<p>PBK = Phi Beta Kappa, a national academic honor society. Normally a college selects the top 10% or less for membership. about 85% of these are selected spring of senior year at most colleges, with 15% or fewer selected as juniors, although some schools (like Duke if I recall?) select some of their seniors in the fall i.e. they induct two groups of seniors. </p>
<p>It is a nice honor, and looks very good on a CV!</p>
<p>Yes newmassdad I will be at commencement. Wouldn't miss it. Hoping weather cooperates.</p>
<p>My goodness--as was true four years ago, given son's late decision about where to go (April 30) and late start in college (late September) here I am again bringing up the rear, and being tempted to change my name to IMpatient. BUT with good news to report! </p>
<p>S will graduate from Stanford Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in mathematics and computational sciences and a minor in baseball ;). He has been a 3-time Pac-10 First Team All-Academic, one-time ESPN Western region First Team All-Academic, and will have to figure out how to pick up his diploma because we are not going to graduation or PBK initiation next weekend, baby, </p>
<p>WE ARE GOING TO OMAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>My son graduated 3 weeks ago, came home 2 weeks ago with all of his stuff, and I put him on a plane cross-country this morning. He's got a job in upstate NY, is having dinner tonight with his boss, starts tomorrow. He interviewed for work locally, but one interview was with a national organization, they opted to hire someone else for the local positions but passes his resume out through their organization, and he had a call and was hired within a few days. A little bit of angst, but he's off & running. (And I am left with boxloads of his stuff, a houseplant with 6-foot long creeping vines, and the old clunker car that needs to be sold or otherwise disposed of).</p>
<p>Patient -- Ok, I'll root for Stanford. (Closes windows and doors so Berkeley neighbors can't see). Congratulations on his impressive academic AND athletic achievements! Guess that last minute decision four years ago worked out fine.</p>
<p>TheDad and Newmassdad -- I remember your daughters well -- even though I never met them! Not surprising that they turned out to be such college stars, but it's great to see the opportunities they found and took advantage of.</p>
<p>Thank you, SAC.</p>
<p>We're planning a big celebration right after commencement this Saturday. We leave tomorrow for the events and pickup. She is graduating PBK (selected as a junior) and a Student Marshall, so she gets a different commencement robe and walks with a different group at commencement. Chicago only has one level of graduation honors, so I can't brag there. But I will say that her lowest grade in college has been a few A-. </p>
<p>Newmassmom and I still can't believe Newmassdaughter has done what she has. So few students get the honor she has, and we wonder, half jokingly, what the selectors saw that we parents don't. :) This especially because she's done what she wants to do in college, not to build a resume but because she has the interests. As a result, she's not that heavy in ECs and so called leadership activities, but it appears others saw around that. </p>
<p>We don't know what her future holds. She has nothing planned this summer (gap summer?), two years starting October at Oxford studying medical anthro and perhaps global health (Green College bound!), then an MD, PhD or both, unless she gets "distracted" in the UK. </p>
<p>Sac, please say hi to Berkeley for me. Spouse and I had our first house (and dog!) living in Rockridge many years ago...fond memories of the coffee shops and cafes along College Avenue.</p>
<p>Daughter graduated cum laude from Tufts with a double major in anthropology and art history. Was accepted into Teach For America and will be relocating to Chicago for her two-year stint, after a five week training institute in Los Angeles. It went by so fast!</p>
<p>D graduated from Bryn Mawr on May 18th (during a torrential rain storm---Good thing our entire family of 10 managed to get seats under the tent:rolleyes:) with a BA in Physics. She is home temporarily, applying for jobs, and hopes to work in the D.C. area. That four years went by in a flash!</p>
<p>Poetsheart,
Haverford had its commencement in the morning of the 18th. The event was held in the quad with the sun coming in and out. We lucked out.</p>
<p>cali--I heard the Teach for America kids make better teachers than "real" teachers! On average, or something.</p>
<p>S graduated from Illinois in CS, has a job with Google, has an apt. in Cgo on the bus line, has a roommate, and pretty much emptied his room at home...</p>
<p>CHECK. :) :) :)</p>
<p>UCLA Band Mom, congrats to your son! And congrats to you, too, for being supportive in attending all the games so you could hear/see him play in the band! :)</p>
<p>Congrats to Flatlander's daughter as well! Terrific that she will be teaching and getting her master's at the same time, and gets fantastic benefits! My son's graduate program covers medical care, but they don't cover dental and he still has to come back to our state for that (as he gets dental coverage through my husband since our son is still a minor in school FT).</p>
