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<p>So do I.</p>
<p>Have to find a way to turn it off.</p>
<p>Love your post eyemamom!!! I 100% agree with you⊠and my 2014âer is my last one of 5⊠so I am WAY more relaxed with himâŠI told him to just pick a school that he feels is a fit and hopefully has the feeling reciprocated, try to learn as much as you can, and enjoy the gift of college.</p>
<p>eyemamom â birth order is everything. Perfectionist, hard on themselves, not as socially adept as their younger siblings â God didnât do them any favors by being born first.</p>
<p>As the 4th of 5, I identify with Sâ14 (and H, a proud first born, identifies with Dâ11). S is the plant I forgot to water, and heâs doing just fine. With D, we signed her up for swimming classes and took her there every week for 10 weeks. With S, he saw other kids swimming, and before I turned my head, he had jumped off the side of the pool (at age 4) and was striking out for the lane lines. He just figured it out.</p>
<p>GolfFather - I actually spent a solid half hour at the so-called Genius Bar figuring out many things, one of which was how to dismantle the auto-correct. If you have an iPhone, it goes like this: Settings/General/Keyboard/Auto-Correction ON or OFF.</p>
<p>Itâs different with a BlackBerry. I have both, and honestly, if you use your phone for work, BB is the way to go.</p>
<p>I donât know that birth order always works that way. My middle son is my perfectionist.</p>
<p>I do know that weâve learned a ton parenting which benefits youngest the most (except he has FAR less pictures of himself)⊠I do feel for oldest with some of the mistakes we made. Those are some of the things I think heâll truly figure out when he has kids of his own. Heâs getting married next month. I have no idea when theyâll be planning on kids⊠They can take a little while. Iâd like to see a strong marriage first. But, itâs their life and choice, etc.</p>
<p>Just caught up with âdigestâ from MrsPepperâs post. I couldâve written it myself last night!! Especially the âno one love me except for the dogâ part! I am petsitting three dogs right now, in addition to my two Goldens, so when I needed the love, I was flooded with it! But those teenagers⊠I also have a DS13 who I am ready to shove out the door. I understand all the mixed feelings about leaving for school and what a tough time this is for them (he just turned 18, too) but why canât he just talk to me about it instead of shut me out? And I have three here also (username!) with the middle being the easiest for me to get along with, not that ANY of them spew forth information like my nieces do. Sometimes I long for a daughter, but then I hear things like âI donât want you in my lifeâ and I have second thoughts⊠
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<p>I hope today brings a happier day for those of us down in the dumps!</p>
<p>Loved the corsage story! And Creekland, like you, my oldest is not the perfectionist - itâs my youngest. Oldest tries to perfectly balance how little work he has to do to get something done - he calls it âefficiencyâ 
Middle is definitely peacemaker, though, fitting the traditional middle child stereotype. Mine are all so close together that sometimes birth order gets blurred. A benefit of having two a year apart is that all the college info will be fresh in my mind! A drawback is I feel like âI just did all thisâ and yet itâs time to do it all again! :D</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your encouraging words. I really appreciate them. It hasnât been an easy weekend and there will be a few more challenging days in the week ahead but the sun is shining and the weather is beautiful and I am glad that everyone is healthy!</p>
<p>DSâ14 wanted to go to one of those âCollege Nightsâ - where five adcomm travelers from 5 different schools present at a hotel banquet room. Two years ago, we took our DDâ12 to the same thing. It seemed so important then. With our second, we said, âif you really want to go, here are the keys - drive safely.â </p>
<p>It is just different the second time around.</p>
<p>We went to one of those 5 school nights a few weeks ago. I am not sure it was super helpful to me but I did it mostly to engage my son in the college process since he has just been too busy to think about it. He took notes the entire time. </p>
<p>He just canât turn off the school mode. Did I mention he never leaves home without a backpack? Anyway this whole experience of 4 AP tests, a sports season, state
forensics, state band and state choir plus a lead in the school play within the last 4 weeks has taken a toll. I have learned a lot this year with the oldest. I feel so badly that he is exhausted.</p>
<p>I still never leave the house without a backpack. Completely agree on the College Night - just sent him because he showed some interest in the process. He is starting to narrow the list a little, now that he is thinking about all those essays. ;)</p>
