@momofsmartdancer Were is your DD at school? When you say friends were disappointed…you mean they did not receive a bid? Did your DD have to go through the whole getting letters of recommendation thing? I am asking because I suspect we will be going through the rush process for DD2018.
S texted at midnight last night. “Can I come home tomorrow?” Yes!! Yes you can!!! The joys of having a kid within an easy 2 hour drive. He’s been gone for 7 weeks, so this visit will hold me over until Thanksgiving. Very happy!
@labegg
My daughter is at a Big Ten school. Both she and I confirmed that letters of recommendation were not required at her school. She had some challenges because some chapters do not accept sophomores and she is an out of state student.
Regarding “the disappointments”:
Approx. 1400 girls started the process and only 900 stayed with it and got bids. Many girls dropped because they were only asked back by lower tier sororities. I had very little knowledge of Greek life- so I had no idea that there were “tiers”. Students want to be in a top tier because only top tier frats socialize/ have mixers with top tier sororities. Sounds like high school… except I would have thought people had matured a little more than that. Regardless of tiers, Greek life obviously has many benefits such as deep friendships, alumni network, etc… Something else to consider- dating is easier if both parties are Greek and I don’t think the whole tier thing has as much influence in that regard. Many girls are cut- so getting any bid is an accomplishment. GPA and activities are important. Connections will help girls get in the top sorority. However, those with high GPA, activities, good social skills, fashion sense and good looks should be able to still get placed in a sorority they like. Many are cut after the first day who do not have good GPAs.
I will pm you with more info that I found out during this process that might be of help.
Ugh…DS is having a rough 2 weeks. His car broke down at the start of last week and he lives a few miles from campus, so trying to arrange for a tow to a reputable shop and then having him find a ride to pick it up, plus walking a few miles to/from campus every day was a drain last week. Fortunately, the car was ready last Friday evening (after a hefty repair bill). All of us breathed a sigh of relief that he was back in business.
Until last night - he texts me that his laptop was going through an update and crashed, and now it won’t restart. He took it to the campus IT center and they have no idea how to fix it. So it will be another stressful week of figuring out how to try to fix that, and I’m sure it won’t be cheap. But, at least he has a running car to drive around to find a computer repair place off-campus, right. Any had good/bad experiences with Best Buy on laptop repairs? I have no clue where else to send him since we aren’t familiar with that area.
Hopefully next week he can have a normal week, and we don’t have to keep shelling out $$ for repairs!
Wow, that’s a lot of unfortunate luck in such a short time! We’ve had ok experiences with best buy but not really on repairs, just on them being able to recover files and put them on a cd. And I imagine each Best Buy is different based on the experience of their individual repair employees.
Has your DS tried Reddit for his school to ask for computer repair recommendations?
@psychmomma thanks for the tip. We decided to let him handle this situation, and he dropped it off for repair today. My hope is that by having to trek to the computer lab for almost a week while his was broken, maybe he got in some extra studying while there?
The upside of both experiences is that he’s handled them with much more maturity than he would have shown even a year ago. If this happened last year, he’d be non-stop calling me to solve it. This time, he said a genuine thanks for the tips we gave him and was patient about fitting it in around classes and exams. He’s growing up
Got a call this afternoon from DD about scheduling Spring Classes. She always seems to want to consult with us before choosing classes. It is nice that she includes us in the loop when she is so secretive about everything else. She also emailed me a cosigner form for her apartment next year. Junior year, can’t believe it, seems like just yesterday we were all in the midst of submitting applications and boarding the college cruise ship.
Do you cosign these apartments sight unseen? Did you read the lease?
We insisted on reading the the lease before we cosigned for DD.
DS is checking out houses to rent off-campus for next year as well. We’ll definitely need to read the lease before having him sign anything. My biggest concern is that he (or rather we) not get stuck covering the costs if one of the housemates leaves before the end of the term. I remember that happening when I rented a townhouse with 5 people back in college - we had to look for a new roommate, interview, and I think even cover rent for a few months for the person. DS says that all of these are individual leases, and they are houses that are rented out by alumni of his fraternity. The houses are 4 bedrooms/ 2 bath, so not a huge place for the whole fraternity to live in, but still…
@mommdc and @3scoutsmom she sent a video of the apartment a week or 2 ago and the lease has been reviewed by both the school and her roommate’s Dad, who lives about a 1/2 hour from campus. I think we have crossed most of the t(s) and dotted the i(s).
