I’m DMing you. 
My D26 is so ready for the school year to be over. She has so much coming up in the next few weeks, including ACT this weekend, then a college visit by plane April 10-13. Then a week after that, 4 college visits during her spring break. She has been working really hard to prep for this upcoming ACT and I just want it to be done at this point. And she woke up sick this morning which blows. She is currently asleep on the couch - no fever but exhausted, sore throat, congested, just general viral grossness. I was really hoping she was done with illness for the year. She has an appointment with a specialist this Thursday and we have been waiting for this appointment for 6 months- if she is sick they will make her reschedule. Just a lot right now and I would like to be past this stuff and into summer.
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LOL! I love that blog post. So awesome. 
And so true.
Here’s where our heads are in our household at the moment on that topic:
- there’s 5 weeks (including today) until AP exams start.
- 5 weeks basically until her 11th grade final exams begin.
- Yes, that’s right, for the AP classes (for the most part), the AP exam IS the final exam.
- And if you’re not taking the AP exam, you take an alternate final exam on the same day & time as the AP exam for that subject.
- Meanwhile, my kid is gonna be working 8 hour shifts every weekend at Wally World. So that means she has to fit in extra study sessions in the evenings.
- Last Wed was the 11th grade’s turn to provide lunch to all of the teachers at school. Our household did not contribute anything. I usually ALWAYS contribute something…food or drinks or money. No time for that this year.
- Last week of the school year is ‘project week.’ All of our spare $$ is going to D24’s college fees. Hope to God that D26 wants one of the free project week options instead of one that costs $150.
- If you’re not taking the AP exam (like D26 isn’t for Spanish), we’ve been told that the alternate exam is LIKE an AP exam. Great. Especially since on the practice exam earlier this calendar year, D26 got a 2 on the practice AP Spanish exam. The teacher is a nice guy, but they haven’t learned anything new this year. This means…
- D26 is having to self-teach in her spare time using the Modern States’ CLEP course for Spanish. Hoping that it boosts things enough for her to get a decent final exam score. At least on the bright side, once school year is done, I’m gonna have her take the CLEP exam for it at a local community college and that’ll get her out of having to take a foreign language in college.
- D26 still has NHS volunteer hours to accrue and it’s due in about 2 weeks. When the ever living heck is she supposed to have the time to do this when she works every weekend? NHS has been the most useless waste of time of an extracurricular activity. And yeah, I know there are national scholarships and all that, but she’s not going to get selected.
- this past weekend, I forgot to buy drinks for D26’s lunches. Oops. Drink some extra water, kiddo.
- I hope to God that D24 remembers to bring her social security card & passport back home w/her in May when DH helps her move out of the dorm & helps her put her stuff in storage because w/o the SS card, she won’t be able to start a summer job AND w/o the passport, she won’t be able to get on the plane to return home since her driver’s license is not yet a REAL ID driver’s license…getting a REAL ID driver’s license will be a task for this summer.
- DH thinks that D26 should participate in a cybersecurity ‘Capture The Flag’ online competition in April. He’s decided that she’s interested in doing it, even though she’s said that she doesn’t want to do it because of all the school obligations and it being AP Exam Prep Season. He thinks he can teach our daughter how to code in less than 2 weeks. I love this man very much, but he is one of THE worst teachers I’ve ever seen. Good thing that’s not his profession.
- Haven’t had the time to sign D26 up for the June SAT. I kind of want to delay until we have her ACT test scores from last week’s ACT exam. But I know that if I wait, then there will be slim to no spots available at any of the test centers in our metro area. And part of me sort of doesn’t give a flying fart. But I want my kid to have some affordable choices to pick from a year from now in addition to Univ of Arizona…and that means test scores. BUGGER!
Meanwhile, with Older Child (D24, our college freshman), there are times when she tries our patience and holy mother of God I’m glad she’s attending college out of state rather than here in our state because sometimes the distance is helpful:
- D24 is a pre-health kid, wants to be a PA. Has she gone yet this semester to talk to the amazing pre-health advisors/professors there on campus? No. Like, HELLO? You’re signing up for next semester’s classes in a couple of weeks. Go get some advice from people who know what the heck they’re talking about because clearly you’re not listening to me since Mom & Dad are dumb.
- TELL me, Dear Child, if you want to/plan to enroll in a CNA (certified nurse assistant) course this summer at a local community college. “Oh I’ll look into it in April.” The spots will be gone by the time she gets around to it. Hope you like serving burgers at Mickey D’s this summer, kiddo, because you snoozed and you’re gonna lose. OH MY GOSH!
