@eandesmom Remind me which school you are visiting in Philly?
@curiositycat333 --sounds like request for a transcript from the CA is good news (wouldn’t ask if not interested, right?). Fingers crossed. Do they notify in-state students first? Still no transcript requests here.
Regarding school absences for college trips, our school has no limit or penalty. They are rather encouraged.
Congrats to the UPS admissions! I have that in the back of my mind for S19 (coming up so soon!).
S17 received a big packet yesterday–He has been admitted to Clemson (engineering). Merit awards notifications apparently don’t come until much later, so we’ll see. It looks like a lot of emphasis is put on test scores and more forgiving on GPA, which is a good thing for S17.
S17 didn’t apply to Pitt, but they are still sending him a lot of “not too late to apply, we want you” emails. I started looking at the school, and am now resisting the urge to encourage S to go ahead and throw it into the mix . . . no, he has enough!
@Hankster1361 I hate those “not too late” emails. I too look and then have to bite my tongue. Son has some good options and he’s happy with them - why cause more headaches?
@WhataProcess Great story about Forestry.
I’m sure I mentioned but S17’s second choice at Cal Poly was Forestry. Not sure he really wants to study it though. He just loves hiking, backpacking and the out of doors.
I’ll reply more later, but just venting now. I left a message for the GC yesterday that S needed 7th semester grades to send in for an honors college apps (to be sent US mail, so no electronic submission–how old school!). When I asked him about it last night, he said she gave it to him. The GC just called me & told me she gave S his latest transcripts and did we need anything else? Uh yeah, his 7th semester grades! @-) She said, “Well, the transcripts have the 1/2 credit classes from this year.” That would be 1 class. So I asked how to send the rest of the grades from the classes he’s currently taking. And she said that would be his report card, and she’d print that out and give him a copy. Don’t they do this on a regular basis? I didn’t think this was a difficult request! And if she’s giving him the report card, will it have the lovely comments from the calculus teacher about struggling to complete homework? Uggh! I guess it’s a good thing she called, though, since they’re on winter break for a week after today, and he wouldn’t be able to get any grade reports until the 27th for an application due on March 1… 
@eandesmom you pretty much summed up my thoughts-- my path was very convoluted and I just fell into what I ended turning into a fairly lucrative career, also with a liberal arts degree–also at a large public, where I got no guidance (didn’t seek it out :|). This is why I am so enamored of the LACs my D applied to, and while I’m glad she’s still considering some of them, her top choice right now is UVM, where she may end up exactly like I did. It all turned out OK for me, but these are different times–what worked back in the dark ages won’t necessarily work today. These are the things that keep me up at night…
Yesterday D received an email from U of Portland saying they were working on her financial aid award letter. We thought she was admitted because why else would they send an award letter. Then I checked the portal this morning. No admission decision yet. What?!
@RightCoaster Haha, it’s funny you say that because I told her we would all fly to Paris to “move her in” and she was like, “uh, no.” Seriously though, I think we will go initially just to get her settled and make sure she’s comfortable - maybe fly out on Friday and just sort of hang around over the weekend before orientation starts on a Monday. Then we’ll leave her to it and perhaps travel on to meet some friends in Budapest! I think the only way I would feel comfortable not going is if there’s a planned group of NYU students flying together (which may be the case, I just don’t know yet).
@eandesmom Thanks! How often are you in the city?
@techmom99 Thanks for the advice, we did email to say we couldn’t make it. I’m hoping to negotiate a bit more aid out of NYU, as many here know, they are not ones to give much! So I want to make the call early next week and see if they are willing before we hit the “accept” button. They did not come close to the NPC estimate or my EFC.
@curiositycat333 Glad to hear the grades are back on track for your D!
@klinska Become a Poly Sci professor!!
@Hankster1361 Congrats to your son on Clemson! <:-P
No Saturday detention here either, but D got a detention this year for showing up in the afternoon (when I called her out sick in the morning) to take a test. Huh?! @-)
My D served tank time because she just couldn’t make it to school for first period on a regular basis. I just know that in most parts of the country Saturday detention doesn’t register as religiously offensive, but several years ago when someone brought it up at a school board meeting, the response was “Why don’t we do SUNDAY detention?” It remained at after school.
@klinska - I majored in poli sci and became a lawyer. My first major was print journalism but I dropped that after my sophomore year, when I took a class on interviewing techniques and found out that shoving a mike in someone’s face and saying: “Hey, your kid was brutally murdered by the Son of Sam (as a student at my college was). How do you feel about that?” was really not my cup of tea.
Ironically, given the amount of intended envi sci types on this thread, I have to admit that the only class I ever dropped in law school was environmental law - OMG! I wanted to rip my hair out from boredom. I thought it would be about the environment but it was all regulatory stuff, of no interest to me.
@techmom99, my older daughter, now many years out of college, had to serve a few detentions because she had such a hard time getting up in the morning and getting to school. Like some of the other children described here, she struggled with calculus (she passed the class only because the teacher promised at least a C to every student who took the AP test) and with her foreign language (Spanish). She was very happy to go to a college where she was allowed to design her own major, have alternatives to exams, and only have to take a few semesters total of a quantitative course and a language. She’s now 26 and supporting herself in NYC.
@rosered55 - My D is 25 and living in Brooklyn. She’s living off savings, working part-time and living with her bf, who pays the rent while she looks for f/t work. She is now an early riser. Techson17 also has trouble waking up. His GC is such a great guy - he works hard to give S a schedule with at least 2 days where he starts 2d period, which is 9:10 AM. As an aside, at our HS you can’t take an AP class unless you commit to taking the test. It was different at your school?