<p>We received this information from a financial advisor who spoke at our daughterâs school recently. I thought I would pass it along in case any one else is interested.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoyed your weekend. I realize the school year is coming to a close and many of you will resume (or begin) the college planning process this summer. There are several issues that I believe youâll find helpful as you consider your options.</p>
<p>Be prepared to hear rhetoric from Congress (and the media) about student loan rates doubling on July 1st. We have been down this road before and it is highly likely that student loan rates will remain unchanged. Additionally, there are a high percentage of student loans where the interest rate will be unaffected, regardless of how Congress moves. There are several members of Congress who are proposing sweeping changes to our Federal Student Loan program as lawmakers are debating whether the U.S. government should be profiting $34 billion a year off of student loan interest.</p>
<p>As you prepare to visit college campusâ this summer, I encourage you to focus on what benefits the school provides to the student (i.e. job placement, financial aid, networking, etc), rather than only on the actual features that the school offers (i.e. buildings, rec centers, dining halls, etc).</p>
<p>This is a worthwhile read from the NY Times that debates the merits of paying the full cost of attendance at certain schools versus deciding to attend less expensive universities:
<a href=âMeasuring College Prestige vs. Price - The New York Timesâ>Measuring College Prestige vs. Price - The New York Times;
<p>This Bloomberg article is a lesson in âEnrollment Managementâ. It is important to remember that college is a big business, and that financial aid decisions/formulas are complicated, and that averages canât always be taken at âface valueâ. Private colleges spend an average of $3,043 to recruit every student who enrolls. Enrollment management is significant in the admissions and financial aid process:
[Colleges</a> Soak Poor Students to Funnel Aid to Rich - Bloomberg](<a href=âBloomberg - Are you a robot?â>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>The Bloomberg video gives you an overview of how admissions decisions are made:
[Inside</a> the Room During a College Admission Decision: Video - Bloomberg](<a href=âBloomberg - Are you a robot?â>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>PortlandiaParent â wow â thank you for all those great links to informative articles. A friend had sent me the âin the room with adcomsâ before but I hadnât seen these. Thanks!</p>
<p>PortlandiaParent - that is some scary stuff!</p>
<p>I like the âin the room with adcomsâ video but wish it was longer, much longer.</p>
<p>Yeah, that âinside the roomâ freaked me out because it looks all so arbitrary â almost callous knowing the students poor so much of themselves into their application. But then I reminded myself that that was Amherst which is currently boasting about a 13% admit rate. It would be nice if it were longer and if there were some other colleges willing to offer a glimpse into that process. </p>
<p>It stresses how important a âhookâ is as well as the ability to weave a compelling or interesting story about yourself through interviews and essays.</p>
<p>Advised my '14er to avoid âfalling in loveâ with any particular school. Not sure that it is working. </p>
<p>I told him, âthere are a lot of wonderful schools out there.â âKeep an open mind.â âJust apply to all the schools that look interesting and wait to hear from the Admissions Office and the Financial Aid Office . . . then pick from one of the schools that is viable.â</p>
<p>Easy to say.</p>
<p>Amherst admissions was also featured in this NPR segment: [The</a> College Admissions Game : NPR](<a href=âThe College Admissions Game : NPRâ>The College Admissions Game : NPR)</p>
<p>Interesting new wrinkle for us. Dâ14 has started receiving communications from track coaches. Not sure if/how this will change the search landscape.</p>
<p>Today was college t-shirt day at DSâs school. LOVE seeing where everyone is going and seeing some funny pictures, like the Duke kids âsquaring offâ against kids going to UNC and the UVA/VA Tech version of that picture ha ha ha.</p>
<p>ordinarylives â thatâs exciting! Dâ11 got some interest from track coaches when she was your Dâs age. I believe July 1 is when you can officially complete the NCAA recruiting form. The Bowdoin coach was the nicest â he spent 20 minutes on the phone with her, asking about what she wanted to study, and making recommendations for schools she should consider (besides Bowdoin).</p>
<p>Thereâs a lot of good info in the recruiting forum too.</p>
<p>The Amherst clip was sort of eerie for me.</p>
<p>Last summer when we visited the school we sat in the exact same room for the info session, and the adcom who ran the session is seated at the table in the video. The info session there was intimate given the size of the roomâŠevery visiting student was queried what city and high school the were coming from.</p>