my DS is also a tech geek but he is more into latest technologies. After I refused to buy him a smart watch as b’day gift, he bugged me to buy Nest thermostat as birthday gift. I doubt any other teen got it as a b’day gift :-). After I got him that, he convinced Nest to give him two more for free (for beta testing) to cover all 3 zones in the house!.
I bought a Mac years ago when I realized it was the only way to keep ds off of my computer and keep virus attacks to a minimum.
Hahaha @dfbdfb! Not snooping would take a lot of self control! 
Good tip on the fee waiver @mtrosemom. I save all of the correspondence that arrives for ds in a basket, just in case. Glad I did now. There may be waiver codes. His biggest stalker is pouring on the love lately. They’ve graduated from the small pamphlets to the large glossy books. Can’t imagine how many trees die each year in the search for the perfect yield.
RE: fee waivers. I recall from my older son that some just arrived unsolicited via email. IRRC, Tulane, Fordham and CWRU…I think.
@CA1543 Actually, DS still wants to major in physics, probably with a minor or 2nd major in CS. So, engineering is not the emphasis for him. Physics research is.
He is in an engineering program at his school that teaches machining, soldering, wiring, electronics and that sort of hands on stuff. And, he learned woodworking from dad. He likes all that stuff (even the smell of solder, which isn’t all that healthy), but it hasn’t turned him into an engineer beyond all the CS stuff. All these associated skills have been handy with his physics research, because he’s had to do machining, wiring, dealing with vacuum chambers, and getting various old and new serial devices to talk to other devices.
That said, kids sometimes change their minds during college, so DS should be aware of the difficulty of transferring into engineering at many schools.
Fee waivers, huh. I’ll have to keep my eye out. We are not feeling nearly enough love at home. D’s friend came over to study the other night wearing a UChicago t-shirt she received in the mail. WTH? Why didn’t we get one??!!
S hasn’t, as of yet, received any tee-shirts either. :-S
Fee waivers. Good point on looking for codes. I know SD14 got a few (but never a tee shirt). S did get one tee shirt but it was from an actual tour so I don’t think it counts. So far the only thing that has excited S in the mail was a fun map Reed sent.
Where he circled everything he liked with a sharpie. Pretty funny.
@HiToWaMom in all fairness, the USH teacher only had my S missing for the test, not enough to reschedule for sure. S could have made it up another time if he’d needed to. He actually loves his teacher, one of his favorite classes (as the teacher and he love to talk politics to the dismay of the rest of the class). He may actually use him as an LOR.
ALL our teachers “fire” kids (or their parents lol) from music lessons. They only want kids that are pretty serious and aren’t interested in less than that. They’ve all made it clear from day one. Thankfully so far this was the first instance of firing for us (not so some others we know) and really was a scare tactic as much as anything and I support the methodolgy in this particular case.
@Ynotgo I am so happy it worked out as well.
@carachel2 yes, the difficulty communicating is ridiculous and has driven me nuts for years. It is what it is though and really, the guy is absolutely worth the pain but UGH. Their schedules are just nuts. The only way I could make it work is to drive him after school, which means me leaving work for 3 weeks early but in this case I will do it as it is short term.
@CaucAsianDad most of the schools are are looking at has a 4 as the minimum. Which is unfortunate as the FRQ’s were quite different. @itsgettingreal17 that will stress S out as well, not sure when they are doing that but definitely not today since she told them all they could skip.
No tee-shirts here, either. Just a poster and a ton of junk mail.
I got home a little while ago from my homeschool to college talk. Wowsers, 2 hrs of non-stop talking. Most of the people in attendance had middle schoolers which I thought was awesome, I was thrilled to see proactive parents wanting information.
I had 2 parents of jrs and they are so underprepared. One was frustrated bc she didn’t know anything about the PSAT. The other was hoping for scholarship $$ but not it’s not likely.
It makes me so glad that there are communities like this one to learn from.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Did you happen to talk about CC?
@mom2collegekids it’s sad isn’t it?
I could hear the jaws dropping last night collectively when I gave a small speech about Ds efforts to get merit aid. Especially when I included the part that the Ivies don’t give merit scholarships.
Heck, no. You guys would scare the death out of them! I tried my hardest to NOT scare them! 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek – you rock! so good to help parents start to learn about the death defying feat of getting into college but keeping them alive so they can get some confidence and skills before getting shot out of the cannon.
Good for you @Mom2aphysicsgeek. Even though it’s tough to hear, you’re doing them a huge favor. I run into this quite a bit. Parents have no clue that it’s an entirely different world these days.
Even really smart parents have no idea, or they put blinders on. I have a good friend who’s Jr. daughter is extremely gifted, but also gets stressed easily. We have offered to take the girl on college trips with us, but she is freaking out about the idea of college. Mom wants her to go to an elite school in the east, and she’d be competitive there, but, based on the reluctance to look at schools, I don’t know if she really wants to go that far. It is very interesting to me. I think that I finally convinced the Mom that there is no merit money in the schools she is targeting.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek they are lucky to have heard you and hopefully, they actually did “hear”. Too funny about CC scaring them though. It really is sad but easy to see how it happens to many, if not most families, homeschooled or not.
Heck, @eandesmom, this place used to scare me! I would venture in here every once and awhile and leave again bc I would click on a title and the responses were over the top. My oldest was a successful chemE, but based on what I read here, you’d think his degree was pulled out a CrackerJack box and he’d have a worthless career. (And I knew it was bogus bc I knew his corp, his income, his promotions, and his friends who worked with him that went to some of those very same schools!)
It wasn’t until our youngest ds was accepted to SSP, had won multiple large dollar scholarships, and I really wanted more info on Alabama that I ventured in long enough to read beyond the sensationalized views.
CC is a fabulous source info, but there are when times it is also like seeing the world through a Palo Alto, CA lens. And that is a world I am so glad that I don’t live in and can freely reject with confidence. You need to have a little confidence in your understanding of things to know that it isn’t the only reality.
It’s great of you @Mom2aphysicsgeek and @carachel2 to be talking to parents about what they need to know about college applications and financing. Many schools, ours included, don’t do a very good job of educating parents beyond the basics. And, homeschool parents have to educate themselves about even more things. It’s so hard for parents to know what they don’t know – that is to know what gaps there are in their knowledge.
@Ynotgo …my Ds test prep teacher and very occasional private tutor asked my D to speak to her new crop of test prep kids, but she was not to hip on doing it and needed to study last night so I stepped in. I think it was good for the other parents to hear the parent side too. I told them they needed to sit and figure out the budget and have “the talk” because as we have learned, all the test prep in the world won’t help if you apply to schools you simply cannot afford.
I reached out today to the IB lead instructor at Ds school and told her I would love to come talk to the kids and parents about how to begin the search for merit money. I made it clear I was not a pro but I was willing to share what I had learned. She was thrilled and we are already lining up dates. She said the same thing you said …the parents just don’t know much beyond the basics. Heck, we had our heads mostly in the sand this time last year.
@mtrosemom …see, that’s the type of kid I kind of think who would not do very well at a select school?! I mean, why place yourself in a pressure cooker if you are already kind of hard boiled from the stress already? Why not put yourself in an environment where you can thrive and enjoy things a little without being stressed to the max.