Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!
D’s flight is delayed by an hour as of now…hope no further delays…
Hope no further delays and your D is home safe!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
S17 is now working toward his major of Math with Actuarial Sciences taking many courses on interest, accounting, econ and probability.
Happy Thanksgiving to all old friends! Hope your kiddos are all doing well!
This is the first Thanksgiving which we don’t have DD with us. She is doing Alternative Thanksgiving Break at Memphis. Luckily we got invited to a friend house so I don’t need to contemplate cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for three.
DD is doing well, more challenging classes 17 hours with two labs, and working at the lab she worked in the summer for 6 to 8 hours a week. She “EDed” on her summer internship early November, and just updated her LinkedIn profile to show her summer internship, which I thought was funny. She wanted me to check if I can see it. I was surprised that she has 189 connections. Lol.
I’m I the only one dreading the HORDE (20+) that’s about to descend on my home? :-??
My sister-in-law isn’t on talking terms with her son-in-law, by wife is supper stressed out over the turkey (we’ve had “incidents” in the past), it doesn’t help her anxiety, that her two older sisters will be here, and I will need to hide the scotch, as some of my relatives really need to be limit them to wine and beer… #-o
I think my plan will be to barricade myself in the den with the scotch… [-O< X_X
@Gator88NE no, I had 19. Just now recovering.
I survived…the Scotch helped… :-bd
@greeny8 Hello, are you here?
@greeny8 I applied ED I to Vanderbilt and I got a pacakge coming from RAPID ENTERPRISES INC. I looked up the company and a link to your message came up. Did the package end up being from Vanderbilt?
I have a question about payment for the winter semester. The semester won’t start till early January. But I am sure the charge will be on the 2018 1098 ( it was for 2017). If we want to pay using funds from 529, we should pay it in 2018 right?
I haven’t been on here in a year, I think. I am looking forward to catching up and see how everyone is doing!
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!
We are looking forward to having DD home for winter break.
@whataboutcollege , We just used our 529 funds to pay for next semester. Make sure you leave enough time for your payment to the college to clear the college accounts so that you are properly matched for the 529 rules.
@carpoolingma Do you mean as long as the payment clears before its due date we are good with 529 rules? I remembered reading some where about the calendar year… don’t remember where and what…
@whataboutcollege Check on this, but my understanding is that the calendar year taking the 529 withdrawel has to match up to the calendar year that the school accepts and applies the payment to the bill. It is ok if the classes are actually Jan-May of 2019. So the college has to show that they were paid in the same calendar year that the 529 money came out of the 529 account. Problems can arise, for example, if you take out the 529 money now and then send a check on Dec 24, 2018 which just sits in a college lockbox until Jan 3, 2019.
@carpoolingma Ha! That makes perfect sense!!! Will get that payment going asap!
I haven’t been on here in ages, but I’m on break from work, so thought I would check in… It’s been a relaxing week with both S15 and S17 home, nothing major going on, and just a lot of family time–LOVING it!
I’ll also share our cautionary tale/success story… S17 was probably one of the last kids, stats-wise, to be added to the Honors College before his freshman year. It came with a $15k per year scholarship, which put the OOS school within our budget. However, the GPA required to keep the scholarship was 3.2.
Of course, in his 2nd semester, he tanked 1 class, putting his GPA at ~3.1, where without that class it was ~3.3. He got a letter that he would be dismissed from the Honors College and lose his scholarship. He came into college with a bunch of credits, so his contingency was to graduate in 3 years, but that would mean dropping his minor and not doing a study abroad session. But he also appealed the HC dismissal/scholarship loss–wrote a letter & set up the appeal review on the basis of re-taking the 1 class and the fact that he’s engaged and involved. The appeal was granted, and he had this Fall semester to get his GPA above 3.2. The thing that helped was that the grade on the re-take of the class completely replaces the bad grade.
He made the most of his opportunity, and had an awesome semester–academically, socially, and with his clubs & professional groups. He’s safely off HC probation, and is loving life. He handled all of this on his own, so I have to say that sometimes you just have to trust the process–they learn, grow, and are stronger for the struggle…
@MSU88CHEng what a great cautionary tale and result. And YIKES on the 3.2. Congratulations on some very successful adulting.
@MSU88CHEng I’m glad you shared that story and super glad your son pulled it together and back up and took that class again.
We have a similar tale of woe. D17 off to Pitt Engineering (34 ACT, #10/700, full IB Diploma but no AP Chem or AP Physics) and she faced the beast of First Year Engineering: Physics 1, Calc 1, Chem 1, Engineering analysis and an elective. She did indeed struggle and probably came closer than we need to know to failing Physics. She passed, persevered and raised her GPA a bit in the spring. She took Physics 2 at our local four year university and found it to be somewhat easy and much more straight forward compared to Physics at Pitt. She went back to Pitt with scholarship intact but with one semester to bring up her GPA.
I’m proud to say this semester she went back and cranked it and ended with four As and two Bs in Statics, Calc 3, Engineering Economics, Environmental Engineering and Business Comp. She is off scholarship probation and we are proud of the perseverance and resilience. She loves Pitt and has a great group of friends and activities and was willing to put in the work to stay there.
We would’ve never predicted this would happen. I wish I could say she was partying and having too much fun. We knew her high school was on the lower end of the rigor scale but she really felt it last year when she was among kids who way outpaced her academically. And this is at a regular “state school.” So…word to the wise: state schools can provide more than enough rigor even for the high stats kids and it really does pay to be super objective about your high school.
@carachel2 Congrats to your D17! It’s tough to see the kids struggle after they’ve always been so successful, but rewarding when they work it out. My guy was top 10 in his HS class (of only ~150), as 1 of only 2 to do the full IB diploma, but his test scores were not amazing. And I knew the program he was going into is known for some grade deflation, so there was some apprehension, but he worked it all out. And he’s making the connections he needs through his activities, including a probable political internship/aid position this next semester. I don’t think we’ll see much of him back home except for short breaks, but it’s all good–he’s making his own path! Good luck to your daughter!
@MSU88CHEng @carachel2 interesting list of school with grade deflation. thttps://blog.gradeslam.org/the-top-25-colleges-with-the-hardest-grading/
The College my D17 attends is no 1 on this list. She graduated from a High School that was very rigorous she took all AP Classes. D said her high school experience helped her get through her Collegevfreshman year. This year has been easier as she now knows what classes and professors are better. So glad to see our young adults are figuring out life.
@botcom I feel my Ds world would be infinitely easier if she would’ve chosen to major in subjects that come easy to her. She barely blinked an eye at Microeconomics and Business Composition and Intermediate German and made an A in those classes and she won a pretty big departmental award for a professional paper at the first year engineering conference. Her IB diploma prepared her well for those classes and thank goodness they help her crank out easy As to balance out the stuff that really challenges her!
@MSU88CHEng @carachel2 Congratulations on the great outcomes! Kudos for the kids taking charge and pulling the success after the struggle !
We picked up S17 yesterday after his two finals. My house is full again. :x :x