DDA Chapter 27

[my3princes]

so nice to hear from you Bernadette. How's life?

 

[bethbuchall]

Hello, Bernadette! I was just thinking about you the other day. I was trying to remember if Lizzie is the same age as Miles and Anne Marie's Daniel...seniors in high school. Time flies!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Hi Deb & Beth!
Life is pretty busy. Lizzy is a senior. She wants to study meteorology. She's applied to 5 schools & accepted to all 5. Right now her #1 is SUNY Oswego. She was accepted to the honors college and got a very generous merit offer. In a few weeks we are going to an accepted student day at Penn State then go to Oswego where she'll do an overnight visit. We haven't received any aid from Penn State yet so right now all 4 years at Oswego would be the same as 1 semester at Penn State. She doesn't want a big school so Oswego might be a better fit for her and she will likely need a grad degree.

How is Miles' search going? Lizzy is so done with high school.

Deb-how are your boys? You? Lizzy applied to Lyndon also.

 

[bethbuchall]

Congratulations to Lizzy! SUNY Oswego is about 2 hours north of us. My co-teacher's daughter is transferring there from the local community college for the Fall, but she's going for some kind of art degree, so they wouldn't be likely to cross paths.

Miles is planning to study chemical engineering. Right now we think his #1 is SUNY Buffalo. He's still waiting for scholarship/financial aid info from Rochester Institute of Technology and Clarkson. He also applied to SUNY Stony Brook, but he's already ruled that one out because the major isn't quite what he wants. We leave after school today to go to Buffalo because he has an interview for their Presidential Scholarship. If he gets that, Buffalo is pretty much a lock. It used to be a full scholarship: tuition, room/board, fees, books, but this year they've changed it to a flat $15,000/year which would still cover most of his costs. Even with the Provost Scholarship they've already given him, I think that there will be no way to justify the costs of the other schools. The SUNY schools are a real bargain for NYS residents and (contrary to what a bunch of people are telling Miles) offer an excellent education.

There has been a lot of high school drama recently which he is so done with. Swim season is coming to an end soon, and he's going to really miss that.

It seems like yesterday we were designing for their 5th birthdays.

 

[lovesdumbo]

It seems like yesterday we were designing for their 5th birthdays.

Yes it does!!!

Good luck to Miles!

Lizzy got the Presidential Scholarship from Oswego (no need to interview there) and a Destination Oswego scholarship which brings tuition closer to instate rates. She couldn't go to a MA school for the same price or any of the other schools she's looking at. Lyndon in VT & Plymouth in NH offer a special New England rates but even with that discount and their merit scholarships Oswego is still cheaper and by all stats has a better program. Oswego also keeps room & board at the same rate as Freshman year for all 4 years. UMass Lowell is the only MA state school with Atmospheric Science and it is a mix of meteorology and environmental science. And she doesn't want a city campus (that's how SUNY Albany fell off the list). She also looked at Stony Brook by they mix their program with Oceanic Science which she's not that interested in.

Lizzy's last at home regular season ice hockey game is tomorrow. They are having a party for the seniors after the game. Hockey is another draw for Oswego. She doesn't want to play varsity but will try to play club and have a great time at the varsity men's and women's games. I think it will help her feel connected to the school which is why I'm thinking Oswego might be a better fit than Penn State.

 

[MrsHeg]

Hi!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Hi!

Missing everyone!

 

[my3princes]

Hello. I miss everyone as well.

Deb

 

[bethbuchall]

Hello! There have been a lot of changes for everyone since we used to post regularly.

Bernadette, how is Lizzy doing now that she's been at college a few months? Miles seems to be thriving. I'll be so happy to have him home for Thanksgiving. The house is so quiet now, but we're getting used to the new routines.

 

[lovesdumbo]

She's doing really well. We went to see her for family weekend. She seemed so happy.

She registered for next semester yesterday. She was right online at her 9am timeslot but she couldn't get into any of the 4 sections of Calculus II. She talked to her advisor who told her to talk to the professor teaching the section she most wanted (8am 4 days a week ). He took her name and said she was number one on the wait list. She wasn't too worried about it-said "someone will flunk calc I". But then in the afternoon the professor emailed her to tell her he lifted the maximum so she could register for it. I'm relieved she handled the entire situation so well. Now she's worried that one of her other classes will be canceled because it only has 5 registered. She'll have 4 classes Mon/Wed/Fri all right in a row from 8:00 to 12:25. Tuesday she has Calc II at 8:00 and Ethics at 11:10-Thursday just Ethics. She's excited that she will be done everyday by 12:30. I don't know that I would want 4 classes back to back but she'll soon learn what works for her! She'll still have 16 credit hours next semester but 3 hours less of classroom work because she won't have any labs.

