<p>I've spent the last three months helping DS decide on colleges, helping DS brainstorm ideas for essays, helping DS edit essays, helping DS search for scholarships, nagging DS to complete his apps.</p>
<p>Yesterday he hit the submit button for his last application. My goal (not his) to have everything done by Dec 1st so we can all sit back, wait and enjoy the holidays has been met. </p>
<p>Sounds great doesn't it??? NOPE. Now I need to get a real life. No more lists and deadlines. What am I going to do? I am so addicted to CC that I find myself still on here long after the pressure is gone. I thought I'd be thrilled when we reached this point, but now I'm just bored.</p>
<p>After a little hiatus, there will be all the excitement of acceptances (and rejections), choosing WHICH college to accept, how to get off the waitlist, what the buy for the dorm, scholarships--so hang in here till then.</p>
<p>jjcddg,
amble over to sinners alley for a celebration drink. There is no rule you can't stay on CC, head over to the Parent's cafe and ask a mundane adult question: what is a good book, how should I refinish my floor, how do I make a manhattan.....
you get the idea.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind while this board is a wealth of info about applying to college, it's also a wonderful, knowledgeable place to visit once your child is IN college - getting the dorm room ready, saying goodbye, care packages, roommate issues, class discussion, etc. etc. etc. - I plan on being here for many, many years with my first just a freshman this year and my youngest still in 5th grade (and a HS sophomore son in-between)!!!</p>
<p>Don't worry, you can hang around CC for the next nine months... worrying about and then celebrating acceptances, obsessing about extra long sheets... and then the next few years you can post about roommates... </p>
<p>and then, like me, you can just check in for no good reason at all, even after your kids graduate from college ;)</p>
<p>My next one is in 8th grade and my youngest is in 6th. I almost feel like I need to shape them into the perfect college applicants. But the truth is they are individuals and there is really nothing I can do. </p>
<p>My middle one has an LD and has already decided that going to school locally is the answer. He refused to join us on college tours stating that there was little need to do so. He's not a defeatist, he's just realistic. </p>
<p>My youngest is an athlete, so there will be a different set of issues that I will need to learn when the time is near. </p>
<p>I guess I'll have to stick with mundane questions for the next few months until the responses come in.</p>
<p>ooh boy, I remember that feeling, jjcddg! I love doing research, so the college search process was right up my alley! Looking back, I see that, because Son didn't make his final selection until the day before Dropdead, I was still able to research away and collect trivial data on the various contenders until May. Then I started filling the hole the college research business had left by over thinking the What To Take To School list and starting to shop way too early. Fortunately for all concerned, S is a very low-maintenance kid and really didn't want much stuff. </p>
<p>Ultimately what restored my grasp on reality (such as it is!) was taking a new job in September of S's freshman year. Or else I may have had to construct a spreadsheet for tracking H's socks or something! Oh, time helped, too. :D</p>
<p>DS may hit the submit button for the final time on December 2. We have our last college visit (with an in-campus interview) on December 1, and then he'll decide if he wants to hit that final submit button. He has just started looking at scholarships, so I guess I'll be quite occupied with these over the Christmas break. I'm only going through this once and am quite relieved. I have, though, offered my "services" to my girlfriends - all their kids are younger than DS. I just might regret doing that...</p>
<p>Older S went to college in 2001. My younger one started this fall, so I have lots of experience with this.</p>
<p>If you play your cards right, this time of life can include all of the good things that you didn't get around to doing before.</p>
<p>Thus far, I've gotten two rabbits (Getting a pet can be a wonderful way of using your motherly instincts as your kid prepares to leave the nest), taken acting lessons (wonderful way of meeting interesting people You don't need to be very talented or even courageous about public speaking. Lots of people our age do it, and these include people like whose only prior acting experience was saying one line at a h.s. play), gotten deeply into meditation including going to a 10-day silent retreat (great way to get in touch with oneself), taken ikebana, taken photography (and have developed a wonderful hobby, and found out that I have some talent even though before I felt I had no artistic sense at all), taken a writing course, had time to see my girlfriends, entertained a lot more, taken ballroom dancing, gotten deeply involved with a couple of community organizations, and have been working on strengthening my relationship with my husband of 28 years. Now that the kids are gone, we have more time to get to know each other and ourselves again.</p>
<p>Getting involved needn't be expensive. For instance, where I live, one can go to dance classes at a community center for $5.</p>
<p>This can be the best time of your life. I'm having more fun than when I was young.</p>
<p>Wow. All of y'all must be far better prepared than D and I. She was still making decisions on where to apply up to and including the last possible day to courier things to campus. In fact by this point she hadn't applied to many of the name schools that ended up on her list, and none of the need-only schools. I think she added Yale, Amherst, Colgate, and Duke way later than this. </p>
<p>I remember TheDad having a similar experience to mine so y'all should congratulate yourselves- but keep your ears open for subtle shifts.</p>
[quote]
My middle one has an LD and has already decided that going to school locally is the answer. He refused to join us on college tours stating that there was little need to do so. He's not a defeatist, he's just realistic.
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<p>Maybe so, but there's your mission. Get onto the LD thread on CC and dicover the lists of small residential colleges that specialize in LD kids' needs.</p>
<p>My folks taught at New England College in Henniker, NH and that's just one of them that I recall from a list. Look up the archived threads, too, for LD and college search, LD and parents, etc.</p>
<p>It could change your next child's entire h.s. career if s/he thinks there are choices. If after all that research, s/he still wants to live near home, it will be a conscious and celebrated choice, not a backed-against-the-corner, can't compete with older sib type of choice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. Now I have more research to do Yeah!! Plus, I don't need to feel the pressure since I have 4 years to do it in. New goal - Son#2 hits his last submit button by Oct 31, 2012.</p>
<p>How about this for a consuming project - planning a family trip following senior's graduation. This has fallen on me and I am absolutely paralyzed with indecision. Where to go? Beach, Mountains, Europe, Big City? How to make everyone happy simultaneously. Talk about research potential! And how to travel with your child who is suddenly kind of . . . adult?</p>