At least she has some idea of what’s to come, should she take advanced classes in the discipline!
@youcee My D17 is taking midterm exams! What a difference in schedules!
My daughter’s entry in the “how to turn your mother grey(er) in just twenty-four hours” competition, Mastery level:
Text on Wednesday at 2 a.m. – “So I fell down and hit my head yesterday, and now I’ve got a headache that wasn’t there before. Do you think I should go see a doctor if it doesn’t clear up?”
Text on Wednesday at 9 a.m. – “There was a chain-reaction bike collision this morning and I cut my head, so I’m at the Student Health Center now. They think I should see a plastic surgeon. What do I do next?”
Text on Wednesday at midnight – “My tetanus shot IS up-to-date, right?”
Despite the heart failure she gave her poor mother, D17 again proved her ability to adult. She missed two classes while at the health center but they patched up her forehead so that, once she was released, she could attend her chemistry class and take her midterm exam before heading to the hospital.
However, the health center wasn’t super-helpful regarding where to go for treatment. Neither of my kids have ever needed stitches, but I suggested she start by calling the Huntsville E.R., where she learned that if they didn’t think a nurse practitioner was appropriate, they could call in a plastic surgeon from elsewhere to attend her there. (The cut extended through her eyebrow into the eyelid, so they did.) She also wisely decided it would be good to have a friend drive her, even though she felt fine, in case she felt less-than-fine after treatment.
On the upside, the E.R. ruled out a concussion from Tuesday’s fall while they were seeing her for Wednesday’s accident… sigh
Since weather seems to be a common theme in the 100+ posts I just caught up on, I’ll report that in the PNW DD17 is relieved that the forest fire smoke and ash has cleared, the record high temps have dropped (it was 103F her first week, her dorm is not air-conditioned, and keeping the windows open meant that the smoke came in), and it’s finally started raining. I fly out for Family Weekend next week and I’m looking forward to seeing the PNW the way it’s supposed to be - green!
Otherwise, DD seems to be doing great. She gets along well with her roommate and says her entire dorm floor is very close, she applied for and was chosen as an Outdoor Programs Leader, she got an A on her chemistry midterm, and so on.
For those who have recently dropped off DC and are feeling blue, one thing that has helped DH and me is to accept every social invite that comes our way, and to extend some invites, too. We usually prefer a fair amount of time to ourselves in-between social engagements, but right having to show up and smile is getting us through.
@NolaCAR my first week of freshman year at Willamette was the hottest it ever was in my 4 years. Hopefully it never gets that hot again. No a/c is normal there and 99% of the time it is fine.
@NolaCAR - Good tip. H and I have been keeping busy similarly. We are actually embracing our near Empty Nest Status (just have S12 living at home - but very independent and busy on his own) and have been planning a Spring Trip to Portugal with another couple who have a D in Sophomore year. We have several invites out to others and are accepting most invites that come our way. It definitely helps!
First SOS from D on Tuesday! Brand new computer had the black screen of death. This is the 2nd time this has happened since she got the computer in August. Feeling like she got a lemon. The computers in the library have become her new best friend. She did ask me to send her old computer so she has a backup to use if needed. New computer has been mailed back to company for repair.Hopefully this solves the issue. If we have a 3rd issue she needs to have them replace it.
Happy FAFSA Day!
Yep, you read that right.
^^
What is Fafsa Day?
@STEM2017 I’m just happy it’s the FAFSA not the CSS profile!
I’m going to have to read up on Fafsa and Css soon I guess as we didn’t file anything with son17. But we will have 2 in school in a 2019.
So can I ask you all how it works and if we should even bother? I doubt we’ll qualify for any aid even with 2 in college at the same time. So lets say you have 2 kids in school with price tags of 65K each. So, 130K in tuition and fees.
How much money do you need to make before you are not considered? We have a bunch of $ in 529 plans, cash set aside, lots of home equity, etc. I just don’t think we’ll qualify for anything, and that’s fine. Maybe son19 can get some merit aid somewhere, who knows.
I was happy to not deal with this stuff last year.
@RightCoaster you can do the EFC calculator above.
A private school might give some need based grants if the EFC is lower than COA.
A public school might not give anything other than fedefal student loans and whatever federal or state grants someone qualifies for.
Some schools don’t give aid in subsequent years if you didn’t apply in freshman year.
To see how much aid a school might give, do an online search for ‘school name net price calculator’.
It might ask for grades and scores for schools that give merit estimates, and the income and assets. There should be a question about how many students are in college.
BTW you could stil file a FAFSA for 2017/18 school year. If you would want your S17 to take out loans for example.
EFC for most schools is very roughly 20% of income and 5% of assets excluding retirement and home equity. That’s very rough.
@RightCoaster - Some schools are more generous than others with aid. The FAFSA is the only form used by (most) publics. As @VickiSoCal notes home equity is not considered in the FAFSA. Most private colleges and unis, in addition to the FAFSA, have you fill out their own form or use the CSS Profile that the College Board that does look at things like home equity.
The most generous schools are those that are need blind and that claim to meet 100% of financial need. With 2 kids in college, schools might indeed be more generous.
ok, thanks all. I’ll go mess around with the EFC calculator. I think many of the schools we had looked at and the schools son19 is interested in are CSS profile. I think I ran the net price calculator once and we did not qualify for anything so I just never bothered with it again. I didn’t even think about it again until I read it was Fafsa day, lol.
Son17 is planning a mid term trip to Switzerland and Germany, and I’m hoping he misses out the Oktoberfest celebrations 
He texted me and told me he received his first perfect score in a math class ever, so that was good news. He’s working on a community service project as a gardener, funny as he never once put on a pair of work gloves or utilized a shovel while living with us.
We did not qualify for any need with one kid in, we might get a bit with 2, but that’s not until 2020 for us.
@RightCoaster – both of my boys were members of our school’s garden club and neither did any work around the gardens at my house.
@CT1417, ha, I’m thinking there must be smart and attractive young ladies involved in the gardening group. But whatever, if he picks up any useful gardening skills and gets dirty it’s all good.
@RightCoaster Schools that use the CSS Profile can take home equity into account in quite different ways. Some limit it to 1.2 (Stanford) or 2 (USC) times your annual income, but others like Northeastern (from what I was able to find) don’t cap it. So your 2nd kid may have quite a bit different result than your first if counting home equity as part of your assets comes into play.