Another Decision is Made!

Sarah has made her decision and I think we're all happy about it. She plans to go to....Roanoke College in the fall.

She was invited to apply for the scholarship competition and we went down a couple of weeks ago for that. Bob even rearranged his schedule and took the day off to go down with us, his first trip to see the school. Sarah did her thing - a student panel with freshmen and sophomores, an interview, and a writing session. Bob and I did the parent thing - a student panel with seniors, a presentation by the financial aid office and about the curriculum. We had lunch together along with another presentation, then took the campus tour again, mainly for Bob's benefit. Sarah had been leaning towards Roanoke and going down again sealed the deal. We dropped the deposit off while we were there and she's gotten her welcome letter. She also accepted the service leadership fellows position. I think she'll have a great four years there!

outside admissions after we dropped off the deposit

The College Hunt

Looking at colleges has been a very different experience this time around. Whitney wanted to go to a small college where there are good winters which meant New England or Colorado/Utah/Nevada. Sarah wants to stay in Virginia. At first she wanted to go to a college larger than Whitney's but still not too big and she wants to be in a smaller town/more rural area, not a city. We talked about quite a few Virginia schools and a few more that are out of state but still within about 4 hours. It's interesting the schools that made the cut since two are smaller than Whitney's and one is in a very urban area.

She applied early decision to Roanoke, Emory & Henry, Mary Washington, and Christopher Newport. So far she's been accepted to all of them but hasn't heard from CNU yet. I think the decision is coming down to Roanoke and E&H. We toured all the schools last fall and have been to CNU and Roanoke twice. More visits likely to Roanoke and E&H to come.

Roanoke - this was her favorite from our first step on campus. We were the only ones on the tour when we went and the campus is beautiful. We've made two visits, the first one in the fall to take a look and for an interview. We were impressed. Sarah applied for a Service Fellows position and we went back down for the interviews. They also had a parent session that morning and I really liked some of the programs they have there. They are very active in getting kids to the career center and focusing on what comes after college. They have a program to help with the transition to college. She hasn't heard back yet about it but hopefully will soon. Sarah was also encouraged to apply for the scholarship competition, which she did. Hopefully we'll hear about that soon and that will require another trip down in February. They have given Sarah quite a few scholarships so although the tuition is high it's looking doable. Hopefully she'll be invited to the scholarship competition, do well, and get more money.

University of Mary Washington - they were our second tour. We really liked the campus; it felt very "Virginia" to me, lots of brick buildings, trees, very pretty. I was impressed with some of the technology stuff they had. Sarah liked it but thinks it's too close to home and too urban although it seems very separate from Fredericksburg. She was not offered much financial aid but I guess that's the difference between a public school and a private one. I think they've fallen to third on the list.

Christopher Newport University - the third, and at the time I thought last tour. Bob was with us for this one since we were going to Williamsburg as well. Sarah liked the campus but I didn't (guess it's good I'm not the one that will be going there). It seemed like a bunch of big block buildings; although they were all brick, they all looked the same and have no uniqueness to them. We ran into a friend there, someone who had been in the youth group ages ago when Bob was leading it. She was so surprised to see us! There are some good things about the campus although it's very much in an urban area which Sarah didn't like. She's still waiting to hear from them although it should be in the next week or two since she applied early decision. I doubt that we'll get much financial aid, another state school.

Emory & Henry - this was a late, last minute add to the list. She scheduled the tour and I was pretty sure, especially since we'd already seen the other schools, that we were going to go since she had said she'd go but she was going to say nope, not for her. I was pleasantly surprised that it moved to the top of the list with Roanoke. We went for the tour and there were three other students. Another very pretty campus. The school feels big but it's a small school. Sarah had gotten an email from the admissions office and they said that since we were coming from so far they wanted to make the most of our time there and did she want to sit in on a class, meet with anyone while she was on campus. She said she'd like to meet with the golf coach so after the tour we did. This fall will be the first season of women's golf there (as well as at CNU and UMW) and the coach was very excited once he started talking to Sarah. He said he would love to have her on the team. After we talked with him we met with her admissions counselor and she did her "interview" which was more of a conversation (and interesting to watch). Sarah said that she loved the college but wished it had some a capella groups. That got her counselor all excited! He said that she should come there and get a group started. Fast forward to this weekend and she got an email inviting her to audition for a music scholarship. Um, she's had no musical training. I think she's going to apply/audition but we have some work to do. There's no harm in trying, right? She's gotten some nice financial aid from them which is good since it's a top contender. The one downside is the location. Yes, it's in Virginia but it's five hours down Interstate 81 so it's pretty far.

