<p>I like it. Very proactive. Got a letter from Smith today alerting us that a survey would be forthcoming.</p>
<p>The first paragraph:
[quote]
Smith is conducting a survey to learn about parents' perspectives' on their daughters' college experience. We would like to know how useful you find the information we send out, how satisfied or concerned you are with various aspects of Smith, and how you manage to pay for it all.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's great! Wish more schools thought to do this!!</p>
<p>I can't wait to get it. I will especially have something to say about how we expect to pay for it all!! Honestly, this is a great idea and shows their forward thinking.</p>
<p>Funny, the "paying for it" section was high on my priority list too. But depending on how the survey is ordered, they'll read my comments on that after a whole long lotta glowing comments on other things.</p>
<p>Am just slightly unnerved: I've penciled into my appointment book a note for about three months hence to make hotel reservations...for graduation.</p>
<p>Graduation...oh my God!! I forget she's a 3rd year already. Autumn Inn or Hotel Northampton??</p>
<p>Autumn Inn.</p>
<p>Of course...a damn nice choice if I do say so myself. You're correct though, make those arrangements ASAP, as it fills up quickly.</p>
<p>Neither. Local Quakers or homeschoolers will put us up, or we'll camp on the lawn. </p>
<p>(I'm looking forward to the survey, too - from my perspective, I'm still in awe of my d's experience.)</p>
<p>I must say, Mini, your D's experience blows me away as well. Camping on the lawn, heh? ;)</p>
<p>I love that Smith involves parents in many other ways in addition to the obvious financial involvement.
Making plans for graduation seems unreal...didn't I just take my daughter there for the first time a few months ago???</p>
<p>Hi, Moodle. Good to see your phosphors. Hard to believe that Smith first really moved into the forefront of our consciousness only four years ago when we went to a prospective students party in January when D was a high school junior. This phase of our lives will probably carry the "Smith" label for all of us. We're already squeezing out a small annual donation to pay back some of what Smith has given our D...I know the development people sometimes chirpily suggest that when your D graduates, you can make donations easy by paying what you would have been paying in tuition...good luck with that, LOL.</p>
<p>It's just a little bit of "oh my" to realize that unless she changes her plans D will be working on her grad school application(s) in about seven months. </p>
<p>We're planning on being on campus on during Family Weekend and I'm already a little wi****l about it...like, isn't there some way to draw the experience out over six years but with no additional cost? But no. D has sent me her cover letters and resume for the current round of internship applications for comment. She remarked something to the effect that at one time that part of the process was so intimidating to her but that now the hardest part was selecting target jobs. I think she'll be ready to crack through the Smith "egg" into the outside world...now the question is, will I be as ready, LOL.</p>
<p>TheDad, I know what you mean. My daughter is also chirping about internships and grad school, but I am SO happy where we are now! :)</p>
<p>"Wish more schools thought to do this!!"</p>
<p>They did. The survey was designed by the Consortium on Financing Higher Education. i.e. Ivies, MIT, top LACs, etc. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/</a></p>
<p>A stray thought about the Autumn Inn. They have been absolutley wonderful in all aspects. We "house" my daughter's car there during the school year. After snow falls, they dig it out for her and brush it off. Amazing service!</p>
<p>Well, not being a regular COFHE drinker, I took a look at the link. Interesting that of the 12 LAC's in the group, five are the surviving Seven Sisters. </p>
<p>Moodle, that's wonderful. Surely they can't do it for all their customers...you and/or your D must have made a great impression. The Autumn Inn just strikes me as comfy and I've enjoyed both the staff and some of the random conversations in the breakfast room. Just had to tick off on my fingers...I think we've stayed there five times so far.</p>
<p>D. got back from Carnevale in Venice last week. She went with a fellow student (from Nicaragua) whose house mother had a friend who had a pension on a small island around Venice and, yadda, yadda, yadda.</p>
<p>Now she is finishing work on her Kahn Fellowship application for next year (the subject matter is really right up her alley). I'm trying to convince her to take a day-trip to see Guido and buy herself a piffero for her birthday...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hotpipes.com/guido.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.hotpipes.com/guido.html</a></p>
<p>but I think she still needs some convincing. Oh, if I had time...we'd write a book together - "Naked Neptune! Bad Art of the Uffizi and Other Florentine Atrocities", but, alas, I think it will have to wait.</p>
<p>One of her teachers this semester is Italo Calvino's daughter, and, apparently, she's full of good stories!</p>
<p>Okay, Mini, you got me: Kahn Fellowship? The one at the Hudson Institute does not seem appropriate and Google offers some teases in the bios of others but no direct link.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/%5B/url%5D">http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/</a>
I did "city lives, city life" last year. quite the experience.</p>
<p>Looks like a nifty program.</p>
<p>But sometimes watching all these opportunities come up it feels like a marathon hurdles course. You're in the middle of one but already applying for the next.</p>