@homerdog thanks. As I just posted over there what an impressive group of kids in the 2018 list.
I also canāt believe that weāre in the final quarter of freshman year. I want time to slow down, but it seems to be accelerating!
While we were away for spring break, we had our mail held, and it was just delivered. D21 applied for a special three- year class at school, and now her acceptance or rejection is sitting on the kitchen counter (snail mail only). She doesnāt want me to open it and she wonāt be home until 5:15. I am on pins and needles because I know how much she cares.
Even though her dad and I emphasize all her strengthsāsheās an emotionally intelligent out-of-the-box thinker, fiercely opinionated but also compassionateāshe wants to be one of āthe bestā at school, and she sees this as a marker. Plus, her big sister (D19) got in. We go out of our way to avoid comparison in any way, but D21 just canāt seem to help it.
Iām feeling a bit sick to my stomach over this. Must get much tougher if Iām going to make it through three cycles of college admissions! Iāve always tried to guide my kids to be their own judge . . . but now they really have to put themselves out there. What do you all do to help your kids keep a healthy perspective?
@3SailAway - it is so hard because they have to put themselves out there to reach for opportunities but they will not always get what they want. Just keep some ice cream in the freezer for a quick pity party and remind her that she did her best. You hope they can learn resilience, and sometimes a failure turns into a great topic for a future college app essay.
Thanks, @Momma2018. I had the ice cream ready, but we didnāt need it this time!
@3SailAway Nice. Congratulations to your daughter
Congrats @3SailAway!
Congratulations on Clemson @burghdad! We are going to visit with D19 in a few weeks. She is not so sure about it size wise but I am excited to see it because I know so many people who just love it.
D21 is having a good year so far. She just told me that costumes (her section on tech for musical theater) got nominated for a Cappie award and that she and her friend decided to sign up for flag football next year. I had suggested that to her because it sounds fun and you get a varsity letter - she thought it was stupid until her friend mentioned it. :)) I feel bad because she is only a freshman yet when I hear these things I think, āGreat - something to put on your college applications!ā
@momtogkc The size of about 17,000 was in the sweet spot of what my DD18 wanted. Also with the acceptance into the Calhoun Honors college which enrolls about 350 students per year and has a great dorm and living community, she get the advantage of a smaller group of like minded more serious students. Honors college students also get first pick of classes and there is more support for advising, course and career selections etc. Really the best of both worlds.
If she is interested she should do the Calhoun Honors College visit as well as the general tour.
@burghdad We have a tour set up in the morning with the honors college - although I checked out the Clemson thread this year and it looks like it is getting harder and harder to get in just like everything else. I think 17,000 sounds ok, but she really loved the size of Elon which is 6,000 so we will see what she thinks. We started out looking at tiny LACs because thats where DH and I went - she hasnāt totally ruled them out yet but isnāt sure she wants to go to a school smaller than her high school (3,600.)
Meanwhile D21 has me on the hunt to find a class/camp/internship where she can learn more about film. She loves using our video camera and her go pro to make and edit movies and really wants to learn more about it. She already has an expensive 3 week summer camp lined up so we wonāt be doing one of the big college summer programs this year, but I am starting to look around to see if I can find someplace where she could even just do a job shadow for a week or something. I saw two of the local colleges have film programs so she may be able to dual enroll in something when she gets older.
Thanks, @burghdad and @momtogkc . I can tell that waiting for decision letters is not going to be my strong suit.
Congrats to your D on her costumes! I know what you mean about the college mindset trickling down, I feel like itās not fair to D21 because I wasnāt thinking about this when D19 was a freshman, so I try to block it out.
@burghdad I just spent some time being impressed on Clemsonās website 
. Did you know that the sailing club welcomes beginners to come out and learn to sail?
@3SailAway I will pass that along to my DD. When we went to revisit a two weekends ago we wanted to go to the lake, however we could not get there because the road was closed except for those participating in a rowing event they were having. It seems like it is a great feature to have lake basically on the campus.
I have been off for a while, but as our first kid, DD21, winds down Freshman year I have a couple of newbie questions maybe those of you with older ones can help?
When is ideal to tour, maybe not officially, but to get an idea? What is the best way to get started figuring out something as basic as big vs small? Other than DD has said she doesn;t want to be at a college in a city, rather wants a separate campus, she has no idea where she wants to be, and mentions various colleges across the country that she has āheardā are good for such and such.
