<p>We had a few “by the ways” also this week. I finally asked last night if there was anything else coming up that she needed me to write a check for because I hate scrambling at 6:15am when I’m incoherent :)</p>
<p>LOL, RobD. I hear ya about 6:15. It seems even more cruel lately as 6:15 = pitch dark. Yesterday a.m. I must have been more disheveled than most mornings – my S looked at me sympathetically and said “Mom, you don’t have to get up with me every morning.”</p>
<p>I have to wholeheartedly agree with the “three team nonsense” remark about my kid. I thought it was just plain stupid when she started this. My D will never play college level soccer or fh. She is just a decent athelete. I could not really figure out the drive to do so much and was absolutely certain she would be overextended. I would have sneered at any parent who told me their kid was doing this and was quietly ashamed…was I pushing? what kind of parent lets their kid practice 4 hours a day for something that is just for fun? Well…I figured it out watching her this season. She loves being part of a team and she has different roles on the three teams. On the house soccer she is with girls she has played with since age 7 and some go to different high schools so the emphasis is on spending time with them. The travel soccer is more about being good at soccer, improving as a team and she really enjoys the higher level of competition but it is still second or third tier team. The FH is being part of a group at school and school spirit. Last, she always was my physically active kid and right now with health instead of PE she really likes the exercise even though it is a bit too much. She is already planning to do gymnastics for winter sport (she is actually a lousy gymnast) and may end up being the manager and indoor FH on the weekends. It is just funny how it has worked out well for her even though she doesn’t do this with any expectation of playing in college or getting scholarships. I am sure, however, she will be on some type of sports team for all her adult life…she will never be a solitary runner or swimmer…being active with a bunch of friends just seems so central to her way of socializing and exercising.</p>
<p>That’s cool FAMM! I like how you are able to get some good insight into your D’s personality. And I hope you didn’t think that I (we?) were jumping on you. So how much of that ends up affecting you? Are you doing a lot of shuttling or is it pretty self contained? </p>
<p>BTW, if she can do more than a cartwheel, then I think she’s a talented gymnast. I was never able to do a roundoff and I consider it one of my life’s failings…</p>
<p>@ELY: that is so sweet of your son to say that. I have mixed feelings about the upcoming time change. On one hand it won’t be pitch dark when the bus comes, but on the other hand it will be pitch dark when I leave work. Vampire working hours!</p>
<p>D’08 played HS soccer, volleyball and track + club soccer (plus AP classes, student government and a boyfriend). We found that in the spring, when she was the most physically exhausted (from both track and club soccer), she was the easiest to live with (she was high-maintenance). Now that she is in college she is very good at managing her time. S’10, at 5’7" and 120 lbs LOVED basketball. Basketball at our school is a huge commitment (3 hours a day, 6 days a week, 9 months a year). He played 3 years Varsity (started 2) plus AP classes, student government and tennis (4 yrs varsity). When basketball was over in Feb he didn’t know what to do with his free time because he had never had any. However, S’10 ended up getting quite a few awards/scholarships (for academics not athletics). And at the presentations it was truly amazing all the things all these kids had done. I let S’13 do whatever he wants (currently he sails, runs cross country, plays basketball and tennis and is involved in student government).</p>
<p>I think that one of the unintended consequences of kids being so committed is that something has to give and it seems that it is frequently family time. There are only 24 hours in a day, seven days a week. With all these multiple teams, lessons, performances, meetings, endless shuttling back and forth - when do you have time to be together as a family? I guess if you only have one child, your family life could revolve around their schedule and happen in the car but, I don’t know, is that satisfying? I really don’t mean to sound snarky or judgmental - I’m genuinely curious.</p>
<p>It is funny that you say that about the car because one of the main reasons I don’t carpool is because it seems like the only time my boys really talk to me is in the car. When we had all 3 kids home it was definitely “tag-team” family time. We always sat down for dinner, but not all of us were there all of the time. The hardest part was/is finding a good time for a family vacation.</p>
