swag bought D a sweatshirt and long sleeve shirt when she was accepted in December. She got another sweatshirt as a gift and I accidentally shrunk it yesterday. She’s tall, so the arms were just right and now they are 3/4 sleeves. She was fuming at me so I begrudgingly bought her the exact same one a size larger. Luckily it was now on sale.
promposals they are pretty big here too. I agree that’s it’s all for social media as they all post on twitter. My D just recently started dating a boy so she is assuming she will go with him and of course she is looking forward to his promposal. It does seem a bit much.
Regarding FB groups. I’m in the parent one, lots of great information! since all college information is being sent to my D17 directly, it’s the only way I can somewhat stay in the loop of what’s going on!
Swag: very little so far, a tshirt and sweat shirt. More to come once on campus I’m sure. I don’t want to pay for shipping!
@ct1417 Some schools reach out to parents to invite them to the facebook group. I would also check the school’s Parent and Family Connections information page for links to newsletters or other social media (security alerts, etc.).
Some schools have a Parent Committee where parents serve in an advisory capacity and/or as volunteers for certain on-campus or off-campus activities. For example, a parent committee member might attend a local information session for prospective students and share their experiences with other parents.
D’s top choice is sending a t-shirt for free. If the overnight seals the deal we’ll go to the campus store when I pick her up and get more. They have a button that says ‘Beat X’ where X is the school her bestie is most likely going to attend so she wants one of those to wear every day at school she says.
FB pages - am on 2 for my S15. He is 12 hours away. On the one hand, I find some info helpful particularly informative. However, this year, new parents came in who felt there was no need for the older parents - some who really only stuck around to help. So all sorts of drama and cattiness started up with the new parents this year. Another FB page started up so I lurk on both, read much, post little. Without the parents who have been through stuff like graduation, the pages are useless to me - they are the sources of information.
We too were the drop and call us if you need us type. We didn’t do the parents weekend two years now, don’t plan on it for the upcoming 2 years either. A wise been there, done that parent said why in the world go then when campus is so crowded and you can’t find hotels or parking or places to eat? Freshman year, son wasn’t really interested in having us visit - he was having fun, being independent, having fun… I would text, text, text, hear nothing back. Get frustrated cuz other parents would post that they hear from their kid every day or something. This year, we have seen major growth, made Dean’s list! yeah!, still having fun but more of the work hard, play hard mentality where last year was play hard, play harder. I try not to contact him first, that was hard, but I found that if I let him contact me, he contacts me. It’s on his terms, he likes it that way and I hear from him more. He actually has been a bit homesick this semester - nice to hear. We are stopping in for dinner as we drag D17 off to visit 2 schools so we can pretend she is making an informed choice.
D17 did set up a FB, follows the class of pages for like 5 of her colleges, joined the GroupMe things the kids have, not sure if she is involved or just joined to placate me.
Prom - yack on the promposal things. I agree with the post that it is a social media thing, and it’s much of the keeping up with or passing by the Jones’ thing. My daughter wanted to buy concert tickets as part of her promposal - I was like seriously? What does the concert have to do with Prom? Her wise crack back - about as much as the Sour Patch had to do with SnowBall. True - but a bag of candy is a whole lot cheaper than concert tickets. This is my 5th Prom since D15 went with an older girl as a sophomore - S19 seems uninterested in dances although I am sure that will change.
@RightCoaster, that sounds great. Like that waaayyyy more than this whole prom thing. I thought it was bad when I was in hs. They have enough going on and this party they have seems a lot more enjoyable sans the drama. He has a gf -they started dating about 3 months ago and she is just fine with him asking her so he did - made it a lot simpler.
I do have to say that I am almost jealous of those of you whose child has committed we are still not there and it is not getting any easier. I sure hope the second time around in a couple of years will be less stressful for me. At least I will know a little more about this whole process than I do now.
It doesn’t get easier for me. I know more, but bc I know more I feel more direct responsibility in helping select schools. I know the approx likelihood of various outcomes. Bc our kids need merit $$, I also feel the stress of knowing how competitive the scholarships are and their likely outcomes. I actually feel more stress bc it isn’t just a waiting game. It is 100% strategic applications and I am the guidance counselor coming up with the list.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I can empathize as a fellow guidance counselor. It has actually been more challenging finding the right schools and opportunities for my D. She is my youngest and the one with the most options. I will take what I learn this year and hopefully help others. The learning curve never ends!
We bought two shirts. One from each of the two admitted student days we attended last week. S17 was committed to visiting both schools and then weighing his options and deciding after we returned home. He shared his decision as we headed to the airport. I knew within 30 minutes of being on campus that morning. We now have a lovely shirt that someone in my family will wear.
QOTD: I’ve joined no facebook groups. My son has not joined any of the groupme or facebook groups either. He will, I suspect at some later time. He is full engaged in his senior year and the time he has left with his friends.They are having a great time. Orientation will be in June and I’m sure that is around the time the transition from focusing on his friends to focusing on making friends at college will occur.