When I look into Madame Leota’s crystal ball, it says that D24 will end up not taking a CNA course this summer because she will have waited too long to do anything and there won’t be any spots left. Oh…and the only community colleges that have this available are both an hour’s drive from our house. The community college that’s 20 min away? Nope, that campus doesn’t have any CNA classes. WHAT IN THE WORLD…SERIOUSLY? - Hey, go talk to a professor in the Biology dept and ask them about that summer research assistant program. You know, the one where you get PAID to be a research assistant in a professor’s science lab all summer. And you can live on campus. ALL YOU BASICALLY HAVE TO DO IS ASK AND THE POSITION IS YOURS! THIS IS WHY YOU PICKED TO ATTEND A SMALL COLLEGE LIKE THIS! DON’T BE AN IDIOT! I know you miss us, but SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP! We’ll come visit you there in the summer. For the love of all that is holy, pull your head out of your rear end!
Meanwhile, the school boosters organization wants donations for this and that. Guess what? I’ll have money for donations in…oh…about…5 years from now after both of my kids are out of college. Then I’ll have disposable income to give away.
For now, I’ll settle with making it through the next 7 weeks. Because by end of day on Friday 5/16, my kid will be done with her 11th grade final exams.
</end whining>
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commiserates in whining
ACT this coming Saturday, the drive to the airport for a recruiting trip. Come back late Monday. Wednesday is SAT. Fly out Friday for another recruiting trip, return home Sunday.
Between work, volunteer tutoring and coaching, school, sports and whatnot, D26 is about to crack. I don’t even want to think about her 5 upcoming AP exams.
Junior year sucks.
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Commiserations to all on the stress. We are kind of ok for now as it’s spring break week here and C26 is a little chilled, but it’s going to get crazy from next week as we head into the last quarter of the year. I think we are supposed to get their SAT results on Thursday, so that will also help us see whether or not we need to add some test prep into the mix along with all the time-suck from rehearsals.
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We’re flying to Portland this weekend (from the Bay Area) so S26 can take the ACT. He has barely done any prep since his practice test and few tutoring sessions a few weeks ago, despite my nearly daily nagging. We are flying b/c there are no seats for this ACT anywhere within 100 miles and my brother lives in Portland so we’re going to see him this weekend, too.
After that, we are touring Reed College, University of Washington, Seattle University and may even make it up to Vancouver to see the University of British Columbia. It’s S26’s spring break.
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So for those stressing over SAT/ACT registration it’s a nightmare doing it online, you can check daily to see if anyone has canceled and then move your exam location to somewhere closer or in some cases schools have a number of seats reserved for their own students.
I had to beg S26 to ask his counselor and we found out that there’s a set of seats reserved for them. You text one of the counselors they call in and a seat is opened up they text you back and you can register for it. Initially we had plans to fly to San Diego to take his SAT but managed to change it to his high school. I assume there’s something similar with the ACT.
This was not advertised in the school it was something you just had to ask and then they would help you.
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The seats issue is crazy. It’s part of the reason C26 settled on SAT -their practice tests had them around even on both so it didn’t seem to matter. Luckily it was organized by the school, but if they take again the backup is about 30 miles away - and there was one seat left there when I booked.
Looking forward to hearing your feedback about the colleges!
We visit Boulder next week.
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Am I the only one whose kid is completely indifferent about college visits/tours? I see her peers with all these schools on their lists and she’s just meh. Will only go voluntarily if it’s a recruitment thing.
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that’s nuts that you’re having to fly to a whole different state just to take a standardized test.
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My kid is in this camp. She’s embraced the Star Trek attitude of “resistance is futile,” so goes along with where us parents say we should probably tour.
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It is. His practice test showed him getting a 31 and he’s prepped (a little) so we are hoping to be one and done. The reason for the ACT and not SAT (which we could find a little more easily locally) is that he tried both and he tested substantially better on the ACT. He gets accommodations for his ADHD, which, for the ACT, can be very helpful since one of the ways the test is made difficult is by volume of question (vs. the SAT, which is made difficult by being purposely tricky with wording… requiring careful and practiced reading–something my ADHD kid is not naturally gifted at doing…)
Hence, we travel. And see family, too, which I am happy to do.
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Mine is slowly coming around but largely indifferent. With Boston University, he became very excited about it, but not until we arrived. He was fairly indifferent about UC Davis and Santa Cruz. I think it’s a combination of being someone who very much lives in the moment plus feeling overwhelmed by the decisions and the work ahead.
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This describes mine too. A very few schools spark interest, but mostly a reluctant participant in the whole tour thing. (And she has lots of parent-tour etiquette rules for me, e.g., no asking questions, no getting ahead of the tour guide, no open toe shoes/sandals lol)
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D24 had similar rules. We weren’t allowed to ask “embarrassing questions,” which really meant that DH wasn’t allowed to ask questions because he would tend to totally dominate the Q&A part of the info sessions. D24 told me that it was ok for me to ask questions, especially on tours, because I “didn’t ask embarrassing questions.”
