Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

@DMV301 --sounds like your pedi is giving the old Trumenba with the 3 dose schedule? Trumenba is now available in a 2 dose option. Maybe you could call and ask if they are going to switch to new 2 dose schedules?

QOTD: I only applied to a handful of schools. I was offered a walk on spot for the tennis team at FSU in the summer before my senior year. I had hurt my knee at the time, so the coach wasn’t going to offer me a “real” spot. I was fine with that. I ended up hurting my knee again as soon as I showed up on campus and never even got to play on the team. Back then, doctors did not have the technology to repair ACLs so I was basically screwed. Although I was bummed, I still enjoyed my time there. I lived with some guys on the golf team ( some went pro). and so I basically just hacked around the golf course with them and got pretty good, ha.

I was not a great student in high school, but I did well on the SAT, but lopsided. I crushed the verbal, did OK in math,
I applied to my state school, and some schools in FL, AZ, and CA.

I got accepted to Northeastern, which my son was was recently deferred from, so I’ve got that going for me
:smiley:

QOTD: Like @snoozn I have an MIT story. I was good at math and science, and I remember a science teacher in HS saying “I bet you’ll end up at MIT!” I had no clue what MIT was, but I could tell I was supposed to be impressed. So I visited and applied to RIT – because it also had “IT” in the name, which made sense to me at the time. Neither my parents nor my older siblings went to college, so I was a bit on my own in the process. I applied very early rolling admissions and was accepted quickly, and I was done. One application. I’m not even sure I or my parents really thought about how much it would cost or if I’d run out of money.

It wasn’t until I visited a friend at a college in another state during an RIT break (RIT was quarters rather than semesters back then, so most RIT breaks didn’t match any other school) that I realized that I should perhaps have visited and applied to more than one school. Luckily RIT was a great fit for me, so it all worked out. Co-op earnings and an RA job paid for most of my last 2.5 years of school – otherwise, I probably would have run out of money.

Times have definitely changed.

I was a California resident as a teen–applied to one UC and one Cal State (chosen primarily based on the fact that they were far from home). Got into both, attended the UC. I remember very little about the application process. My parents weren’t involved at all. Don’t recall much stress about it (because I don’t recall much about it at all).

I didn’t work my freshman year or the summer after (dislocated my knee), but starting sophomore year and thereafter worked anywhere from 12 to 24 hours a week during the school year, and full-time in summers. Didn’t go home for summer after freshman year (I was the girl who decided to participate in sorority rush solely because that meant I could leave for school a week early–attended maybe 3 rush events, ditched the rest).

I was on the 5-year plan, which my father wasn’t all that happy about, but given that I was working, and that I had a monthly social security supplement coming in, his out-of-pocket costs were not that much. Different times back then (early 80s). Very few of my D17’s school will work out financially if she ends up on the 5-year plan, that’s for sure!

@dfbdfb wrote

I can totally relate. Some shades of orange are spectacularly beautiful (sunset, anyone?) but mix brick orange + maroon and oh the humanity!

QOTD: Medical power of attorney yes until she’s independent- her wish, my desire.

I’m using a rolling duffel bag I found on amazon to schlep all my art stuff all over campus (up the hills, down the hills, up the hills). I can’t believe I got it for 30 bux because it’s pretty darn cute:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L9G7SZY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

@AngelaD wrote

That’s a really good idea, I’ll mention it to H. It’ll have to wait a few years until she’s making an income, but it’d be a great incentive to get her saving for retirement at an early age. I’m so glad H started ours back when we were in our early 20s.

Which reminds me, my college roommate has a son who is 8 (ish), and she was talking about how savings accounts now charge you if you don’t regularly put money in it. She was using it as a teaching tool for her kid. I said hey, why not open a 529 for him instead? She didn’t know what it was, and I showed her a couple of options. Then some of her friends (who are similarly monetarily ignorant) started saying the fees for the 529’s were huge, yadda yadda. I said there are ones directly administered through the states that are very low in fees (like Utah’s), and gave her a good link to compare them.

She decided it was too complicated and wasn’t going to do it. Bummer. She’s still paying her student loans from when we were in college circa 1988.

I really wish there had been a financial literacy class when I was in high school. My parents were terrible with money-straight up bad. I thought you always hid the bills from dad when they came in. My mother had me trained well. @-) Somehow if you threw them out, they would go away! They always paid more for everything because they never had the cash leverage. Really sad and it took a long time for me to learn good habits.

