@DMVmom So glad your son is doing well. A close friend’s daughter is graduating from WVU in May. She has had a good experience there. I appreciate your insight about a gap year, too!
Wow, I can’t believe no one has posted here since March! Waving hi to everyone and hoping your student had a wonderful first year!
Hi back at you! All good here, S likes Reed fine (he says it’s hard though! that much is true!), and it’s great having him home for summer. Hope your S is loving UVM.
Yeah, wow, I remember always checking in here, but now that both my guys are in their colleges & programs, I don’t get here much…
@DMVmom Congrats to your son on WVU and his recovery. I hope he has an amazing first year!
It was a good/interesting/scary 1st year for S17. I’ll cut to the chase and start with the scary… He needs a 3.2 GPA to stay in the honors college and keep his biggest scholarship. He had 1 class where he had his worst ever midterm and never recovered. It pulled his GPA below the 3.2 level–without that class he was at a 3.3. A few weeks after spring semester, he was told he was released from the honors college and scholarship unless he had “exceptional circumstances” for an appeal. Because of lots of reasons (see below), it wasn’t the right move to transfer him to an instate/cheaper school (Albany), so we had a contingency for him to drop his minor and study abroad opportunity and try to graduate from MSU in 3 years since he transferred in a boatload of credits.
But he also wanted to try the appeal route. He wrote an awesome appeal letter and followed up until he finally got his appeal review this week. The appeal was granted! So, assuming the re-take of that class is successful, he’s back on the 4 year plan with all the bells & whistles, and I think he’s stronger for it since he advocated for himself.
But the rest of the year was just the best experience for him. He integrated so well, did well in all classes except the 1, made great friends, and networked. He and his roommate and several others from their dorm floor are staying there together again next year-- He definitely found is “tribe.” He competed & traveled with the mock trial team, was on the freshman council for student gov’t, on his dorm’s steering committee, and helped to form a new student group that brought in speakers and organized several events–he’s on the executive board for that. There’s more, but that’s the gist of it–he’s active, involved, happy, and working hard/playing hard.
This summer, he’s hanging out here, working at a small/new restaurant, and seeing some high school friends while constantly texting and snapchatting with his MSU friends. There’s a good chance he’ll either study abroad or stay at MSU next summer, so this might be his last extended time home… But it’s all good–he’s making connections and doing things to get to the next level, and that’s all we can ask for!
@MSU88CHEng Great to hear that your son has found his niche at MSU! I think DS will always feel connected to MSU.
So much has happened since that post in March - emergency surgery for DH who has now fully recovered and a late acceptance, which led to a few difficult lessons in college admissions. End result is that DS will now be attending UMBC. He is very happy and excited to start.
Sorry that I so seldom get here…
Wow, @DMVmom, congrats to your son on UMBC, and good luck to him!
We’re in the dog days of summer here… My work is a bit insane lately, as is my husband’s, and the boys are here, there, and everywhere. It’s 3 weeks until S17 goes back to MSU, and I think he wishes it were tomorrow. He’s hanging out with a few HS friends, but I think he’s ready to be back. And it’s easier for me, too, knowing he’s involved and active. He still has to successfully repeat the one class, but otherwise he has a sound academic plan. I’m sort of nervous, but it’s on him… I’m doing a better job of letting the boys own their choices and decisions, and just backstopping when they ask for help or guidance. So, off they go for another year–by the end, S15 should be graduated and S17 will probably either be studying abroad or interning.
Anyone else having trouble logging into the college board website? D19 is trying to log in to order some SAT scores to be sent to a couple schools but keeps getting an error message. Trying to figure out if it is system wide or just her account. Getting this message.
Sorry for the inconvenience but we encountered an error within our system. Please try again later.