<p>Mine is no longer a college senior! Graduated last Friday in a 3 hour ceremony with intermittent rain. Is leaving tomorrow for a month-long vacation with a friend, then starts work (with benefits) in NYC in July. Has his apartment rented, 2 roommates, and is very excited. It seems as if the last 4 years just zoomed by.<br>
Congratulations to all the other parents of graduates!</p>
<p>Congrats also to the children of:</p>
<p>Originaloog (sounds like a great program your son will be attending)
mini (never even heard of a travel budget from a graduate program; I thought it was good that our son is able to piggy-back business travel with trips back home so we only have to pay one-way for some of his visits here)</p>
<p>archermom (our son is in graduate school in Boston/Cambridge and loves it there; I'm sure your child will love it there, too)</p>
<p>Anona (not sure if your son is interested in consulting, but my son had a great time doing that for a year between college and grad school and made good money in little time doing so; for example, one either his very first job as a consultant or close to it, he was assigned a project on a Monday that paid $1200 and did it in 6 hours and just took the rest of that week off to have fun, for example, and that wasn't even his most lucrative deal; he could also pick and choose projects as he wished to work and negotiated double his hourly rate when he was working at two companies simultaneously as he explained that he was eating into time he could be spending getting his next client or whatever, so it really is the way to go for anyone who can do it, if you ask me)</p>
<p>soozievt (my son just earned his MS in Media Technology from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and I was sort of surprised that his diploma doesn't mention that school nor the Media Lab within it; I suspect his doctoral diploma, should he stick around long enough to earn it, will be the same in only mentioning the one field and not the department/school other than MIT itself)</p>
<p>NotReady4Purple (great news all around, so I can see why you'd be happy! Our son is also contemplating applying to Harvard someday, but for the MBA/JD program; he loves Cambridge and I suspect your son will, too, though coming from CA, it's hard to know for sure!)</p>
<p>newmassdad (Oxford should be exciting; our son just arrived to England this morning - Bristol for a conference - and it's his first <em>real</em> trip there rather than just taking a 3-hour bus trip from Dover to London's airport and I'm happy for him to even be getting a few days in England - you must be THRILLED with your child's opportunity at Oxford! And congrats to her for getting into PBK as a junior! Our son's alma mater doesn't allow anyone to join PBK till the day of graduation, in an early AM ceremony, which was a hassle as his PBK induction ceremony was on campus where the graduation ceremony was about 20 minutes away in the city, but he got into Phi Kappa Phi as a junior, which required being in the top 5% of the class rather than top 10%; like you, I am amazed at what our child has done in just a few years...not many 16 year olds have two bachelor's degrees and an M.S. and especially not with doing all the stuff for fun and volunteer work and paid work he's done)</p>
<p>over30 (we saw your son graduate, but just have no idea who he is! Was he one of the 120-some graduates who did a little video thanking their parents, as if that's on the DVD, I can look for him? NYC is such fun and I bet he'd love his first job out of college.)</p>
<p>Maize&Blue (sounds like your daughter has really neat plans! The closest our kid has gotten to the North Pole was far north in Norway; he was at a lab there for both the Midnight Sun and Polar Nights and got fantastic Northern Lights shots during the latter trip)</p>
<p>taxguy (and I graduated Cum Laude just missing Magna by a hair myself, but even had I graduated summa, I don't see where it would have made a difference in my life; it's not like getting the Silver Medal rather than the Gold in the Olympics, or even the Bronze versus the Silver! ;))</p>
<p>ifyjets (our son is also Phi Beta Kappa, as was my mother, and my son wanted my late mother's key, as he never got to meet her since she died when I was 17 and felt it would be nice to have her key since he knew PBK meant a lot to her; if your daughter has a relative with a key they care to pass along, there is a late graduation or send off to Duke idea for you)</p>
<p>avoidingwork (and hey, if you don't remodel, that can improve your odds that your son will live somewhere, so remodel if you want him there and
not if you don't!)</p>
<p>mominva (are you depositing those rent checks into accounts for them to have a deposit on a future condo or other home or being like a real landlord and keeping the money for yourself? If our son ever comes back to live with us, I am a bit torn as to what to do there, though I know I would charge rent as you are doing, and I am suspecting we won't have to really decide what to do as he is bound and determined to, if anything, be buying us a mansion someday rather than moving back in with us)</p>
<p>nngmm (for both kids!)</p>
<p>George2007 (hope she enjoys law school!)</p>
