BS, Jr. BS, and Day schools that I have gone to in the greater Boston area are open and fairly accessible. GA, St. Marks, Fessenden, Fay, Nobles, BBN, Middlesex, etc.
Didn’t Newtown have a new security system that Lanza shot through? My youngest go to school with all the latest security and they have drills twice a years. Then twice a day like a lot of schools, they go outside in a 3 foot high fenced in playground. To me that is their most vulnerable spot.
Re second-guessing: in addition to being incredibly committed to our kiddos, I suspect that most of the folks here on CC, like their progeny, are rather well-brained, one of the common consequences of which is that we tend to overthink things because we can! Here’s to hoping that those of you going through the admissions process are able to just breathe and trust yourselves! :)>-
@Golfgr8 I asked about this at every interview. I didn’t get a sense of discomfort from the interviewers, I think it would be a common question. This is a time of their lives of huge emotional, physical and character development. Knowing how the schools handle these things and issues that come up is super important. I also think I received honest answers.
I’m trying to prepare myself and my son for the worst on Friday. Hoping we will be pleasantly surprised but trying not to get our hopes up. My daughter has had such an easy time with everything (only applied to one HADES school and was admitted, admitted to her first choice ivy league college). I’m afraid that my son thinks that he will have a similarly easy time and be very disappointed. We need full financial aid so he only applied to schools where that was likely but - those are also the most competitive schools. Very worried!
I think I am torturing myself unnecessarily. I just watched videos of my son’s first choice school and everything seemed so right. For example, I was tearing up while watching a video in which students from around the world spoke about what shopping and food is like in their home country. While some were funny (the Canadian student talked about putting maple syrup on vegetables and in coffee) another was poignant as a Venezuelan student showed video of the lines for grocery stores and said how her mother has to wait for 4 hours to buy food daily. What an opportunity for our children to learn from each other. My hope in watching these videos on youtube had been to prevent myself from going in to second thinking should he be accepted. I know if I watched similar videos of any of the other schools I would feel similarly excited for him. Boarding school is such a gift.
And then you thought of the $50k and you were really crying 
@laenen :))
Wow. Down to the wire now. Part of the reasons for my angst don’t have anything to do with whether or not my daughter gets into any of the eight NE schools to which she is applying. Part of it is because if she does, it looks like we are going to have to drive from our deep south state for revisits. It will be spring break for all of us, but I am the planner. And I can’t plan anything until we know. Adding to the planning fun is that we must leave on the 10th to go to an audition in Birmingham (she’s also applying to the Alabama school of fine arts). So we will literally be on the road when Andover posts their decisions.
Basically, if she gets into any schools she hasn’t visited (which is most of them), I will have to spend all Friday evening working out hotels and our route up, with a possible short visit to my mother thrown in there. This is a good problem to have but I plan stuff as far ahead as possible, and thinking about having to plan a week of travel in one night is making me itch.
But I will say that I have come up with a good plan if she gets waitlisted or rejected from every school. I told my daughter if that happens we are going to Gatlinburg. That I can plan for (and cancel if need be). We’re going to stay downtown and I told her that we are going to engage in some serious vacation/retail therapy. My husband will be along for the ride, literally, as there is no way I am doing one of those mountain coasters or alpine slides. I’m not going into the smoky mountains national park either, because I hear there are bears in there. I don’t like heights and I don’t like bears. However I’m very partial to distillery tours, outlet malls, and aquariums.
I’ve tried to turn it into a win/win situation.
Lots of mini-golf in Gatlinburg, also! Sending best wishes to everyone – hoping that you all get the good news you are waiting for, and the chance for re-visits!
You’re my kind of gal @Leslie41
If you’re leaving early on the 10th do you have a neighbor who can check to see if any packages arrive at your house?
I found planning the logistics of our revisit road trip oddly fun and satisfying. The planning process included the preparation of a binder with a travel schedule, hotel info and confirmations, the revisit schedules posted by the schools and notes about information we wanted to be sure to gather.
Good luck with your planning @Leslie41! Are things back to normal in Gatlinburg after the fires? (Hopefully you won’t be finding out.) We have a weekend packed with sports for both kids, so there will be plenty of distraction if it’s all bad news on Friday, and delayed celebration if it’s good news. Unfortunately the couple of days in between are pretty quiet. I am trying to stay away from all things secondary school…except, of course, this board…
@Leslie41 We are in the same boat!!! I am the biggest planner…and coming from the southwest, we are trying to figure out if we are going northeast for Spring Break or not…but, before we do, we have championship playoffs this weekend which is a 6 hour one-way drive…not having time to plan things down to the letter is anxiety provoking and not good for my OCD in the least…lol! But we forage on…and maybe, we will run into each other at some random hotel lobby! Fingers crossed!!!
If we have to go up north we are going to stop the mail, but if we do get acceptances I will ask a friend to drive by and see about fedex packages. My daughter loves swag. We won’t be leaving until after the mail comes on Friday so if anything does show up that day at least we will get it.
It’s so weird because there is a part of me that really wants to go to Gatlinburg, and all that it represents. Mindless fun, shopping, and of course my daughter not living twelve hundred miles away from her mother. We’ve worked so hard and spent so much moolah on this application process, and if she doesn’t get in it will seem like a huge waste. But if she does get in I’ve worked hard and spent moolah to send my only child far, far away.
Life is full of tradeoffs.
As for planning, BINDERS AND SCHEDULES AND HOTEL INFO AND CONFIRMATIONS!!! This is the kind of stuff I live for, along with finding restaurants that will scratch my husband’s foodie itch.
But I will bring my small travel binder (with plastic page protectors), paper, small scissors, and some tape. Not to mention putting everything in my Tripit calendar.
This calls for a trip to the Michael’s for some special pens.
I will confess that for our tour/interview road trip I bought a portable printer–and we used it!
Michaels’s, Staples and the like are my candy stores!
@Leslie41 - Great idea - thank you! I am going to make myself a “travel binder”!
And let’s hope no Gaitlinburg, but that is a great plan if needed!
do you keep lists of distilleries in your travel binder?
No, because apparently in Gatlinburg you basically can just throw a rock anywhere and hit one. That or a winery.
What I want is yarn stores!
@Leslie41 I looked into a weekend in Gatlinburg two weeks ago, and many of the hotels are closed - the huge forest fire in December wiped out a good number of businesses and hotels. My dd who is in school in Asheville helped wrap xmass presents for families who had lost everything. I am sure there is still fun to be had, but fingers crossed you end up heading north.
I adore Asheville though - several fantastic yarn stores, book stores and amazing food. We have spent many happy weekends there with our teen girls.