Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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My D is not a new student but has called quite a bit with updates.

She is getting a campus job and met with someone from pharmacy school admissions and they went over her transcripts the other day to make sure she is on track taking all required courses. She only has Ochem 2 with lab and Statistics left to take next semester.

She is geting along well with her apartment mates and cooking quite a bit.

@palm715, I’m glad your D is settling in well. My D found that she really needed rain boots once she was at school.
Amazon prime to the rescue.

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I’m currently receiving about 8 words per week from S. Most are “no”, “fine” or “got the box”. Our only phone call was two weeks ago, and everything was "fine. I’m a little bummed, but luckily D and S1 have been very chatty lately so at least I’m hearing some news from some kids. They have always been bigger talkers.

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I’m doing well. Hit a bump of homesickness and am going home for the weekend instead of having them come up next weekend for family weekend. It’s just going to be too busy and stressful (I have to work a booth for the class and then I have 3 papers due that week) for me to try and be social with them. It’s been a hard, stressful week

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Hugs, @readingclaygirl, I’m glad your parents are able to be flexible with plans.

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Hugs, @readingclaygirl I am glad you get to go home to be with your family.

The only shopping DD did at college was for grocery. She is in cook for yourself dorm. On weekends they have free shuttle to Trader Joe’s but of course she was too busy to take it. In all fairness, she spent all weekend doing homework. Classes are even more intense than we anticipated them to be. Some students are just brilliant and another came from the top science schools. So DD with her public HS education has to put a lot of effort to keep up. She landed campus job her first week. Which is nice, but takes time from her studies. She also discovered the pleasure of shopping for grocery online with Instacart and had first delivery last night. She was happy to start cooking, since cafeteria food she tried was just ok. She likes her roommates and made a lot of friends. Hopefully she will be able to handle the intense workload. Luckily they have study groups, office hours and a lot of help available.

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Thank you both @mommdc @Ballerina016

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DS has been on campus a little over 3 weeks and so far we’ve had 2 phone calls, both for less than 5 minutes. But, he is starting to text more, at least 2-3 times a day. We try to text him silly photos or little updates, or ask him what he’d like in care packages…those seem to inspire him to text back :). He texted that he and his roommate needed paper for the printer, and then asked if we’d order him some ping pong paddles (they have tables in his dorm and in the student commons). He was thrilled that the ping pong paddles arrived today - I took it as a good sign that he’s found at least one other kid to hang out with, right? But actually, he sent me photos when I asked if he had any, and he seemed to be in good spirits and with small groups of friends. He’s kind of shy, and never used to leave the house much to hang out, so it’s encouraging to see that he’s branching out and meeting other people. He misses having access to a car (freshmen are allowed to bring them), but we might bring his old bike when we go for parent weekend in 2 weeks.

I still don’t have the heart to send him photos of the cats - it would probably bring on major homesickness.

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@palm715

“Anything your student has needed to buy that didn’t occur to them until they had some time at school?”

D has asked for a longboard. She attends a university that is very large geographically. She is having difficulty getting to a couple of classes on time and indicates the campus buss is not always reliable. She spent most of her free time growing up dancing and never rode a bike after the initial learning session. So, she thinks she will feel more comfortable longboarding. I did some research and bought her a Section 9 sidewinder whose wheels pivot so much it looks like the rider is surfing. It does look like a lot of fun. She should get it next week.

She has called me 2-3 times/ week and texts me nearly every day. I was worried that she might be homesick but she told me that college is definitely “her thing” and she has met a lot of people and already has many friends. She auditioned for the competitive dance team and made it :-bd, and is also joining running club, pre-med club, multi-cultural club, and ski club. She also has a research job for approx. 8-10 hrs/ week.

Her work load is not that great the first semester because she had lowest priority for class registration as a freshman and was closed out of classes until 1-2 days before classes started. With her AP credits, she had to compete against upper classmen to get spots in the more advanced classes and I have to admit we were both pretty worried about getting her in the classes. We were happy to just get the classes she did. Later, we found out that she could have asked the Asst. Dean of the Honors College Dept. for assistance. Too late… we had already pulled our hair out and commenced with begging teachers of full classes to let her in.

Also, we noticed that it is not unusual for her to get a B or C grade on her first assignment at the beginning of every school year and she seems to have some difficulty transitioning at the beginning of the year. So, after much consideration, she decided to just go with an average load the first semester. She is signed up for heavier load the second semester. We did a 4 year plan and found she can fit in 1-2 minors in 4 years or maybe graduate early without having to overload any particular semester.

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@mommdc “She is getting a campus job and met with someone from pharmacy school admissions and they went over her transcripts the other day to make sure she is on track taking all required courses.”

Sooo smart! I hope all our kids do this to stay on-track.

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I love all these updates! Well, we hear from D a LOT, whether by text or call-today she and I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide what to do about her severe reaction to some bug bites. Thanks to our resident CCer in Nashville, we’ve decided it’s mosquitoes and a Zyrtec took care of them, but D is going to go to Target tomorrow and get a wrist repellent bracelet.

