My son’s current school takes a school trip to Greece and Italy.
That sounds really fancy (and it is!) but let me explain. It is a small K-12 Classical school- senior class under 20 students. He has only been at the school last year and this (senior) year. Some students start in 9th, some in 7th, and some in K. They all study Latin. Son also studies Greek independently. They study Western Civ in depth over many years. So a long time ago, they got help from a school supporter who does school Europe trips to set up an economically viable trip for 11/12 graders that goes every other year. (My son will be a 12th grader, but all the 11th graders go too. Around 40 students total- just as many parents/faculty!)
They fundraise hard for two full years. Their goal is that every student can go. Some kids really go to town with raffle ticket sales etc. and don’t have to pay any balance. There is a dinner, auctions, work at town events for money, etc. We are not a sales family (and have no family in town), so we are paying about $2300 for plane/hotel/trip most meals. Kids have to buy own lunches, so it will run like $2600 for us. In the divorce, I negotiated a fund for camps/trips/etc. fed into each year by his father, so that is where our money is coming from. There are students who hustled way more than my son and have basically no balance to go or are paying under $1000.
I like that it is educational, chaperoned, and yet a really amazing opportunity. It is seen as the culmination of their education; it takes 12 days which includes spring break but also some days on each side.
So that is our strange senior trip situation. D17 was homeschooled and senior trips weren’t even thought of at that time for us! I didn’t have a senior trip at my high school either. I wish I were going to Greece myself rather than S23!
Edit: I should mention that the school itself is not very expensive for a private school. (Still expensive, but I have taught in private schools in the mid-west that cost over three times as much and have friends who teach at day schools on the coasts that cost 8 times as much) so the student body is mostly children of academics, teachers (both public and private school) contractors, medical personal of different levels, and non-academic employees of the college in town. I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea.
If senior trips are done it is in small groups quietly. We never have heard or seen much of it really.
That being said D23’s Spring Break is different than D19’s at college. We told D23 that she should go visit D19 at college. I mean there is some fun stuff to do on a campus especially when you don’t have classes. D19 lives in a house. Many bars are 18 to enter and 21 to drink. We were like go have some fun and see what college life is all about. She nixed the idea and isn’t going.
(I do realize that some schools are very good with yield predictions so this may not matter as much for those schools with good data. But we parents don’t know which school does what.)
Last year, Michigan released EA on 1/28/2022. One month later on 2/25/2022, they “squeaked out” a few in-state acceptances, but no OOS acceptances as far as the eye could tell.
I believe their predictive models were telling them in-state yield was behind projections and OOS yield was OK. And then Michigan had one massive release on 3/25/2022.
I believe college’s predictive model(s) let them know how their yield is progressing throughout the process, not just near the end of the admissions cycle. So, I think letting a college know earlier than later does help provide the college with more information regarding their yield projections and quite possibily could get someone off the WL.
At our (suburban) public school we had a good range of demographics. I’m sure some kids took nice trips, but several friends groups just got together and made more low-key “getaway” plans, such as renting a house for a week at the local beach, or a multi-day trip to an amusement park, going to a local concert, etc.
Several parents were taking their own kids to “one last” family vacation, that it wasn’t even that easy to line up friends’ schedules. After all the stresses of high school, applications, visits, decisions, I would have been happy to see her travel - but it never quite came together.
But, that money was then sitting available when she had made college friends (with whom she had much more in common) - and then spent a summer-semester abroad, or flew to the Islands for a few days.
For me as the parent, it also meant they were travelling as young adults, not as under-age party animals.
My kids go to a Title 1 high school, predominantly minority and low socio-economic make up. They are considered the “rich kids” in their social circle… HAHA!!! We are nowhere near rich lol. Fancy Senior Trips, or specific organized trips aren’t really a thing in our high school, but at some of the other area high schools I’m sure they are.
