yay! My last kid is just 10, so I'm very much looking forward to a 7 year break after doing this 3 times in 5 years. Having three BABIES in 5 years is also pretty taxing, so I probably should have seen this coming back then 😂

All the apps submitted here, too. phew! Tomorrow he has a Hamilton interview and then drives over an hour to have a sample lesson with the horn teacher at Emory. It really just never ends. I'm encouraging reaching out to more horn teachers, though, because he LIKES getting lessons, and it seems like a good way to find out more about music programs at non-music schools and do a little interest demonstrating and, hey, always a chance a teacher will put in a good word for him with admissions if the lesson goes well. so why not? I wasn't sure what the etiquette was on sample lessons at LACs, but he's had good responses so far.

Well, I managed to log in to start the form, but didn't make it far enough to actually save any information.

I'm working on finishing this as my first book this year, too! Not a reread for me, but I've been working on it for awhile--I got lazy about reading the last bit of the year. I fell short of my 52 book Goodreads goal last year, so this year I set it for 41, which is one more than I managed last year.

no luck here, either. We got ready by paying off our big post xmas credit card bill and getting that money out of our checking account, though!

I'm still getting the planned maintenance message. Ugh. I think all except one of his schools have the CSS already, so they really should have plenty of information (looking at you and your delayed FA package, St. Olaf!)

One more week of college applications, and then he's done! You know, except for auditions and interviews and an honors college app for one school, and, and...anyway, it's the week of applying to schools he's nearly guaranteed to be rejected by! Williams, Amherst, and Brown. And then he had one last common app slot, and his brother's girlfriend just talked him into giving it to Middlebury. She just graduated from there in May and loved it. And they're need-blind and don't have a supplemental, so why not?! In the meantime, I think he's feeling good about the two options he has so far; he got in touch with the St. Olaf horn teacher and will likely have a lesson with her in the next couple of weeks. I wish they'd send his FA package so I could know how much to encourage his enthusiasm about it 😂 Anyone else still finishing apps?

a very weird game...and I'm constantly annoyed by how the hoops one needs to jump through for college admissions are a totally different skill set than what one needs to actually be successful in college.

It's an unfortunate abbreviation 😂 BM is a bachelor of music...at St. Olaf it just means that a bigger percentage of your classes will be in music. A lot of the time BMs are performance based degrees and BAs focus more on the academic/theory side of things...but not always. Or a BM program is audition based and a BA isn't...but not always.

Thanks! Yeah, when we did the music tour last spring our guide seemed to suggest that almost no one starts with a BM. She also had no idea the 5 year dual degree exists. The process there doesn't seem super transparent. He hasn't been in touch with the horn teacher there yet; that's definitely on the list now! He's done sample lessons a few other places; St. Olaf's is listed as a "visiting adjunct professor" so we've never been sure if she was going to be around long term...but I guess that's something he can try to find out when he talks to her.

Okay! He got accepted for the BA in music at St. Olaf and awarded a music scholarship of...some amount of money. They weirdly didn't specify (he'll get more with need based aid than their cap on merit scholarships, so it doesn't really matter, but it's still a little odd). You have to audition for a music major at all; I think he put down that he wanted a BM instead of a BA, but we had already been told that it's very hard to be admitted directly for the BM...instead you can do the BA for a year and then audition for a BM sophomore year. But he's not sure which he'd really rather do anyway, so he's fine with this. If any of that made sense; St. Olaf has the most confusing web of music major...stuff we've encountered. But the St. Olaf band did a 2 week tour of Japan last summer! Funded by some generous donation someone made! They alternate the band, orchestra, and choir doing international tours, I think, so that everyone gets to do one sometime during their 4 years.

Thanks! It was a contender with my oldest, too...based on their good rep for math that time instead of music. St. Olaf: school of many talents!

Now for the final strategizing. His call, of course, but I think at this point he has 2 acceptances at schools he'd be happy to go to (and should be able to afford--pending FA package from St. Olaf, but I've run the NPC AND seen the package they offered his brother 5 years ago), so no reason to add any safeties. Might as well shoot for the moon with a couple more very tough admits that are need blind. Downside is the probability of a LOT of rejection come March. He should have a couple more fairly safe bets out there already, too, but...we'll see.