@2Devils I have a D19 and D21. We started looking casually at schools during D19ās sophomore year whenever we were near one. We did a few drive-bys and actually did one admissions tour during spring break that year. We looked at big, small, urban, rural, public, private etc. We did more touring in fall and winter of junior year. I will tell you that her favorite school is always the last one we visited, so expect your daughter to change her mind a lot! Itās been fun, so enjoy it!
@2Devils I have an S19. We started visits for him at the beginning of junior year this past fall. S21 has gone on most of the visits with us. If I bring up anything else about college for S21, he says āIām in 9th grade.ā Not-so-subtle hint taken to back off.
S19 grumbled about starting visits in the beginning of the year. But now he is happy that we did. The plan is to do the same with S21, minus any visits he doesnāt see the need to repeat.
Hi, new to this yearās thread. Have twin 21s, S18. Due to a number of issues, didnāt take S18 on any visits until senior yr, and then almost exclusively where he got in. Bad idea! He fell in love with everything bc heād never been on a college campus before. Heās not committed yet. Anyway, will be taking twins informally onto any campuses iwherever we may travel, and maybe use spring break this year to do some ārealā tours. I think it may help get them at least start thinking about college much earlier than S18 did.
Poor D broke down in tear and sobbed away last night. She has been studying her butt of for āAcademic Decathlonā and the state finals are this weekend. She is soooo stressed, she feels like everyone thinks she is smart but she is a fake. She really struggles with the timed essay, and doesnāt know how to practice or improve. Her essay scores are her total (of the 8 subjects) down.
I am taking her for ice cream today and a long walk (if I can get her to lay off the books). She tries so hard to compete with the highest scoring kids and feels like a failure if she does not beat or come close to their scores.
She is so hard on herself. I hate this and there will be 3 more years of this. ā¦ Our Academic Decathlon (11th and 12th graders) came in 2nd place in the nation. And got rookie of the year. (This is huge for our West Texas school) We are so proud of these hard working kids but the stress is immense.
Oh and welcome all newcomers!
Another newcomer here, as my D18 just made her college decision. My other kid is S21. Heās pretty different, but of course will benefit by having seen a number of colleges with his sister. She ended up at an LAC; so far he says he wants a big school ā business, possibly engineering or something else technical. Live in NC so in many ways would love to seem him at UNC or NC State. He was not a good student in middle school but after getting more organized and actually deciding he cares, lol, he is managing all As as a Freshman (knock, knock that holds for the year). No idea how heāll test. So far his ECs are pretty minimal ā he spends a lot of time playing video games and 'chillin ā even though I keep encouraging him to get more involved. He did invest a lot of time in rocket club this Spring and loved it. Ran XC and I hope heāll stick with that the rest of HS. Heās a sweet kid and everyone loves him ā heās great talking to adults and is quite charming.
Looking forward to following this thread!
What a stressful second semester this has been! One week in early Feb, D21 decided to blow off studying for two difficult upcoming tests. I did not find out about this until she got her test grades back later - two Ds!! Her class A averages plummetedā¦she cried when she saw her scores and got right back on track. She stayed up until 3 and 4 in the morning for a solid week doing extra credit and catching up on projects. She also worked hard for the past two months to get high As on every other graded assignment/exam. Now, at the end of the semester, her course grades are back up to where they were before. We werenāt sure if that was going to be possible, we thought she had killed her chances at As for second semester, so it has been a stressful couple of months.
The reason she blew off studying that week? A new (and cute) boy entered her social group. Hormones took over and she couldnāt concentrate on anything besides how dreamy he isā¦
The shock of seeing those test scores snapped her out of it, thank god. I am all for a social life and for dating, but not if images of hearts in the sky turn my kidās brain into mush.
@JanieWalker I am sure it was a bad time catching up but at least she has gone through it and seems to have survived!! I have told my wife many times that once the hormones kick in, it might be very difficult to keep DS focused.
@yearstogo Hormones can certainly be an X factor when it comes to how well a kid will do academically! I would like to keep her away from all cute boys for the next three years, but alas, that is probably neither healthy nor possible.
@JanieWalker Similar situation here. Fortunately, S21ās school allows āre-takesā of bombed tests, with a 5% penalty, so he has an opportunity to recover. Otherwise, our best strategy may be to include a picture of his genuinely adorable girlfriend with his college apps to explain the sudden dip in the transcript this year.