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521

@homerdog I think I just need to call her insurance company. I’m sure I’m not the only one who makes that phone call.

@Sue22 I’m going to sound really naive but the pharmacy issue is bugging me, no matter where she is. I’m also worried about her prescription and other students knowing she has that RX. We’ve already talked about how it’s best not to let anyone know she has it but have been worried about it being in her dorm room. I wondered if most residence halls have a place to lock up medication? I’m sure it varies from school to school but just in general. My D is not the only kid that takes a controlled substance and I wonder how that is addressed on most campuses. As her RX is the #1 abused drug amoung college students.

522

She is welcome to bring a small lock box with her. Mine never dud, but if she worried about theft, that is the solution

523

^What Roycroftmom says, but also some dorm desks come with a lockable drawer.

524

@homerdog The Blues are different companies, but many of their plans include the “national network” in their coverage. In that case, the insured is covered to see any doctor that takes Blues insurance anyplace. It is actually one of the easiest insurances to have for a college student, although some of the Blues have been reducing which plans have national network access every year, so you have to watch that each year. But I know that might be off topic, as the OP has not mentioned them.

OP, sorry, but refresh my memory. Has your D gotten a non-custodial waiver from each of these schools for her FA? Asking because clearly there is some kind of contact with them if the NCP is court ordered to provide insurance and is doing it.

Also, schools are going to expect that most of her summer earnings will pay for things related to school (probably not car insurance).

Another thing to consider is that even if she gets a full ride for freshman year, that could change if your business gains traction. Colleges are not particularly kind to small business owners (many seem to think we can just liquidate our business assets to pay college bills). So as your financial situation improves, your cost for college may go up.

525

Health insurance update. Phew…she’s good! Her UHC policy is going to be fine. Any healthcare provider in UHC network no matter what city is covered. Which makes sense, her NCP doesn’t live here and he carries the health insurance. And the policy SO offers students is a UHC policy. So, for example @homerdog mentioned Blue Cross has policies that are state specific, this is not UHC Kansas It’s just UHC Services. The employer her health insurance comes from has employees in almost every state and they are all on the same policy.

I’m grateful it was mentioned early on as this would have been a big deal if we needed to come up with an additional 1500-2000 in August.

I’m checking on her car insurance, I love my agent. He thinks she can drop her policy down to a different policy for students who don’t take their cars to campus. Obviously these are not unique situations and Allstate has several options for changing the policy to meet the needs of college students.

It would be crazy for her to sell the car. She would take a huge hit financially if she did. It’s a Honda Fit with about 2500 miles on it now. It should last for many many many years and still has 4 years of bumper to bumper warranty. If it stays parked at home, we’ll change the policy. She carries full coverage now and surprisingly it isn’t as expensive as you’d think. My car is the first car listed on the policy and it took the hit premium wise just by having “youthful drivers” in my home.

She is not able to break off into her own policy anyway. She has to be 22 and held her license for at least 3 years to do that through our company. She has only had a full DL without restrictions since June. Our state has a graduated DL system. One full year with an instructional permit, then a full year of restricted, before you are allowed full driving privileges.

526

@intparent I remember the panic I felt when I first saw the CSS profile, I had never even heard of it before G. I was terrified wondering how I would get the NCP to cooperate and that is how I actually found this board. I was frantically googling what to do about a NCP. I thought at the time we were going to be so out of luck. But the ease of which the NCP waiver went through at the few schools that used the CSS profile was surprising.

Just because someone is court ordered to do something doesn’t mean there is contact or that there should be contact. I can say with 100% honesty I don’t even know his address. I have official documents that made the waiver a non issue thus far.

I find that being upfront, honest, and direct has been very beneficial for us in this process. Even though it’s not a pretty story to tell. It’s been so hard to say some of these things out loud. I haven’t said them here either. Just know there is more and it isn’t a good situation.

I would fully expect to contribute if my business starts to pay me a living wage. I want that. I hate this feeling of not being able to help my D.

I haven’t finalized my P&L statements for the year but I did approx 60,000 in gross sales for 2017. My rent for the year was $24,000. I haven’t even touched on sales tax, cc processing, the couple of months I used a contract employee, inventory, advertising, supplies, liability ins, utilities, etc.

I offered to send my P&L and even my bank statements. Nobody needed anything else. I don’t generate enough revenue yet, I guess. But I will always be transparent. I’m not trying to make it look like I have less than I do. It’s not easy to admit how very unsuccessful I’ve been the last 6 years. My self esteem is not in the best place right now.

I swear I want nothing more than to help my children. It’s a horrible feeling to not be able to.

527

@Grinnellhopeful , if SO ends up being your daughter’s college, let me know. I can give you more information about transportation and other matters. My daughter graduated from Carleton; my niece, the same age, graduated from St. Olaf.

528

Okay, that thought process made me log into my accounting program…I overestimated my gross sales. December was blurry for me, so much going on. I did 48,088 in gross sales and 4519.00 in tips. My tips just stay in my business account as I need them for operating expenses. 99.9% of my customers pay with their HSA or FSA accounts. I think I maybe had a total of 4-5 cash transactions.

No FA office has really cared much about my business, yet. 2017 income doesn’t really come into play until next year. But I would happily share my reports from Square if a schools asked for it. Like I said, I have even offered.

I’m not sure how my business would be valued at this point if they asked me to liquidate? I don’t really have anything to liquidate. Everything in my shop is specific to what I do. That was a tough question for me on the CSS profile. If I could even sell my business what would it be worth?

I was able to include my business loan on the CSS profile, but now it’s paid off.

