Another plug for Lake Forest - super cute campus and town, close to the beach and your son would qualify for $28k of merit money based on his ACT score:
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Is it “worth it” to go visit colleges in the summer? It depends. For example:
- fall of senior year can often be pretty busy. Especially if your kid is in a fall sport.
- distance you’d need to travel to go visit the colleges. Maybe there are some which you can do in a day trip or over a short weekend (i.e., drive there on a Fri evening, do a Saturday tour, drive home).
- cost of visiting them all - this can get pricey if you’re having to fly to get there.
- what’s your definition of “far away”? For example, if you live sort of near Milwaukee and UW Eau Claire are ‘far away,’ that’s really only about a 4 hr drive. You could visit that in, for example, 2nd half of August once the fall semester has started…drive there on a Friday evening, go on the tour Saturday morning, then drive home. Be back home by Sat night. only would cost the 1 night’s hotel stay.
What sort of major(s)/subject(s) is your son interested in studying? That might point in a particular direction as well. Do you have a target geographical preference (i.e., within X # of hours’ drive from home)?
I took D24 on a summer tour of ASU. The tour was fine. She decided that she didn’t want to be that close to home and hated a school that was so big.
If the ONLY way you can manage the college tours is to do them in the summer, then do that. But first, rather than touring a million of them, I’d be more strategic, like:
- rule out colleges that you know are too expensive (use the Net Price Calculators on college websites to determine this).
- rule out colleges which are too much of an admissions reach
- rule out colleges which don’t offer the major(s) that your son is interested in
- rule out colleges which are too far away or don’t meet other “must have” criteria
In the meantime, take him on a summer tour of 1 “medium-to-big” school and 1 “small” school. And then do a pulse check and readjust where to tour next after that.
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The Child texted this evening (evening France-time, that is). Sent 2 photos. Said it’s really humid there, feels like FL (we’re from AZ, so everywhere feels more humid than home). The Child had pasta for lunch at a cafe, also got a double scoop of ice cream, said that double scoop is similar to single scoop in US. Has tried a baguette already and a pan chocolat.
I told her that all of us back home will require food pics so we can live vicariously through her.
The Child said that host family is nice. They’re going to Eze tomorrow. 1 boy in the group has a bad habit of wandering off w/o permission and he’s done it twice already just today. D24 is big into following the rules and it bothers her greatly that The Wanderer is allowed to do this without any consequences. I strongly suspect that The Wanderer is on the autism spectrum or has other special needs of some sort which might explain the not getting in trouble for repeatedly walking out of class all year long.
Sending prayers for the chaperones and a pre-emptive set of angel wings!
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We’re planning to do summer visits, too. All of the schools DC24 is looking at are really far away, and it’s not realistic for us to do that many out-of-state visits during the school year (as it is, fitting just a few visits in will be expensive and eat up all of my vacation time for the year). It looks like at least a few schools on their list offer tours over the summer. At the very least, my kid will get a generalized view of what some campuses feel like.
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Totally.
D24 is heading to the south of France later this summer. This is her last week of school. S22 is home. He is headed to Ireland next month for a study abroad. He is teaching himself Python.
Sigh…so, we live in Memphis. I am a native Memphian, and have lived here most of my life. I have watched the many cycles this city has had. I have watched areas created, prosper, collapse, and become impoverished many times over. I have watched notable landmarks sold at foreclosure sale only to be redeveloped into wonderful areas. I have always had a great deal of civic pride. I know Memphis has many problems. We are a poor city with historical racial and educational problems. That being said, having lived (for a time) in other areas, I would argue that the overt level of racism is worse in other areas. Maybe our scars, though deep are healing, on that front. But crime remains an issue.
Friday night, wife and I went out. We don’t go out often, but it was the anniversary of our first date. I have been helping her transition away from full time work. Prior to a full time medical career, she was a passionate artist. So, a night of pottery seemed appropriate. We were on the Highland Strip, a redeveloped area next to the University of Memphis, the local university. This is the area frequented by students. We were at a coffee/wine/pottery bar. We had a wonderful evening of making coffee mugs (well…making and failing for me). At the close of the lesson, around 8PM, three shots rang out outside the plate glass window. This was soon followed by a hail of gunfire. While my wife shouted for everyone to get on the floor, my first instinct was to get to the window to make sure no one was coming to where we were. Wife and I told the staff to get everyone to a back room. Once I saw the street was clear, I went with the bartender to lock the front door. The police were called. It took them 15 minutes to respond. In that time, I checked the streetscape and saw all was clear. The staff and patrons were predominantly women. I offered to walk anyone who wanted it to their car (after noting that wife and I had been married for over 20 years). It turns out that the tattoo parlor across the street has a security camera. A patron there saw their car being stolen, and went out to the street, gun blazing. That was the first three shots (incidentally, in our direction). The car thieves returned fire with a semi automatic rifle. That was the hail of gunfire. I saw the tattoo parlor patron actually running back into the tattoo parlor. Amazingly, given the number of shots and distance, no one was hit (I grew up around guns, and this fact still amazes me). The whole thing never even made the local news. It turns out, this was the SECOND shooting in this shopping center in ten days. The bartender who bravely locked the door is in therapy over the first.
