So far, D24’s math class is a cake walk, which is a nice change of pace compared to before. She got a no from 1 of the Olive Garden interviews…it was the one where the general manager said to her, “Oh…I’m not sure if we’re actually still hiring for this position since we just hired somebody.” The good news, though, is colleges’ school years are all going to be starting soon, so many of those employees at various businesses are all going to quit, thus freeing up some positions.
This evening, she’s going to apply at some other places. Also, reminded her to pay attention to re-read the job description before you go into the job interview because the job description often gives you clues about what the company considers important.
DH & I look at all of this as really good practice for later on when her interview skills really matter.
The college counseling class today talked about the general timeline for the year in that class. Stuff like:
Aug-Oct: Common App, essay writing, figure out letters of rec, figure out where you’re going to apply
Nov: submit ED & EA applications
Dec, Jan: get ED & EA decisions back, work on RD (regular decision) apps and get those submitted.
Oct-Jan: if you’re going to do a senior project, figure out what it’s going to be on and get your senior project placement lined up and ready to go for February.
Feb after trimester 2 ends: senior trip. Some of the class wants to go to Knotts Berry Farm, everybody else wants to go to Disneyland. D24 wants Disneyland. Knotts Berry Farm has a policy now where if you’re <18 yr old, you must have an adult chaperone w/you at all times, even on rides.
Feb-May: senior projects. If doing a senior project, you do your final presentation in early May. Prom is usually mid-May and graduation will probably be a few days after that.
DH & I are silently cheering between ourselves because yesterday, D24 told me that 1 of her friends was talking about how hard it’s been picking a college major…her friend really loves art, but does NOT want to major in it. Her friend also told her that she pretty much doesn’t want to be hungry, poor, and struggling to make ends meet as an artist after college graduation. D24 advised her to consider minoring in art (since she likes it) and picking some other major which is in the “this is ok/tolerable” realm AND to consider (after college graduation) continuing to do art on the side and who knows…it could turn into a side hustle which adds to your financial bottom line, but you don’t have to rely solely on it to put a roof over your head.
I told DH about that today and behind closed doors, we literally high 5’d each other.
I think many ED/EA deadlines are November 1st (most people recommend to submit before Halloween so that Seniors can enjoy their last Halloween w/out college stuff hanging over them).
A few colleges have a different deadline for financial aid from RD deadline.
Example: I think URochester financial aid deadline is 12/1, but their RD deadline is 1/5. Since we didn’t look at RD apps until Christmas break, we missed the URochester aid deadline, so we had to cut it from the list.
Learn from my son’s experience: continue working on RD apps RIGHT AFTER you finish ED/EA apps. Do NOT take a break until after hearing back from ED/EA, over Holiday break.
Many RD apps are due the 1st week of January.
DS2022 applied EA to his #1 choice MIT (and 10 other EA apps) and he was HOPING to be accepted to MIT (which would mean he was done/didn’t want any RD colleges), so he didn’t start on RD app essays until after he heard back from MIT on 12/18 when he was deferred.
But by then, he was SOOOOO sick of working on apps and his Winter sport had started (so he had NO time to spare).
So he begrudgingly worked on 8 RD apps over Christmas break, when the HS was closed (and he needed a graded paper but no teacher got back to him).
I’m basically having DD2024 work on her 6+ apps all by Halloween, and will submit the RD when they’re ready, no matter how early.
I think that your approach is a great idea. I told D24 that I’d like her to have ALL of her apps done & submitted by middle to end of October. Her 1st EA due date is 11/1 anyway. Then, the hard stuff is all out of the way and you can focus on other stuff instead of 2/3 of your senior year be circling around applying to colleges.
FWIW admissions officers are reading the apps as they come in, well before whatever deadline. So there might be some advantage to having it get a first reading relatively early on, before the AO is worn down by all the app reading and before they’ve come across a lot of really exceptional ones. Perhaps doesn’t matter, or at least shouldn’t if they do their job right, but can’t hurt to be “early” as long as the quality wasn’t compromised.
First week of school half way in the bag. D24 switched out of AP Lit with no plans to take it second semester. Unfortunate, but a worthwhile trade since the current schedule wasn’t tenable.
Switched into Careers in Adv. Mfg. and the Trades, which I am hoping will give her some idea if a design oriented major (industrial or other) might be something she is interested in.
She has the same teacher for two periods, AP Stats and the above mentioned Manufacturing class. I kind of think it’s a cool combination.
D24 arrived home from her month-long trip to Greece late last night. I’m giving her 48 hours to relax before I bring up the subject of getting her common app essay written before school starts
We’re heading to upstate NY to look at three schools next week: Binghamton, Syracuse and RIT.
In other news, at least I did my summer work…I took a good look at accounts and what we can comfortably cash flow, and am prepared to give D24 a definite and realistic budget. We will be having “the talk” in the next week or two about how she may apply wherever she would like, but will only be able to attend if the COA comes within the budget. I feel good that there are two schools on her potential list that are 100% financially doable, regardless of any aid.
I also officially indicated by interest in being one of the 5 people my employer will award an export spot for the Tuition Exchange (TE) scholarship for D24. The names are drawn by lottery, and I have no clue how many eligible employees will be vying for those spots this time around. Three of the schools on D’s potential app list (Stevens, RIT and Syracuse) are TE schools, and getting awarded TE at any of them would make them doable, budgetwise. If we don’t get a slot, I’ll leave it up to her whether she wants to take a shot at getting enough merit and need-based aid to make them possible.