I’m not sure what the deal was for AP tests at my daughters’ high school. I mainly recall my great gratitude that my older daughter was able to graduate and didn’t flunk calculus. I wouldn’t say that her life now is perfect but she’s doing much better now than in her junior and senior years of high school.
@kt1969 Philly (not really, it’s an hour away lol) is Ursinus. Which is outside of budget anyway and If I am stretching, I’ll do it for UVM but not for Ursinus. Granted part of that is I know Ursinus “could” have offered more and i’m cranky about it. If he loves it (unlikely) then we can try to negotiate so we will visit just to see.
However, no one in the family really wants to pronounce that name for 4 years.
LOL!
@Hankster1361 Clemson! Congrats, that is wonderful!
I am VERY tired of the not too late emails. Stop, enough already!
@klinska mine was very convoluted as well and why I am drawn to the LAC’s. NOt that I’d trade my experience for anything but to be honest it was all about the college experience and not remotely about the edcuation received or any iota of major/career planning support I received (or made aware of even really existed!).
I think/hope UVM is a bit better in that respect, it’s half the size of the flagship I attended and one of the things that draws me to the RSENR is that it is relatively small within the larger scope of UVM and as such I think could make a huge difference in making a large school feel small and to that end, gives it a huge edge over WWU. Which it better for twice the price. Just not sure I can swallow the price tag though.
@MSU88CHEng that is just weird. So all your classes are full year classes and they only get a grade for the full year? No semester grade for a year long class? BLEH. There has to be something better they can offer than the report card. Our new report cards this year were SO odd. They show Q2 and the S1 grades. No gpa on them at all though. Bizarre.
@brindlegreyhound that is annoying, and misleading!
@Fishnlines29 not often. If this “takes” probably once a year at least though. I was here last year at the same time but prior to that, it had been about 8 years. Far too long. It used to be almost annual though. “moving” my kid into Paris would definitely be “scope creep” for my college budget but how fun!!!
My middle son failed AP Calc BC but got a 5/4 on the AP subtests so he actually earned 8 college credits. He didn’t like the teacher and didn’t need the credit to graduate. He did the same thing with Physics C, except he got “only” a 4/3 on the AP tests.
Our report cards never show GPA and our HS doesn’t rank, though it apparently does send a note with apps of those kids in the top 20% advising that IF we ranked, they would be in the top 20%.
@eandesmom , I can’t wait to hear about your trip! I was expecting UVM to feel like a big state school, since we were looking mainly at LAC type schools, as well… But when we actually got to UVM, it felt like a small private university to us. Really looking forward to hearing all your impressions! Enjoy your travels… And may the weather gods be on your side! Be sure to enjoy a " maple creamee" at a takeout spot while you’re in Burlington.
How is the trip going, @eandesmom ? You must be seeing some very atypical NE weather; reminds me of my one and only trip to Seattle. It was a beautiful, sunshiney cloudless day and all the locals were in heaven; I was waiting for the storied mist!
Mr. Taco and I finally inputted our expected yearly costs for all of TacoSon’s schools, factoring in all scholarships, etc. They range from $18K to $67K. Wow.
It’s nearly 60 degrees here in the Berkshires today… thankfully, because there’s a lot of snow and ice that needs to melt. It’s almost starting to feel like mud season… but tomorrow night’s temps should drop back to around 15 degrees. Sugaring season is just around the corner, though, and we’re really looking forward to that!
@brindlegreyhound That happened to us. We got a scholarship letter at U of Hartford first. I emailed admissions and said, I’m assuming since we got a scholarship letter, my daughter got admitted but we never received an admissions letter. They apologized and resent the admissions letter.
@eandesmom yes, the budget is the tough part, it’s not more expensive to send her, just more expensive for me to add on a mini-vaca for me and the s/o! Flights in August are not cheap. Also, I agree with the last minute emails. They are really annoying. I’ve slowly been trying to “unsubscribe” to as many as I can.
@tacocat333 it’s the work part of the trip right now so it’s exhausting! Lol.
$18-67? Yikes! That makes me feel mildly better about our 22-48 spread lol. The 48 school may come down but if not…buh bye.
Yes it’s gorgeous here right now!
@techmom99 My son is likely to only get a C in AP Physics. But it’s likely he will get a 4+ on the AP tests. Honestly the class is way harder than the AP Exams…
@rosered55 You D probably would have graduated H.S even if she failed Calculus. To graduate H.S. my son only needs to pass his English & Politics class this semester. Might have affected if she went to college though. Most require a minimum of C’s on all spring semester classes.
As for AP’s affecting grades. I though our district had a policy that since they can’t require you take the AP (because it costs something) they couldn’t affect the grades. Yet my sons 5 on the AP Bio test, pulled his grade for spring semester up by a whole letter grade. I was very pleased when this happened.
If you have read this far. Today’s gripe. As those of you would regularly read my post know, my son is very sensitive to being “nagged” and keeps telling me “I can do this myself”. I have been trying to be really careful how I talk with him, trying to treating him like the almost mature adult he is & that we are in this together. But if I forget and have one of these conversations in front of my husband. My husband starts saying uniformed, short nags that derail what my son & I are talking about. Stuff like ‘you just need to get that done’. That are both unhelpful, uninformed and make my son withdraw.
Today I was trying to help with this job application my son’s working on, and my husband who hasn’t had to write one in years interrupts and tells me that I’m wrong. And to my son that he should “just get it done”. SIGH… And I take the path of least resistance… Instead of confronting my husband, I just try and talk with my son out of earshot.