We'll have to see how things shake out. Still waiting on lots of information, from Roanoke about the Fellows spot and the scholarship competition, from E&H she'll need to schedule and audition and wait to hear about that, and from CNU waiting to hear if she got in or not. I really think at this point it comes down to Roanoke or E&H for her and financially I think one of those two will be the best option. Official decision day may still be a ways off but it would be nice to have the decision made.

First Semester Done

First semester, high school senior year and college sophomore year is done. Both girls did well and are happy to have had some time off from school. Sarah has already started school again and Whitney heads back to Maine tomorrow but classes don't start until Jan. 17.

Half of Sarah's senior year is done. Hard to believe we've only got a few months left. Soon it will be time to start thinking about her graduation party, ordering her diploma, and enjoying the last summer at home before college starts. This has been a much different experience with her applying for colleges than it was for Whitney. I'll share the details of that later but she applied to four schools and has gotten into three and is still waiting to hear from the last one. She is doing well in her classes at home and finished her first college class. We went to register her for spring classes the second week registration was open but Spanish 102 was already full. She was put on the wait list but never got notification that there was a spot for her so she missed out on Spanish. She did get into college composition so that's good and that class starts on Tuesday. She had a full fall finishing up a few things from last year and starting this year's work. With Whitney still around it's hard to get back into our regular routine but I'm ready to jump in and plow through the next few months.

Whitney is done her third semester. She's heading back to school early to get in some snowboarding and she's got a race next weekend. This past semester was tough with five classes, one of which was a class she really disliked but she's looking forward to this semester. She's got three professors she's had before, one of whom she loves, and a schedule where two of her classes only meet one day a week. She'll have plenty of time for snowboarding around her classes and studying. Even with her more open schedule she'll have a busy semester. She's co-captain of the snowboard team, she's doing some training with the Carrabassett Valley Academy (a top notch ski/snowboard school), she got a job as a student mentor, she's still involved with IVCF, and she's got her classes. There's probably more that she's doing but that's what I know about.

She's enjoyed the mental break from school and being home. She did get in some snowboarding at Massanutten while she was here. I'm sure she's looking forward to getting back to Maine and the excellent snow they have up there. They've had quite a bit whereas we haven't gotten much and it's even been iffy for snowmaking. She'd probably like the extra week at home but she's excited to be getting on the slopes and will have some quiet time at school before her roommate and everyone else gets back.

Here's to a good spring semester!

Back to Maine

On Friday Bob, Whitney, and I headed north to pick up her things in New Hampshire then on to Maine for move in. The drive to NH was really long, the usual 9 hour drive took us 12 hours between traffic and construction. Ugh. Partly, too, since we knew it was going to take a lot longer we stopped and actually ate dinner (and I think lunch) at the rest areas instead of getting it to go so that added a bit of time as well.

Saturday morning we packed up the things Whitney left at her aunt's house over the summer and made a stop at Target to pick up a few last minute things before she left civilization. We got to Farmington, checked into the hotel, then went to find dinner in town.

Check in started at 9 on Sunday morning and we were there shortly after that and well before Alison got there. We unloaded the two cars and started organizing the chaos on Whitney's half of the room. We had everything put away by lunch time and took a walk downtown after Bob moved my car and Whitney got a prime spot beside her dorm. We went to check out Reny's, a cool discount department store, and bought a few things there then went to the Farmington House of Pizza for lunch (really good pizza!).

Monday Bob and I left after a quick stop at the bookstore (side note - what college doesn't have their bookstore open on move in day?? Students need to pick up books and parents are willing to drop money on school labeled attire.) and headed down the coast to Kennebunkport for lunch. Sadly the place I really wanted to stop at was a different fancier restaurant but I still managed to find some good lobster for lunch. Whitney got right into classes Monday morning and has had a couple of club meetings so has been busy. All in all a good start.

Back at It

We're almost to the end of our first week of school and so far, so good. The first day ended up being a field trip, although I didn't go along. Sarah went with a friend downtown and they hit all the tourist high spots - the Archives, the "dinosaur museum" although most of the dinosaur exhibits are closed for a couple more years, the American history museum, Shake Shack for lunch, and the Castle. I knew she really wanted to go but I really wanted to get a start on school so the compromise was that she could go as long as they went to the Archives. She said they did that first to "get it out of the way." They had a really good time together. It was time to hit the books on Tuesday. Senior year is under way.

Tomorrow we leave to head to Maine. We'll stop off in NH tomorrow night at Bob's sister's to pick up the things Whitney left there, then go to Farmington on Saturday. She moves in on Sunday; same dorm, different room, different roommate.