Our D19 used the zip car at her campus a lot to get to the climbing gym in a nearby city, to get to her volunteer job, and to go away for the weekend. It was great from 2019-2021, but then it got progressively less reliable. Once, she booked way ahead of time to go hiking in the mountains for the weekend, and Zip Car cancelled her reservation the day before for no reason. Their customer service was awful. Another time, the car wouldn’t start. So, it was a mixed bag.
I don’t know whether zip car reliability depends on the location?
Other random fact from The Child today:
in the college counseling class today, their HW is to write down a list of their 3 most important factors in picking a college (assuming the college has the major you want). Hers were:
affordability
‘stuff to do on/near campus’
‘interactive learning’. What does that mean? “Where not every single class you take is basically the professor talking at you.” Ok…so experiential learning opportunities, right? The Child: “Duh…yeah.”
Small update that S24 and I completed tours at UW-LaCrosse and UW-Eau Claire in the past two days. He seemed to like UW-L better than EC, which is surprising. I thought they were both OK, when I was in LaCrosse, I liked it, and when in Eau Claire, I liked it. Eau Claire seems to be a nicer town, they have a nice riverwalk area, but the campus is spread out and there is a big hill.
One of my son’s criteria seems to be common area spaces for hanging out, since he thinks he will not spend much time in his room.
His preference order right now is, 1- St. Norbert, 2 - Parkside, 3 - LaCrosse, 4 - Eau Claire. I am making him also visit Stevens Point where his brother starts in a few weeks. He wants to do return visits to all of these schools so we will have more exploration to do this fall.
Also, my oldest’s first semester bill is coming due in September. Now it’s getting real!
D24 left school early to take the US History II CLEP exam at a local community college. She got a passing score! Not high enough to get credit at some of the schools she’s applying to, but that’s ok. We are considering it a victory because:
she was up at 4:00 am today for the senior sunrise breakfast at school
she was stressed out because she got lost trying to drive to the test location herself and was a little late
we learned yesterday that her grandmother (my mother-in-law) has uterine cancer and is in the hospital on a morphine drip because the pain is so bad. DH is w/MIL now and the kids & I are driving there tomorrow morning to visit her in the hospital. Side note: if you are female, don’t skip your gynecology exams for 20+ years.
It’s been a rough couple of days. We spent yesterday visiting MIL in the hospital. Definitely uterine cancer, likely spread to lymph nodes. Lymph node biopsy tomorrow. MIL is in a lot of pain, incoherent from pain meds. Won’t know results until Tues or Wed. My MIL doesn’t have any estate documents lined up. No healthcare directive. No power of attorney set up. It’s been really hard on DH and his sister. My kids are worried about their grandmother. MIL is 78.
So for a little while, D24’s continued job hunt is on hold.
In other lousy news, the gigantic spring on our garage door broke yesterday. Now you can’t even lift the garage door with your own man power. At least it happened when 2 of our 3 cars were not IN the garage.
Seniors are getting their updated transcripts on Tuesday of this week. College visits at school are starting next week. D24 probably needs to go to the U of A one and I’m going to encourage her to attend 1 or 2 others of her choosing.
Well, the show must go on and regular life continues while my MIL remains in the hospital. DH is hoping to hear news of her biopsy results today.
On a positive note, D24 was contacted yesterday for a job interview. That’ll be on Friday. She’s learned that she loves the Shakespeare class she’s taking for English this year. The teacher is having them watch the plays BEFORE they read them and told the class that Shakespeare never meant his plays to be read, they were supposed to be experienced/watched. They’ve started with The Winter’s Tale. I’m so stoked about this because I took an upper division Shakespeare class in college that I just totally loved, and it’s thrilling to see one of my kids really enjoy it, too.
I’m totally & completely jealous of D24’s college counseling class. Still waiting for updated HS transcripts this week. Counselor sent all of the seniors a link to their own individual Google docs folder. I think the counselor might have put D24’s transcript in there, but won’t know more until later today when D24 gets home from school. I think that the Google docs folder is where the students are going to upload/store their essay drafts and other stuff.
Hello everyone. Senior year is going well. We are narrowing down the schools DD24 would prefer to stay in CA. For privates we are looking at: USFca, Chapman, USD, and we’ll throw USC in there as an extreme reach.
Surprisingly to some, we are not considering any of the UC schools as they do not really have her major interests. Cal States we are looking at: Chico, SDSU, Northridge, Fullerton, and Long Beach. The fun part will be going to the schools “Preview Day” events. She has done very little on essays……
Posting for a friend. She has an S24, likely wanting to stay in the Southeastern area. 3.4 average student (academics not a priority unfortunately but kid is very bright). Money is not an issue here. So far including some northern schools list is:
Clemson (reach?)
Auburn
Alabama
USC (carolina)
LSU
Indiana
GA southern
Maybe Penn State or Ohio
Are we missing anything? If he decides he doesnt want a large school, but a medium sized school, what could we be missing. ? Trinity in Texas. Family is Jewish, but not a big factor here.
The good news, though, is colleges’ school years are all going to be starting soon, so many of those employees at various businesses are all going to quit, thus freeing up some positions.