Luckily my H comes from a super frugal family that borders on obsessive when it came to saving and using money wisely. We spend a lot of time with the girls showing them how we use and save money (H has re-written some of the code in Microsoft Money to keep it working and still uses it).

Could you hear the yelling and the earthquake from the jumping? Dd was just invited to USC’s Top Scholars weekend!

wow – @Mom2aphysicsgeek – that’s so awesome! Can you tell us more – is it US Car or US Cal?

@ca1543 They invited 46 students to compete for 5 Stamps scholarships, 20 McNair scholarships, and 21 Horseshoe scholarships. Basically, she is guaranteed at minimum in-state tuition plus an additional $11,000 which can stack on top of the NMF scholarship.

On FAFSA, ref to the amount of parent assets, excluding home, should that number include 401k or retirement accounts? I included them in that number.

D’s best friend gets $50k from Cornell – his family or extended family owns a golf course. I am trying to figure out what went wrong from our FAFSA!! Should I quit my job now?! Do anyone know the formula for EFC? Xx% of parent salaries and yy% of parents assets? What are xx% and yy%?

@Mom2aphysicsgeek , congratulations!!

<:-P @Mom2aphysicsgeek <:-P

So excited for her!!!

Congratulations @itsgettingreal17 @Mom2aphysicsgeek !! <:-P <:-P =D> =D>

Yes to Power of Attorney, but S17’s birthday is in summer, so we will have to wait.

I finally got around to buy some yarn. I have been busy knitting pink kitty hats. I missed tons of posts.
I was wondering what to do (not that I don’t have three new books that arrived to read) when I go off-screen, off-line on Friday. I will be busy knitting more hats!

@SincererLove Cornell is a different animal. Are they NYS residents? Is her friend at one of the land grant schools?

It’s also possible that the golf course is unprofitable and their net income is very low. I don’t think FAFSA takes into account the value of the asset. Cornell also requires CSS which allows you to better explain your situation
I think.

Lots of moving parts with Cornell.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Congrats!!! So excited for her! Good luck at competition.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek OMG! How exciting. Congratulations to her. So happy to see her finding a program she wants and the way to make it work financially. When is the weekend?

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Big congrats! How do you say that in Russian?

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Woo-hoo. Congrats to your D! That is so awesome

QOTD

I applied to two schools, a lottery school and our state flagship. My parents were not involved in the process at all. Applications in blue ball point pen. Didn’t get into the lottery and I attended the flagship, I worked 2 jobs, about 24 hours/week during the school year and sometimes 80 in the summer. Between earnings and loans I paid for tuition and fees and part of my room and board (sorority). I had a trust fund that covered the rest of the room and board until I turned 21 (weird rules
trust covered one but not the other and I still can’t recall which lol). At 21 I covered the remainder of the bill but qualified for greater loans then as an independent. My parents could not afford to help beyond books. Which they paid for as long as I had a 3.0 or above. And my tax bill one year as thanks to the trust, I owed taxes. LOL!

@SincererLove

NO, you do not include 401K or qualified retirement plans on the FAFSA in terms of the value of the total account (s). You DO include (separate line if I recall) monies contributed to retirement plans for the reporting year (and they add that back to the income). You do also include any college savings plans though (529 and the like) as assets at their full value. There are worksheets out there that can show you what your EFC will be. If you put in your full retirement savings as an asset then yes, that will completely mess up the results. If you’ve already filed it, I would ammend it.

PROFILE wants all your retirement asset info, FAFSA just looks at what you put in during the reporting year.

It is a little more than salaries/assets. It also looks at # in household and # in college.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek WOW!!! I can’t even keep track at this point. So happy you have that spreadhseet! Congratulations.

CSS/Profile is like a financial proctology exam, and they go deep! @-)

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Congrats , this is awesome, all the best

https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1718/help/faadef23.htm

@SincererLove, the 401k retirement account balance does not count as a parent asset.
But the amount of 401k pretax contributions that were made in 2015 to that account would be included as untaxed income on the 2017/18 FAFSA in question 94a.

Quitting your job now wouldn’t have any impact until the 2019/20 FAFSA which uses 2017 income.