Can't wait to see her for Thanksgiving! Got her a perfect non stop flight home but getting back is a bigger challenge-everything out of Boston gets her to Syracuse too late for the last bus to campus. So we have to drive her to Albany to catch a train there. It's going to be a long day. The drive to/from Albany is 1/2 way to school for mileage but way more than 1/2 way in time with traffic.

We have to make a list of schools to visit with Joe. His dream is to work for NASA so he'll probably start out with some sort of aerospace engineering.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Elin-thinking of you today! I’m liking Phil today and sure hope he’s right about an early spring.

Hi to everyone else! Hope all are doing well!

 

[bethbuchall]

Hi, Bernadette!!!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Hi Beth!
Joe got an unexpected merit scholarship to U Buffalo. We had written it off as too big. We’ve never even visited but now I think we need to go see it. Is Miles enjoying it?

He got a good package from FL Tech so that’s high on his list. He just got into Clarkson which is his number 1 but aid won’t be out until late February.

 

[bethbuchall]

Hi Beth!
Joe got an unexpected merit scholarship to U Buffalo. We had written it off as too big. We’ve never even visited but now I think we need to go see it. Is Miles enjoying it?

He got a good package from FL Tech so that’s high on his list. He just got into Clarkson which is his number 1 but aid won’t be out until late February.

Congratulations to Joe! Miles also liked Clarkson, but even with the scholarship they gave him, it couldn’t come near what he was given at Buffalo. He really does like it there, and he’s doing well. My older two ruled out Buffalo almost immediately as too big, but Miles says that he doesn’t think it feels too big. He was in the honors dorm last year which was a smaller community (and closer to campus). Let me know if you have any questions. Can you believe these little kids are now in college/heading for college?!?!

 

[kc10family]

It's been a long time I hope everyone is doing well.
~Paula

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Hi, Bernadette!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Hi!

How are things with you? Miss you!

 

[bethbuchall]

Hi!

How are things with you? Miss you!

Hello! How are things going for Joe’s college search? Did you visit Buffalo? That’s quite a distance for you, isn’t it?

How is Lizzy doing this year? Miles is doing very well but seems to be constantly stressed. I think he’s putting too much pressure on himself. He’s questioned his major, but I think he’s staying with it. He’s questioned just about everything. I get the “I can’t do this and I hate it and I’m going to fail at life” texts frequently, but I don’t get the “the test went well after all or I’m doing great or I had fun at...” texts. So, I’m left in a stressed out state even more than he is. But it seems he’s is doing much better than his texts to me indicate.

 

[lovesdumbo]

We were just at FL Tech last week for an accepted student day. Weather was perfect-mid 70s, no humidity. Campus was beautiful. But it didn’t quite click with Joe. Next week Joe is doing an overnight (FT doesn’t do that) and accepted student day at Clarkson. We are really hoping things will work out there. We were going to do UB accepted student day the day after Clarkson’s but that’s a lot of driving-especially if things work out at Clarkson. So we’ve postponed UB visit for now.

Lizzy is doing ok. She’s taking an EMT class this semester & loving it but she too is questioning her major. But she’s only had 1 professor in her major so I’m encouraging her to wait til she takes other classes. She wants to be on RA this summer & stay on campus but I’m not liking that idea. She can’t take classes-they don’t offer anything she needs. She thinks she can get a job as an EMT if she stays there but she wouldn’t know if she even passes the test before she’d commit to being RA. I don’t won’t her there doing “nothing”. She can come home & earn money.

But....adding to the complexity of that discussion with her is that Joe got a job this summer in Alaska as an assistant trek leader for a High Adventure Boy Scout base camp. (He got his eagle just days before he aged out in January). It’s an incredible opportunity for him. Lizzy says you can’t tell me I can’t stay in NY and let Joe go to AK. I guess I can see her point but it’s not the same.

I’m ready to have Joe’s decision made. Then I can move on with a Emma. She’ll be a junior next year.

Oh....on a positive note with Lizzy she got an on campus apartment for next year so she’s very happy about that. She can’t even have a microwave now so she’ll be very happy to have full kitchen and laundry in apartment.

 

[bethbuchall]

Fingers crossed that Joe loves Clarkson!

Miles also got an on-campus apartment for next year. He is so ready to be done with the dorms and dining halls. They also can't have microwaves in the dorms. He's going to be living with his current two roommates and a fourth that they don't know, though they've met him once. You need to go in with a group of four to get an apartment, and it's all done on a lottery system. For the second year in a row, they got really bad numbers, but this new guy needed a group of three and also had a better number then any of them. I hope that it works out. It certainly was tense waiting until it was their time to pick an apartment. I was getting constant updates about how many were left and how fast they were going.

I can't believe that Emma is going to be a junior! I can't believe any of them are this old. I remember making a 5th birthday shirt design for Lizzy, and she's going to be a junior in college!