My boys and their friends are apparently planning a “road trip” to visit national parks and the Grand Canyon after graduation. We moms are just sitting back and giggling because NONE of these knuckleheads have a car that will make it further than 50 miles out of our area lol and I’m not sure how these 17-18 year olds think they’re going to be able to rent hotel rooms and cars and check in on their own .
The moms offered to plan a beach trip and get a big airbnb or cabin somewhere where we go along with them but get them somewhat separate accommodations but they vetoed that idea. Oh well.
I don’t have an answer but I can tell you that this happens to us for EA and my D was deferred. Spent a good 45 min getting all the additional paperwork requested in order and we were hopeful and so disappointed! Good luck
The school I graduated from, a very solid chunk of the just-graduated seniors would decamp for Ocean City (the one in Maryland, I didn’t know New Jersey had one til years later) for a week of debauchery. I guess that counts as a senior trip?
My kids’ school district, though, no hints of anything like that, whether officially sanctioned or not. Lots of church camps and family vacations and even foreign-language class exchanges the week or two after the school year ends, but nothing that’s anywhere near the “senior trip” genre.
On another note, the unkind behavior happened here, @Gatormama and others. I think your son was hassled about school choices?
23 had lunch with kids talking about their multiple Ivy interviews. The kids also talked about how they got into the state school honors program, and that was better than the program my daughter was in. (Idk if they knew she was accepted to the other program).
Ouch!
Before that, different kids joked that my daughter and someone else were losers, because they could not quickly solve math problems in their AP math class.
Using that as an example, maybe they would ALL have to be losers because they aren’t taking calculus…The comparisons could go on and on.
My kid would never lack compassion or be such a jerk to someone. I’d rather have a non-jerk kid than a jerk kid being interviewed at an Ivy. We’ll see if they actually get in…
Oh man what is it with the teen boys and the road trip!?
My kid had grandiose plans of traveling the US. He has a 2005 Subaru Impreza, handed down from his sister, that he already blew one engine in.
I don’t know that he’s given up that idea completely, but he was talking to us about getting a beach house on the NJ Shore and wanted my mad research skillz to accomplish this.
I looked at a half dozen, realized they were all $700+ a night and not one would permit people under 25, and I wasn’t about to lie for them, and so that’s as far as I went.
“But they did it last year,” he protested. Yeah, I’m sure they did, but I won’t.
Then he decided maybe a camping trip would work. That might still happen. No worries about adult regulations etc.
I’m so sorry this happened. How is your daughter?
Sometimes our kids internalize this stuff and it manifests itself later; at least, that’s what happened with my son. I didn’t even know about the episode for weeks. I hope she can brush it off.
LOL!! I went through the exact same thing with my class of 2021 son and his friends so I was prepared this time. I just sit back and grin and wait for the “plans” to fizzle out themselves once these boys realize the logistics and that the math ain’t mathin’ .
My kid also goes to a small classical school where they take a chaperoned trip to Italy. We’ve all known about it since they were freshmen, so it’s not a last minute expense.
I love the idea of a culmination of their studies. It sounds magical, and very affirming of all their hard work. That is a trip of a lifetime, and I would do any sort of saving or financially finagling for our kid to go. On the other hand, our kid’s marching band is going to Disney this year, and he’s not really into that. We’re not a sales family, either, and there was no way he was going to sell $1000 worth of pies and first aid kits to go somewhere that was not special to him. With the expenses of flying him to five or six different colleges to audition, we simply said no.
All that said, he is going on a sort of senior trip with his closest friends–a Spring Break road trip to the Grand Canyon, I think. (Mental note: Find out where they’re going. LOL.)
I am sure there will be some for DD’s friends, but, she is going on a school sponsored (financial aid subsidized) Costa Rica Spring Break trip. And grandma is taking her to London and Paris for graduation. So no Senior trips with friends anywhere. She goes to a fancy boarding school (with big FA) so I can’t even begin to imagine the trips some kids have planned.
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My kid would never lack compassion or be such a jerk to someone. I’d rather have a non-jerk kid than a jerk kid being interviewed at an Ivy. We’ll see if they actually get in…
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