Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

A proud mom (and dad) moment RobinB!!
You're raising a strong girl!

I'm glad she's loving Madtown!

 

Wow, robin. That's a whole lot for 1 semester. I'm glad she's moved beyond all that.

 

Snow day for DD. Although she lives there, it's largely a commuter school. She was planning to come home after class, go to Coco with her sister tonight, and then tomorrow DD16 was going to take a mental health day from school and the girls were going to do something fun. Then something came up for DD16's speech practice on Friday, and then the weather happened, so all of that is out. DD19 now has a 5 day weekend to fill up. Guess she'll get lots of drawing done.

They both have Monday off, so when DD19 gets done working Sunday morning, she'll be home and they can start their fun then.

 

Hi I have a dd who is graduating high school this year. I was wondering if anyone has written a successful letter of financial aide appeal for college and would have any tips.

 

Wow that sucks for her- I would be LIVID. Glad she is getting away from them! I have to say I was VERY skeptical when my daughter decided to join a sorority but her "sisters" have been so helpful whenever she had a question or issue that it has been great for her to have someone there that she can rely on. Glad your daughter has the same thing!

 

I did. I don't know about tips but my income for that year was very different from my income I had to use on FAFSA so I wrote a letter stating the differences and why the income was different. Told them it was a top choice school for my daughter, that I am a single parent with no help financially from anyone else (not a lie.) and that I care for my 88 year old mother who has lymphoma, breast cancer and skin cancer (again, not a lie). So basically I just wrote a letter telling the truth and stating my case and asking them for "just a little more help to make it possible for her to attend" and they came back with a few thousand more.

 

I submitted a successful appeal for my daughter last year and will do it again this year. Our income has unfortunately shifted downward in the last 2 years. They gave her an additional 1 year award. She has a substantial merit scholarship but doesn't qualify for need based aid.

My daughter's school has an appeal form that you submit with supporting documentation.

I would suggest contacting the school(s) and asking their policy. I did include a brief letter with the form. I kept it short and to the point. Basically, our current income is ×% lower because of x, y, and z.

Good luck.

 

Another growing up experience tonight for DD! We met up after she got off work and DD16 went with her to spend the night. They were headed out to eat and were sitting at a stoplight when they were rear ended. Pulled over and talked to the cops and everything. DD said the other driver was a hot guy with an accent and he apologized so much and said he was just trying to go out to dinner. I asked if she asked him where he was eating and she said no but she has his contact info! DD's Malibu must be pretty tough because you can barely tell anything happened (no dents, maybe smudges) but the guy's car didn't fare well.

It's funny because before we had gotten to her we came across a fender bender and DD16 said she hoped to never have to call DH and tell him about an accident, especially one that's her fault. I told DH if any of us ever had to, he is to smile and be happy we are okay...

She thought they'd stay on campus after that and swim but they must have decided to go ice skating because my old high school friend thought she recognized them at the rink and asked me if they were skating. They've never done that before but apparently DD19 is doing pretty well I hear.

 

Bjscheel, so glad the incident was minor. Your DD handled it like a champ.

 

Robin- so glad things worked out so well for your dd!

Our dad had her own roommate drama and ended up switching roommates the first month of school. She was also really homesick the first month and we weren't sure she was going to last the semester! Luckily she's made some really good friends and now loves it! It is hard being so far away/ we are in NJ and she goes to school in Florida She did ok this semester, not as good as we hoped but once she got through the homesickness everything seems to have fallen in place

 

DD went back to school to go through Sorority Recruitment last weekend. DS just went back to his school today. My house is soooo quiet now!

