<p>Missypie - Big hugs to you today. Take lots of pictures but don’t forget to put the camera down and live the moment. So often we forget to do that.</p>
<p>Missypie: Those lasts are tough. Take some tissues.</p>
<p>Puma: If your son is happy with his choice, I wouldn’t push him to visit the far away school. A wise woman once told me that when her daughter couldn’t decide between schools she had her pick the cheaper, closer school. You’ll be happy with the choice next year when you get to see him more often. </p>
<p>I’m so glad I keep up with this thread. It’s very educational in terms of college name pronunciation. I’m still working on Willamette.</p>
<p>Three teens in the house here…
last night DS remarked that today is the last time he’ll be doing a certain assignment in school EVER…it finally hit me that this chapter is quickly coming to a close…and then there were waterworks.</p>
<p>oh, and I would probably read the rec letter. What are the chances that it’s anything but glowing (else, why would this teacher have been selected, right?) My bet is that they put it in a sealed envelope because some schools make that request and not because they were worried that you or S would read it. But that’s just MHO.</p>
<p>I think teachers and schools give out the reference letters in sealed envelopes so that you can give them to colleges or use them for potential jobs. The sealing indicates that they were done in confidence. However, if you won’t need that letter for anything else, then I would read it. I got a transcript from a college where my son took a class and I asked her to seal it and then she stamped it across the seal. When I gave it to the guidance department at the HS, she said that was a good thing to do because they could send it on to the colleges as an official transcript.</p>
<p>Advice #2 - I would encourage a visit to the far away college unless you really do know a lot more about it then what the viewbook says. I can think of two colleges right off that sounded really good on paper and that other people liked, but when we visited both my son and I both said - OH, NO!</p>
<p>Ohiomom:
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<p>Tax Day babies? (Well, technically not this year, but usually). I got to pick the day to be induced and I thought that would be easy to remember. Plus it was the day that the doctor I wanted to do the delivery was on call. Not a luxury you usually get in a military hospital.</p>
<p>April 15 is also the day the Titanic sank and the day that Abraham Lincoln died. We have hosted a Tax Day birthday party (every got a “return” of play money and used it to play games) and a Titanic birthday party (pin the boat on the iceberg, make oceans in a bottle.) We stopped short at the Ford’s Theater reenactment.</p>
<p>OWM–great party ideas. Yes Ford’s theatre not so much. But if you ever visited the theatre it would be a great birthday. They do plays there and also have a nice museum in the basement.</p>
<p>I choose 2015 in my name for two reasons. DS1 will (hopefully) graduate college that year and DS2 will (hopefully) graduate HS that year! DS2 is already telling us he wants to go away for college, although that may not be realistic for him. We’ll see!</p>
<p>At a college visit. Students have the run of the place, and parents wander around aimlessly. Well, not really, but parents are limited much more than students. I hope DS is getting a good feel for the place!</p>
<p>I’m off to more panel discussions.</p>
<p>Puma- I think I would not make my kid go visit. If your S is happy, and not likely to go the coulda woulda shoulda route, then good enough. Don’t want to complicate it (unless the other place has something better going for it like significant $$ or?).</p>
<p>I don’t think I would read the rec- the teacher gave it in the idea of it being confidential so I would respect that. Besides, with my D, there is no telling what could be in there if it was the GC. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>For those of you that have kids visiting Boston - today is opening day at Fenway Park - Red Sox vs the Yankees…the entire city will be buzzing this afternoon, nobody will actually be working or in class. Every bar will be full by 1:30 this afternoon and every TV will be on. This is a big cultural deal in Boston - Red Sox Nation (even though they aren’t playing well) is like a cult…it touches everyone in the region even if you aren’t sports fans. It is a definitely a Boston ( including Cambridge) thing.</p>
<p>And our heatwave is continuing - 50 balmy degrees and sunny!</p>
<p>It occured to me as I was reading the thread this AM that we are all going to be experiencing “lasts”…I will be thinking of Missypie today and everyone else that will be experiencing lasts this weekend.</p>
<p>Thanks for the laugh, OWM. I’m still chuckling.</p>
<p>missypie - I’m right with you. The last time D will sing with her HS is AT graduation, and it’s expected to be a song she arranged for them (if they ever get focused on rehearsing it!). So we’re going to the very, very end - it’s going to be intense.</p>
<p>A week after graduating she’ll be performing in a play with community group out of town, so she truly will “move on.”</p>