Again, this business is still so young, I doubt anyone is going to give me any trouble and if they do, I’m not hiding anything. They can see bank statements and Square reports.

529

@rosered55 Thank you!!! Asking for positive thoughts our way about SO. She really wants it to work out and so do I. Although she will be happy with Knox, she wanted in and got in. I’m just not confident in the money situation yet.

She needs to start connecting with students from her top 2 right away. I think it would be of great benefit to her.
I wish she could communicate with Earlham and Beloit kids as well. But it’s not in her nature to seek them out.

530

They haven’t asked for info maybe because they are using 2016 information for setting FA for the upcoming year. They likely will want it next year. I know sometimes they add some business expenses back in (increasing what they view as net income). Maybe someone else can describe the details, I can’t.

Once she is accepted at a school, most have an accepted student Facebook page. She could join those.

531

My insurance didn’t have providers convenient to my son’s college town. The most cost effective solution for me was to drop him from my insurance and get the school provided plan. My monthly cost was effectively the same, his coverage was actually better, and there are plenty of providers in the college area. Before you go this route, make sure the college plan has network coverage in your home area for when she’s on breaks.

532

Actually, all insurance are STATE policies, not national. Some of the insurers like the Blues and UHC have policies that work well across state lines, but make no mistake, the policy is approve by one state insurance commission and those rules apply. Most pharmacies have a national chain so it is very easy to get prescriptions filled by CVS (Target) or Walgreens with no difference in cost from one state to another.

You may find Minnesota or Illinois offers more or cheaper coverage under your policy. State law might require something be covered, so the insurance may pay for something in MN they haven’t been paying for in KS. In Colorado, birth control is100% covered no matter which policy you have (or if you have no insurance at all). Many of the pharmacies in Florida have free antibiotics and other basic prescriptions, flu shots, etc. without co-pays. All vaccinations for anyone under 19 are free at a county health office.

But, if for some reason the NCP loses his group health insurance, he may not keep paying for a policy. The ACA doesn’t require a parent to pay for insurance until age 26, but it allows the parent to keep the ‘child’ on the policy until age 26, even if the child marries or is independent or moves.

533

I’m not busy today with work and my anxiety started creeping in last night. As I watch my D get so very vestednin StO. I go back and forth between thinking she has s great chance of admission to thinking she doesn’t. If it works out, I believe her rejection at Grinnell was a blessing, because this is probably as close to a perfect fit for her as possible.

I called the FA office at StO today just to make sure I have submitted absolutely everything they need. They confirmed the NCP profile was waived, we didn’t even fill out the form, I just sent some court documents.
I asked if the NCP calculator would be an accurate representation of her FA package if admitted, they asked me what numbers I had, then said, yes, it was accurate. All this was said with the preface that I understood the conversation was unofficial.

At first I read that as a good sign, then I worried it was a bad sign, thinking if they don’t need anything else it’s because they aren’t going to accept her so they don’t need to put together a package.

Shortly after that I got an email from her AO congratulating my D on her improved ACT score, letting me know she has the official updated GPA, scores, grades, rank etc from the mid year report, and we were “all set”. She also said my D20 had emailed her and to let her know she would get with her later in the week, to guide her in her courses for next year and make sure she is on path for admission.

In the meantime when I was in full panic mode, I got my D to agree to really look at Earlham, and apply to Bryn Mawr despite her concern regarding distance. She was actually quite interested. But said she thought it was pointless because she’s going to SO…I pray she is right.

This feels eerily familiar. This feels like our Grinnell journey that didn’t have the ending she hoped for. I guess I’m expecting that now since she is so genuinely excited and wants to be there, this will be the one that she doesn’t get at.

I think she believes StO will take her ED agreement as seriously as she did, meaning they will accept her because she committed to go.

I’m just venting my anxiety and concern for my D. This part is probably harder than getting acceptances at places I made her look after her G rejection, because this feels like the place, no qualms, no reservations. And she is fully vested! Which has led to apathy and disinterest in other schools and a rejection from StO could hit her very very hard.

The others, she wouldn’t have been too upset.

It’s going to be a rough 23 days for me, her not so much, she’s confident.

534

The AO is going to talk to your daughter about her courses “next year” at SO? What does that mean?

Adding on to edit here- Sorry. Didn’t see that comment was about your D20. I would be careful having younger kids discussing classes with AOs. That’s just not their job and can seem off-putting. They aren’t your personal counselor.

535

@homerdog – I believe that refers to this spring semester, senior year of high school.

536

I think she will absolutely be accepted. The other scenario that is possible is she could get deferred to RD (which I think is highly unlikely…but even that is not a bad outcome because it opens up options). I looked at the geographic diversity page on college factual and they only have 6 students from Kansas which bodes well for your D on top of her great stats. The waiting is the hardest part…we are in that mode now too except the results aren’t in until end of March.

537

@Midwestmomofboys OP said D20. I can’t even imagine having our younger daughter contact a college for class placement suggestions in high school.

538

The waiting is the WORST! @Grinnellhopeful have you checked out the parent group for your D’s grad year? In my kids’ years we let off a lot of steam there.

This is yours: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1599311-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2018.html#latest

539

And I can’t imagine the college saying anything more detailed than the standard, “we favor applicants who have taken the strongest college preparatory curriculum offered by their school.”

540

@homerdog I didn’t have my D20 reach out, she did that on her own, she’s a go getter, and very open. She sees the struggle we have regarding guidance for anything other than state school. The AO was very receptive to a brief conversation to make sure she is on the right path. Schools often start working with Sophomore and Junior kids.

@OHMomof2, Thank you! I need a place to vent and be anxious. Although I’m feeling less anxious after the AOs email.