DS accepted at St. Olaf with a nice scholarship....and that's probably our last one until March now.

ha--well, as soon as I posted that he got unexpected St. Olaf results--he got in! With a really nice scholarship! Phew! Thanks for saving Christmas, St. Olaf! editing to clarify: I meant the timing of the results was unexpected, not the actual result. He's very happy about it and really likes St. Olaf, but I would have worried that we'd seriously miscalculated if he didn't get in there.

Ugh--a no on the Oberlin prescreen and a deferral from Macalester. He wasn't expecting Oberlin to come through, but the Mac decision is a bigger blow. His brother just graduated from there, and his stats put him in the top 25%, and he likes it a lot. It's not a rejection, but it would have been nice to take an acceptance into the new year.

(There is a workaround in that he could use the Coalition app to add on more. But he has three slots left; if he gets into both Mac and St. Olaf then I think his list is totally fine, he should get at least a couple of other acceptances for sure, and he can use those last few slots for super reaches if he wants (or not apply to any more...but the super reaches have REALLY good FA). If not then things get trickier. Thank goodness he has UGA already at least!)

We're waiting on Macalester and St. Olaf EA this week and the Oberlin prescreen results. Also, I'm a bit embarrassed that we just realized today that the common app has a 20 school limit. Embarrassed both because I feel like I should have known this and because...we actually care that there's a 20 school limit! I encouraged him to toss in a few schools just because of no extra essays (and his fee waiver), and now I'm regretting a couple of them. He still has a few slots left, but our plan was we could always do more safeties if he doesn't get good results this week...now we'll have to strategize a little more carefully. I know 20 schools is a bit ridiculous, but then also my oldest applied to 16 and ended up on a ton of waitlists--if he'd applied to fewer, the school he ended up actually going to likely wouldn't have made the cut (he hated the supplemental there and very nearly didn't do it). Also I'm super annoyed that Vanderbilt is still hanging out taking up a slot when they already rejected him.

Mine have both done work study jobs. Both of mine have been pell-eligible, so I don't know how the limits are different. My oldest worked at the college library all 4 years, and made like $15/hour by the end because Minnesota's minimum wage kept going up. He worked around 8-10 hours/week, which was all he could work without hitting the maximum. It was a good experience; he enjoyed the job, and it was flexible and they understood that classes took priority. He could pretty much set his own hours at the beginning of every semester, though they did have to be within a 9-5ish time frame because it wasn't front desk stuff but cataloging and that sort of thing. Next kid is ALSO working at the library, although this time it's the music library. He wouldn't have been able to get the job if it weren't through work-study; they only hire work-study students. He only gets something like $9/hour because it's in Tennessee...but he likes it, it's easy to fit in to his schedule (and it's in the music building where he already spends all his time), and I think it's good to have experience in a wide range of music-related stuff since making a living solely as a performer is pretty unlikely. He does that and then is also the assistant manager of the wind symphony--that one's not through work-study and pays a bit better (but was harder to get, as there's only one and they interviewed a number of people).

Yay—congratulations!!!!

Congratulations! Although, yes, that sounds like a lot of annoying weirdness!

DS had all-state auditions this morning. Came home, muttered "terrible" when asked how it went, then spent the rest of the day moping in his room. Turns out he made district honor band and the second round of all-state auditions. This kid! His teacher (who was at the auditions because I guess French horn judges are hard to find) says he'd have placed higher in district if his scales had been better, but other than that he sounded good (and there are no scales in second round of all-state). I've found college admissions to be much more pleasant with non-perfectionist children, having tried it with both now. Oh well.

Good luck with ED!

Yeah, I have a friend who sent her celiac kid across the country to college, and it was...a lot to figure out, so I feel for you! My kid takes a biologic that comes in the mail and has to be refrigerated every month. I asked his doctor how college kids get their meds, and she said, "oh, we usually just ship it to the home address." And I was like, "but...how?!" I still don't know. I guess we'll figure it out if he ends up far away!

Also, can I just say how weird it must be to be applying as a music major and know exactly how good you are compared to everyone around you because your musical life is so based around auditioning and being ranked? And in my kid's case, since he's homeschooled, he only plays in situations where he's surrounded by All-state caliber musicians, since he only plays in auditioned ensembles that are open to everyone. Like...I was an English major and then went to grad school in English. If I had wanted to believe I was the best analyzer of literature in all the land, who was going to be able to tell me otherwise? And then, even if there were an objective ranking system and I was only the 100th best in my state, there still would have been plenty of room for me at colleges with great English departments.