Congrats on the R-H acceptance @thshadow <:-P
In other news, we are going on the ultimate field trip today to Goddard Space Flight Center! The tour was arranged through our state Science Olympiad committee. I get to chaperone.
@theshadow Great Rose-Hulman story. Love it. Congrats!
@WhereIsMyKindle Speaking of GSFC, NASA offers dozens of really cool summer internships for high school and college STEM students. I signed up for updates and get a weekly email on opportunities. All you STEM parents should take a look. Imagine a summer internship with NASA? Pretty cool.
Hugs @jpc763
@thshadow how exciting to get a midnight surprise! Congrats <:-P
@Testingearly I hate being wrong, your husband is nice to not rub it in.
@WhereIsMyKindle have fun! I havenāt been ALLOWED to chaperone for a few years now (mom, Iām too old for you to still chaperoneā¦)
Senioritis is here at full blast. The semester ends Friday and she still has volunteer hours she needs to complete. Leaving it for the last second. Plus she has 3 Bās and she has never had a B all through high school. Who is this kid?
At D17s school, no seniors take finals second semester. But for that last week of school they do a senior independent study project. Last week their final proposals were due for the week in May and it seemed a lot of planning and work was required for the proposals.
Iām excited for all the acceptances posted here, and virtual hugs for all the not so happy results. Such a stressful, emotional time of year ā combined with the stress of the holidays!
@BigPapiofthree A big congrats to your S!! Now thatās one way to get over a disappointment!
@thshadow Congrats to your D!! Does she know she was also accepted at Purdue yet?
@BlueAFMom wrote
Only if you want to decide NEVER to let your kid go to the party central city of America, lol :)) We were there for our 20th anniversary (not during Marti Gras) and I still remember H saying āthis town is way too much funā. 
@MACncheez did you account for inflation re: grandmotherās cost of attendance?
@thshadow 11:30? The poor USPS people! Cool about your D being excited, though 
Iāve been keeping them and the UPS people busy with online ordering >:) . I went to the mall last weekend with D18 and nearly didnāt survive the experience-no more of that! People suck!
@Ynotgo wrote
I think they just sometimes donāt think about stuff like that. My H wanted to do a trip to las vegas on new yearās for just the two of us and I gave him a glare, and he was like, what? I reminded him that was his elder daughterās 18th birthday, and it would be deeply uncool not to be there for it. Sometimes I think engineering minds are so practical they donāt think about stuff like that.
@WhereIsMyKindle wrote
So cool! Iām nerding out hard over that one! Goddard lived and flew his first rocket really close to where I grew up. He also almost blew up a building at WPI. :D.
Chaperoning-boy do I miss those days. D17 is in the prom fashion show and Iām not allowed to help at all. Itās making me crazy. She comes home and says āthe person they hired to show us how to do a runway walk didnāt show upā and I jump around madly and point to myself and she says āno moms!ā Sigh.
DS was deferred from his dream school. A reach, but not a long shot. It was very disappointed. He only applied to 4 schools (3 acceptable to him early ). He is so sad. Itās really hard to read about the acceptances. While I love to visit CC, it was really hard to be on here yesterday.
Now we wait for 2 more schools (hurry up already) which should come this week.
And, now he works on getting into his deferred school. Iām so glad he kept his grades up this semester. His WGPA should go up.
The heartbreak is so hard!
Congratulations to all those who are celebrating!!!
@MACncheez @caroldanvers @MSU88CHEng Congrats on the scholarships!!
I know nothing about MSU, but it is a school my physicsgeek has talked about the past couple of days. He has been looking into their nuclear physics grad program. Not that he has asked me what I think 
or for any opinions one way or the other (the conversations are matter of fact ), but if you know anything you think Iād like to hear, Iād appreciate anything you want to share.
Congrats to all on the acceptances (11PM USPS? Geesh!) and scholarships. Truly a great group of kids!
Here, thereās no getting out of exams. The mentality here is: 100 average all year? so what! Still need to prove you moved all of that info from short-term to long-term memory (or you can at least cram your short term memory with 1 year x 5 or 6 subjects). I wish DD could skip exams with an A ā she doesnāt sleep much exam week.
QOTD: Volunteer hours. Since @greeny8 mentioned this, I have to askā¦ I often see mentions of vol hours being required, but thatās not the case here. How common is this? Is this a way to force some kids to have ECs? My DD has some hour requirements as part of NHS, but thatās it.