<p>ucsd_ucla-dad (has your daughter considered working for CSC? They seem to have a lot of female programmers/computer scientists there and raise them up into management pretty quickly, too; if she ever decides she wants more females around, which she just might not but I don't know, she might want to consider CSC)</p>
<p>anxiousmom (our son is like your daughter, wanting to do a whole lot of different things; he feels he'll be in one area for no more than 10 years before switching to another area, and one of his mentors seems to tack on businesses in different areas more often than every 10 years, so it is conceivable to have our kids get their wish here, I guess...oh, and are you still an anxiousmom now that your daughter is our of school, or do you worry about her being in Armenia on her own?)</p>
<p>jym626 - yes, your son does sound like a keeper, as do all the kids noted in this thread! Did your son manage to do his presentation remotely from a beach? Our son was asked to participate in a conference in Italy the day he was also to be ending a teen slumber party in MA and he managed to have a limo pick him up from the slumber party house at 9 AM and take him to 3D imaging equipment (so in Italy, he looked like a hologram or something that is claimed to fool at least some in the audience as the speaker using this equipment can point to people who asked questions and such); technology does come in handy at times, but other times, it makes you mix business with pleasure when you'd rather just be relaxing!</p>
<p>kittymom (let us know what film we can see your daughter's costumes in first!)</p>
<p>lizchup (so neat to see kids have their early dreams come true; my son first mentioned getting a Ph.D. when he saw the Media Lab and MIT and that's the program he is in now; he has been contemplating a combined MBA/JD program after the Ph.D. since he was a pre-teen, but I think the odds of that happening are far less than the Ph.D. dream as he wants Harvard ideally and they, as you know from your own son, are very difficult to get admitted into and even if our son pulled that off somehow, they have no merit aid for either their business or their law school plus require 4 years for the combined program rather than three like Northwestern; at least Stanford was your son's first choice, so Harvard did him no harm by waitlisting him)</p>
<p>SherBear (for both kids!)</p>
<p>sac (he can't kill you, BTW - have you ever heard of someone in PBK commiting patricide or matricide? ;])</p>
<p>binx (what instrument does your S2 play? My dad was accepted into Julliard, but went the route of physics for a profession instead of violin and he's the only one who ever applied to that school from my family)</p>
<p>MomZ (was D1 at UMD for 3 years or in college for 3 years, as a double degree in 3 years might be a record!? And congrats on the marriage - now THAT is really exciting, at least for a romantic like myself!)</p>
<p>peariceparent (hope your son enjoys the analyst job! My mother was a mathematician, so I understand math geeks a bit)</p>
<p>lindz0722 (I missed being in PBK myself as I felt I had taken enough foreign language in junior high and high school, but bow down to those who take another language in college, and great that you got a major in one even!)</p>
<p>ticklemepink (the poor period will be over before you know it, don't worry)</p>
<p>curiouser (and it does sort of blow how the math/science doctoral programs usually having funding where the other fields often require loans)</p>
<p>laxmom (being a professional student isn't the worst thing a person could be - I do nothing but whatever I want all day, and trust me, if my mom were alive, she'd rather I had stayed a professional student!)</p>
<p>dadofsam (our son has also surprised his parents when it comes to education; neither of us went to a top ranked school and my husband stopped with one BS and I stopped with one bachelor's and one master's while our son now has two BS degrees and an MS from a top school; the nerve of some kids, showing up their parents like they are! ;])</p>
<p>Shellfell (our son is at the Physics and Media Lab at the Media Lab with a physicist faculty advisor who also had him start in his lab in June rather than fall, so I wonder if MIT physicists bring in people the summer before the typical fall start more often that other fields; where will your son be living while at MIT? Our son has really enjoyed living in graduate housing there, though he is considering applying for a GRT position in a year)</p>
<p>brigid (do you also have children?)</p>
<p>1sokkermom (if it makes you feel any better, MIT's graduation had rain, too, especially during the time guests waited for the graduates to enter Killian Court; I could have had the name Soakkermom...oh, and July 4 is a perfect day to be commissioned! And I can relate to being scared over a child's choice - our son moved away at age 14 to live in a dorm...that could be a horror show plot for some)</p>
<p>CLdad (I might run into your daughter; we are in a happy hour group comprised mostly of 20-something Census Bureau workers)</p>
<p>isacc (it's always so nice to hear of people who are pleased with choices made!)</p>
<p>interesteddad (when I read the first CHECK, I thought you were making a note to check on what the minor in a third thing was and thought, "Interesting, someone is using the thread as a reminder list place!" ;] Then I thought you were going to a MasterCard priceless sort of theme, but as for your last question...dare I suggest "Grandkids"?! :o ;})</p>
