Well, it’s another hard lesson learned for D24 today. She had the shortest interview ever at Olive Garden for a host/hostess position. And that’s because when she applied, she put down availability as Fri evening, Sat and Sun. But when asked what her availability was in today’s interview, she said MWF evenings only. AND…like I told her…they’re really only hiring for weekends because they need more hosts on weekends…you know, when they’re the most busy.
Manager cut the interview short and said he didn’t want to waste her time and to try applying again in September because maybe they’d have some availability on weekday evenings.
Kiddo shed some tears over that, but brushed it off and dropped off her resume in person at a Panda Express near us, told them that she’d applied online a few days ago, and the manager set up an interview with her for Wednesday this week at 3 pm.
Also applied again with updated resume at Panera. And applied at a new drive-through place that’s opening in a couple of months.
School of hard knocks. Yes, child, sometimes, the parents DO know what they’re talking about.
On a positive note, the College Essay Guy writing exercises seem to be working out well.
Today, D24 did the College Essay Guy’s “Values Exercise.” I just gotta say…I love this exercise. It’s short, yet provides a lot of insight for the student.
First, out of a big list on the College Essay Guy website, you pick your top 10 values. D24’s were the following:
culture
family
creativity
humor
trust
self-expression
self-love
freedom
respect
honesty
And looking at my kid, I think that she’s spot on with all of that. And I’m really proud of her list.
Then you pick your top 5. Hers were:
honesty
trust
respect
culture
family
Then you pick your top 3 out of the top 5:
family
honesty
respect
And then out of the top 3, you pick your #1…which was family.
Then you go back to the big values list and you put an initial next to 5 values of a great profession_name. For example, “E” for engineer. In D24’s case, she’s going to major in biology, so she put a “B” next to:
productivity
fun
patience
respect
empathy
I’m glad she did this exercise today. I no longer give a rip about the goofed up Olive Garden interview. That top 10 list, especially the top 5, is pretty darn great.
S24 finally found a job and had his orientation this morning, training starts this weekend! . I booked his senior pictures this week and supposedly he has been working on his essay. Things are starting to get real.
That’s great. It has been so hard for S24 to find work this summer. He thought he had two things lined up back in May and they both fell through. He has been desperate to find something but no one will hire him because he is only able to do 20 hours per week and only until mid August.
Finding a part time job has been a learning experience for our family. It’s a lot harder than it seems and many employers are, honestly, rather picky in my opinion.
D24 is still searching for a different gig after retiring from McDonald’s. Had an interview at one place yesterday…a fast food place. And was told that it’s a 2-part interview. So she’ll learn within 72 hr if they’ve decided to proceed with interview # 2, which means that she’ll know by end of day Saturday.
D24 has also learned the hard way that if you want to find a part time job, HOW you interview will make or break your chances of getting the job. She’s made a lot of mistakes, but hey, it’s a learning process.
She’ll be soooo well prepared for summer internship interviews, and eventual full-time job interviews after graduation.
My DS2022 is an Eagle Scout. To rank up to Eagle, you have to go through Scout Ranking Review in order to go up a rank. So he’s had many experience with interviews.
I was VERY nervous for him when he had college alum interviews for Ivies/MIT, etc, but he was totally relaxed.
Same for the several interviews he had pursuing his summer internship (really hard to get as a Freshman).
@huango if you don’t mind me asking, where did he have trouble getting a summer internship? I ask because that’s one of my daughter’s wants. My son had a great paid internship his first year at Williams (and another this year, but this one at Cornell), so I perhaps mistakenly thought that she would have similar opportunities if she pursued them.
DS2022 is a sophomore at MIT, math and computer science major.
He started looking for summer internship in NOVEMBER of his Freshman year. He applied to 2-3 research projects (nothing with a clause that you have to be Jr/Sr), and didn’t get them.
Then when he got the rejections (he was really banking on one of them), he then hunted for all jobs everywhere (not the regular camp/fast food, etc ones). I needed him to work to get a line item for his resume and some working experience.
He applied to ?35+ jobs, anything that involved numbers/analysis, etc and had 3-4 interviews and all rejections.
A good portions of the rejections was that it was later in the year (closer to May).
==> ==> apply for internships from Nov-April (May-June is too late)
Even the company where he got his internship now rejected him initially, telling him that they already hired 4 juniors, and they were impressed that he was hunting for internships as a freshman.
He sent a thank you email asking them to keep him in mind for any future opportunities. That’s when they emailed back for a different internship and he interviewed and got it.
Most of son’s HS friends do not have internships.
Half of his MIT friends do not have internships.