One of the students that S17 spoke to told him to be sure to connect with potential roommates on facebook and not try to gauge how they would get along based on the housing survey.
@socalmom007 Sorry for your frustration. As I said, my S17 went to two admitted student days last week. He had a great time at both. How about if you tell your daughter that part of feeling really confident in her decision will be to explore all options? Tell her she may learn information/ tips that will benefit her regardless of where she goes to college.
Adding to @stem2017 's list of schools emailing that they still have space: New College of Florida
@@Fishnlines29 Good question as my S17 asked for permission to go on an overnight to the beach with his buddies. All great kids who came up with a plan and then each of them came to their respective parents to get our approval They have also asked if they can go away for a week together after graduation. They are all 18. They have all proven themselves to be responsible young adults who are all heading to colleges all over the country. They will be on their own in a few months making decisions about where they go and who they go with so I am fine with it. It’s just going to be their group of 6; they won’t be meeting up with any other groups.
@VickiSoCal and @paveyourpath I know it, I’m working on it. Things like this is where I see her immaturity, she’s only 17 yrs 4 mos. she doesn’t see a point to go to accepted student days because she’s already visited. I’d like her to start getting excited about her college experience. I know she and the bf wanted to be together, but they literally got into no schools together. They need to be able to pivot here.
Promposals- yes, a big deal here. The bf did it BIG, D17 enjoyed the effort.
Sarah Lawrence College sent a reader card with all of the two readers evaluations of D17’s application, both essays, extracurriculars, educational background, etc… explained why they thought she was such a great fit. Warmed my heart, wish they’d given her enough merit to be in the running.
@jedwards70 !!! I haven’t been here in while LOL!!! I have been sucked into the Visual Arts and Film majors threads!!! My D17 is going to go to NYC this weekend to decide between 2 schools (School of Visual Arts, and Pratt). She has been offered generous scholarships to both, and at this point, it’s kind of a fit choice. We are super excited. She will graduate with a 4.3, most talented in her class, and some pretty awesome memories. She is going to major in animation and storyboarding, and is very excited about the next phase! Pretty ready for high school to be OVER. Definitely has senioritis, and is just plugging through. At least her last semester is easy… Advanced Orchestra, Honor Choir, personal finance, Film as Literature, and AP stats! I’m gonna peruse this thread and see what has been going on!!!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek reading your post got me nervous :-S . Just realizing the mistakes we made out of pure ignorance, yet the scary part is I thought we knew what we were doing. We really got lucky with the results he had and the merit scholarships he was blessed enough to receive. He applied to 6 schools and we thought that was enough. After joining cc in the last month I realize how many schools students are applying to and makes me realize how very lucky he is to have been accepted where he did. I think for my daughter I will have her apply to more, particularly after seeing so many wonderful students not get accepted to schools. I always knew how competitive it was and the difficulty of getting merit scholarships (we actually did not expect any), but seeing it up close was just crazy.
Can you share more on what you mean by strategic applications? I really wish my kids were fortunate enough to have a counselor like you at their high school. It is pretty much left to the kids and parents.
@socalmom007 I’ve been reading your posts and I’m sorry you are so frustrated. I hope it all works out for them and that they are happy wherever they go.
I think Sauron invented both Promposals and Elf of the Shelf.
I joined some FB groups-cautiously. Like NextDoor for my neighborhood, it seems to be a mix of reasonable people with good advice and batpoop crazy people. I’m on the “class of 2021 parents” one, the parents local to my area one (although I find that one aggravating) and a general parent one (by far the most helpful). D17 has no desire to be on the students one because she’s not super active on social media and she doesn’t want any “idiots to dampen my enthusiasm”. If she has a question she has me crowd source it through the general parents wall.
When my kids do this I tend to bargain, like “If you want to go to the NYU accepted student event, my requirement is that you also go to the CPSlo one so you can make an informed decision.”
Swag-one really nice hoodie I found on amazon. She’s getting H a t-shirt for father’s day that says Bama Dad, and I’m assuming I’m getting a similar one for Mother’s Day :D.
D17 and D18 were going to rent a limo with their friends until they found out a 10 person limo cost nearly 800 for 4 hours. $-) Now it’s Mom Limo. They’re going to all go play laser tag in their prom gear after prom-I seriously wonder how well those dresses are going to fare…
@socalmom007 ugh, I can feel your CP frustration. I would not be above bargaining with her either, if you do this then…whatever.
No swag here yet, we’d have to make a choice. Although he does own a hat already from each of the final two, a total of three schools made his “hat” list which was his swag of choice after tours and he only wanted it at a few places (though one was a gift I suspect he’d have bought a hat if he hadn’t received one for xmas). Not really sure if he will want more but hopefully saturday is decision day!