Rush! Oh my goodness, what a stressful thing to watch your daughter go through! And I was in a sorority back in the day. They were not allowed to have their phones, so she couldn't share anything about the parties, who she liked, or who cut her until she was completely done for the day. And the days were long - sometimes 12 hours long! She actually had a pretty easy time during rush - only cut from 3 out of 13 houses. She fell in love with AXO during the first round of parties even though it wasn't initially on her radar. The more time she spent there during subsequent rounds, the more she realized those girls were her sisters. Luckily they felt the same way about her. Turns out her summer orientation leader is the sorority president. She loved my DD during orientation and was on the lookout for her during rush! She just texted me a picture of herself holding her bid with a giant smile on her face!!! Her roommate got a bid from them too.

She feels really lucky. The process was not as kind to many many girls. Her freshman class is currently the largest in VT history. A record number of girls went through rush. I heard that there were 1300 girls competing for 650 spots. That means half the girls either got cut completely or dropped when they didn't like any of the houses they had left. There is a VT parents Facebook page, and it got ugly. So many girls were distraught; so many parents were distraught. With that many PNMs, the solution would have been to make pledge classes larger (100 pledges vs 50), but I don't think the houses were big enough with enough active sisters to support such huge pledge classes. There would have been almost more pledges than sisters! They need to fix it for next year; however, I'm not sure how.

 

We took our daughter back to school yesterday and came home today.

She had a wonderful 1st semester academically. I'm hoping this semester she succeeds socially. She made a few friends but is hoping to be more engaged.

She has a better schedule this semester so I hope that helps her to go out more. No 8am multivariable calculus this semester.

Wishing a wonderful 2nd semester for all our kids.

 

My daughter made her schedule where she had no class before 11am LOL- she hated the 9am classes she had last semester. She also has Fridays off this semester so she is happy about having 3 day weekends every weekend (4 day weekend this weekend!) Her boyfriend was due back to Boston on Saturday for his school and his mother and grandmother came with him so they met my daughter for the first time and went out to lunch together.

 

My DD just decided she didn't want to stick with her major. It was a last minute rush to switch classes and take core classes while she decides what she wants to do. I did not see this coming but I guess better now than wasting taking classes she won't need. So now she has a pretty bad schedule and it now messes up her part time job at school.

 

For dd20, dh just called the college financial aid guy and was able to get an increase in her aid. He found a couple small scholarships to add to what she already had.

 

Quick textbook question: My dd just ordered some books last night. She just noticed that there is a disclaimer that says: Supplements and Access codes may not be included for rental/used books. I'm wondering if she was supposed to buy these books new? Maybe it has this disclaimer on every book? This is thru Amazon if that matters. It doesn't specifically say on her college page that books have to be new. It is a pretty big price difference. I'm wondering if she should try and ask these teachers. Nothing like the last minute doing this. I'm not even sure what I'm asking you guys but I'm wondering if there is a code that she will need but that isn't coming with these used/rental books.

 

Are the access codes required for her class? They would be listed on her book list. You can use the ISBN code for the access codes and look online for them to buy them separately. I think you still will come out ahead by renting the book (or buying used) and buying the access code separately. We bought two codes on eBay and one from the bookstore. For his books, I used the ISBN codes and searched for the best deals on amazon, ebay, chegg and the bookstore. He ended up doing a combination of buying used and renting - whichever had the best price.

Oh... to specifically answer your question, used books and rentals DO NOT come with the access codes.

 

Her professors will let her know the first day if she needs the access codes. They can be purchased then.

My senior DD waits until the first class meeting to get books. In future that could save some. She found that her first semester buying early resulted in books that she didn't use in one case, the professor, on day one completed changed one of the required reading books. Amazon delivery is so quick that it's never been a problem to await. That said, Amazon typically has great customer service and she can probably return if she finds she needed something different.

 

Thanks so much. Makes sense!

 

I haven't been brave enough to wait for classes to start before getting books. What I do is look on the school's website through her account and see what the bookstore is offering for her classes. If the only choice is a new book, I figure there is a code and I buy new. If the bookstore is offering used, I know it is okay to buy used. I compare prices between Amazon and the bookstore. This time Amazon was cheaper for all. Her books have been about $100/semester.