I am working on FAFSA. I think the question is #29, where it asks you to say where you will be in college. It has a first-year-never-been-to-college and a first-year-been-to-college option. How would you handle this for a student who has done a dual enrollment class? Technically she HAS been to college, but perhaps dual enrollment does not count for the purpose of this question. Any thoughts?

You can manipulate natural melatonin levels by changing your light exposure. Wear amber glasses for two hours before bed, then wear a sleep mask (unless your bedroom is pitch dark). You can rea d about this approach at lowbluelights.com

When you do extra driving for a kid who has forgotten something, keep track of the extra time you spend. Then have your child spend that amount of time doing something for you to pay you back.

Ah. You hit the nail on the head! I was trying to open it with the wrong program. It looks like my nonsense documents are sense documents! Thank you!

I have Open Office. It has an export feature that I am apparently using wrong because it creates a nonsense file! Perhaps my husband can figure it out.

I made a beautiful transcript for my daughter using a spreadsheet. Now, I want to upload it onto the common app, but it will not upload any of the formats I can save it into. It wants things like Word! Is there any technical way around this or do I need to send my transcript by snail mail.

Music school admissions are competitive and unpredictable. It is not like having high academic stats where you can see objectively where your child stands. And I don't know what the percentages are. For financial reasons we are going for university music programs rather than stand alone conservatories. The universities are mostly not extremely competitive but the music departments may be. Many of our schools need the complete application in late October to early December. Once my daughter gets her songs recorded, we may be able to file applications pretty quickly. Most of the auditions and interviews are in late January to early March.

I have a music composition major, so we have extra work. In addition to essays, my daughter has to write compositions and get them performed and recorded. And for most schools she has to do auditions. So, we won't have the comfort of early acceptances.

Another choice is coat the bad parts of the rack with Uber Goop. It might not match your rack precisely, but it looks better than rust. You can also buy caps for the broken prongs.

I am hoping some of you with music admissions experience can help me. I am trying to figure out who to use as recommenders for my child. Due to high spending on private lessons (voice, music comp, piano, violin, clarinet, guitar), we have not done any outside non-music classes. So, the best recommenders my daughter has are her choir teachers and her music comp teacher. (She plans to major in composition.) I had been thinking we would use the music comp teacher as an academic teacher, since I gave her credit for music comp on her transcript. But now I see that some schools also ask for recommendations on the supplemental music application. Could I use the same teacher on both applications? I assume different people read the general application and the music supplement. By the end of December, my daughter will have done an academic dual enrollment class, but they don't let professors recommend until the class is complete. I'm thinking we should get most applications in by December 1 at the latest, though, which means we couldn't use the dual enrollment teacher. Were any of you in the situation we are in? How did you handle it? I appreciate any advice and help.

For beauty, boating, and hiking, I recommend Mount Desert Island. If you want t o swim and walk on sandy beaches, try the southern coast. Ogonquit in the south has a nice oceanside path to w alk on. We often stay in a town near there to take advantage of the path.

I am working on a transcript for my daughter with things arranged by subject. I am wondering if you put in courses that are in process or just ones that have a final grade. If you leave out courses in process, do you put them on a separate page? Or do you input them elsewhere in the application?

I did not use that. However, I did use their genetics course as part of our biology course. That was a good course, although not long enough to be considered a whole credit, even if you add a lab.

My 1.5-credit U.S. history course did not merely have a lot of hours. I started out with a 1-credit course as the basis, but that only took the student up to Teddy Roosevelt. I then added numerous supplemental sources to provide different views on the same subjects AND to extend the course through the full 20th Century. My student listened to lecture series from the Great Courses (including their 84-lecture U.S. History, some biographical sketches of key historical figures, and a course on America's religious history) and from Professor Carol (a history of the arts in America, which may have been intended as a 1-credit course too). I could have tried to divide this all into two courses, but that would have been very unwieldy, since many of the supplemental lecture series covered the full span of U.S. History, unlike the core 1-credit course I began with. I am convinced that anyone who reads the course description will see that it covers American history just as fully as the local high school courses, which include a full two year of American history. I really think that we should not be too timid in giving credits for our student's work. Just have a course description that will knock the reader's socks off!

I did give 1.5 credits for American History. My state generally looks for two credits in this area, and the nature of of my resources really called for an integrated class rather than an artificially divided one. I did spin off a half credit and call it American Government. So now my child has two credits just like the public school kids.

I don't count hours at all. I try to have substantial content in a course and spend a decent amount of time on it. However, how long a student works on it is not necessarily reflective of how many credits it should be. It is more about what learning has been accomplished.

My daughter did Grammar of Poetry by Roman Roads Media in eighth grade.

There is a Coursera course on writing song lyrics. My daughter may do it next year. She composes music but so far has always used poetry for the lyrics.

The school has now backed down and is calling this a "miscommunication." I am relieved.

I am wondering if it is possibly a mistake. But the admissions rep seemed very sure. And I asked when it would be required, and they wanted it at the time of application, which would mean taking it in early fall of the senior year. I worry about that getting in the way of dual enrollment because she might be perceived as a graduate early in her senior year.

We just visited University of Hartford today, and the admission rep said my daughter would need to get a GED to apply. Has anyone else run into this? The website does not list this as a requirement.

I suggest amber glasses be worn for the two hours prior to bedtime. You can find them online. Also, wear a sleep mask to block the light when you are sleeping. This should help correct your melatonin levels. It worked for me after maybe eight years of nightly ambien use.

Perhaps these courses are new? Is that why no one is commenting?

Has anyone's child taken the free Modern States courses? How were they? Did your child take the corresponding CLEP test and pass?

Does anyone have a better alternative to Retainer Brite? My daughter's retainer does not get clean with Retainer Brite.