<p>Wow...AimHigh, Wolves...those graduating classes are enormous!! Son graduates tomorrow with 250 kids, 1000 total at the school. Wolves, is your HS the biggest in the state? 110 going to U-M? That's unreal. Do all of those kids pay room and board even though they live in the same town? MSU was the big in-state winner with our seniors this year. Kids liked the James Madison, Lyman-Briggs, Honors options. And, Oakland U is gaining some momentum as well. The B-ball program put them on the map, and if they ever add a football team, interest will spike even further. Our HS has the lowest number going to Michigan of any year in recent memory. Some of that is due to the tough admissions year, but many qualified kids simply weren't interested in applying and took their excellent stats elsewhere. I'll have to see if that trend continues over the next few years as I have a freshman D. coming up the ranks.</p>
<p>Sorry...didn't mean to get off-track about the Faculty Awards. Susanm and tripperian...good thing you're checking into that as I do think errors are made. If S. had ended up choosing IU, we would have appealled his award. He's 3.5, 28 ACT, EC's galore and only was given 1K per year, 4K total. I mean, were they kidding? That hardly made a dent in that OOS tuition. The scholarship he received from the school he'll be attending blew IU's out of the water.</p>
<p>Trip, you're starting in the spring, and they may not dole out money at that time. You should call to find out. If they don't, I don't think chewing anyone out is going to change things. </p>
<p>Wolves, son's lock-in senior party was last night, and I haven't talked to him yet because they got out at 5:00am and he's still sleeping. Our graduation is at Northwestern University - and their auditorium doesn't have a/c, so I'm hoping it stays cool here, or we'll all fry. </p>
<p>GBAMom, there are 4,600 kids in our high school, and it's very competitive and fairly strict. I always laugh when I see articles complaining about cell phone use. Our students can't have them out at all or they'll be taken away with the parent having to go into the school to get them, so everyone pretty much complies. You can only use them before or after school hours out on campus near pick up areas....and on finals days, not at all anywhere on campus. </p>
<p>What a HUGE drop in scholarship money! That doesn't seem right at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wolves, is your HS the biggest in the state? 110 going to U-M? That's unreal. Do all of those kids pay room and board even though they live in the same town? MSU was the big in-state winner with our seniors this year. Kids liked the James Madison, Lyman-Briggs, Honors options.
[/quote]
It is the biggest in the state. All have to pay room and board as UM requires us to live on campus, rather than drive 5 minutes to class or hop on the bus. MSU was big too, lots of the "good, but not UM good" kids are going there. We have 60 kids going there. I considered it, went on a visit and thought it was too big. I can't believe you only got 1K, that's ridiculous! </p>
<p>Argh, you guys get Northwestern to graduate at, and we get Eastern Michigan. Yeah, i'm jealous.</p>
<p>Trip, if you really feel that IU is your #1 choice and you don't want to go anywhere else, take a gap year, and apply for fall admission. I really think they deal out more money for fall applicants than spring applicants. Have you called them yet? Sometimes you can appeal awards based on your progress. You can fax them your final transcript and see if it goes up.</p>
<p>Yeah, generally MSU has been the U-M back-up except for legacy families, but not this year which I found very interesting. A sizeable percentage of the kids who chose MSU were U-M material stat-wise, but didn't even apply. Most were attracted to those RC options at MSU, or were turned off by the growing buzz about the ultra-competitive, cut-throat attitudes of U-M's student body. We're a top performing school district within the state so I'll be curious to see if that trend continues. </p>
<p>I forgot about that U-M freshman residency requirement. Geez, you'd think with the housing crunch they'd relax that rule for local kids willing to commute.</p>
<p>Yes, that 1K from IU was ridiculous. We knew kids with lower stats who received more so we assumed it had to be an error.</p>
<p>Wolves:
"Argh, you guys get Northwestern to graduate at, and we get Eastern Michigan. Yeah, i'm jealous."</p>
<p>If Eastern Michigan's auditorium is air conditioned, it will be I who is jealous of you!</p>
<p>Our kids walk the stage at the Meadowbrook Music Theatre, an open-aired covered pavilion, so we'll be using our programs as make-shift fans if it's hot and humid with no breeze!</p>
<p>AimHigh - What school are you? I didn't think any schools around here are that big - possibly New Trier, but they already graduated. </p>
<p>We had our graduation at Northwestern (since they are in our town), but it sucked so much for me because I was suffering from a side effect some people get after a spinal tap known as a spinal headache. Basically whenever you're not lying down, you get a massive headache that you can only stand for a couple of minutes. So I lyed down until it started, marched in, left to lye down outside, came back in to walk the stage (escorted by security), then left. And then for the entire weekend, I was in bed sleeping while everyone else was out doing graduation parties and stuff.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Trip, if you really feel that IU is your #1 choice and you don't want to go anywhere else, take a gap year, and apply for fall admission. I really think they deal out more money for fall applicants than spring applicants. Have you called them yet? Sometimes you can appeal awards based on your progress. You can fax them your final transcript and see if it goes up.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ya I'll call them on Monday to see whats up, thanks for your guys' responses.</p>
<p>But whats also pretty cool is that I told my parents that I might not get that much money from IU (I got 28,000 from Ohio State, so that is what I was sort of expecting from IU), and they basically said that that is ok, and that the funds will become available if I really want to go to IU. Pretty awesome parents.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pretty awesome parents.
