<p>Well, of course it's "apply to college" time now if your children are wanting to apply early decision which has the Nov 1 deadline. However, my daughter has some other early deadlines she needs to meet which is causing ME the stress.</p>
<p>She has been nominated for the Moorehead scholarship (full ride to UNC-Chapel Hill) and has to have her application in by Oct. 5. She had to do 4 essays and has 2 more to go. Now she has writer's block!! I do not know what to do to help her. How can I? We went to tour UNC-Chapel Hill this weekend (Carolina 101 for high achieving seniors) and it was great. We were all impressed.</p>
<p>I also have some other questions: She's taken the SAT a few times and does not want to take it again this year. Her highest total was 2170. Should I encourage her to take it again? The last 2 times she took them they came out to be very close in total. </p>
<p>Also, I'm stressing about other things. She would love to go to a Christian College such as Wheaton or Covenant and they are much smaller schools (which is what she wants as well as the Christian aspect) as opposed to the 26K of most public schools in NC. However, they are private and cost so much more. She would have a chance at a scholarship I'm sure, but I don't think they would come close to covering most of it. (we do NOT qualify for need based money). Also they are several, several hours away from our home. I don't want the difficulty of getting her back and forth and being so far away from us. I don't know what else to do but to let her apply and see what happens. </p>
<p>My daughter is extremely bright, # 1 in her class, 4.0, but now that this stage is here, I am stressing SO much. And so is she in trying to crank out 2 more essays this week.</p>
<p>Any suggestions on anything for either of us?</p>
<p>There are several SE colleges, not Christian in the vein of Wheaton, but with strongly religious student bodies that could give her a similar experience. She might well get enough scholarship money to cover most of the cost.
Samford, for example or Mercer.</p>
<p>No reason to retake SAT, if her scores have been stable.</p>
<p>My S also did all his essays over a weekend. Since she's visited the college, she can easily write what she loved about the atmosphere. Have her look at the depth of classes in fields that she likes.Suggest she talk to you about the prompts of the other essays. I made dumb suggestions, which annoyed S, and that helped him to clarify what did interest him.</p>
<p>You have time to come up with a more extensive list, so relax. After the essays are done, you will need a family conference about location of schools. Your D may be ready to move away, and you are hesitant. A compromise I made with my S was to consider long distance colleges that are a direct flight away. Local colleges were not an option for my S.</p>
<p>I have a friend who has sent two of her children to private Christian colleges. They were pleasantly surprised in both cases to get some significant merit money. Also some of the Christian colleges are not quite as costly as other private schools. Both of her children are extremely happy with their choices. For one of them it was the choice of a small Christian College in the Boston area versus UC Berkeley. He has since graduated and does not regret his decision.
If it was my child I would encourage her to apply to both types of schools. </p>
<p>Also sometimes closer doesn't equal ease in getting home. My son is 5 hours away by car in our home state. There is no easy way to get him back and forth without us driving him. The bus and train take an indirect route resulting in a extremely long trip. There is no commercial plane service where his college is located. My oldest on the other hand was 3 states away yet was in a city that had an airport that had direct flights to our small city. She was able to sometimes get a good fare and come home with only a 2 1/2 hour flight.
I love the word Tizzy!</p>
<p>A suggestion for overcoming writers block is to simply start writing, whatever flows out of her for ten or so minutes. This often stimulates the writing process enough so that she can get new ideas. Regarding distance, we have the same concerns but like bookworm the most local colleges are not options for our Ds for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>What we plan to do with our girls is to let them apply to wherever they want but they know flat out that unless they hustle up the scholarship dough to help defray the cost of a private, they will be attending a less expensive state school. As a part of that conversation we explained how if they want to go far from home...Seattle and Texas are both possible...they will find that they won't be able to come home "just because" and maybe not even for Thanksgiving. Also the additional cost for travel may cut into what we are able to spend on other things. If your D understands these things than she will be able to make an informed choice. </p>
<p>Oh, and draw yourself a bath, pour yourself a glass of wine and relax if possible. Your D sounds very competent. She'll get it done.</p>
<p>WHenever we got overstressed during the process, we'd go completely away from it and not talk about it for an hour or two. Promise her an evening out together with no conversation on this subject. I took my D out to Starbucks for a Chai LAtte, and chattered about hair and shoelaces. It relaxed us both enough that she sometimes felt so much more confident afterwards. She remembered and felt who SHE was, and could then be much more decisive. Writer's block really needs some deep rest before it can be broken, in my experience... not endless, but an evening off.</p>
<p>Put it down for a few hours, and you might get further than the direct discussion. She might need a chance (you too) for the right side of her brain to communicate with the left side. I get that to happen with a hot bath. Some of my most significant breakthroughs to solve nagging old problems come when I'm just completely relaxed like that. I'm talking about 90 minutes and keep replacing the water so it's nice and hot.</p>
<p>Good advice from paying3tuitions. Find distractions. My S and I had one of our hilarious, rambling, chatty shopping expeditions on Saturday (he makes me shop with him, but he waits for me outside my stores--a real adult male in training). The next day, he made a major revision to his college list that was a big stressbuster and freed him from writer's block. He was having trouble with the essay about what he would contribute to the school because--guess what?--he doesn't want to go there! We both laughed about that, and we've moved on (though I admit to a teeny regret that I won't be sipping latte overlooking beautiful Lake Mendota).</p>
<p>From reading CC I notice that families have different feelings about the distance issue. For me, geographic distance does not mean there has to be emotional distance--especially in this era of instant (sometimes excessive!) communication. I know that travel expense and logistics are important things to consider. But if you want her close to home because you want to see her often, make sure you and she are both on that wavelength.</p>
<p>salem
theres a young lady poster on CC named GetOuttaBuffalo who won the Moorehead last year.She's quite nice and perhaps your D could send her a PM to get suggestions on how to "unblock" to write out the application.
S was faced with a similar dilemma when filling out the extensive application for his scholarship at U South Carolina (similar merit structure,full tuition,room/board).It came right down to the wire on deadline time..but he got it done and was called for the interview and won the scholarship.You can encourage them,the ideas are probably swirling in her head and just needing to get down on paper.
Good luck and its quitre an honor to get nominated!</p>
<p>salem, Wheaton College is a special school. My son and his father visited, and he was even recruited for football (no scholarships allowed). But when the money came through, he only got a $1,000 merit scholarship and a small grant and a loan. Top kid, NMSF, etc. Wheaton, unfortunately, does not provide much in the way of academic scholarships. </p>
<p>Having said that, though, both he and my daughter, have found plenty of fellowship at the schools they ultimately chose. (Large state school and small LAC). And I know some kids in IV and RUF at UNC who are very happy having made those connections at Chapel-Hill. </p>
<p>As for retaking the SAT, from what little I remember from last year - and someone will correct me if I'm wrong - she will probably need to raise the SAT to have a shot at the Carolina Scholars award at UNC (is that the correct name for it) - IF she doesn't receive the Morehead.</p>