<p>Well, when I started reading this thread I figured it was too soon to chime in but about halfway through I began coming across people in "my year". I joined CC in early 2003, when our S (class of '08) was a HS junior. Now he's heading into his senior year. At last report he was leaning towards going to work while he decided on graduate school, including where to apply and what to go for. For one thing, I think he's tired of going to school; for another, he wants to make some money, and for a third, he's not at all sure what to go to grad school for. </p>
<p>Don't tell him, but we're trying to nudge him into at least checking into whether his plan is feasible; i.e. whether there are a reasonable number of openings in what he wants to go into while he's making the choice. I wouldn't at all mind if he applied for a fellowship or three and we need to look into how long a GRE score is good for since it might be best to take that when he's still fresh from school.</p>
<p>So I guess that I won't be able to leave for a while. Why did I think that I could? {Robyrm, Jamiemom, where are you?)</p>
<p>Just to liven up the thread a little, my rising senior (also one of that great crowd of four years ago :)) is not ready yet to think about grad school, though I try to gently nag him about lining up faculty recs and just maybe taking GRe and/or LSAT, just to be ready.</p>
<p>However, he's aiming for the World Series of Poker when he graduates. So, of you see a floppy haired Columbia grad there in a few years (they'll make a big deal if he starts to make progress cuz Annie Duke went to same school) you will know it's Garlandson.</p>
<p>artiesdad, thanks for starting this thread. It's great to share the next great anxiety with other like minded parents. (Just when you thought it was safe to ... fill in the blank ... Mentally spend your retirement funds? Throw out those test preparation books? ... Plan your own springbreak?)</p>
<p>I tuned in to CC after my son was already accepted at his LAC. I was a poster on the now defunct Brand X board, as were several other old timers here. Talk about hostility! CC was, and is, a breath of sanity offering sincere and thoughtful advice.</p>
<p>My son, like soozie's daughter, is eventually headed toward architecture. He's at least 99% sure; the option of museum work in art history still lurks but I think the creative has won out. </p>
<p>He chose not to go directly to architecture school after graduation but did go directly to work. He's doing "marketing" (whatever that may be) at an up and coming Boston architectural firm and greatly enjoying the professional environment. </p>
<p>Our (OK, OK HIS ) most recent challenges have been sublets, roommates, deposits and other first-time living on his own questions. Getting to know Craig and his list. Life is good. :)</p>
<p>Yes, there are lots of newly minted grads who take their time thinking what to do next, whether to go to grad school, travel the world for a year or two, earn some money, etc... I know several people who got great jobs right after college, but found that, if they wanted to have the necessary authority as they rose up in their respective lines of work, they needed to get a more advanced degree. One got an MBA, another a law degree.
Then there is someone I know who did get a combined MBA/MA in IR, went to work for 15 years, and suddenly decided to go for a Ph.D. She wrote back to her House at Harvard, and it turned out they'd kept her dossier, with the recs, on file. The last I heard, she's headed for grad school next fall.
So the morale is, whatever your student does, make sure that the recs are there in the dossier. Fifteen years on, I doubt my acquaintance's profs would remember how she did in their courses (and some might have passed on!).
In fact, I told my S to request recs from profs right after completing their course. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether he's followed my suggestion. :(</p>
<p>marite -- We've also told S that we're agnostic on whether or not he works or goes straight on to grad school, but that he should get the research experience and the faculty recommenders lined up before he graduates so he has the grad school option eventually. I heard our D telling him a few days ago that he should get recs written and put on file before he graduates, and also that he should take the GRE. Funny, because I remember telling her exactly the same thing ... and she didn't do either. Still, it worked out. After working for four years, she studied for the GRE with a friend, and did volunteer work that resulted in recommendations for a Masters program. I do know that math and science are different, but there are some ways to get research experience even after graduation, which might also result in recs. At least I hope there are, since S seems more interested this summer in his restaurant reviewing job than in his research.</p>
<p>"You can lead a horse to water..." etc, etc</p>
<p>I don't know how long I've been around, but I do know that I was NOT around when DS was looking for colleges (how did he EVER find a school without CC advice??). DS graduated from undergrad school and will attend grad school in the fall. DD just finished her freshman year (with a LOT of input and ideas from CC folks). In fact, a CC'er actually told us about the college DD is attending...we had never heard of it before (thank you...it's a perfect match). We too LOVE our empty nest. Don't get me wrong....we love our kids, but we have adjusted quite well to having the house, cars, and food to ourselves.</p>
<p>more expensive than the GRE for your daughter will be portfolio costs. I probably printed up 5 copies when I was applying for Landscape Arch. grad. programs last year and it cost me at least $200. Best of luck to your daughter!
