<p>Novamom – what great advice from your HS!</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing that Novamom; I am going to forward it to my daughter!</p>
<p>Welcome Teenage_cliche! How nice of you to be helping your brother! Smith is definitely on DD14’s list as is Holyoke. And we’re seeing Bryn Mawr next week so that may be added also. I graduated from Wellesley in the 80s but that is not on her list as there’s no merit aid there. Hopefully she could get some merit aid from Smith or Holyoke to make them workable financially if she likes them.</p>
<p>Tomorrow is DD’s last day as a Junior! She’s managed to place out of her finals so she’ll be done while many of her classmates will have at least one final to take over the next three school days. She’s out this afternoon still trying to find a summer job after having no success in all the searching she’s already done.</p>
<p>They finally got their next year’s schedules yesterday - sort of! If they didn’t get a guidance slip indicating a conflict, then they assume their schedule is set the way they signed up for it. She was debating about dropping AP Music Theory for a study (5 APs is a bit much) but one of her best friend’s had a conflict and is now going to take AP Music Theory - so she’s keeping it. She’ll also have band and religion/community service so the 5 AP classes (also Calculus AB, Chemistry, English and Psychology) are her only “academic” classes. No mid-terms in band and I have no idea what they do for the community service class. She had really wanted a study to be able to get some of the work done in school or be able to come in late/leave early, but she’ll do fine without it.</p>
<p>They got all their summer AP work yesterday except for calculus. Apparently the AP Calc teacher was out as his first grand child had just been born. Guess that’s a good excuse! Just hoping she gets the info packet tomorrow. She has to be back in school on Monday to help with a Food Pantry truck delivery and Tuesday is book buybacks so we’ll sell her books and then head off on our college tour roadtrip! Hoping the weather improves for next week in the northeast.</p>
<p>Another senior here in Michigan! So glad to have Junior year in the reaview mirror.</p>
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<p>We considered Brown first but I really don’t want a 11 - 12 hour drive on Sunday to get us there for Monday morning so we will loop by making the segments all in the 5 - 7 hour range. Cornell first then to Brown, back to Bethlehen for Lehigh and then back home across I-80 to Cleveland. Its a bit of driving but I find most driving relaxing. But I do dislike driving in Boston, into Chicago and on the 270/495 DC Beltway. :D</p>
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<p>The core of those southern schools are on D’s list. In fact, we have visited several and will be returning this summer for re-visits and an interview at Wake. I personally think the southern climate will win her over. We have previously toured Elon, Wake Forest and Duke. We drove through Davidson on our return from vacation last summer (it was Sunday). We hope to tour High Point and Davidson this summer. Any thoughts on High Point? Her GC suggested it but their test score stats don’t seem that high compared with the other schools. We also will visit William & Mary.</p>
<p>Just returned from an EC college tour. DS visited Georgetown, Conn. College, BC, Bowdoin, and Vassar. He visited several others during soph. year with DD’12. He has his list at @ 10. He wrote his first essay on the plane home.</p>
<p>There was a lot of rain in D.C., but the weather was perfect in Maine (in June) - had to be sure that the kid understand it won’t be like that from October through April. Some tour guides are better than others, but I think the kid sees past that.</p>
<p>Had a good time, but I am wiped out.</p>
<p>glido – congrats on getting an essay out of the way! Looking back, the hardest ones to write are the “why do you want to go here?” which seems to be a required supplement for each school. Especially if you’ve visited the school months ago or combined with several others.</p>
<p>AvonHSDad – we visited High Point in November. It may end up on S’s list but not sure. The tour was all about the amenities, not academics. Could you get a decent education there? Not sure. But that’s just my take on it. I think S’14 needs more structure and less volleyball.</p>
<p>DS14 has been enjoying some down time- sleeping, doing a couple of daily chores, tennis and other outdoor activities, and an excessive amount of online gaming!
Next week he begins a month of 8 hour days as a paid TA at a summer school for low performing elementary students held at our state university. He has done this program for the past 3 summers.</p>
<p>Hello all …</p>
<p>We had some wicked storms here in the midwest yesterday. Lots of people lost power … not us for once! Yay!</p>
<p>DD started shadowing McDreamy yesterday. (He is VERY easy on the eyes! lol!) She said she couldn’t get a word in edgewise - he explained absolutely everything and talked her ear off! 