I apologize if this has been asked before. I havenāt read back before post 21,000 or so!
@dfbdfb Does she watch Mozart in the Jungle? Itās on Amazon Prime.
@phoenixmomof2 Sorry about the deferral. Hopefully itās just a postponement of the good news.
@stencils Our HS requires 60 hours of community service to graduate. Itās all about making them better citizens, apparently. 
@kt1969 That makes sense. Iām not opposed to the volunteer requirements, and in the words of John and Hank Green ā it decreases āworld suckā! Those of you who have kids who spent the weekend watching the Project for Awesome on youtube will understand. My DDs both love the Green brothers ā especially Johnās books and their Crash Course videos.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I had some friends in physcis, but all I remember is that they have a cyclotron and it was a really big deal for the physics majors to get to work at the cyclotron.
Okay. I have held off as long as I can. I posted here way back when, but mostly just read, ālikeā and smile. This is such a supportive group and I Really enjoy hearing about all of the successes and setbacks your children face. I do think frequently that these kids are the future of our country, and feel comfort in that.
I am finally posting today because I really cannot talk much about this in real life since my son is pretty private. And I feel like I am going to explode! He is a finalist for a Posse scholarship which comes with full tuition, lots of opportunities and amazing support. His final interview is tonight. I have been trying to play it cool for months now so he would not feel any pressure, but boy, would this be a game changer for our family. Please send all of the good thoughts our way
@thshadow I think you will win the honors of the most unique acceptance story!!
@stencils Some schools here do require volunteer hrs to graduate. I personally find require and volunteer used simultaneously as oxymoronic.
@ohmyiamtired āI love it when people come out of lurkdom and actually look like they will participate! Iāve read about Posse and it sounds amazing. How does the final interview work? Is it one person or a panel?
@ohmyiamtired Good luck to your son on the Posse interview! I donāt know too much about it, but I know my alma mater has a Posse group and it sounds very cool. Hope it goes great.
Looks like Northeastern decisions may come on Thursday according to gossip on this site. I think there are a few of you with kids applying.
Son17 had a friend get accepted ED the other day to Northeastern, but his financial aid package was not good, so it looks like heās going to have to pass on it. Thatās too bad. I know he really wanted to go, but he has 2 siblings in college right now so cashflow must be an issue.
The kid has similar stats to my son, better overall GPA, class rank, but worse ACT score. It will be interesting to see how my son does there. His biggest issue on his app is his class rank. As a freshman he was not pushed into the fast track, and only took a couple of Honors courses. He got all Aās, but his GPA was below a lot of the other kids who took all Honors. He had a 3.8 for freshman year and a lot of the kids had 4.33 and up from the extra Honors classes. He has never been able to catch up since, so his class rank is somewhere between 25-30%. So, no top 10%, not even close. This is with a kid who has never gotten lower than a B on any any quarter of year end grade.
Pretty competitive school! He has shown an increase in rigor every year and has kept getting good grades, so hopefully the admissions people note that. Maybe his Guidance Counselor LOR will explain that. But if my son gets rejected from his two tougher choices itās because of class rank, as both schools list it as important on common data set. He helps the schools with average GPA, ACT score, but drags them down in top 10% category.
So. weāll see what happens this week. Fingers crossed.
No other news from son regarding college talks with friends, and he remains surprisingly cool as a cucumber on the outside. Literally no worry or concern.
@ohmyiamtired Welcome and best of luck to your S on his interview! The Posse Foundation sounds so amazing. Please keep your new support group up to date on his progress. 
One tiny piece of advice for any interview - always have a couple of thoughtful questions prepared in your back pocket.
@BigPapiofthree Congrats!! so nice to hear great news so quickly!! <:-P
@MACncheez Great news on the scholarship/package! that sounds exciting.
@paveyourpath I really feel bad about all of the stress these kids are under - I donāt remember it being this crazy when we were kids.
@thshadow So happy to hear that your D was excited about Rose Hulman! Did she ever finally realize she was in at Purdue? I guess I missed that!!
@Testingearly Iām in your boat with my D - never has to be told to do anything but had dragged this application process on. All I can figure, itās just overwhelming stress!! I never considered a consultant but maybe theyāre good for just moving it along.