<p>Our family has 2 times that are sacrosanct - Wednesday night dinners (with a large group of friends at a local restaurant) and Sundays (church + lunch + movie or other activity). We are usually pretty good at keeping those commitments, although this week S had a dress rehearsal for school play on Wed, so we just did fast food. And I almost teared up when D’10, who is off at college, called last week during our Wed dinner and wanted us to pass the phone around the table so she could say hi to everyone. We’re thinking of Skyping her in next week!!</p>
<p>Well, dinner tonight was at 8:30 P.M. ;)</p>
<p>Well, 8:30 is well before bedtime 
Really, who’s home & able to have dinner on the table by 5 anymore? Not me!</p>
<p>I do think that EC’s are something that are vert much about what your child and family can manage. My D loves and is interested in EVERYTHING. If we let her EVERY waking hour would be filled. My S is the opposite. He wants to have NOTHING scheduled. </p>
<p>What I am concerned about is making sure my D does not over commit, and S under commit. We have opposite conversations- to D “What is your plan to make x work in your schedule?”, to S, “You need to join at least one club/activity when you are not in hockey season.- I don’t care what it is.” </p>
<p>D’s activities take her to 5:30 every day. Honestly since she was born, she has never sat still- ever. She has always been on the go. Last year she was removed from all activities for 2 months due to a snowboarding accident (concussion) and she was going out of her mind- she is a very organized and efficient student and has limited interest in the computer and tv. </p>
<p>As for multiple sports teams, we are fortunate in that her sports rarely overlap. My s does play on two hockey teams during season- for us hockey is very much family time- DH coaches. D and I drink cocoa and talk in the cold rink. </p>
<p>We have family dinner at least 5 nights a week- DH is amazing as he usually manages to have dinner ready at 6:30 every day. At least one of our dinners is packed with the kids friends-which is great and helps us to really connect to what they are up to. </p>
<p>Honestly- I think activity levels are very much about what your child and family can handle. I know some families who do so much more that we do and they are handling it- others do nothing and can barely manage to have family dinner once a week.</p>
<p>I think that how much activity you allow your child(ren) to engage in is very much an individual matter. I would never presume to think that what is good for me and mine is also what is best for others or vice versa. My D is involved in a lot of music and sports and carries a heavy academic load. Three or four times a year it seems that all the forces in the universe cross her path at the same time and craziness ensues for a brief amount of time. This week has been one of those weeks and she is not finished yet as she has a two day orchestra event today and tomorrow. When all is said and done, she will reflect on the events of such times and weigh whether she needs to do anything differently. Most of the time, she concludes that the value of the activities she chooses to do far outweighs the stress that they may momentarily cause. At the end of the day, I want her to feel confident in her decision making skills and to know that she can change what she is not pleased with.</p>
<p>Blueshoe- same here- insane week, topped off by homecoming tonight. Saturday morning cannot come soon enough!</p>
<p>I just found the thread for the hs class of 2013 and saw 51 pages of posts! I haven’t gone through them all, so I don’t know if this subject has been covered. How important are school awards, pre-college summer programs, leadership conferences, etc. We had a adminDir come to talk to my daughter’s school in 8th grade, and he told us gpa is important; ap courses (A in AP’s vs. A in honors and a B in AP), SAT’s (but he thought it would be trending towards just an essay and doing away with the math and language arts since wealthier kids were at an advantage because they could take prep classes); diversity is important and just a plain old job…didn’t seem to think extracurriculars were that important, and they were tired of seeing kids going all over the world to build houses and latrines…told us the classic old “oboe” story - that it depends on what the dean’s directives for the year were: if they need an oboe player, they’ll search high and low for one and that person could beat out someone with perfect scores on their SAT’s and a 4.0 gpa. You just never know what they are looking for. My daughter’s school requires 90 hrs of community svc in order to graduate so that will require a lot of work in the summer as right now she is only getting about 5 hours sleep/night just commuting and doing homework.</p>
