It was definitely easier when I was heads down into my grad work. I also didn't mention that we received Kalamazoo's financial aid package last week. It was OK but not great. It's doable, but includes more loans than expected.

Aww, thank you! Sciencewoman and I were going through it together with our daughters two years ago and neither of them are at Northwestern now. They are both, however, exactly where they are supposed to be! I keep telling myself that, but the nerves are definitely ramping up.

Ack!! My niece finds out on the 24th and 27th about the last two. Then it's number crunching time...

Well he didn't get into Northwestern. That doesn't bode well for Brown either. We will find that out next week along with Oberlin.

Kind thoughts to you and your family.

:( Well, that's Northwestern's loss.

Ugh. So sorry to hear this. Ugh.

How's he taking it?

Hugs to your son. I didn't get in back in 2008, when it was my dream school- been there.

No!!!! I'm so sorry and yeah, it's Northwestern's loss.

You know, I'm active on college confidential and reading the stats of some of the kids who didn't get in... Halo is in very good company. I don't really know how he is taking it because he's away for the weekend at the Business Professionals of America state conference where he's competing in at least two events (possibly some open events also). He's competing in extemporaneous speech and advanced interviewing skills. He says (via text) that he's fine, but I hope it didn't shake his confidence. He's also pretty certain that AP Calc is going to be an A- at best, maybe even a B+ so it is highly likely he has gone down in rank. If it is a B+, he may not make the top 10 even, but we're keeping our fingers crossed. He has an average of 89 but it's also the third highest grade in the class and the class average right now is a 68. There was one assignment that he got a 29% on and the class average on that assignment was 17%. If that assignment is dropped, he could maybe possibly pull the A. We'll see.

Like seriously, if the class average on an assignment is 17%, what does that say about the instruction for that homework assignment?

Sounds amazingly similar to what Youngest is going through in his AP Calc. Tenuously hanging on to an A- with a class average of 65. He says they're lucky to even get directions on most homework assignments. Halo is not alone!

I have never understood teachers who approach education this way. All it does is make difficult subjects seem out of reach and discourage students from trying. Good luck to Halo and Youngest!

Halo's Calc grad has officially bumped him to third... by .0005. It would have been very cool to hear him speak at graduation, but I'm still very proud of him. I think he's got himself mentally prepped as he's been pretty sure since the middle of last week that this would be the result.

Congratulations! Third is still pretty great! My HS eliminated valedictorian and salutatorian in part because the margins were so slim. Basically the class president and everyone in the top one percent of the class gets to speak.

Halo and Hypo are superstars! I don't even know them and I'm super proud!

In my school the speaker was voted on from the 4.0's. There were usually a handful. And oddly we didn't have AP classes at my school (I've never figured out that one), so 4.0 was the top you had to worry about.

Michigan's financial aid package came in bringing it to about $4000 less a year than Kalamazoo. HOWEVER, that's all grant money- based on income, not guaranteed to remain the same every year for the next four years - especially when Hypo is done with college. Kalamazoo's scholarship is guaranteed as long as he maintains a 2.5 and very little of that package is grant money. What do you do about that??? Realisitcally, in 3 more years, I could be full pay for Michigan.