Community College

We had our meeting yesterday with the counselor at the community college. It went well. Sarah did well on the placement tests and was approved to take Spanish. The only real hitch is that the class we wanted (M/W afternoons) was full with a one person wait list. Since it's two weeks before classes start we didn't want to risk putting her name on the list and her end up not getting in. That was the only option for a class locally when I looked. They've opened more sections since then so she had a few choices. We declined the Friday hybrid class after having bad experiences with that type of learning in the past. She is signed up for a T/Th morning class. Not really the best option, but it will work ok. On Tuesdays she'll have to take her lunch with her and go straight from class to preschool. Hopefully she'll be able to get at least a math lesson done in the afternoon when she gets home. Tuesdays will be full since she's got dance in the evening. It will be an interesting first college experience and hopefully it will go well since it will "be on her permanent record."

Now that we know for sure that she's in the class I'll have to take a look at our plans for the year and see if we need to adjust.

What a Year

So it's been quite the year. We've had a lot going on that has made life interesting. The summer has been mostly relaxing, it's almost done, and it's time for year two of college and senior year of high school.

College
The first year of college is done for Whitney. UMF has been a mixed bag for her. She's decided that while the location is pretty and is close to some great snowboarding, it's been harder for her than she thought it would be to be so far from hone. Academically she's done really well, made High Honors Dean's List both semesters and she's found some really great professors (as well as some rather quirky ones). She has made the transition from a homeschool student to college student very well. She found a church that she likes and as the only college student attending there has all the attention of the "little old ladies." Funny thing is that one of them has a daughter that lives not far from us and her son goes to college in Maine.

On the not so good side, besides being far from home, the college isn't as socially welcoming as some tout it being. She's had a really hard time making friends and finding her place. Even among the snowboarders it's hard since they're mostly focused on fun, not competition and most smoke pot and/or drink and she's just not into that at all.

Snowboarding has also been a mixed bag. She competed in the USASA Maine Mountain Series and went to races in Maine and Vermont. It was kind of funny that she's in the middle of some great skiing in Northern New England and yet she got to more competitions when she lived in Virginia. It's all about location. Her college coach sent her to the USCSA Nationals (the collegiate association) which were held in Lake Placid in March and she also went back to USASA Nationals in Colorado in early April. The competitions were good, she placed 7th at Lake Placid and 2nd at Colorado. Besides her teammates, the other problem was that the college snowboard coach didn't really know enough to help her much and didn't seem very organized. He would schedule practices then not show up and there were other problems. Hopefully things will be different this winter.

Her major is a perfect fit and if it wasn't for that and some stuff that she's working on for snowboarding, she'd likely transfer. She hasn't been able to find the same major at another school at all, much less in an area that has snow. Her plan is to finish classes in 2.5 years and be done a semester early. We have high hopes for the snowboarding things that are in the works but we won't know more until she gets back to school later this month.

Junior/Senior Year
Sarah's junior year was a mess to be frank. We had a lot of family issues going on that were distracting but hopefully a lot of that is behind us and she'll have a stellar senior year. The highlights were the writing classes, at least for me. I don't think she could take a writing class that she liked, but I really liked that they were outsourced and I didn't have to grade them. Mainly I helped her proofread her work before she turned it in and that made it better for us. She has geometry and chemistry to finish from this year as well as start most of her senior year classes.

A very last minute decision was to pursue taking Spanish at the local community college. She's been going on mission trips to Guatemala for four years. She had been talking more this summer about studying archaeology in college, mainly because she loves ancient Egypt. We started talking some about Guatemala and I found a college that has a focus on Central American archaeology, which got her thinking. She had a fabulous time in Guatemala this year, I'm still not really sure why this year was so different than past years but it was. She came back really wanting to focus on a Central/Latin America anthropology/archaeology degree with a minor in Spanish or possibly majoring in Spanish. This is so different than anything she had really been talking about all year my head is kind of spinning.

This new focus has really put us into a bit of a time crunch. She really wants to take Spanish this year and at this point the best option was the cc but with her heading back to camp as soon as she got back from Guatemala, it left us scrambling to get everything taken care of in time. It's a different procedure for dual enrolled students than it is for regular students and she's barely around enough to get it done. We have a meeting next Monday and hopefully we can get it all taken care of then.

So besides working to get her signed up at the cc for Spanish, she's refocused on four year colleges. Another time crunch. Since her plan has been to go to the cc for two years then transfer she hasn't taken the SAT yet and we haven't really looked at colleges besides just a bit online. We're now looking for colleges not too far from home, not too big, etc., etc. She has the first Saturday in October on the calendar to take the SAT, she's already applied to Roanoke College and is also looking at Lycoming College. A lot of things will have to fall into place for her to go to either of those colleges so I still think that going to the local cc might be the best option to start for her. It's shaping up to be a very busy fall!