Marinate on This

Great news: PoS has received scholarships to every school to which she applied.
Bad news: College is expensive!

We're no closer to making a decision about school.  We've submitted the FAFSA (financial aid) form to all four schools and now all we can do is wait to see how much aid they award us.  There's a pretty big gap between what she's been awarded in scholarships and how much tuition and room & board are per year.  That's right.  Those costs below aren't for four years, that's the price annually.  Take a look and then say a prayer for my nerves because mama is stressed out!

College: Applied, Accepted, Now What?

PoS was supposed to keep you all updated.  I keep reminding her that this is a joint blog, but she's all "I've got finals," "I need sleep," "I'm an angsty teen," blah, blah, blah.  So let me bring you up to speed on senior year thus far.

She applied early action to Beloit, Knox and Ohio Wesleyan back in November.  If you'll remember, Knox is the school with the 14-day turnaround from the time you hit send.  She was all, "they'll never take me because Sassafras got in & they gave her $ 11,000 and she's so much better than me." And I was all, "that just means Sassafras applied earlier & she's her, you're you."  Let me tell you, if you've not had a child go through their senior year yet, you'll learn that you spend half of your time playing cheerleader and the other half playing therapist. 

So every day PoS is watching me get the mail, trying to pretend that she's not looking, while she really is.  Then it dawns on me that even though Knox doesn't request ACT or SAT scores, she checked the box on her application that said she wanted them to consider them.  The problem is she took the ACT with writing in October and it takes them more time to score the writing portion, so her scores were delayed. (Side note: I strongly suggest that you have your student take their first ACT/SAT no later than June going into their junior year.  That way you can gauge where they are and what they need to brush up on.  Then have them take it again the June going into their senior year, especially if they're planning to apply early action or early decision).  Anyway, scores finally come and PoS went up a whole...point.  Like a whole point since she took the test in October of her junior year.  But I digress.

Shortly after Thanksgiving an envelope arrived from Knox, a small envelope.  PoS and I had already had a discussion about what a small envelope vs. a large envelope means.  In her mind, small meant you definitely didn't get in and large meant you did.  So she opens the small Knox envelope and, surprise, surprise, she got in! Not only did she get in, they gave her two scholarships totaling $ 56,000 over four years.  She did the "I got in" victory dance and immediately called her Grandpa.  Lucky me, I got to call her grandmother, aka Debbie Downer, who quickly reminded me that it wasn't enough to cover tuition and why couldn't PoS just go to a big, state school that was more affordable, yada, yada, yada.  PoS isn't a big, state school kind of kid.

Moving on, by the end of that week PoS received a big envelope from Ohio Wesleyan that we thought was a Christmas calendar based on the decorative envelope.  Turns out it was a one-pager acceptance letter. She wanted to write them a strongly worded letter about playing with people's emotions, but I stopped her. There was no mention of money, but since the school wasn't really on my radar, it didn't bother me.  PoS seemed less than excited also.  And then the pacing started.

We knew Beloit planned to notify by December 15 per their calendar. But did that mean notifications would go out on the 15th or would we have something in the mail by the 15th?  So I turned to the Beloit alumna I've befriended on Twitter and asked (okay, I gave her the third degree) what she remembered about the process.  Well she didn't remember, but she knew someone that did, and we learned that some acceptance letters would go out on the 10th and the others the following week.  It depended on when applications were submitted.  Knowing how slow our mail man operates, neither of us expected to hear anything before the 20th.  To our surprise, her acceptance letter was in our mailbox on the 13th.  PoS did another, "I got in" victory dance coupled with a Snoopy cackle and happily updated her Facebook status.  Me? I kept looking through the envelope for something that said, "And here's some money."  Of course, it wasn't there.  So I turned to Twitter again and was assured that if it wasn't included, it would probably be by the time we submitted FAFSA.