<p>She says she’s doing OK with her decision - no visits, just thinking, reading, talking, looking at her gut. But it’s a hard one, a choice between two parallel paths that are a win-win situation. It is hard to help these guys when it’s such a subjective choice.</p>
<p>As for not visiting and staying close to home - I’d say that boy sounds like a kid who is in good touch with his gut and is going with it. He can always go live on the other side for grad school, or just to live. </p>
<p>I think with the location decision, you want to make sure you’re not miserable, but those places will always be there for you to enjoy (and as a working person you have a lot more money to enjoy them with), so the school/program itself becomes a bit more important.</p>
<p>OWM: Tax day babies! We thought it was kind of fitting in our case since my husband and I are both accountants. We’ve never done the tax day birthday parties…maybe this year! (though technically it doesn’t work.)</p>
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<p>fwiw, I think he should visit. Many schools look really similar on paper…and there are things you, see, feel, smell, experience on a campus visit…Over the last several years, there have been schools we thought would be a fit, and when we got on campus, kiddo didn’t like them at all…I realize there is the expense of the visit, yet if you’re down to 2, I’d say do the visit and be sure.</p>
<p>I’m going to try to stuff the ballot box in favor of your son visiting, puma12. You just don’t know until you’ve been there. My kids have had the experience of finding out through visits that schools which seemed similar on paper had very different feels.</p>
<p>**The SS Indecision left port on April 1st.</p>
<p>The ship will stop in many ports this month with the last port call scheduled in 23 days when all final commitments to schools are due. (Or nautically speaking, it’s time to sink or swim.)**</p>
<p>If my kid didn’t want to go I wouldn’t make him. </p>
<p>Missy, enjoy this last!</p>
<p>Emmybet, tell your daughter I’m getting lonely on the Drumroll list! ;)</p>
<p>puma, I have to say I side with your son and husband. At this point it is a gut thing, and if you’re son isn’t anxious about it, and he’s ready to embrace his decision, let him make it the way he wants. </p>
<p>We’ve been ticking off the “lasts,” too, and since this is our younger D, some of them are our lasts ever. We just attended what will likely be our last high school play (unless, god willing, someday we have a thespian grandchild). Last mother-daughter luncheon. Last Kairos ceremony (both girls were retreat leaders, so we’ve gone to 4). And on it goes, until the last graduation. I’ve gone to every one for 10 years, starting with the oldest daughter of a friend, and continuing because of friends graduating, having to drive my Ds there when they were younger, volunteering as an usher, etc. We don’t have any close friends in the younger grades, so this one will likely be my last… unless, again, someday I get a granddaughter who ends up in the same school. But let’s not get that old too quickly!</p>
<p>Good Morning all! I’m joining the Boston posters with a sigh of relief and a breath of thanks for a day of sunshine today - Oregoinianmom and Seattle_mom might be able to do their visit without an umbrella after all (but I’d bring it just in case).</p>
<p>Thanks for all the weigh-ins on my visit question. I feel much better about being conflicted - ha! Since the responses here are too :)</p>
<p>Missypie - great advice above about “living the moment”! I keep telling myself all of this is as it should be, but there have been an awful lot of ‘poignant moments’ lately. Enjoy the dance!</p>
<p>Today S is likely to hear about a small local scholarship - but he has alot of ego tied up in the application process. It’s interesting to watch these things go on. For him it hasn’t been about dollar figures, but the process of writing, interviewing, job-shadowing, presenting, etc for these competitions. He has grown so much.</p>
<p>I’m leaning toward allowing him to not visit the far away school, but we aren’t doing the happy dance until he returns from his last interview/visit at the place that is now his first choice. I predict landfall for SS Indecision around April 21st</p>
<p>“Should we push hard for him to complete the visit or should we allow him to eliminate the school without seeing it?”</p>
<p>If he really does not want to go then don’t force him. But, I would strongly recommend that he visit. It really is different when you actually walk onto a campus, see the other kids, see how the other kids interact with one another, go into a classroom, etc. As the mother of a kid who will make 3 cross-country and one cross-state trips in the next 3 weeks (aargh!), I’d say he should be happy he only has one trip to take before his decision becomes clear.</p>
<p>Emily - I’m trying, I really am. I hate seeing your lonely little “e” on the list. But somehow I don’t think this would be much of an incentive for my D …</p>
<p>Congratulations to all who have made their decisions and are happily looking forward to what the next year brings.<br>
My D2 will attend 3 accepted students events before deciding, the last one on the 22nd, so we won’t be on the drumroll list any time soon. I’m so happy though that she gets to travel on her own and visit these schools and meet more people. She’s really excited about these 3 adventures.</p>