Okay here is a fresh topic for my trusted pals. Chimneykid1 is subletting an apt for the summer that she found on Craigslist. Everything seems on the up and up. But I am concerned that it would be easy for the person she is renting from to just pocket her rent or otherwise swindle her. Has anyone’s child sublet for the summer? Are leases typical or is it always a handshake type deal? What is a safe way to pay this fellow and keep our info safe? Paypal? Advice appreciated as the apartment’s current occupant just quoted a higher than expected rent for adding the last two weeks of May.
Lots of rent gets paid via Paypal or Venmo these days. I don’t know how enforceable it might be but you could always draft up a document to serve as a lease or find a template online to use.
Venmo is a good option for payment. When we sublet in med school, it was a handshake deal but it was also a small community.
Has anyone here ever been an AirBnB host? I have stayed in lots of them but would love to hear from anyone that’s been on the other side…
Any concerns about safety or someone overstaying their welcome?
I am a terrible housekeeper so I would need to hire someone to clean before anyone came but, other than that…any tips/suggestions or other thoughts?
I bet if you post in the general parent’s cafe you’ll get some good answers. I remember posters there mentioning being airbnb hosts.
“A new crop of applicants/parents comes in with the same questions that others have asked (without having tried to search for an answer first)…”
In my opinion that is unfair. This forum, uniquely, locks threads that would otherwise serve as ongoing conversations - like this one.
Searching on a thread that answers 90% of your questions - but is locked - results in new threads on nearly the same topic. This is particularly acute for smaller schools with smaller applicant pools.
Im active on forums with a focus on everything from chainsaws to motorcycles to 3D printing. On these other forums, there’s even a term: “necrothread,” for a thread dormant for months or years, reactivated with new questions or new information.
I’ve been here almost seven years. After year two, I haven’t seen a unique question or answer. I spent my first year on CC reading every single page of the BS archives available back then. I couldn’t even come up with a question that hadn’t been answered thoroughly to death.
It does get old.
I think I agree with both @SevenDad and @ChoatieMom I’ve only been on CC about 15 months or so (and for you who will look at my sign up date…I couldn’t find the prep school forum initially, so there’s a large gap between when I created an account and started being involved in the prep school threads)…because the mechanisms of this forum are somewhat archaic, it is more difficult to find and follow information on this forum at times. I’ve searched for threads I knew were there many times only to come up empty. On the other hand, there are those who obviously don’t take the time to even look up a question (same exact thread is 3 lines down or on another subset, but still on front page, etc) or don’t bother to read the full thread. Especially this year, there seems to be a lot of spoon feed expectations, which is concerning because that type of student will not do well in the BS realm. In addition, the perpetual need to argue with or just ignore what one doesn’t want to hear doesn’t bode well, either. And it does get old. Thank goodness, y’all had patience for me.
I DO wish someone would’ve mentioned pulling a kid out of private into public would make a huge difference in FA, though! Lol but not really…
@Garandman: I think that’s a very valid point. But I also agree with buuzn03 that often it seems like newcomers don’t even make the effort to scan the first page (witness the two recent “what happens after you send your deposit in” threads). For old-timers (like me) who I think have proved to be helpful to many across a few application cycles, that’s a little deflating. Even the acknowledgement that one has searched and read all existing threads on the topic would be nice.
I know, I know, no-one is forcing me to be here. To reply to questions/threads. But I think a lot of what newcomers are looking for (advice/POV of experienced parents) is already there if you take a second to look.
Hear, Hear…
I think CC is only as good as the people who are here now. Elite college and BS admissions is a moving target, so probably whatever we come up with now won’t apply years from now when we’ve all moved on and a new crop of students and their parents are just as anxious as we are.
I have one graduating next month (yikes!) from college and one almost half way thru. Job markets and hopefully weddings and grandchildren will be next…I won’t be thinking about BS anymore, but do cherish all my moments with my kids at Choate.
Granted I am a nerd, and when I started my research this thread was not as voluminous as it is now… but I guarantee that I read the ENTIRE Prep School Admissions board in reverse. Every post. … although I confess I skipped the chances section as soon as I read 3-4 of them. Just silly. But - I think if newcomers do a similar thing, many questions can be answered without having to make a single post. I do agree with @Garandman in that threads do get created as a followup on a closed thread. I don’t know what the rationale is on that … maybe @skieurope can enlighten us on that one. This board has a wealth of knowledge and advice at the disposal of those who make the effort to dig a bit deeper. It is much easier to just type a new thread… but as has been said MANY times: this board rewards those who do a bit of deep research BEFORE asking any questions. In fact, that method makes for the creation of more specific questions - and we all know those get more responses. Just my two cents. It worked for me. YMMV.