<p>Just saw the latest dosomething.org poll - DoSomething.org surveyed admissions officers at the top 50 colleges & universities in the United States, and we got the scoop on what colleges really look for when it comes to community service. 70% prefer 4 years of volunteering at a local community shelter; 27% said no preference; 3% said helping orphans in somalia. They were also asked which is better quality vs. quantity? 60% said one cause; 28% no preference; and 12% said many causes. Interesting.</p>
<p>EC and family time</p>
<p>Just weighing in – We struggle financially and are quite cheap, but just like tx5 family vacation time is a HUGE priority for us. It truly is the only quality time we all spend together. I have 3 kids at different ages with very different interests.<br>
Of course, this usually means squeezing into 1 hotel room or waiting for a “sale” on Endless Vacations for older condos (we’ve been able to score 7 night condos for $199/week).</p>
<p>I can say that my kids are not great at any specific EC and are willing to travel at any time of year, which makes it easier. If we had to schedule around every dance lesson, game and event I’d have lost it by now!</p>
<p>My daughter (a junior at San Diego State) came home for the weekend for some much needed rest, my youngest had his cross country on Friday rather than the usual Saturday, so I threw them both in the car and drove up to visit my son (a freshman at UCLA) and it was the first time I had all 3 of my kids in the same place since August 6th!!! It was great! I have to say, since #2 left, with only one at home, I have felt uneasy, like something is missing. Medavinici, my experience with the college admissions rollercoaster has been that grades are #1 with the public schools in California, and that grades + SAT scores are very important to the private schools. And with the private schools “ability to pay” comes into play as well. The kids in our area that have gotten into Ivies/Stanford usually were “incredible” at something (sailing, running, baseball, football, etc…).</p>
<p>I think it helps to have some sort of “hook” for Ivy/Stanford admission - awesome athlete, amazing scientific research, starting a charitable foundation, URM, or just being from the middle of nowhere. Most people I talk to (HS counselors and college admissions) seems to value sustained involvement in something, over lots and lots of minimal involvement. In other words, be a committer, not a dabbler. My kids have not had any time in HS for community service, but I figure that is cancelled out by their commitment to performing arts (as demonstrated by awards and accolades). It didn’t seem to hurt D when she applied to college.</p>
<p>Medavinci - my experience with D1 (D2 is in this group) is that the “hook” (the one thing that was pretty unique) was important, but most of the schools she was accepted to she probably would have been accepted to anyway even if she didn’t have the hook. However, I think the hook helped in her getting the wonderful scholarship she has at the school she is attending. We learned quite a bit about that, since D2 will probably benefit from a hook more than her sister did, especially since she is not as strong academically and the time commitment of her sport (ice hockey) does not leave any time for many other EC’s at all.</p>
<p>An official speaking at one of the two schools that D1 was NOT accepted to spoke about it as being like “weaving a tapestry for each class - you might just be that right color thread that we are looking for”, which is pretty much like the oboe story.</p>
<p>One thing to note though - from same experience, you have to take the extra effort to educate a school about any requirements that your HS has (like the community service one you mentioned), grading weights, grade deflation, etc., IF the school is one that does not have a history of getting applicants from your HS. If we had to do it over again, we would have done a better job with D1’s first choice school. I think her FA offer was lower than it should have been since they did not have an idea just how our HS graded/weighted, etc. compared to the students in the state that the school was in. I guess the high test scores (ACT/APs) didn’t matter to them as much as the 4.0 (or lack thereof)</p>
<p>Got mid-quarter reports in the mail yesterday & my kid has a C- in history. Never had this low of a grade in anything in his life. </p>
<p>Best I get over any false hopes of Ivy and 10% of income payments now. SIGH.</p>
<p>On the bright side, my baby (4th grade) is getting all As for the first time in her life. We spent lots of energy last spring and during the summer addressing multiple issues with her. Guess God gave me multiple kids just so everything could balance out.</p>