D has a full 18 credit schedule, mostly education classes, which is exactly what she enjoys, so she doesn’t even see them as work. She LIKES the homework. Math has worked out, even though she’s not fond of the “math for humanities majors” sort, and it did start off very slow. Next semester she’ll need to take more of the core classes-it’s a liberal arts school with required classes in subjects like art, music, in addition to the typical history and language classes. Much as she’d like all education classes, that isn’t going to happen. But for now, she is happy. She got to write lesson plans the other day and had to call to tell me.

She has to do volunteer hours for her scholarship and contacted the local Urban League, which she has worked for here in Seattle, and they invited her to meet with them next week and to discuss an internship as well. It runs a youth education program just like the one here, so she’s familiar with it. She’s active in her new church, in the black student union, and something else I can’t remember. She’s also waiting to hear about an internship with the student government’s legislative department.

D and her roommate get along like long-lost sisters. There is another girl who is also in their group, and the three of them do everything together. They all go the same church too, and often go out for brunch afterwards. They each have a different major, so they do get a break from each other. Everytime D calls, she is talking to or greeting other students-it’s a small school so they all seem to know each other, just like her HS. It’s exactly the right place for her.

She’s also been spending time offering help to her friends from her old HS class who are all seniors now. She had me drive her old test prep books down to her HS to leave for her friends. As a bonus, I will be volunteering in the office as of Monday. I’d do it every day if I didn’t have to work-I love the mission of that school.

@dyiu13 one of the first things the kids did in orientation was meet with their advisors to plot out a course so that they graduate on time with the right courses. D has a printout of suggested semester options. Her advisor is the head of her department and the reason she has 4 education courses right now.

@readingclaygirl hope you feel better after a visit home!

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I haven’t really been around much lately, but my kids are finally leaving for school this weekend…
My S 15 goes back to UCSD on Saturday, it’s funny reading all the posts about how kids are communicating, he is not a great communicator when he is away, and I think now that I know that, I am more at peace with it, it was rough at the beginning of last year, but I got used to it…
This is a sample text me text me if you are alive him I’m alive…

My D 16 moves into UCR on Sunday, and I think she is more than ready, more concerned about boyfriend than anything else, but that is one of those only time will tell things…
Both my kids took a very light load their first quarter, I had told him to do that, because that first quarter is an adjustment., And I think my son was very grateful for that, the quarter system is very quick!
I’ve enjoyed reading all of your stories, some of them even brought tears to my eyes, best of luck to all of you and all of your kids!

And believe me it will be next summer before you know it and your kids will be home, and there will be days, when you’re thinking when are they going back to school???
Although I don’t have an empty nest yet I still have a S 21…

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Woot! I think we got an indication via text that D16 has some new friends at college. We think. We are unsure. Waiting for the regulation Monday night phone call.

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My D is doing OK I’d say. The “making friends” part seems to be going well. She is busy many nights, joined some clubs, mentions people who she eats or hangs out with. That is good.

The academic part I think is a lot tougher than she expected. Well, really just her math class. She chose to take an honors level Calc that is proof-based, and she is overwhelmed. She tends to be a worrier so I’m hoping she is just being over-dramatic. We’ll see. She studies a lot.

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@Booajo, the math department seems to have a lot of support available. I am glad your D is making friends.

@dyiu13, thanks, her advisor has been very knowledgeable, but since she only has 2 years prepharmacy and needs to schedule her classes for last semester in November she just wanted to make sure.

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I haven’t been on here in awhile, it seems kinda odd because since my son was in 5th grade checking in on CC was a daily routine for me and now I can’t remember my last post (although I have been posting on fb). I remember when the Parents of the Class of 2016 thread started some weeks there would be something like only three or four posts every few days and now I am 3200 posts behind. Just wanted to say that my son settled in at UCLA yesterday. It’s also odd because for the last few years I have been checking college SAT scores and acceptances rates, rankings etc… and now those days are over. Being that I am anal I did check some acceptance rates and GMAT scores to MBA programs, but that is so far down the road and by the time he applies he will be in his mid twenties and perhaps married with a family I lost quickly lost interest.

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I’m home and it feels good.

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@Mysonsdad, it’s strange to have the whole college acceptance task behind us, isn’t it? I feel a bit strange as well without “needing” to check CC or my homeschool board.

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@GoodGrief16
@Mysonsdad

After my d made her decision on college choice, I felt I should step back from CC and take a break. I just felt the whole college admission thing was way too intense and time-consuming. CC was very helpful in the process. I am forever thankful for all the people here who have shared their experiences and posted advice. However, the whole admissions process the way it is today just seems way over the top.

While taking my break from CC, I did miss out on some of the info in the interim. For example, I just now saw a great post on renter’s/ dorm room insurance and enrolled my d yesterday. We lost out on getting first dibs on class registration for freshman because I did not realize that it is done in order of when the student’s orientation is.

Yes, it is strange that the whole application/ acceptance process is behind us. I feel like now we are coasting, but will still have some hurdles from time to time. It is really nice to have CC to discuss this with other parents who are going through the same thing or perhaps have already experienced something similar. I will definitely also be checking CC for post-grad advice as well.

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The Parent Cafe is a great place to hang out after the college work is done.

And can you believe we are only 2 weeks away from opening day for sophomore year FAFSA?

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@psychmomma - regarding FAFSA, this year the process changes and we use last years taxes, right? Do we even fill anything out or does it transfer? I really don’t know. Thx for any info