I read the entire SPS thread when it was a school my older daughter was seriously targeting. And I’ve read the entire St. Andrew’s thread, naturally. And to reboot the fencing recruiting thread I help with…it required searching for and reading pretty much every thread about fencing on the forum.
At some point in my time, I even wrote a “how to get the most from the forum” type post…a key takeaway of which was “the forum rewards people who have done their research” or something to that effect.
Found something in a pinned thread I started with the following advice:
"- Starting many random new posts that indicate you have done little to no research about specific schools will yield little
- Searching, finding, and reading the volumes that have been written here on CC about the most popular schools is smart…writing directly to the key contributors to those sorts of threads (assuming they are still active on the forum) is even smarter"
@buuzn03 we are in a similar situation re: pulling our younger child out of private school and putting him into a public school next year. It did not impact financial aid for us since we ended up going into the 2018 application process as full pay anyway. I do remember you posting on another thread that your local private school had a new head who has been driving the school into the ground. Our private day school also has a new head, and in year 2 of his tenure he has watered down the academics, spent money like crazy, and allowed student behavior to get out of control. All the while he has raised the activities fees (which are required) to astronomical records so they can “minimize” the tuition increases. (Read: You can’t get FA for activities fees, so you are out an extra $1000 after tuition is paid). Then they also came up with all sorts of new charges for things that used to be reasonably priced or free.
I’m so glad my 8th grader is graduating this year and getting out of there. For years our school had strong relationships with good boarding schools in the area, but now I am concerned that the reputation will be tarnished. I keep telling my 8th grader that I’m glad he had challenging academics during all the years leading up to this year, because this year has been a joke. My 6th grader can’t take all the behavior problems of the other kids in his grade. It is such a distraction and the kids are so rude and mean. Honestly I don’t expect public school to be perfect, but at least I won’t be paying thousands of dollars for lousy academics and poor behavior!
Sorry to vent - good thing this thread is named “Miscellaneous Ramblings” lol
@dramakid2 YES. You are so right…a big part of why we pulled her is because of the disaster the school had become. And except for the fact it impacted our FA, I do not regret the move at all. As a matter of fact, DH and I just said to each other (while coming up with financial strategies for this coming school year) that if we had to do it all over again with KNOWING we’d lose FA…we would have made the same move. (I think we would have just started eating ramen sooner—lol). Within the last 6 months, though, the headmaster was booted and significant changes are being made. They’ve moved 7-8th grade back to intermediate school, allowed kids to test into Algebra 1, take two languages instead of mandatory study hall and more. We are keeping our eye on things there, and then figure out if it is worth going back. If not, we will have to figure out a way to be FP for sure for the remainder of DS’s BS.
Of other rambling…I just figured out both of my kids get a 4 day week this week, yet my job expects me to work 5. What is up with that nonsense!!!
Oh yes I hear you on the days off @buuzn03 ! The more tuition you pay the more days off they get! In our area the private schools count hours and not days (not sure if that is the same across the country.) It makes life difficult for households with 2 working parents. This year is the first year I have felt comfortable leaving both kids home alone together so I don’t need to take as many days off. I’m actually looking forward to the public school schedule next year.
I don’t see our head being thrown out anytime soon. He didn’t make any major changes last year, so we went into this year with our usual expectations. But things changed very quickly this year, and as of right now it looks like they may experience a mass exodus of families at the end of this year. It is depressing because for so long this was a school that I always thought we would be sad to leave. But now it is a school that we can’t wait to get away from.
^ugh. I feel your pain. That was us…we kept telling ourselves…just make it until May…over & over. Good luck!! I hope things work out for you!!!
Nope.
I partially get why some users don’t search past threads - the search box here is not as effective as google. However, that can’t be the only explanation, as the wealth of newly created waitlist-threads post-M10 (most of which I just merged) will attest.
@buuzn03 and @dramakid2: you got me to thinking back to our days at the local public middle school. While it was a lovely school in many respects, the budget was always being cut and enrichment programs disappearing. If I had had any doubts at all about pursuing BS for my kid, they were erased the day she came home and told me that 1) their science lab project had been cancelled yet again due to kids in class with behavioral issues, and 2) they watched Disney’s “Aladdin” in Social Studies class, because they were beginning a unit on the Middle East. No kidding.
Eek @cameo43