If you haven’t already, change the email listed on your College Board/ACT account to one that is not your primary email address.
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I find it’s a delicate balance. Sure no one wants to be inundated with useless emails but for the schools you are interested in, students do miss important information when they do not check the account regularly and for my kids, If they have to check an account regularly, it might as well be their primary one. What we are doing is using the unsubscribe button very often to stop the deluge before it happens.
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S23 football team is still in playoffs so another week or two of football. Kid is looking forward to the physical break.
He was able to participate in state solo and ensemble audition and did make it to state for his choral solo. He had a few off notes but got good feedback to try to fix them in the future when he strains his voice the night before which is what happened (too much screaming at the playoff game the night prior).
Musical auditions are coming up. Hes hinted he isnt thrilled about the show choice and he may want to just work more instead. Id be sad and upset if he took a break from doing the show as hes done it for 6 years now. But if he gets the job he interviewed for, we could spin that into a positive for college apps anyways so it wouldnt be totally negative. Hard letting them make all their own choices.
Grades wise hes hanging in there with A’s and B’s. Id love more Bs than As but I can only push so much.
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I would suggest that they go to the website of the schools they are interested in and sign up for information that way. The College Board and ACT sell their lists so you will receive hundreds to thousands of emails from schools that you don’t care about which makes it more difficult to find emails from the schools that you do.
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See that’s why it’s different shades of grey. We have limited knowledge of so many schools that could be good for them but are not the popular ones everyone hears about.
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Lord, have mercy. Mr Meddy almost lost all of his hair trying to book a flight to get D21 to Williams by 1/3. One way tickets were outrageous and trying to coordinate it with ground transportation made it tricky. Some schools aren’t just hard to get into, they are hard to GET to.
Once everything was booked I said, “I told you years ago that @homerdog said you need to consider the difficulties of traveling to and from these schools.”
He was like, “Who is @homerdog?!” lol! 
But I wouldn’t change anything 
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I will just caution you that when we went through this with D17, there were some schools that simply did not honor unsubscribe requests - either that or as soon as she unsubscribed, they re-bought her address and started up again. The flood was well beyond anything she was able to contend with while also dealing with her actual school schedule and she sadly wound up abandoning an email address she’d had since childhood. That’s not even to mention the paper mailings, which if bundled into bricks could have built a castle.
I told D23 explicitly not to sign up to let schools contact her using her real personal email. We have created a separate gmail account to get info from schools and will switch her College Board account over to that one (over winter break when she has time to deal with it) and only then allow schools to contact her.
If you have not been through the process yet, you won’t believe what’s going to land on your doorstep.
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When my kids were applying, everyone in my family knew who Gumbymom was. 
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My D20 daughter, unknown to me, was stalking this site when she was waiting for acceptances, honors college notifications, scholarship notifications etc.
She knew I was active here, but didn’t know I was @stencils – so she saw responses from me on a couple of school forums saying “My daughter hasn’t received anything yet either” and took solace in the fact that someone else was also waiting.
It nearly broke her when she later found out that the “someone else” she was reading about was in fact her! Thankfully it was after everything was in so we had a good laugh about it!
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Email marketing from schools has gone out of control the last week…I think others have said the same? For D23, it could be her SAT, as it seems too early for this to be PSAT? Most are schools that already emailed her or that she even subscribed to–they just have upped the frequency of emails a lot. One emailed to tell her to look out for a special package coming her way? No clue what this will be but likely not as exciting as she hopes(she likes this school a lot and appreciates the dry humor of the e-newsletters they send).
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I’m very sorry; in a similar boat here in that the opposite estranged parent makes well north of $250k a year and has never paid any tuition costs (or fees or ECs or anything except his minimum court ordered support) from 2nd grade through high school for S23.
The difference in college costs between FAFSA and CSS schools is radical when I run net price. While there is a generous 529 from my wonderful parents, kiddo and I have a spreadsheet in which we are entering the projected net price from each college.
I absolutely understand that the system is manipulated by some families with an estranged parent, and I don’t begrudge colleges ensuring that they are not being taken advantage of by a false custodial household address and thus the great degree of “investigation” that happens with CSS profile schools. But yikes, it is hard knowing that even though I am more than ready to pay my fair share for my student, that share is going to be determined by someone that has no involvement in their kid’s life. 
