February 1st was a day of celebration in our house because when Jennifer clicked “Submit” at 8:30pm on Saturday night, it marked the completion of the college application process for her. Now, she just has to wait to see if the mailman brings fat 9x12” envelopes containing acceptance letters or [...]
I appreciate Jennifer jumping in to write my blog last week. As she said, filling out the financial forms that are part of the college application process drained all my creative energy; it was a challenge to see how poor I could make us look and still tell the truth. [...]
Hello all, This is Colleen's daughter, Jennifer, writing to say that unfortunately my mother will be unable to post one of her beloved blogs this week due to the fact that she is desperately in need of some rest. The reason for this is because in addition to working, cooking [...]
School started on August 15 for my daughter who is a high school senior in Santa Rosa, making summer vacation more a concept than a reality. Especially because during those few weeks between when school ended in May and started again in mid-August, Jennifer always had “homework” – the homework [...]
I think the onslaught of communications from college admission departments to our daughter – who is a junior in high school – can be traced back to a year ago when Jennifer, Steve and I attended a college fair. If students pre-registered for the fair online, an ID tag with [...]
If you had been eves-dropping on the conversations in our house a couple of years ago, every third word would have been “college” or “application.” For about six months, Valerie’s college application process was the all-consuming topic. We got sucked into the angst of it to such an extent that [...]
When our daughter, Valerie, was home this summer after her first year away at college, it was much more like hosting a really messy houseguest than having a member of the family living with us. Actually, this was a good thing – not the messy part – but the sense [...]
As a parent of a future college applicant, I have been guilty at times of saying to her, “Why don’t you try out for (fill in the blank), or how about taking this (blank) class, or why don’t you join this (blank) club? It will look good on your college [...]
College can be a time of life when kids experiment with lifestyles that are different than their parents. Our daughter who is a freshman at a smallish private university in Southern California seems to be doing just that. However, unlike many kids who really try out some risky behavior just [...]
Last fall, when our daughter, Valerie, went away to college in Southern California, she decided not to take her car with her. She said she didn’t want the responsibility that went along with having a car at the same time she was getting adjusted to living away from [...]