<p>VAMom - Yes, I stressed about last night and shouldn’t have, there was all manner of dress there…from jerseyshore fist pumping types with the backwards baseball cap and ripped jeans to the suit and tie. I suppose meeting congressmen/college pres. would be business-casual to be safe.</p>
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<p>VAMom2015 ~ Hahaha, you are cracking me up! Good for S about the job offer though!</p>
<p>Concerning what to wear, IMO, if you don’t have business wear, you can always wear a simple dress with nice shoes. Or, if you have time and money available, since you are in the DC area, you can just go shopping for the occasion(s), and you might use the new clothes in the near future.</p>
<p>Good luck with the final decision to all sons and daughters.
My D is set for UPenn Preview Day. All tickets are bought. Her school nominated her for Robert Byrd scholarship last week.</p>
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<p>Amanda - you made me laugh. We went to a reception this past weekend and since we had other plans after, took 12 yr old S with us. His comment on seeing that there was no food - " figures, I get to go to the one reception with no food!". He was not a happy camper!</p>
<p>Pepper - hear you loud and clear. I think it is normal for them to be scared of making the decision - but we need to make them understand that there is no harm, even if it turns out to be the wrong choice. We won’t know in advance, no guarantees - we make the best decision, given the factors we know now, at this point in time.</p>
<p>We talked about moving D to a private school for sophomore year. She applied and was accepted at two prestigious boarding schools nearby. Again, decision time was the month of April. She went to the admitted student days, no decision. During the last few days of the month, she was in NY on a trip. Last day, H was going to drive down to the chosen school and drop off the forms/deposit. She called from NY - " Dad, please don’t do it - I don’t want to go there! I am going to stay at my public school". She did make the right choice in the end - but I am hoping it doesn’t come down to a similar scenario this time around!</p>
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now I have tears in my eyes. I am excited to see S mature and take the next steps, but hard to believe it will never be the same.</p>
<p>Good news here. D and I had a chance to sit down and bring a little logic into the “whittle down” process. She’s pared her shortlist down to 5 (HYPSM), and agrees that the final decision will be completely a matter of 1) cost and 2) fit. No peer pressure from friends or moms allowed! She’ll be visiting two for the first time at the end of this week. One she will re-visit next week and another she will visit for the first time at the end of the month. Since her last visit will literally end on judgment day (May 1), it looks like we are in for the long haul.</p>
<p>If today were the deadline, her choice would be… Princeton! But, we’ll see how long that holds up.</p>
<p>AK -wow! Carnegie Hall is Carnegie Hall whether you are standing at the entrance or on the big stage. Break a leg.</p>
<p>VAMom – Having worked in politics, let me tell you that if your boy is as bright and ‘together’ as he seems, he’ll soon find himself doing a lot more than door-knocking. Getting the youth vote out is vital and they need sharp young people to reach them. I started as a phone-bank volunteer and within 2 wks was a coordinator and within a month or so was hired as an office manager doing everything from writing promo pieces to speeches to…well, everything. Political campaigns need folks who will pitch in, bring intelligence to every job, and those people are rewarded. This is true no matter which ‘side’ you are on. </p>
<p>OWM – Prom! I hoping Mother Nature gives the kids a break. Take lots of pictures – they probably won’t look this good again until they get married. </p>
<p>AK – Carnegie Hall? That’s amazing. And it may not go on his transcript for college…but there’s always grad school. </p>
<p>Poor UMiami. Budget cuts suck. The ‘perks’ are vanishing like dreams upon waking. But you figure they could afford to bring a box of bumper stickers and another one of pens.</p>
<p>Son knew two guys attending the same OOS flagship. Son asked Church Guy if he knew Scout Guy. No, they’d never met. Later, Church Guy told Son that yes, he knew who Scot Guy was because he had become notorious in the freshman dorms. </p>
<p>Here is why: Two rooms shared a bathroom, so they had a rotating schedule where one guy would clean the bathroom each week. Scout Guy came home after a night of heavy drinking, and got sick all over the bathroom floor. The other guys woke up to this mess. Scout Guy’s response: “It wasn’t my week to clean the bathroom.”</p>
<p>Amanda - once again, LOL! and Carnage Hall to boot!</p>
<p>Hey - How to I join the shutterfly thread?</p>
<p>“I had two that would not allow me to submit them without indicating where he chose.”</p>
<p>We have the same problem. I would like to decline the remaining schools to let others off of the waiting list, and since most of them have nice scholarships attached, we are hoping that someone else will get that money.</p>
<p>However, D has decided to wait until we can provide an honest answer about what school she chooses. When I suggested we just put the name of any college, D said “Mom! They use that information for recruiting purposes! We can’t lie. What if they do a search?” :0 A search? Anyway, it’s her decision.</p>
<p>AK, Carnegie Hall? Wow! That’s what I would definitely call the Big Time.</p>
<p>Carnegie Hall - WOW! Fantastic accomplishment. </p>
<p>Pepper - sounds like it’s a very stressful time in your house but it has to eventually get better!</p>