<p>grasslands (wow, are there a lot of PBK stories here!)</p>
<p>LongPrime (I bet he will get a ride; he seems like a thumbs up sort of kid!)</p>
<p>TheDad (the Bridesmaid Zone was fun for me and I hope it is for your daughter, too; by the time I was 25, I had been in so many wedding parties, the friend I was matron of honor for said, "You are my only attendee as I'm not going to ask any of my sisters or other friends, so why don't you just pick which bridesmaid's dress you already own that you like best and we'll use that color for the flowers and such" - I hope your daughter has as nice of brides so she can at least double dip on the dress once or more! I have to rent 27 Dresses as I missed it in the theaters!)</p>
<p>patient (IMpatient would be a neat name in that it could also mean you are patient when IMing people! But seriously, outstanding job your son has done, standing in a baseball field and otherwise!)</p>
<p>calmom (at least you have an <em>extra</em> car rather than being one short, like many families with college graduates these says, I think)</p>
<p>cali (Teach for America scares me a bit after reading some story years ago on a guy being sued after being hit by a student on the job while working for Teach for America, but odds are your daughter will be fine and I wish her the best!)</p>
<p>poetsheart (MIT had no tent even for graduates, but at least they provided guests and graduates alike with ponchos, though our son refused to take one as he had read the weather radar before leaving to line up in the gym at 7:30 AM and felt the rain would let up by the time they had to walk to Killian Court at 9:30 AM, and once again, he was correct...rain stopped almost exactly as they walked to the graduation)</p>
<p>archermom - you stole our rain free day...shame, shame, shame on you! ;)</p>
<p>mommusic (Check on your not having to write out checks for the kid!)</p>
<p>And congrats and good luck in finding work and/or a place of their own to the children of:</p>
<p>shennie (has your son heard anything on the job front in the past few months, as I realize I am responding to something dated 4/21?)</p>
<p>ellernenope and rondafaye - have either of your children considered working for the Army Research Lab in MD? Our son interviewed with them in 2005 and they created a special job position for him to be able to work there for just one year between college and grad school and showed him the robotics room he'd have and the office with computer equipment he'd have and promised to pay for his Ph.D. (I suspect they would have also wanted several years of service after earning it rather than that being a perk for a mere year there, but we never found out as they learned he was only 13 and had to retract the job offer due to liability and confidentiality issues, though this was good as our son wasn't going to take the job due to it being far away anyway)...he felt the job would have been a really neat one, and I suspect they might be open to a physics grad so long as she can program, which I am guessing both of your children can (or in rondafaye's case, will once he finishes at American U, which is actually where my mother got her graduate degree in math decades ago). And rodafaye, I've had next to know idea what our son has done in getting his MS and will have even less idea on what he'll do now working toward the Ph.D., so I am nodding right along with you here!</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4 (are you both enjoying the living arrangement or are you hoping she gets a place of her own soon?)</p>
<p>icesk8mom (let us know when we can see your daughter on TV!)</p>
<p>manny1 and sybbie719 (if your daughters start law school in fall of 2010, there is a highly improbable chance that one of them or both and our son could be in the same class, depending on where your daughter applies and if our son applies at all let alone finishes his Ph.D. by 2010, which is extremely unlikely but his goal, or gets accepted anywhere)</p>
<p>anitlaw (I do think internships while in college are an excellent idea; I've heard colleges in India require them - at least in science - before they can graduate and this that is smart of those schools; I doubt being fully funded for his college degree hurt him any, though!)</p>
<p>mom0809 and arizonamom (my son had a "gap year" between college and graduate school by plan and it worked out well; hopefully, your son's gap year will also be fun and helpful to him)</p>
<p>LazyBum:</p>
<p>What a great list you made. It looks like someone's not a lazy bum!</p>
<p>My D hadn't considered CSC and has been fortunate to end up in a position where she should be able to grow quite a bit in the next couple of years but I wouldn't be surprised to see her checking for new opportunities after she has more experience under her belt. I'll let her know about CSC. Thanks for the tip.</p>
<p>LazyBum:</p>
<p>S will be at the Plasma and Fusion Lab at MIT starting in July. For his summer sublet he'll be living in Sidney-Pacific; for the school year in Tang. He didn't want to deal with finding off-campus housing & won't have a car (at least for now). Good to hear that your son has liked grad housing. What's GRT?</p>
