<p>fogfog, I seem to recall reading about how responding to those mailers just gets you into some marketing database. I agree it doesn’t sound worth worrying about.</p>
<p>D1 doesn’t check off the ‘send my name to schools’ box, so she gets almost no college snail mail unless she’s directly contacted the school herself. Our mail carrier owes her a big thank-you. :)</p>
<p>RE: Junk Mail</p>
<p>If you look at the return addresses for some of the “reply by mail” cards/envelopes, you’ll see that there are 2 or 3 common addresses (I don’t recall them now) - just with different PO box #'s. These are marketing companies working with the schools.</p>
<p>Other cards/envelopes are returned to the actual school.</p>
<p>So…many of these “priority” numbers are marketing information to determine which mailing had the most “hits”…and the response site just stays up for a limited time after the snail mail is sent.</p>
<p>^^^ ah ha, got it…that explains the old links–our student let piles of this stuff sit aropund and when we finally combed through it–it got dumped…
The return address on the outer envelope was the school…the inner envelope was 2 states away!</p>
<p>Now I sift this junk and through out most of it–and keep only if its in the top 15-20 schools under consideration…no use keeping stuff around from schools not on the radar…</p>
<p>I’m not even sorting through that college junk mail anymore. It all goes straight into the recycling bin! Whenever LuckyBoy mentions a school of potential interest, he/I goes/go onto the website and requests more information. We’ve gotten the better mailings that way.</p>
<p>If LuckyGirl '13 gets to the mail before me, she does open all the college junk mail. Her list now includes Swarthmore and Dartmouth because she likes the words :D</p>
<p>It’s from a Direct Marketing company that specializes in these types of mailings. Frustrating thing for us is that they have the major code totally wrong based upon what S put down for PSAT and he is getting mail from art schools or from art programs at schools he might consider. For some of the schools he really likes he is plugging in the code and fixing the major, otherwise we are trashing them.</p>
<p>Summer plans are now complete for D2, today she was offered the 8-week full time internship that she’d hoped for. Thank goodness she’ll have a busy and hopefully productive summer with mom totally uninvolved! So much more fun for both of us compared to last summer when SAT prep was the main activity.</p>
<p>^^Cool beans! Is it local?</p>
<p>Entomom, I’m happy for both of you! That SAT prep was certainly worthwhile though. I’m hoping my son finally starts feeling inspired to do some of that. Or does it, despite a lack of inspiration.</p>
<p>Congratulation entomom!</p>
<p>DS applied for an internship as well, but did not receive a decision yet. Until then we cant plan our summer.</p>
<p>entomom, congratulations on your D’s internship. </p>
<p>My S is still waiting to hear back from a summer camp about employment. I told him if he doesn’t hear back he has a job today that he is to call an acquaintance and ask about an outside yard maintenance job at some apartment complexes she manages. I hope for his sake he gets the camp job but maybe a few weeks of hard work will do him good.</p>
<p>We have an overflowing grocery bag full of the snail mail S has received from colleges. I keep thinking if might be worthwhile to read it at some point, maybe there is a gem in there we never considered, but just haven’t found the time.</p>
<p>S is on vacation next week and will be using the time to do SAT prep and maybe take a practice ACT test. He is also starting driving lessons. He has had his permit since Jan and has had lots of practice with us, but needs to get 18 hours (or is it 20?) of driving time time in with an instructor to take the test for his license.</p>
<p>keylimepie, we are in the same situation, summer plans on hold til we find out what S’s job outlook is. If he doesn’t get an outside job, we may hire him for a few weeks to watch his younger sister instead of sending her to camp. I would also like to make plans this summer to visit colleges we haven’t seen yet.</p>
<p>I’ve heard two or three people on this thread mention week long breaks from school. How is that possible? The only time our schools let out for a whole week is during Christmas and their last day of school is June 21.</p>
<p>In the northeast, (maybe it is a new england thing??) it is common for most schools to have one week vacation both in Feb and in April. Some privates take 2 weeks off in March instead. My S’s school starts after labor day and finishes first week of June. Most schools also get about 7 to 10 school days off at xmas.</p>
