I think that a letter from a different “type” of student could be even more helpful. The depth of someone’s interactions with others who are different from them would be a very compelling argument to me that a kid would be a great addition to a community that is intentionally diverse in numerous ways and that wants to forge strong bonds between community members.
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I actually am thinking this is the answer. His best friend is a probably not college kid (or community college) but they really think highly of each other and the kid is a deep thinker. He has an LD so his letter won’t be the best written but it should be heartfelt
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Thank you for this valuable insight! Will certainly talk to her about this approach as she narrows down the college list and majors
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Signed DS up for four fall preview/open house. Basically all of Sept Saturday’s are spoken for. Lol
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D24’s summer has been made - saw Taylor Swift in our tiny NJ shore town last night. Don’t think anything else will top that for Summer of 2023!
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No way! Where? We’re in Spring Lake. My son won’t care, but my niece will lose her mind.
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Making a cameo appearance on Jersey Shore? 
She’s on LBI for her producer’s wedding. I’m just upset I missed seeing Channing Tatum 
. Apparently there are a lot of vips on the island. It was supposed to be kept quiet but once it leaked there were hundreds of people outside the restaurant they were in last night.
Now that’s a Jersey Shore episode I would watch.
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Dropped S23 off at Purdue. It was quite the trip with the whole family making the trip from Alaska. I think it was a good experience for D24 to be a part of that experience and she decided she definitely does not want to go to a big school (new criteria: cannot be so big it has to have its own fire department!). Anyhow, we took advantage of being relatively close and toured University of Findlay in Ohio. It’s a small school that has a well-known equestrian program. She was sold! It was a decent tour (I love it when they give you a reserved parking spot with your student’s name on it!), followed by some time with one other family and two admission counselors (two because one is new on the job). Then they gave us vouchers to eat on campus. After that we met the admission counselor at the equestrian center (coincindence that it was the admission counselor we met with earlier—he was filling in for the director of the equestrian program who was sick). We also got to talk to the coach of the hunter jumper team. Such an impressive program and facility! My daughter would double major in Equestrian Studies-English (BS degree) and Equine Business—they really encourage the double major which I appreciated. But my kid was giddy at the thought of being at the barn M-F, 3 hours/day for classes, plus Saturdays. The students are assigned horses each semesters that they are responsible for and as they progress thru the program, the horses require more breaking in. They have a “send your horse to college” program where the public can send their horse to the university to be trained or they can be donated when they are no longer needed. Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live has donated a number of horses worth millions of dollars to the school. Students can also bring a horse home for the summer (kinda like bringing home the class guinea pig, I guess ). Wouldn’t work for us, but it’s kind of cool! So on the drive back to Purdue, she asked if she could fill out the application on her phone! DH is still trying to wrap his head around this major (if he had his way all our kids would be engineering majors! 
) but he’ll get there. D23 is a smart, resourceful kid who isn’t afraid of hard work. We’ll also be looking at some bigger schools that are more equine science focused (and not so much about the riding). It’ll be interesting to see how they compare in her eyes.
She is taking IB Chem and IB Bio, but it’s her first year in these classes that are designed to be 2 year classes. She plans to take the AP exams next spring. She’ll have to do some studying on her own because the classes aren’t teaching for the AP exams. I was impressed that on her own she started looking into Khan Academy tutorials and other study guides!
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@alaskajo what an interesting major for your D24! Looking forward to hearing more about her college search!
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First day of Senior Year for S24 today and was feeling a bit sentimental. I cant believe how fast the high school has flown by. I told S24 this year can be stressful in the first sem but also to enjoy the experience when he can. He will not get this experience again. He just nodded as he usually does when he does not want to prolong the talk 
He has started on the essays and has a draft for some the the UC essays (there are 4) but not much progress on the Common App essay yet. He has yet to finalize the list and he is hoping to do this by labor day weekend.
He is only 5 courses this sem and his sport does not start until October so hoping that he will have some time to finish some of the essays before his sport season starts.
Good luck to all the seniors!!
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S24 started the final year last week. Time surely passes by fast.
It will be a bit stressful for him with 7 classes (6 AP).
We are taking a strategy of doing UC essays first and expanding 1 of them for the common app essay.
The supplemental essays will be the killer. I might have to help him to organize so that he can recycle as much as possible.
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Don’t leave the 20 Activity & Awards until the end. The UC application has room for 350 characters to describe the A&A.
UCSB has some good videos about what to include on various sections of the UC application. If one has time, the counselor videos are better (and much longer) than those for the students.
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Meet the teacher night is tomorrow evening at school. I totally plan on high 5’ing all of D24’s teachers and saying something silly like, “Yay! We made it to senior year!”
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Similarly, I’m going to be saying “goodbye” to a few teachers and other parents (with older siblings) since I’ve been going to high school “Back to School Parents Night” since 2017 when big brother was a freshman.
This will be my last Back to School Parents Night.
The first of many “Last” things this year…
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Does anyone know for sure if you send the ACT super score report it includes every score from every test date? The website makes it sound like it does which is what I’m hoping. Hoping I can just send super score report to a couple schools that will super score for admissions but need other scores for merit.
The way it is on the ACT website makes it sound like they will send it as “Math 33, December 10, 2022; Science 34, April 16, 2023”
I am pretty sure they just send the best single score from each of the four sections. It will not send every test from every date.
D24 submitted her first college app yesterday! Rolling admission so hopefully we will hear by sometime in September. I was surprised at how long all the “extra” stuff takes…requesting test scores, requesting high school and college transcripts, verifying residency. Pulling out driver’s licenses and SSNs and tax forms and auto registrations just to apply.
On a completely unrelated note 
, she has further trimmed the number of colleges she will be applying to down to 8. It makes sense to me, with portfolios and so many more essays for honors colleges and potential scholarships, 8 will be difficult enough to keep up with.
Sad to see Case Western drop off her list (even though it was the right thing to do after she changed her major), it was her favorite reach for quite a while and it was hard for her to let go of it.
Since she thinks she has everything under control, she now wants to join another club and perform in two fall musicals and/or be a haunted trail performer (granted, does sound fun but I worry that her early enthusiasm is not going to last until November once calc and physics kick into high gear!)
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