When I got home yesterday there were two pieces of mail from Beloit.  I assumed they were generic letters, but it turns out one was notification of a scholarship for $ 40,000 over the next four years.  The other was their financial aid form.  How's that for irony?  Did the scholarship make me feel better? Meh, it puts a dent in tuition, but it's not nearly enough so PoS will spend this holiday season finalizing essays for various private scholarships.  Did the scholarship make her feel better?  We completed the housing questionnaire for Beloit late last night, so I'd say yes, it certainly did.

Wait A Minute, Mr. Postman

The first wave of college applications have been sent and PoS, worrywart that she is, is pretending that she's not worried. On Halloween, she applied to Beloit in Wisconsin, Knox in Illinois and Ohio Wesleyan in...never mind.

Knox has a 14 day turnaround time from the day you apply. That's great, except perhaps they shouldn't have told applicants that. As you can imagine, 14 days is a long time to mope around the house trying to figure out if you're in or out. It leads to conversations like this:

PoS: Susie got into Knox.
Me: That's nice.
PoS: And they gave her $ 11,000. And that's not even financial aid!
Me: That's nice.
PoS: (crazy look on face)
Me: What's wrong?
PoS: Nothing (more crazy in the face)
Me: Isn't Susie like super athlete, super student, super community service girl?
PoS: Yeah
Me: Okay. Well if she heard back, it just means she applied earlier.
PoS: Yeah
Me: It's going to be a long November, huh?

The curse in going to a small school is that everyone knows everyone's business. If PoS had 500 seniors in her school, she'd only know where a handful of students had been accepted. In a senior class of 24, everyone knows the intimate details of to where, and with how much scholarship money, everyone has applied and/or been accepted. So what do you do as a parent? Give pep talks and silently curse the admissions department.

Dealing With High School Seniors

We're angsty for a reason, folks

If you’re not the parent, guardian of, or remember with stunning accuracy what it’s like to be a high school senior, then this is your guide to how to deal with one. Pay close attention and take notes, you never know when this may come in handy.

According to some study I read last year that I cannot find, nor do I care to because I can personally attest to its accuracy, your average high school student burns out somewhere around or during junior year. My own personal experiences aside, I can tell you that’s the truth based on the down-curve of optimistic or even relatively happy Facebook status updates from my classmates from August 2009 - May 2010. As far as most high school seniors are concerned, they’ve paid their dues and then some; we are ready to break out.

But, before we even get the idea of freedom near our grasp, one thing comes and smacks us in the face: the college admission process.

Now, this blog is already about going through the whole process step by step, so for now I’ll skip to the part that involves you: the non-senior having adult who may come into contact with seniors. Since our nerves are already frazzled and our minds are weighed down with decisions that have the power to drive our futures straight into the ground, we tend not to take others into consideration, which means you should when you approach one of us.

If you’re a relative of a senior, especially one that doesn’t see said senior more than once a year or so, try not to start your conversation with “Hey, Senior child I hardly ever see, since I have nothing else to talk to you about, how’s the college search going?” You will probably receive either an eye roll or a depressed sigh before the senior begins to respond as quickly as concisely and possible. Oh sure, that question seems harmless, but when you’ve heard it twenty times already from other family members who don’t know you well enough to strike up a real conversation, it’s enough to cause an otherwise sensible teenager to snap and I guarantee it won’t be pretty. Just imagine a 17 to 18 version of that Jet Blue flight attendant going off on people at your family reunion, throwing people’s dirty laundry out over the loud speaker, grabbing a hot link, and hot-wiring their grandmother’s car so they can escape the madness. 

Okay, it’s unlikely to happen, but you’d be surprised how many of us would love to. 

Please tread with caution

If you feel the need to make small talk with a senior, but have no other points of conversation to start with, you may go ahead and bring up college, but if you must I implore you to keep it brief and keep it simple. We’re being pulled in all different directions and one more hand in the game of tug-o’-war is not likely to help. If you’ve got nothing else to say, it’s alright. We honestly don’t mind.

Really, senior year is already pretty stressful without the obligatory questions from family members and family friends adding to mix. Depression and anxiety come in all forms, people, so try and give the seniors in your life a break. Ask them about something as stupid as the weather, we’ll probably laugh for moment, but it’ll more than likely be a very welcome change from the usual.