<p>Ha, I am lazy about all the wrong things! We're throwing a graduation party here next week and the house looks like the storm we had last night went right through the house.</p>
<p>Hmm...wonder if I can convince people that's what happened and not bother to clean...just say "You should have seen what this place looked like the day after the storm!" ;)</p>
<p>CSC is good in promoting good people fairly quickly, but she will peak there in time if she doesn't want to go into management (as is the case for many jobs) and the benefits are not anything to write home about (other than maybe to ask for help saving for retirement as the place only gives a match of up to 1.5% of salary toward the 401K and the funds they have in the 401K are not, shall we say, "Vanguard tier"! All the same, my husband has been there for over 20 years and likes the work and if your daughter ever wants her resume put in by someone who's been there awhile, feel free to PM (though I can't be sure I'll see the message as I could be so lazy as to leave CC at any time). Good luck to your daughter again!</p>
<p>
[quote]
UCLA Band Mom, congrats to your son! And congrats to you, too, for being supportive in attending all the games so you could hear/see him play in the band!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Lazybum, thank you so much!</p>
<p>He graduates this Saturday. I bought his old UCLA Band Uniform for him for a graduation present. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he opens it up. :)</p>
<p>SP has Sunday brunches with Ashdown (our son's dorm), so maybe our son will happen to meet your son over the summer (though not till August as he'll be out of town Sundays till then with the exception of July 4th weekend). Tang has a great view of Boston, especially on the top level party room...so few people seem to use that space to hang out without a function going on there and it's a shame...hope your son takes the elevator to the top and enjoys the view while studying or whatever at least some of his stay at Tang.</p>
<p>GRT stands for Graduate Resident Tutor and is what most universities call an RA (but at MIT, RA is only used to mean research assistant, I think). It's not as sweet a job as my niece has at her state U in that MIT doesn't include board along with room rent as compensation, but they include free rent and I think maybe a small stipend in addition (and I am thinking my niece gets no stipend, but a free meal plan is likely worth more). They seem to be hard to get at MIT as one of our son's roommates come fall tried to get one but never got passed the interview phase. And our son will likely have an especially hard time getting one as he would be only just turned 18 at the time he would be applying to start (not even applying and interviewing, as he'd be 17 then, but actually moving in as a GRT) and also perhaps hoping to only have a year to finish (they prefer to hire people confident that they can be at the GRT for at least two years). But as usual, our son likes to dream. For your son, it's a more realistic possibility if he wants to consider it.</p>
<p>Excellent gift, Band Mom! We are giving our son the Grat Rat as his big graduation gift (like MIT's Brass Rat, but for the grad students), but he knows it's been ordered as I wasn't sure what size to order, whether he wanted the master's degree on it or the doctorate (since he's earned one but has yet to earn the other), what year to put on it, antique versus natural, and on and on). I doubt it will even get here in time for his parties (he's got too many people wanting to help celebrate to do just one party like we did for the college graduation, so we are having two parties this time; for his Ph.D., if he earns that someday, we might have to have three as he wants one in MA for all his MA friends to be able to come, too), so we'll likely be giving him an empty box for it to be stored in (as that they could give us when we ordered). Meanwhile, I gave him a puzzle game and "The Last Lecture" (the author graduated from our neighborhood high school) on graduation day and we have some other gifts for him for the parties (like a book on how to stay immature that I confess I am reading myself first and adoring!).</p>
<p>For the Ph.D., I am pretty sure I already know what his gift from us will be - the doctoral gown and cap. He saw how those who rented had rather typical all black gowns and motor boards and he is thinking he might someday want to teach (likely PT rather than FT) and would be a professor who would actually want to attend things like commencement and convocation ceremonies to show support for his past and future students and so wants the colors of the university and the 8-cornered hat. I'm not sure what buying that outfit costs, but I imagine it's a pretty penny (or a lot of pennies, pretty or ugly). I'm not sure why they don't let students rent the fancier outfit, but suspect it's just to force more people to buy it if they want to look more the role for graduation or something.</p>
<p>Enjoy the graduation on Saturday! I'll be out in the heat working an information booth at an arts festival. I work at times, but only volunteer as I simply must keep my bum status (it means a lot to me, terrible and odd that this might be). I'm guessing you will have the more exciting day!</p>