Either can’t get them or didn’t start early enough.
Thanks. He’s enjoying the Excel analysis work, mostly remote.
The other part is how important is an internship to the student/parents?
I have friends with children who are Juniors this year and still haven’t done any internships in their field.
They babysit, waitress, work retail, lifeguarding, etc, but no actual lab experience for their Biology major.
I also use internships as a way to help my kids figure out WHAT they want to do.
summer with this company in this industry
another summer with another company in another industry
etc to figure out what they like or don’t like.
Son did a 1 week ?enrichment as a Sophomore in HS and he was introduced to a brilliant professor scientist, but after that week, son knew he didn’t want to ever spend the next 20+ years of life hoping the experiment will match his hypothesis, etc.
Half the part is knowing what you DON’T want to do.
D24 took the CLEP exam for French this am, missed passing it by 2 points! Aaahhh! She said that the audio part was a lot harder than the AP exam because on the CLEP exam, they only play the audio once, while on the AP exam, they play the audio twice.
College Board lets you retake a CLEP exam after 3 months. So she’ll try again in late October. She’s very disappointed. But it’s just a temporary setback.
She has an online interview tomorrow am for a new fast food chain that pays $18/hr. She’s getting her hair trimmed today for that and for picture day at school on Mon when we pick up her schedule. And she’s finally decided that Mom and Dad aren’t totally clueless when it comes to applying for jobs, so she’s going to wear her hair up in a bun for the interview tomorrow.
No further word from the Panda Express interview, so I’m betting that she will not make it to interview #2. What the heck is the deal with fast food joints requiring 2 interviews?
Part of what employers like Panda are trying to figure out is…will this person show up if we hire them? Getting them to come to two interviews is more laborious for the applicant - giving the employer better insight into whether the applicant is willing to put themselves out.
I think that it is dumb, but S24 had this experience at both food service jobs he was offered and later left because work conditions at both places were…sub-standard to say the least. Funnily enough, at his new job (higher prestige, much better pay) - it was one interview and offered the job on the spot.
In many ways, it seems like food service is trying to figure out how desperate people are for a job and they are looking to hire the most desperate who probably have the fewest options to leave. And then, treat them pretty uniformly poorly. It’s not surprising how many ‘help wanted’ signs there are when you know/see someone going through the process personally - so much of low level work is pretty inhumane and people won’t stay when there are plentiful other options.
D24 said that all of the seniors are in a chat on Discord and 1 of the senior boys asked, “What’s up with the 6 hour thing at school on Monday? Do we have to be there the entire time or are we supposed to sign up for something?”
D24 said to me about the kid, “Dude, like, you’ve been at this school since SEVENTH GRADE. EVERY year, it’s the same routine. We all go there a couple of days before school starts, you get your locker # and your schedule. It takes about 30 min. WHY have you not figured this out yet after all this time?”
And then…get this…she said…
“How in the world is he going to adult at college if he’s hasn’t learned something simple like this after 6 years?”
Hello! I am new here but have a D24 with a lopsided transcript (~3.0 where all of the As in art save her from being lower), no AP/ honors or many EC, but has worked doing art programs for a local museum the last two summers. Some learning differences come into play, adhd and slow processing, and name brand / T20/ T50 heck, T100 schools are not even a consideration. Hoping she can find a small school that allows her to grow as a person, but also realize that she may bud up at the college I work at (where she could also grow as a person, just closer to home than she’d prefer.) in a sea of Lake Wobegon students, it’s nice to have a thread like this.
I’m from 3.0-3.4 class of 22 and I’m here while waiting for the class of ‘25 thread to open. My S22 had a similar transcript (music was his strong suit) and he didn’t get a single rejection (although he did get several WLs). He is now at Ithaca College. Don’t worry one bit!! It sounds like she has some pretty cool ECs.
As a family, we had a very firmly set budget for each child. This (happily) helped us focus on fit over all else…within our price range. We are spoiled for choice in colleges/universities in the US, most of which aren’t highly selective - many of which offer incredible educations and opportunities.
I don’t know how far along you are in the search for colleges with your daughter, but I would strongly suggest checking out the Colleges that Change Lives schools (CTCL.org) if you are looking for smaller schools. Every single one we checked out was very impressive - they are often described as A+ schools for B students.
We’re happy to have you here and you are very welcome to join us!
The “Your College Bound Kid” podcast had a couple of episodes some time in the last 1-2 months in which they talked about things to consider for students with disabilities, learning differences, learning disabilities, etc. https://yourcollegeboundkid.com/
. I booked his senior pictures this week and supposedly he has been working on his essay. Things are starting to get real.
