<p>Ha! Don’t be upset. Think of it as the gift of a clean house.</p>
<p>Class of 2015. Thanks. D is actually just relieved to be done with college testing for a while. She’ll probably take the SAT again in June and call it good. Her counselors suggest taking the SAT 3 times, but she may not be that interested in more taking it more than twice. That’s fine with us.</p>
<p>My house isn’t girl clean. And I have girls. You mean I’m supposed to have been disinfecting all these years? And if you’re talking about the kid’s room, we call d2s “the landfill”. </p>
<p>You know, I kind of like the idea of no reaches, not like d2 has ANY schools on a list. Matches are kind of hard to find until we know some test scores. And most of the colleges thrown around on cc are places I’ve honestly never heard of (consequence of living in the heartland, maybe)? Admissions safeties are no problem. It’s the financial safeties that are the problem. We have just 3 state schools, and all are huge. It’s about the only thing I can get d to tell me about the college search is that 2000-5000 students is a good size.</p>
<p>^financial safeties are sometimes only known after you apply. D got into Fairfield with $26K in merit money. A friend’s D got into Tulane with 100% tuition scholarship which then become full room and board once she’d done a special project. There are the obvious financial safeties (with a low sticker price) then there are the ones that want your kid and will throw merit aid at them to enroll.</p>
<p>I think landfill is a good term for their rooms. Better than “de-comp”.</p>
<p>Although your best financial deal may only be known after you are accepted, I don’t think of that as a “financial safety” – I’m thinking financial safety refers to a school that you’re almost certain to be able to attend, just like an academic safety refers to a school that you’re almost certain to be admitted to.</p>
<p>Was in the car with DS’14 this morning. He brought up the subject of college and asked, “how many should I apply to?” I told him I didn’t know, but asked him which ones he sure was interested in sending applications to. he named 5 right away and then added a sixth after a brief pause. I guess he has been thinking about this! He is a lot different that his sister ;)</p>
<p>glido – I was surprised too that S’14 had a completely formed list in his head. I think they’ve absorbed a lot by being in the household with an older sibling, and they talk about it with their friends.</p>
<p>A lot of my friends are applying to many schools, as in 8-15. I think I’ll be doing something similar, depending on how EA goes for US schools and 5 or so Canadian schools (the apps are generally easier and I should be able to recycle essays).</p>
<p>And everyone’s talking about college now. 
It’s the next big adventure.</p>
<p>It’s funny, I almost feel like junior year is winding down even though the 2nd term just started. It’s a bit shorter I guess, and there’s actually some sun occasionally (in between -30 spells) so it feels a little definite.</p>
<p>Hope everyone in the NE stayed safe! My friends didn’t get school off, even though people were skiing through the streets! O_O</p>
<p>I love the idea of “no reaches” – however the problem with that for high-ability kids is that the schools that are academic “matches” are often in the “reach for everyone” category from an admissions standpoint because they’re so selective. There’s kind of this gap for kids that have really high “stats” but nothing outside of school that is really extraordinary – there are few to no “matches” for those kids.</p>
<p>^well said mathmomvt. I think these terms need to be retired, especially for the high-achieving kids. </p>
<p>For S’14, I’m focused on finding: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1283107-colleges-boy-who-always-hungry.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1283107-colleges-boy-who-always-hungry.html</a></p>
<p>Oh – just got a text – the girls are coming! The girls are coming!</p>
<p>Most excitement I’ve had on a Saturday night in a while.</p>
<p>haha! Glad you got your house clean! ;)</p>
<p>Ha - thanks beady mom and seattle_mom – a clean house is a small blessing, and an infrequent one.
I just want to be a fly on the wall when S’14 tries to make chit chat with these little cuties. So funny being a mom and seeing the whole dating thing from the other side.</p>
<p>Hee hee, 2015. We had an exciting “girl visit” Saturday night here too: S’s gf stayed to dinner. I was happy I had actually cooked (chicken soup). Now they are out for ice cream. D11 invited herself along. So romantic.</p>
<p>How did the “girl” visit go? Updates, please!</p>
<p>He11 may have frozen over. D walked into the kitchen after lunch and made a list of schools to consider. I’d say all are academic safeties, except one. And she put that one her list because of the exotic locale and her sister, who visited that city, said the food was good. All but the one are within a 6 hour drive. I imagine she’ll whittle the list down as we start visiting and she starts finding favorites.</p>
<p>Now, let’s see what that ACT looks like.</p>
<p>Yay, o’lives! Maybe the 34" of snow in CT made it all the way down there to the center of the earth! ;)</p>
<p>I want updates on the “girl” visit, too! DS has only had one very short term girlfriend. I was surprised how comfortable he felt with her so quickly! They dated for about a month and he had her over for dinner many times … and I’m not known as a good cook! I was scrambling to make it look like I was! haha</p>
<p>DS’s school sponsored a homeless type night last night - the kids all had cardboard boxes that they slept in to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. Miserable weather for it! Storm came through around 4am with rain and lightning. Rushed all the kids into the auditorium. So much for braving the elements like the homeless have to! But, glad they were safe!</p>
<p>Just got the spread sheet going for k2.</p>
<p>I did it for K1…and it was helpful to give us an idea —far better than anything the GC at the hs did for K1…</p>
<p>IMHO it is worth the time…plus handing it off to the kid on the couch gives them some hard data. Numbers don’t like and holistic review of apps doesn’t apply unless the #s are in range. </p>
<p>One thing we didn’t do with K1 that we’ll do with K2 is a rolling admit…and a financial safety. K1 didn’t need that…as the stats were higher
I started looking at the FinAid links on the schools K2 is looking at–and unless K2 pulls out merit aid…we need to make sure K2 doesn’t need to take out loans.</p>
<p>Hope everyone had a blessed weekend.</p>
<p>D thought the science section was pretty hard yesterday. She said it was way harder than anything she every practiced with her tutor or in the red book. I’m just hoping it means there is a bigger curve.</p>
<p>I saw something either on college board, here or the school website, and one of the schools only reported the subscores for english and math. Is it possible schools only look at some of the subsections?</p>
<p>D said the same thing about the science section. At first she was encouraged because she saw lots of chemistry. Then she she got into it and started thinking, "Ew . . . " She thought math was easy (all trig, she said) and she finished English very early. I resisted the urge to ask if she’d missed a page or two.</p>
<p>Just curious, fogfog, are you against your K2 taking any loans at all? I think I’d almost prefer my kid to be taking some, to give them some “skin in the game” and it’s pretty rare to find a school that meets need without loans, except for the super-reachy places like Harvard and Princeton.</p>