She is very much enjoying it and is definitely looking forward to this experience as a whole. </p>
<p>She’s wanted to go into medicine FOREVER. And this is her first real close up experience in that world - so I’m thrilled that she’s liking it. Not that she couldn’t change her career trajectory a bazillion times (and that would be okay) but she’s had this in her head for so long … I’m just happy it wasn’t a complete and utter letdown from the word go. KWIM? </p>
<p>DD15 leaves Sat. for theatre camp at our state flagship … she’s been to DC & NY on school trips so this is easy peasy for her. For me (and seeing our whole kitchen table loaded with dorm room essentials) this is a glimpse ahead for the next few years. </p>
<p>I don’t know how my babies got so old so quick. :(</p>
<p>KaMaMom - how can she not have a bad experience with McDreamy?! Glad she’s liking it!</p>
<p>Minnymom - what an awesome summer job! </p>
<p>My DS can’t slow down long enough to get a summer job! Scouts and his rock band gigs keep getting in the way! But … if he can knock out this Eagle Scout project this summer, it will be worth it!</p>
<p>Congrats to the newest seniors! How many are still in school? And have fun to all the families going on trips next week!! Looking forward to ours in a week and a half!</p>
<p>Mine is still in school, but just finished his last final (physics). Three more days to go!</p>
<p>She’s done - and officially a senior! Where in the world did the time go! She was home for about 10 minutes before flying off to the only “job” she’s come up with for the summer…helping a couple of little girls with all their costume changes at their dance rehearsal and recital this weekend. I wish it could turn into something more for the summer but they all go away to theatre camp so that won’t work for her.</p>
<p>Her original plan was to go to the beach tomorrow but since we’re having the rain in SE Massachusetts today/tonight/tomorrow that was in the midwest yesterday, that’s not happening. And most of her classmates have to take finals tomorrow. Although there was talk of someone being done after the first final and going to see “Great Gatsby” as they read it this year and she hasn’t had the time to see it yet.</p>
<p>Good luck to all those still in school and finishing finals!</p>
<p>Oh - and we just booked a family vacation over Christmas break. So DD will HAVE to have all her college applications done before we leave! Maybe it will be a good incentive to do everything college related over the summer (of course, in addition to all the AP work she’ll need to do)!</p>
<p>It seems strange that so many people are planning college tours this Summer. Since DS has a busy Summer ahead, I am glad that we already toured all the schools that he had any interest in with the exception of one, a certain LAC that only recently came under his radar. And it doesn’t seem like a good idea to fly there to look at just that one LAC during his only week of break, which is at the end of Summer, especially since I expect the campus to be deserted and the weather to be unrepresentative (it is in the Northern US). He could always visit if accepted, if he is still interested at that point, and the weather would probably be more representative at that time too.</p>
<p>Whew! Junior year is accomplished. </p>
<p>Last final today along with a frustrating meeting with registrar as DD attempts to fit a class she’s wanted to take for 3 years into a pretty rigid senior year schedule. A lesson in you can’t have it all? I know she’ll figure it out, but it’s a disappointing end to the year. </p>
<p>Thanks 2014novamom for a great advice post. These are the things we need to keep in perspective! Great counseling team you’ve got!</p>
<p>We just couldn’t fit in all the visits for potential schools before this summer. We’ve visited 10 schools so far and have a few more to go. We will see WPI and maybe Tufts the first week of July when we are up there for a showcase. </p>
<p>Also hoping to squeeze in visits to RPI and Vanderbilt but don’t know if that will happen.</p>
<p>Agree with Nova that is is very challenging to schedule visits during the school year, especially for any student who plays HS sports. Break week practices are mandatory, other than Christmas week, but you can’t visit colleges during Christmas break. We have several more to visit also plus return trips for interviews.</p>
<p>Nova–is there any way to squeeze in the two+ hour detour to see RPI after WPI? I think RPI offers Sat summer tours, but have not investigated fully yet.</p>
<p>I think S will be the last kid on this thread to be done with testing. Last final is next Tuesday, then he has triennial testing (to establish a baseline for LD/accommodations for college), then he has the ACT on June 22. </p>
<p>Afternoon of June 22 be prepared for a sonic boom of celebration sounds (from him and me).</p>
<p>Back from a college visit here, too. Left at 6:15 am, drove 4 hours, spent a little over 3 on campus, drove four hours home so dd could be at her coaching job at 7:00. I am wiped out. I can’t imagine doing days in a row of these like some of you do!</p>
<p>Anyway, 3 schools visited, 5 more to go.</p>
<p>AvonHSDad, if you can, definitely drive through High point. It is truly surreal. You will feel like you are driving into a five star resort, not a college. I don’t want to disparage it, b/c one might get a great education there, but the stats are fairly mediocre. But is is a trip to see. My son got into Wake and Univ of Richmond (which we did not visit), and chose CofC honors college. He fell in love with Charleston. It is hard not to. Wake is in winston salem, which is a small industrial city. Richmond, I hear is very nice, but I couldn’t convince him to go look. </p>
<p>I am still waiting for my daughter to just fall in love with a school. It hasn’t happened yet. At the risk of sounding sexist (I am a woman), my daughter is much more complicated in this process. My S was pretty cut and dry. I just might have gotten lucky with one out of two.</p>
<p>So, how many schools have each of you seen? And when? It is hard to fit visits in during the school year for us because everything seems so far away, and they just don’t get off that many days in a row - just a day here or there. We did two last summer, one on MLK day in January and 3 over spring break. Planning 3 more in just a couple of weeks. Don’t know if we’ll make it to the schools in the mid-west that he’s interested in.</p>