<p>Just caught up on the last few days of posts. We are renovating our house thus things are crazy here. We have no kitchen and there are workers all over.</p>
<p>LORs - My S’s Calc teacher just wrote him an amazing LOR for Steven’s ECOES summer program. Only problem - in the last para he said my S would be a great candidate for the RSI program. OOPS! The LOR has already been sent. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Other summer plans - Assume 2 week ECOES program will work out. S also has 2 week IB Extended Essay Class and (finally) a 2 week paid job at a local computer camp he went to for years. Rest of the time - practice driving, filling out apps, drafting essays.</p>
<p>entomom - Congrats on D2’s amazing internship!! Woo hoo</p>
<p>Thoughts re: inflexible coaches - You might consider meeting with the school administrators after your children graduate to help the students who follow yours. Perhaps an anonymous factual letters to the principal. Petitions from the students and parents getting everyone to sign? How about a face-to-face meeting at the beginning of a play, for example, where a few students, a few parents and the teachers involved mutually agree on the rules?</p>
<p>Gotta go and throw out all the college ‘junk mail’ I was saving JIC. I think I’ll stick to requesting info from the source. Thanks.</p>
<p>Whoa - a week off in February and in April? That’s not fair. 
And you are done a full two weeks before us! Do your schools not have 180 school days? </p>
<p>The school where my daughter teaches has longer breaks then us also, but she’s not done until June 28. </p>
<p>My college son, on the third hand, starts right after labor day and he will graduate May 1!</p>
<p>Crazy, eh?</p>
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<p>Public schools must go 180 days in MA. My kids are in private so they don’t have to meet the 180 day requirement, but publics get the Feb and April vaca also and i am pretty sure they do not go to the end of June (unless there are a lot of snow days).</p>
<p>In South Florida, we have 180 school days. We start mid-August (all schools have A/C) and end the first week of June. We generally have 7 to 11 days off for Winter Break, 6 for Spring Break, 3 for Thanksgiving, 2 in Sept/Oct for Jewish holidays unless they fall on the weekends, 5 full teacher workdays, 8 half teacher workdays, and 4 other single days such as Labor Day etc. Eight of these days are identified in advance to be make-up days in case of a hurr__ane (I’m superstitious and I won’t say or spell that word until the season is over on November 30.) or other school closing. </p>
<p>By law, school cannot start any earlier than two weeks before Labor Day altho for the past two years it has by a day or two (rules are made to be overturned I guess). Finals are given before Winter Break.</p>
<p>These decisions are made county by county so if you are a teacher in one county and your kids go to school in a neighboring county, you could (and frequently do) have different calendars.</p>
<p>Public schools in MA do have to go 180 days. We started just before labor day and thanks to the non-snow winter, will get out on June 17th. Usually, they budget for about six snow days and the last day is around June 25th.</p>
<p>And yes, we get two weeks off - one in Feb and the other in April.</p>
<p>Our school has 180 school days and we get a week long spring break and about 2 weeks for the winter break. The school year starts around August 25th and is over around June 10th. No break in February .</p>
<p>My boys are in private, both on completely different calendars. Being 4 years apart we’ve had different spring breaks for the past 3 years. S2 last day is May 28th (will start Aug 12th in the fall), S1 is June 3 (starts Aug 23rd). </p>
<p>S1 will have an amazing summer. I’m quite jealous. A week after school is out he will be in Italy for 2 weeks. We will squeeze in a college road trip in afterwards. July is filled with family visiting. He’ll be running practices for his soccer team, as the captain. He will attend soccer camp for a week. We will take a family vacation at the end of the month. He will leave a few days upon our return for Holland. He will be traveling with his soccer team, attending a soccer camp and playing local club teams in Holland & Germany for 2 weeks. He’ll be thrown into pre-season as soon as he gets back and Senior year begins a week later. No time for a job this summer. </p>
<p>Yes, S1 is ready for the next 6 weeks to be done and I think as parents, we are ready for it to be over with as well. We have college fairs this weekend, jazz band competition and Prom next week. Then the push for AP exams and finals.</p>