DS and his friends found a place they really like today. It’s close to campus, relatively safe (The school is in a very poor area). He’s scanning all the paperwork to us tomorrow to review and co sign. I used zillow to check it out, which helps, and Google maps Street view. Much less a month then his current on-campus apartment, so that will be nice. I’m hoping it all works out since they’ve checked out several places and he’s very excited to have found a good one.
I haven’t updated in awhile so thought I’d share our bumpy start to sophomore year now that things seem to have stabilized.
It started when D and her friends that she was to be living with had a big blowup over the summer. I was hoping it would pass once they all got back to school but things got much much worse. I don’t want to give all the details, but D took it very hard and the housing office had to do an emergency room change during the first week of classes to get her out of the situation. She is now in counseling and seeing a psychiatrist and on medication. It was really bad for a couple weeks. She was calling me several times a day in a panic. She was unable to make even the smallest decision without consulting me. Plus there were the late night calls saying she needed to come home. We did go see her and she didn’t seem as bad in person as she did long distance. We really seriously considered withdrawing her but also just wanted to give her a little time to see if it would turn around, so decided to wait two weeks to see what would happen. Thankfully it did get better. I don’t know if it was the meds or the counseling or just the passage of time but she seemed to gradually improve every time we spoke and the time between phone calls gradually lengthened.
We are now just past midterms and she says she feels about 90% normal. She actually went a week between phone calls this last time. She said she was so busy that she just didn’t think of calling which we think is a great sign. She has found a new group of friends and even is getting involved with a boy though she says he’s not her boyfriend yet. Fortunately her grades never suffered. She said doing schoolwork made her feel normal so she probably spent more time on it than she needed to. We did cancel the study abroad that was previously planned. If she has a relapse in China It could be very bad. As I said, she seems to be stable now and even says that things are good and she is happy. We are hoping the worst is in the past and the rest of the year is uneventful.
D seems very relaxed about housing for next year. Maybe that’s the meds. Most likely scenario is that she moves in with her new friends one of whom already has an apartment now with two graduating seniors. D says the apartment is really nice and very well located near campus. She is also considering just staying on campus in a single if she gets a good lottery number. Or she might find a place with her current roommate that she just met after the room change. She seems very unconcerned.
@me29034 sorry to hear that your D went through such a rough start, but I’m glad that she is doing well now and made some new friends.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record on these forums, our kid got a LOT out of her work with a DBT therapist. The therapist’s practice also included a peer group class where the students go through the DBT skills workbook and learn the basics.
Not as common as CBT, so it can be difficult to find someone, and someone good. The skills help teach how the mind works (Buddhism roots), to recognize when one becomes emotionally overwhelmed and to develop a set of tools or skills one can use to manage.
We also have a kid who manages to keep her grades up, even when she is struggling. We don’t get the distressed phone calls though, or much contact at all, so we are never quite sure how she is really doing.
One of the best things I did was start seeing a therapist by myself, for myself, every two weeks. It has helped me manage my own anxiety & endless worrying about how my D is doing and if she’ll be okay.
Parenting is not for sissies!
Wishing you and your D the best!
Sorry that the beginning of the semester was so hard for your daughter . So happy that she was able to recognize the need to get help and was accepting of it . That seems to be the hardest part of the battle . I’m glad things are turning around for her.
Thanks all. I just wanted to share so that people realize not everything is going perfectly for every one.
@Midwest67 I don’t know the difference between CBT and DBT or even which one her current therapist is. I’ll have to investigate and learn more about this.
@me29034 Glad to hear your D is doing better. Thanks for sharing.
<p>@me29034 glad to hear things are improving for your DD. </p>
<p>@me29034 I’m so sorry to hear that the beginning of this semester was so rough for your DD, what an awful way to begin sophomore year. I hope she continues to feel stronger each day. So tough when they are far away to handle something so serious and stressful!</p>