<p>I don't know about anyone else, but I can tell that decision time is coming up. Most of my child's decisions are not out until April 1 (or March 31) and while this semester has been relatively uneventful, now that we are into March, there is a definite tenseness I can feel. How do we keep it light and get through the next 3 weeks????</p>
<p>To quote the late great:</p>
<p>"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me."
Hunter S. Thompson</p>
<p>Drink coffee or tea often and try not to eat to many cookies.
We are all in the same boat so just by posting to CC relieves the tension.
My biggest problem is that I get a bit obsessive with CC (according to my son).
Wait....Isn't he the one who should be tense?</p>
<p>It got much better here with a ID acceptance and a couple of likely letters. Before that it was unbearable.</p>
<p>My S is a junior in HS. I just realized last month that I have less than 11 months to file the FAFSA! Suddenly the game is on...</p>
<p>
[quote]
How do we keep it light and get through the next 3 weeks????
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Do what we do...have so many pressing issues and pending events that you HAVE to get through day by day--there is no space to give thought to three weeks down the line! <em>lol</em></p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>For us last year, my son had 2 acceptances already to his rolling admissions school and to U Mich, so we were not as tense. We also did contingency planning, visited Ann Arbor and did a detailed plan for if he did not get in anywhere else. That was therapeutic even though he ended up not going to Ann Arbor. My son and I had a great time travelling to Ann Arbor and visiting U Mich as well.</p>
<p>My son looked at his schedule and realized he will be out of town April 1-3 for an orchestra trip. Oh, I hope his letters arrive early. I can just see those letters sitting on the table staring me in the face for three days, while I impatiently wait for him to get home! </p>
<p>At least he did get his first music school acceptance already. It is not a top choice of his, but it does give hope. And with all his activities, as well as scholarship forms to fill out, we keep plenty busy... Not too much time to worry and wonder.</p>
<p>we are lucky in that our Spring Break is in March, so we can forget about it all for awhile (hypothetically)...</p>
<p>Bandit, Congrats on your D's likely letter (I congratulated her when she posted to the Dartmouth board). Maybe we'll be parents in Hanover together.</p>
<p>We booked a "getaway from the tension" trip for the 3rd weekend in March. Sort of a reward for son's finishing things up so well; he'll get to indulge in his hobby for two straight days. Hoping to come home to a mailbox full of nice big acceptance packages.....</p>
<p>I honestly don't know how we are handling it. Child is in the middle of full blast sports thing right now, plus the teachers are absolutely not letting up on the work. She is trying to pull through to make the Principals list or honor roll this marking period so that she will have a perfect 4-year record of three or more semesters per year of Honor Roll or Above. Plus the fact that our basketball team has gone made crazy...making every other night a game to attend (and balancing that between her sport, etc).</p>
<p>As for me, I work part time, so that takes alot off my mind. Sometimes I just visualize the acceptance letter (power of mind) and how I will present it to her.
The deferreal letter in December was a crushing blow, but she went full speed ahead with adding letters and stuff to her application file. We are hoping against hope.</p>
<p>Sad that our kids are going through their own version of March madness, I thought my daughter was wound tighter than a drum wondering if she would be accepted anywhere.</p>
<p>Every envelope coming out of the mail box is a reminder that more important news is on the way this month. Yesterday a large envelope from Smith got our pulses up, even though we knew it was too early to hear, and the envelope was too heavy for a rejection....one last mailing to remind us what a great place Smith is and how the decision is almost upon us.....Breath in , Breath out...slow steady breaths....In a month we will all be tossing bags of college material, and focusing on that one....</p>
<p>I purposely didn't make spring break plans in case S wanted to do any last minute "revisits". Now I am regretting it, and checking travelzoo.com every morning.</p>
<p>Occasionally we have threads that blast Early Decision as "only benefitting the colleges," but after reading this thread I remain utterly convinced that my kids' ED decisions saved their senior years and my sanity! Good luck to all of you - I really don't know how you can bear having it endlessly dragged out like this!</p>
<p>" How do we keep it light and get through the next 3 weeks????"</p>
<p>Exercise! At least, that helped me somewhat. There's no getting around the anticipation-based stress that this time of year brings. I remember it vividly, two years later. I started taking the dog out for very long walks at dawn and dusk, and going to the gym more regularly than usual. If you haven't been through this before, start preparing for the the "life passage" moment that this event portends. For me, it was as profound as marriage and childbirth. The event that we'd been planning for for 18 years, and the realization that it meant a dramatic alteration of our family structure...she really would be moving on...</p>
<p>She didn't get into her top "April" choice, but when she began getting some really great acceptances during the last week of March, it really hit home that I wouldn't be hearing her play her favorite pop songs on the piano in the morning before school anymore.</p>
<p>we're with you shutterbug312. All of S's responses will be out March 31 ish. I've got the countdown of days written on my calendar and I challenge myself to see how many days I can get thru without checking!</p>
<p>When my D1 applied she would not go with our guidance and ended up with apps to several schools where I believed she had very little chance (top 20 uni and DD w/no hook.) </p>
<p>She made it into several top 50 schools, but when acceptances from one school went out, kids in her school recieved them as much as a week a part- that was rough, rough, rough on the last admittee! Another school, where she was pursued, allowed the recruiter to call her and let her know she was in, but the letter took two more weeks, I am glad we knew sooner. I would always always tell people to apply to some rolling admit schools.</p>
<p>My D2 is in with merit money at 2 schools and denied EA at one other - I am so glad to know that so we don't need to visit. I hate to have to go visit schools in March (spring break) not knowing whether she is admitted. If she is not admitted to the schools we visit, then we could have done other fun things instead of that! I wish schools would let you know by March 15th so there could be a bit more planning time. More than anything, I just want to determine where she is going so we can plan the summer/fall. There is adifference of about 5 weeks between the earliest and latest possible start times of the schools in the fall!</p>
<p>My son is a super involved, over achieving kind of kid, so he stays plenty busy with his activities and AP course work...its just this underlying tenseness somewhere below the surface that makes ME crazy. He probably is handling it fine...but underneath it all, you never know. I think the hardest part is that people expect him to get in to everywhere he applies. He knows he will go SOMEWHERE, but the not knowing exactly WHERE is tough... maybe it is the burden of others expectations that drives him a little crazy.</p>