYC to see The Lightning Thief musical on the first day it was open in previews, and sheâs seen it twice since then, lol. (Itâs actually really good.) And theyâve both cosplayed as several different characters for book character day and Halloween.
(Hmm. I think I might have nerdy children, LOL.)
Although both my girls were natural readers, I couldnât get my son to read anything beyond Captain Underpants for yearsâŠuntil I finally handed him Vampire Academy at like 13 or 14. And then he read the whole honking big series, which includes a hot Russian half-vampire and everything. HAHAHAHA, my D26 and I have been listening to the series while on long college road trips (we really need some mind candy for that many hours of driving), and she is aghast that I let her brother read them several years ago. But hey, it got him to read. 
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Itâs sort of funny what got D26 interested just a few days ago with reading Percy Jackson books. Back when D24 was in I think 5th grade (? not sure the year), they had to read the 1st Percy Jackson book for english class at school. D24 really loved it and read book #2 on her own. Later on, we had our kids watch the movies. D26 hadnât read the books at all at that point.
D24 got passionately mad about how âinaccurateâ the movies were compared to the books. And ever since, she & D26 have occasionally bickered and argued about itâŠwith much gusto. 
And then fast forward to now. Out of the blue, D26 decided she wanted to read the 1st book so she could debate her sister on the âwhich is better - the books or the movies?â topic.
Iâm like, âHey, if arguing with your sister is what got you to start reading for fun, go for it!â 
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Those movies are REALLY bad, lol. Notoriously terrible. And I say that even though Nathan Fillion is in one of them!
(My girls tell me the series that came out more recently â last summer? â is really good, though.)
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We watched the TV series on Disney+ and really liked it!
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This week I began reviewing information (that I can find) about the various colleges D26 is looking at and has looked at for comparison sakes regarding campus/school safety records.
The resources Iâve used is each schoolâs campus police site as well as the website: Campus Safety and Security The website does not include 2024 but does have 2021-2023. Some of these numbers may be skewed by covid, just not sure.
Knowing numbers are only as good as whatâs been reported, itâs sort of interesting. In some cases, unexpected - some lower than Iâd of imagined and some higher.
Iâve also bookmarked each schoolâs student newspaper to get an additional feel for âcultureâ.
Have any of you reviewed this sort of information? If so, what have been resources youâve found?
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Iâve looked at that info! I especially like reading the student newspapers because it gives you an idea of what are the âhotâ topics on campus, whatâs happening on campus, etc. The campus safety/security info is also helpful because it helps me confirm (or deny) my own personal biases about a particular campusâs safetyâŠUNM had a heck of a lot more crime than some other schools that D24 applied to, for exampleâŠbut I expected that given Albuquerqueâs overall high crime rate (especially property crime - lots of cars stolen & broken into on campus there all the time).
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I really think my D26 needs to broaden her search in the event that athletic recruiting doesnât work out. But, I have to tread carefully because I donât want her to misconstrue things and think that I donât think sheâs good enough to be recruited and get in to a highly rejective school, rather the uncertainties with the current recruiting landscape thanks to the House v NCAA settlement.
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Athletic recruiting & college is tricky for sure! I have a mom friend who went through that last year w/her S24. Finding the right mix was a challenge. Her kid was an engineering major & heâs a swimmer. So a lot of schools werenât even looked at because they didnât have an ABET-certified engineering program.
Other programs didnât make the cut because his swim times werenât fast enough.
Some schools were great in terms of engineering & vibe w/the coach & team, but the financial aid at the end of the day turned out to be too expensive/school was unaffordable.
She had her kid follow the rule of âIf you got injured and couldnât do your sport anymore, would you still want to attend this school?â
They ended up looking all over the place. All over the country. He ended up at a school he really likes and he likes the team heâs on, so itâs been going well so far.
Good luck! My friend said the process definitely felt a lot like Goldilocks & the 3 Bears at times.
I love looking at school newspapers to get a feel, too. I was recently surprised because one school weâre looking at is in a politically conservative area, but you wouldnât know it from the tone of the newspaper articles.
(I was a journalism major and love school newspapers in general, lol.)
Iâll admit I havenât thought much about crime or looked up crime statistics. Iâve lived in a couple of big cities, and my D22 is in school in the middle of a big city, and I just havenât worried about it much. I did read a post here about how unsafe the area outside University of Rochester was, though â and that gave me pause. (Because who knew?)
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This has got to be stressful.
I donât know anything about recruiting because none of my children have an athletic bone in their bodies, lol, but I do have a good friend whose daughter was recruited at several elite schools to swim, but she ended up choosing a school (also elite) for other reasons, thinking she could try out for the swim team when she got there. And then she broke her foot before she could do that and never ended up swimming. I think the adjustment to a non-swim life was rough initially (plus the adjustment to an elite school) â but sheâs graduating this May and landed her dream job, so I think sheâd say it was worth it.
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You can also search for the Clery Reports for each school on your list.
We did look into some of that information when our D was building her list.
And yes, the data is only as good as what is being reported. You can cross reference with police reports from the area.
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I was a journalism major, too! Love looking at school papers. My D22 is a communications and history major and school papers certainly influenced her perception of the schoolsâas they should. I vividly remember grabbing the satirical paper at UMichigan while on our tour and it was so funny that D22 and I started laughing so hard we couldnât stop. Everyone on the tour was staring at us. I felt bad but we just couldnât help it. Definitely boosted Michigan in our eyes. S26 has no interest but I pick them up anyway.
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It really is like Goldilocks and the three bears!
So hard to find the right fit. The ones sheâs a good academic fit for sheâs not an impact recruit. For the ones where sheâd be a top recruit, the academics arenât quite what sheâs looking for OR the location isnât quite rightâŠ
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Yay! D got into the COSMOS cluster she liked best at UC Davis. (For those of you not in CA, COSMOS is a summer program.)
Still waiting on SIMR⊠super unlikely sheâll get into that one, but you never know
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Yep, one of my ex colleagues was recruited to play football, did something to his knee during his first semester and that was the end of the football.
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OMGosh. My D22 is at Rice, and their paper the Thresher publishes a Backpage that is all satire. Itâs hilarious and often off-color, because college kids, lol.
But the parents on the Rice parent FB page donât all understand that itâs satire. The paper once published an âalternativeâ schedule of activities for parents weekend, which if you read closely â hoo boy. And we had some parents asking why they hadnât gotten this list of activities because they seemed much more exciting than the ones theyâd been given.
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Something to consider is club swim. My S23 swam all through HS, and participated in club swim his freshman year of college. He was shocked by how good the other kids were- he said some of thekids had times that were competitive w the top swimmers in our high school conference- these kids were fast. And club swim is particularly big in some areas. My kid switched over to club Quadball (yeah, itâs quidditch!) and has an absolute blast with it- he travels to Boston about every other week for matches against a bunch of great schools, and last spring his team flew out to Austin for the national championships - all expenses paid. Club sports also provide tons of flexibility- have a big test? No problem, you can just skip practice.
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