My S23 goes to a Waldorf high school, so it’s a little different than most schools. (As obnoxious as it is to write this: I attended an ultra highly ranked college prep school, so I have a personal point of comparison to the range of high school experiences).
He’s got a 3.95 UW, takes many honors level courses (AP classes are not offered), but…it’s a Waldorf school and that’s probably a big unknown for a lot of admissions officers. And my kiddo is wanting to go to a small liberal arts college with kids who “love to learn” but he’s not Type A, has no interest in prestige or rankings (yay) nor Ivy or Little Ivy schools - none of which would be a good cultural fit for him anyway. He is STEM focused, yet loves singing and music, history, and humanities. We live in the PNW and are drawing a line somewhat down the side of Minnesota as a distance marker. Currently his first choice is Carleton, also looking at Grinnell, Macalester, St. Olaf, Whitman…we live about a 5 minute walk from Reed and it would be “weird” to go to school there 
So while I’ve told my kid that SATs don’t get you into college, in his instance I think they could be taken as a brief confirmation that, yes, that GPA and those honors classes at his Waldorf high school are indeed “valid.” And then they’ll turn the page and move on to his application.
He’d never taken a standardized test in his life and I tossed a Princeton Review SAT prep book at him in September to flip through and know what to expect. I printed off a practice test from the college board and he did a timed test on a Saturday morning (all conditions being equal with breaks, but at the kitchen table). He scored a 1480 and decided that he’ll flip through the book some more before he takes the real SAT in March.
I’m also quite hoping that the combination of his SATs and grades will garner some merit aid (although I’m aware that Carleton is really out of the picture for that, unfortunately).
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The two students I know who had a Waldorf education did very well with admissions and ended up at Williams and Tufts. I don’t think you need to worry about your student’s rigor.
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That’s great to hear, thank you! It’s certainly “different” but it’s absolutely been a terrific fit for my son 
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My niece is the daughter of 2 Carleton grads but attended St. Olaf for astronomical physics and sang for 4 years in their famous choir. No regrets from her and her parents were happy about the merit aid.
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As much as I love watching my kid play football, I am always a bit relieved when the season ends (although it ended with a loss). Season runs from June through November and puts a physical and mental strain on my son. The conclusion of fall sports though is bittersweet as I know many seniors and their parents had their “last” ever. I think I will be a bit of a mess next year. My kids have been very blessed to have been able to play on high quality teams and have winning seasons. They have learned so much and I am grateful.
Focusing on whats next though. Auditions for the musical are next week. My S23 applied for a new job at a local ski hill and got it! He will be helping instruct and working rentals. Hes been at a bar/pub running food/cooking/dishwashing for over a year. I feel bad as I know many restaurants are hurting for employees right now but he cant work there forever. He is still heavily considering music ed and any job teaching something will look good on applications.
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My S23 has been sitting through a virtual open house for Dalhousie University in Halifax NS this morning. For being a virtual event, it’s been very well done – I’ve watched some of the sessions over his shoulder. I think Dal is on the list.
We’ll probably try to visit in person this spring now as long as the travel situation stays the same or better. The school has started doing live tours again. We’re in the US, but not far from Toronto so a direct flight to Halifax is pretty easy.
He also really wants to visit Delft University in the Netherlands. Still thinking about that one!
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Depaul has a virtual session coming up specific for music ed. I’d love for my son to attend but i think he has a training now. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to attend in his place. I don’t want to be total helicopter mom.
my D23 is liking her physics class and math class this year. We went to a Women in STEM careers day at our state U this week. She mentioned she might consider aeronautical engineering so she could work at SpaceX . 
fun to dream!
but this encouraged me to look at summer math/physics camps, which then took me down a rabbit hole of learning about summer internships for high school students. I’ve sort of doubted they were a “thing” as in our midwest area - they are unheard of. But = turns out there really are some out there. Have any of your older kids done these? Thoughts?
And - summer camps/sessions for your kids. What have they liked? what’s worked for you and your family? Some are really long; and quite pricey. But they sound great. Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
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My D did a week long engineering program at Purdue as a rising senior, called STEP. It was a fabulous experience and would highly recommend.
She also did local robotics camps, SWE programs, and also did a bunch of shadowing.
NASA did have a competitive internship program for HS students. I’m not sure if it’s been restarted since COVID but it would be worth looking into.
You may also want to see if your D’s guidance office knows of any internships or research opportunities. We had a family member that got a great internships through her HS.
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