It’s weird because we drove to Starbucks this morning and saw about 8 cop cars in the parking lot as we drove by the school. I told DH jokingly that “something was going down”, but then completely forgot about it.
If y’all may remember, about 3 weeks ago, they had to do an emergency evacuation for a gas leak. So, there’s no telling what has happened.
I remember when she had surgery 
@buuzn03 that’s right! That’s a lot of action over there. I hope everyone is OK!
@cinnamon1212 :). and now here she is planning her big exodus to boarding school in the fall!
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In the fall, with all of the insanity and stress already impacting students, Choate had an anonymous threat against students of color. It led to a full lock-down of the campus like what you’re describing. It lasted several days.
I sincerely hope everyone is OK on your child’s campus.
@Altras luckily it is a day school and this happened on the weekend when no students were there. Teachers tend to go in on weekends to catch up, but they cleared the grounds. So, we are fortunate for that. My BF is in charge of facilities, as she’s the CFO. I haven’t called her, though, because I’m sure she’s overwhelmed. I’ll keep y’all posted as to what caused this!
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I dropped both of my boys off at school yesterday. I have a junior who is doing great and was absolutely giddy about being back. I also have a freshman who has really struggled with remote so-called learning and needs to be back. All fingers are crossed - hoping they can enjoy the next 5 weeks and really have a great, full on-campus spring.
It was both refreshing and disturbing to get on a plane with them and fly. I don’t normally fly with them, but do so this year to try to limit their exposures while traveling. Doing so in the fall was more refreshing - we were all filled with hope, people were generally behaving and it felt great to do something (travel) that we hadn’t really done together since March. This time was different - while it refreshing to again travel, I was reminded of all of the travels and smaller pleasures (movies, dinners out, bowling, etc.) that we’ve been doing without for nearly a year. And the impact of uncertainty about when we might get back to enjoying those pleasures seemed apparent in other travelers. Maybe I was viewing it through biased lenses, but many other travelers seemed unhappy, fearful or were acting out via anti-masking. It’s seems like people are generally fed up with COVID and the uncertainty is not bringing out the best in many.
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Moving my reply to the discussion about visiting all of you over here so that we keep that “completely inexperienced dad” thread a super clean reference thread that it is. Such a good primer for new parents.
But anyway @buuzn03 @CateCAParent @dadof4kids @cinnamon1212 @gardenstategal and who did I miss – surely others. I will surely make notes of all locations. Yes, even you @dadof4kids who thinks maybe your remote location status puts you under the radar. I’m emailing anytime I’m in without a few hours of any of you. ha! (I’m in so-cal so don’t worry – you all have some time before I make good on any of this.)
Not to ignore your post @Altras – that sounds like a strange experience. I’m not looking forward to any travel we will have to do soon either.
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So, DS told us he probably would be too busy to FaceTime because he’s now working on this year’s acceptance video. He thought he’d try on the Lion suit for fun!
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^^LOVE this. Talk about full circle!
@gardenstategal You can just see the top of the Lion’s head that he got from Revisit Day 4 years ago. It is right under the two spotted dogs. LOL – where has the time gone?
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DId you mean to post your kid’s pic so he can be easily indentified?
Wait, nevermind. Go Lions!
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If you see him on the street, pretend you don’t know who he is!!! 
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On my day off yesterday, it was upper 70s, not a cloud in the sky and super calm. I sat outside for most of my vaca-day. It was gorgeous!
Today I wake up to 26 degrees with frozen fog… 
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very misc… but
I keep getting targeted Facebook ads for St. Andrew’s Delaware.
Isn’t it a banner year for applications? I’m surprised by them running ads on FB. They are the only BS I get FB ads for. Strange, no?
I remember I saw them from SAS, I thought somewhere else too but I don’t remember where. When this site was almost unusable, I put on an ad blocker to try to speed it up, so I don’t see ads on Facebook anymore. I don’t miss them.
No, not strange, just algorithms. They likely set it up to run by area. So when you are in the are/zip code and hit a search word, like BS, they come up. They might be the only school looking for folks in your area. That’s why you are only seeing their ads. Same with google. It’s setup with parameters so if you fall within those you’ll see their ad.
They can also set it up by demographics. So you might have something set up on your FB which triggers their ad as well. FB knows a lot from your activities.
@Happytimes2001 I wasn’t super precise - I wasn’t questioning the targeting; I was questioning running the ads in the first place in a year like this one when it seems schools can barely manage to get through the massive influx of applications as it is. It just surprised me, since FB ads are a nimble ad buy. (Also side note – saw an ad today, after deadline.). Just found it curious. Did they order the ads 6 months ago and forget to cancel them?
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Hmm. Who knows. I Usually the ad campaign is set up to run and does just that. I bet they are looking at overall applications rather than a subset.
But yes, why do they even have to run ads in a year when demand is so high. But they might not be getting kids from far away. I think many kids this year will stick closer to home than ever before. It’s sad really.
Depends on your perspective. Some of us are hoping for less apps from far away! 
I’m more afraid that apps will be up from everywhere, since the degree of control boarding schools have over their residents has allowed them to have more in person instruction than most other schools this year. I think it is usually a better experience, but the differences this fall were even more stark than normal.
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I am getting pop ups for Forman on my Facebook! A few months ago, I sent their school website link to a friend of mine to check it out for their son. It’s all in their system - but I don’t recall hitting the “accept” button for Forman’s cookies or whatever it is they use to track who visits their site.