<p>Boychild can’t wait to leave. He’s been ready since last fall and we’ve been ready for him to go. Maybe because we sent him off to camp for the whole summer starting when he was 7 we are use to the idea of him being away for long stretches of time.</p>
<p>Prom is Saturday night.</p>
<p>Missypie - that story made me laugh out loud. Definitely sharing that with D tonight!</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone on all the awesome news flying around today!</p>
<p>I’m loving hearing about not only the final decisions, but the roads leading to them, be they short or long and winding. Williamette is getting a lot of love from our thread.</p>
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<p>Yes indeedy. Talk among D1’s classmates and friends has switched from where people got in to where they can afford to go. It’s really rattled D1, because for the first time she’s realizing exactly how much we’re going to be paying a year. Back when she applied ED, we talked repeatedly about how if she pursued merit money options she’d have savings to use towards grad school. Now here we are in April, and she’s asking about how people pay for grad school, thinking that maybe she should major in a science to keep grad school costs down, asking what’s a reasonable amount of debt, etc etc etc. Part of me is thinking that we should have put our feet down, not allowed the ED option, and then allowed her to make the choice between favorite school and merit aid now when people are not just fixated on admissions. But who’s to say that she would’ve chosen differently? </p>
<p>The silver lining is that she’ll take the opportunities she’s been given seriously, and she’ll practice living on a frugal scale during undergrad. We talked about summer jobs and employment, and the pros and cons of taking a hot internship when it doesn’t pay much versus living at home and working at the local coffee house. </p>
<p>In the “what is that kid thinking?” department, a classmate was admitted to a tippy-top LAC and a top 20 university. Yet the poor kid is fixating on appealing their rejections from two single-initial schools. Not pleading their case from the waitlist, appealing from a rejection. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>coolweather: I went to Penn Previews with my D1 a few years ago. They do a nice job, and they do provide food and Penn goodies. My daughter loves Penn. You can PM me if you have any questions.</p>
<p>The U Miami reception does sound pretty chintzy, Amanda.</p>
<p>I was just thinking about the local BU reception my daugher and I went to a year ago. She also got her driver’s license and took the ACT that week. A lot of happend since last April.</p>
<p>Emilybee: Thanks for the honesty. My daughter has been ready to leave for about a year also. She went to camp for many years and is not afraid of communal bathrooms.</p>
<p>Budget cuts? UMiami is private btw and with the $55.5K COA that goes up 6-7% per yr, you would think they could afford a coffee urn!!! </p>
<p>In terms of ds leaving, we broke it to him how dd1 will be taking over his room which he can have back on breaks of course. During the school yr though, the marching band posters will be replaced by korean-boy-bands. I am cruel aren’t I? Dd1 has been sharing a room with dd2 who snores soooooo much so it is really not fair to leave his space as a shrine.</p>
<p>We haven’t mailed any decline cards either. D wants to be 100% sure (as much as that’s possible) and will wait until after Friday’s admitted students day. She did, however, write down Willamette as her school when she sent in a scholarship award form. :)</p>
<p>As to what to wear for admitted students events - fortunately for me, Oregon is VERY casual. I’m thinking khaki pants and a light sweater.</p>
<p>Collegemaw - hope the boat docks soon and you can join Seattle_Mom and me and our girls at Willamette. </p>
<p>Good luck to all of you still on the waters… May 1 will be here before you know it, and you’ll be on the other side.</p>
<p>I don’t think D has even thought about declining schools to which she was accepted but will not attend. She probably thinks that this will somehow magically happen or they’ll figure it out when she does not send a deposit by the 1st. She just has her dad or me clear our server of all the “stalking” emails as she calls them and snail mail goes directly in the trash. I would let the other schools know, but can’t because of “what if” scenarios. </p>
<p>I have to note that Hampshire got it right when it came to my D. Other schools sent cute little notes, a light back pack, bumper sticker, etc. Hampshire sent D a big black and white cartoon poster of campus, which she has spent the last week coloring in as part of her destressing in the evenings. Coloring at 17, who da thunk? But it makes her happy so there you go.</p>
<p>Regarding the give-aways at the schools…when my oldest son went to visit a college during his senior year, they gave each student attending their “senior day” a ticket to be used in the bookstore for a free t-shirt. He didn’t want it. We were headed home when my husband called to ask how it had gone. I told him, “Nope, he won’t be going there. He wouldn’t even take the free t-shirt they were offering.” Imagine our surprise when that’s the school he ended up choosing. And, ironically, when home on break recently, he asked his brother where he had gotten a t-shirt from that college. S2 said, they gave free t-shirts when I visited on “senior day”. S1 said, "Hey! Why didn’t I get one of those? " Uhhh…well, you wouldn’t take it when they offered it.</p>
<p>S2 has amassed quite a collection of free shirts and water bottles from his recent visits. He doesn’t turn anything away! Just hoping that he’ll be willing to wear (or use) the stuff if it’s not from the college he’s attending. </p>
<p>Amanda: Cheap, cheap, cheap! They could have at least given you a cup of coffee and a pen!</p>