I am not trying to make this a political post. Much can be said about guns and crime in this country. Saying something and addressing the real problems are two separate things.
I ask that you give your loved ones a little extra grace. Hug them that much more (especially when your kids actually let you). Talk about and think through safety. It’s an issue.
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How scary! Glad everyone is ok!
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“I am not trying to make this a political post.” In that same spirit, I will simply mention an occurrence which provides additional context as to “where we are” on this.
As Kabul was falling, my adult son worked with others having connections in government plus people with (Silicon Valley) money to fly an empty airliner in and scoop up however many fleeing refugees it could (and he asked me to figure out how many people could be crammed into a 737 or A320 without it crashing).
He subsequently flew to their initial waypoint in North Macedonia to check on the group. Turned out some had put the USA dead last on a form for countries they wanted to be considered for resettlement in. These were people who’d always had access to the internet, and so weren’t anxious to move from a place where their families were no longer safe to a place where no one’s family is safe. Somewhere civilized (e.g. an actual health care system) made more sense.
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This issue actually was a big part of our college decision. DS23 had two colleges tied as first choice. One was in an area with nightly car jackings, gun fire and assaults. The other had little crime and the little that is tends to not be very serious. While we live outside of a large city and know the basics of walk in groups, don’t go to certain areas, etc., we felt that one area was so unsafe that it would affect his ability to enjoy the nonacademic parts of college (which was part of what drew him to that college in the first place). Tough decision but I’m glad he felt the same way as I want him to be out enjoying himself and not worrying or “having his head on a swivel” as he would say.
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We’ve ruled out anything in Memphis for this very reason.
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Last night at dinner, D24 casually mentioned that “I’m thinking about adding AP physics II for next year”…
Mind you, she is already scheduled for 2 AP courses (calc ab and bio). I think we are truly witnessing what is known as a late blooming.
Of course, scheduling requests for next year must be finalized in the next week, so I told her if she wants to do it, she needs to get an appointment scheduled with her gc asap. She’s not always the best as follow through, and definitely not the best at doing anything asap, so we’ll see…
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D24 is still alive. 
They spent today in Monaco. Tomorrow is the last day of school!
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Hopefully she will have tons of awesome pics to show you wen she gets home.
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I’d make sure she’s up for AP Bio, AP Physics and AP calc AB all at the same time. Those are some of the toughest classes at my kids’ school. I would tell my kids to talk to plenty of kids who have taken them to get a sense of just how much work will be involved with all 3 at once. Not to say it’s not the right schedule for the right kid but just make sure to do due diligence about what you’re signing up for especially senior year.
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yes, I appreciate these concerns and we did speak a bit about them.
I’m trying to navigate a delicate balance…for some history, this past year, D24 took AP chem (elective), regular physics and advanced pre-calc all at once, Right before school started she had a freak out about her ability to handle it and wanted to drop AP chem. We encouraged her to at least give it a shot and see how it goes. She ended up killing it in all three classes and it seems to have motivated her to continue to challenge herself.
I have no doubt in my mind that she can handle all three courses, am less sure of whether she will really want to once she’s in it. That said, my advice is the same as last year…“try it and see how it goes, you can always drop one of the sciences if it is too much.”
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Sounds like she’s well prepared for the challenge! Good advice on your part too.
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Asking for a friend…is it possible to be soiling the nest this early on? 
. It’s been a week…prom, end of track season, wants to spend every waking moment with girlfriend… besides that, all is good. The semester is going well. Senior step up day is next week! Also busy with SAT course since he is taking it June 3rd again. I think we have six colleges that are good fits that he’ll apply to. Time to buckle up!
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All the seniors received a draft schedule for next year. S24 happy with his - he finally got a lunch later than 10am!
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I don’t know because I have no prior experience in this. But I DO know that for the past month, D24 has been a pain in the butt to live with!