What does that mean? Apparently the questions I asked were not embarrassing. I would ask stuff like:
- What’s been your favorite class you’ve taken so far?
- About how many students are in the biggest class you’ve taken?
- What do you like to do for fun on the weekends? (gives you a little window into what campus life is like on the weekends)
- What’s your favorite place to study that’s not in your room?
- What’s your favorite place to eat that’s not the dining hall?
- Have you had any difficulty getting the classes you need?
- What’s your favorite thing about this school? Why did you decide to attend here instead of other colleges?
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I try to be supportive at arms length so I try to not push, which in hindsight, might have been a mistake. I expected her to take the lead as she does with most things, so this passivity is a new challenge.
We’ve been on three tours so far, but they were last summer, so she can just get an idea of a loose cross section of the educational landscape - a SLAC, a large state university and a large private university. We have driven through/walked a few campuses on own here and there when out of town at sporting events, more so to feel the “vibe” of the area and the school. Nothing too in depth, but probably should have been more focused.
It’s hard because our local state flagship is University of Michigan and that’s the bar she compares all schools to just because of the familiarity factor.
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On a similar note, D24 was not happy when I corrected the tour guide on our visit to UT Austin. I was definitely an annoying alumnus visiting my old school.
“That’s Dolby dorm. That’s where Michael Dell started Dell computers”.
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First, can I just say how much I appreciate this whole brain dump – because I also tend to make extensive lists of everything my kids have going on – and it’s so much! And I absorb their stress like crazy – NOT a healthy habit, but somewhat normal for a mom, I think.
But yes, this time of year for high school juniors just from a schoolwork standpoint is a mess, and then throw in all the testing and college visits, and…UGH.
The fighting to find a seat for a standardized test is nuts. I’m sorry it’s so difficult for so many of you. I hadn’t even heard of this until recently. Our state schools in GA require tests, so they’re offered here everywhere. Most public high schools have school-day testing as well. I think it would put my kids over the edge if we had to fly just to take a test.
We’re not even thinking about AP exams yet. My daughter’s AP Physics test on Friday is as far ahead as we can think, lol (she has GOT to pull up that freaking grade).
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In the spirit of “Don’t ask embarrassing questions on the college tour,” when D24 & I toured Univ of Arizona’s honors college, the tour guide (who was a very sweet sophomore girl) fielded a question from a parent about scholarships. Then a DIFFERENT parent asked an inflammatory question of “So, like, do REGULAR students get any scholarships here or do you only get one if you’re, you know, black or Hispanic?”
You could have heard a pin drop.
That parent’s daughter turned to her mom and said, “Mooom! What are you doing?”
The mom doubled down with, “What? It’s just a question.”
Cue long awkward silence while the poor tour guide figured out what to say. She mentioned there are auto merit scholarships and that she’d applied for and been granted a scholarship to help out with study abroad, which she’d done the prior summer after freshman year.
Then another long awkward painful pause. And the parent’s totally embarrassed daughter backed away from her mom and tried to pretend she didn’t know her the rest of the tour.
I asked a softball question of the tour guide of “So what did you like best about the study abroad thing you did last summer?” The tour guide said, “Oh, thank you for asking that! This is a question I know how to answer.” 
That same parent & daughter were on the same general campus tour earlier in the day with D24 & I. The mom asked some questions about campus safety. They were from San Diego and the mom made a big deal about how she thought campus was super unsafe because she saw a couple of homeless people driving through downtown Tucson.
Another parent finally had enough with the mom and THAT mom turned to her after, like, the 3rd or 4th question about campus safety and said to San Diego Mom, “You know, a lot of us are actually FROM here and we don’t really appreciate you trash talking our home state. If you don’t like it here, don’t come here. OUR family vacations in San Diego a lot and last time I checked, you have a much bigger problem ALL over San Diego with homelessness and crime. So maybe you should step outside of your gated community once in awhile and pay attention.”
I totally wanted to give that parent who spoke up a high 5. Meanwhile, San Diego Mom’s daughter looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her up.
When we were in the car later, D24 said, “Oh my gosh, I am SO GLAD you’re not like that one mom. What the heck is wrong with her! At least her daughter isn’t like her mom is. I felt bad for her.”
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So many reactions to this… Wow!
- That tour guide may never forget that particular experience.
- That child may never let her mother forget those insane questions.
- That mother making those particular questions needs a dose of reality in a few different ways.
The tour guide was probably relieved you asked a logical question and helped to shift the tone of the tour.
Yikes!
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