[/quote]
I like the sound of that.....</p>
<p>GBAMom, is that tomorrow? I hope you have cooler weather. You're in MI, so we're sending it your way. And I'll say a prayer it doesn't rain. That could get messy even if you've got overhead shelter.</p>
<p>Zippo, Stevenson in Lincolnshire is up to 4,573 students now. Where are you?</p>
<p>Evanston. I didn't realize schools from all over the north suburbs used Weslh-Ryan.</p>
<p>Thanks AimHigh. Yeah, it's tomorrow at 2:00. Just checked the weather channel...supposed to be sunny, 71, no rain. Sure hope that's accurate. The outdoor amphitheatre setting is very nice and we'd lose the photo ops with soggy weather.</p>
<p>Zippo, I think we use it because of the size of the graduating class. I call their school the University of Lincolnshire. Besides, that's what we pay the big bucks for in property taxes in Lake County...lol. My 10K a year may not be called tuition, but most of it goes toward the school, and I'm sure they're paying Northwestern for the auditorium.</p>
<p>GBAMom, let us know how it goes.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, Eastern was nice and air conditioned. Everyone liked it.</p>
<p>GBAMom, I hope your son's graduation went well, with good weather. Ours went too fast to really enjoy. I think my son has 1,045 in his graduating class. My younger son, going into Junior year, has more kids than that. The total I gave you the other day for the entire school, was correct, I just didn't have the breakdown right. At any rate, it went too fast for most mothers to even get emotional about. A 90 minute ceremony, with a speech by an administrator, two speeches by students whose essays were selected and then their names read off at breakneck speed. We don't have a valedictorian, because there have been problems with parents in the past who actually threaten to sue because they believe their child should have been picked, and the difference is 1/10th of a point. If this site had emoticons doing major eye-rolling, I would insert it here.</p>
<p>Zippo, I think you're at New Trier and graduated a week ago yesterday. I understand for yours, they had the kids names flash on the scoreboard before the ceremony started? They didn't do that for ours, it would have been fun. </p>
<p>Wolves, about twelve attempts at beachballs were made, all of which lasted less than thirty seconds before one of the deans retrieved the ball, and with a dour look on their faces, removed it from the building via a door near the stage. No fun at their school ever. No tailgating allowed or the police come, no removal of shirts from games to paint school letters on your chest, or you're removed from the stadium, etc. I guess with so many students they're afraid things will get out of hand, but it's just funny to see how much stricter they are than the surrounding Catholic schools. (and my kids came from a Catholic grade school) Even I, as an adult, cannot leave the football stadium and then return. Once I leave, I'm done for the night unless I remove the mark from my hand and pay to get in as if I'm just arriving.</p>
<p>The summer will fly by now, and you kids will be at Indiana. Have a fun and safe summer, please. You don't want to be one of the tragedies out there.</p>
<p>I'm at Evanston, but it was the same day as NT's. I'm not sure if they did that, because I was outside lying down except for the short 5 minutes to get my diploma - escorted by security.</p>
<p>Well there's a tale I'd love to hear....lol. Care to share it?</p>
<p>AimHigh--
Check out post #28. Wow, sorry to hear about your lousy graduation, zippo. That must have been really rough, but good for you for being there and getting through it.</p>
<p>Thanks for asking about graduation yesterday. Yes, it was a great day. Picture-perfect weather, well-done speeches, all smiles as the kids walked the stage, no attempted antics like beachballs to ruffle any feathers. Our ceremony lasted about 2 hours for less than 250 graduates so I can't imagine how they squeezed over 1000 grads into 90 minutes for yours! No wonder you couldn't keep up with the pace...LOL! H. and I worked at the all-night party last night and it was AMAZING. S. said it was the best bash he'd ever been to...the senior parents worked their butts off the entire year putting it together. We sure didn't have anything close to that when I graduated from HS, or college for that matter!!</p>