Also, direct her to archinect.com if she wants any more help, it's a great site with thousands of people applying for M.Arch programs gathering!</p>
<p>Saw your comment on Fulbright. Just deposited D at the airport for a flight to Bolivia where she'll be for the summer trying to round up a project for a Fulbright application in the fall.</p>
<p>Why Bolivia? No real idea. She loves science and Spanish. Bolivia has the latter, but so do a lot of other countries. We're planning to join her at the end of her stay, so we'll get to see for ourselves.</p>
<p>Haven't been to Bolivia but that sounds like an exciting adventure. My D is in the air right now too between Edinburgh, Scotland and Paris. Hope your D has an exciting time. </p>
<p>Va Bene....thanks for the thoughts. I know that the portolio is an expensive proposition. My daughter applied for arch internships this summer (which is what she is about to start in Paris) and that involved copies of her current portfolio. So between application, GREs, and portfolios, it will cost a bundle but then again, it is small compared to the cost of attending 3+ years of graduate school. Thanks for the website suggestion. I think I have seen that before a while back, before she really got going on this and so I will suggest it to her now that the process is starting. </p>
<p>You attend the MArch at Cornell? It is on my daughter's list. We actually visited there back in junior year of HS but she decided to not do a BArch degree and opted to do BA schools for architecture and didn't apply. But for the MArch, she is considering it.</p>
<p>I think the advance work is country and project specific. The feedback my D had was that projects in Bolivia can only be developed with personal contact. They don't like to do business by email or phone. </p>
<p>I also think she would have gone anyway. She has not yet been abroad as an undergrad - hard to do as a science major. And, interestingly, the head of the lab she's been working in since first year is rather mad that she's gone this summer. The lab head can't imagine a life outside science.</p>
<p>Like Momrath, I found and started out on the "other" board, and quickly found the old CC. I joined about the same time as Dadofsam, early 2003, and son is now a rising senior. He says he's through with school for a while and is anxious to work. He has been accepted to the MEng program at MIT, which required was an application and a certain GPA - nothing at all like applying to a PhD program. His brother will be joining him next year and they're both excited about a year together at school and in Boston, so the one year MEng program might be a little more enticing now. Not sure what he'll end up doing.</p>
<p>First post...under this name. Hello all from the other side of the planet (except Momrath(?) and Cheers)...though now just north of the equator.</p>
<p>The eldest is a rising senior English major who has loved school, done well enough I think, and doesn't want grad school for a while. The irony is that since the kids were little I had wanted them to do what I didn't- take a flyer, not submit to the inertia which drove me from college to med school to...almost without thinking. Now that the first child is at the precipice, I am glad that my DH is reminding me of why I felt so strongly about this until now. It is not that, in the abstract, I have changed my mind. It is simply that this particular child is still of the 'surely everything will work out for the best' variety and he has not yet acquired the planning gene. His greatest gifts have always been his greatest challenges. So while his younger brother, a rising junior, seems to be weaving a most interesting patchwork of experiences and contacts and 'what ifs', this son decides to take only 3 courses last semester to compensate for the very difficult fall term with 4 classes including 3 senior seminars (though he was only a junior, evidently this was quite a coup). </p>
<p>So, his lack of 'medium term initiative' (his terminology) will be put to the test this coming year as he takes tentative steps. In reality , grad school would be comfortable for him, but I think he knows that he will get more out of it if he flops around for a while and makes an initial pass at non-school life first. I fully expect he'll go back to school within a few years. In the meantime, the next few will be 'interesting.' </p>
<p>Reading through this thread is like hail, hail the gang's all here. Gosh it seems like yesterday our kids were rising seniors in high school (where has the time gone).</p>
<p>Robym, welcome back!!</p>
<p>Yes, Newmassdad, we remember when you were oldmassdad:)</p>
<p>My oldest, out of school three years now, says she's ready to hit the ground running in grad school "just as soon as she figures out what she wants to do."</p>
<p>I have to remind myself that I was a parent at her age (yikes!) and I wanted her to have the footloose twenties that I missed out on.</p>
<p>I tell myself, I'm basically done, it's up to them now, and whatever they choose is theirs--it's like reading a really good, picaresque novel with characters you adore, and wondering what they will do next.</p>
<p>D is superstitious about discussing plans in any detail and has asked me not to. I think I'm cleared to say that a GRE prep-book came home the other day and that currently there's a Plan A and a Plan B depending upon whether or not she's accepted into exactly one grad program or not.</p>
<p>When the dust settles at some future time, she's looking to have a Master's in Econ, a law degree, and two working gap years. Looking at working in the public policy sector.</p>
<p>When I first came to CC searching for info in '03, my username was "Valpal". Had to change to Poetsheart after the site updated and refused to allow me to go back to using my old name.</p>
<p>Now, D is a rising senior physics major and looking to take a year or two off to work before applying to grad school. Apparently, grad school for physics is a long haul, all the way to Ph.d, and it takes 7 to 8 years. Yikes! Right now, she's doing a summer research internship and is studying for the general GREs and the Physics subject test (which is reputed to be a booger bear). Supposedly, anything above the 19 percentile is considered very good (can that really be true?!). The idea is to position herself for grad school prior to taking the time off to work. I haven't done any research whatsoever into the ins and outs of the Physics grad school application process. But, now my curiosity is piqued. I think I'll mosey on over to the grad school forums and see what I can find out.</p>