Life . . .

Life is not all it is cracked up to be.  Life is:  hard, unpredictable, happy and sometimes sad. I think I have felt all of these emotions this week.  Heck, I think I had a couple of these all in one day.  This was a particularly difficult week.  When I have difficult weeks, it makes me want to hold my kids and never let them go.  Try explaining that to a 14 and 18 yr old boy, they do not understand. 
On my worst day this week I called the house on the way home and talked with Sprat, I told him how much I loved him and I cried most of the way home.  They may be making arrangements for me at the loony bin and I just do not know about it.
Sprat is not any closer to deciding on a college than he was two weeks ago.  We are on the trail of some scholarships though.  I do believe I could make a full time job out of searching for scholarships.  There are so many and you have to read all of the details before you can apply because there may be one little thing that would disqualify your child. 
Stay tuned for the scholarship hunt.. .

Update On Job, School, and College Applications. . .

Big T's first business casual day this semester.  Big T's school will be having visitors from another county school system. They are coming to his school because they want to implement some of the things they are doing in their own school system.  I think that is pretty cool.  They must be doing something right to bring in other counties to check them out.  During this visit the students will be doing presentations for the visitors on what they have been studying.
Sprat is adjusting to his college and high school classes.  He seems to be balancing things well.  I got my first call from his high school English teacher.  Sprat really likes this teacher, he had him last year too.  I have not heard from Big T's teachers yet.  They are getting ready for their first exhibition  in November, I am looking forward to that.
It has been a year since I started my job.  I still cannot believe it has been that long.  This has been a crazy year for my crew, very emotional and a little stressful.  My schedule is still all over the place but, I do feel like I am making a difference, so I can take the up in the air schedule.  My kiddos have had to become a little more independent.
Sprat has applied to three colleges and has been accepted at two.  We are very excited for him.  Now we are on to the scholarship trail.  We make just enough not to qualify for need based help so we are on the trail of merit scholarships.  Stay tuned, Sprat has not nailed down his choice just yet and he may even apply to one more college before it is over.  

College Tours and What I Have Learned. . .

Sprat had said on numerous occasions that he did not want to go to a big school.  I thought it was important for him to visit a large campus and a small campus so that he would be sure that is what he wanted.  I picked a small campus that was close to us for our first visit.  Sprat fell in love with it, the most appealing thing was the 10 minute walk from dorm to class.  The draw back of smaller schools is that they may not have the major that your student is looking for.   This first campus tour set the level that all other tours would have to meet or exceed to be on his list of prospects.   This first tour was awesome because we actually met the Vice President of the University, he came in a sat with Sprat and I while we waited for our tour.  He was genuinely interested in what Sprat was going to major in and where he might go to school.  The one thing that stood out from this visit with the Vice President, he told us to pay attention to how the different schools treat you as a prospective student.  Do they care about the student's success or do they just care about the money.  That has gone with me and with Sprat to each visit.  We have paid attention to how they treated us as prospective students.  Our next visit was to a larger campus, here we were treated like a number and shuttled through just like one of the herd.  Sprat was not impressed with this University and there was no attempt to impress us with what they had to offer.  I knew going in that Sprat was not interested here but they did not know that.  Our third tour was another smaller campus, not as small as the first campus but smaller than the large Universities.   We were treated like dignitaries visiting another country here.  We received the red carpet treatment, we were driven around in a golf cart to visit the instructional buildings, dorm rooms, and the campus.  We had our interview first with an admissions counselor who wanted to make sure Sprat knew about every opportunity they had for him.  They also talked about scholarships he might be eligible for  and also told us about other places to look for scholarships.  In my eyes this University cares about their students and wants them to succeed, because if the student succeeds then the University succeeds.   They also gave us the contact information for the admissions counselor and told us to contact them if we had any questions or concerns.  That is the first time any of our tours gave us this type of information.   

The last tour I did not get to go on.  It was Sprat and the Hubbs alone.  That is kind of scary.  I sent my questions and all the things I wanted to know and just hoped that the hubbs would ask those questions.  This was another smaller University, it is a little closer than the others.   Even though this was a smaller University they behaved just like the "big boys."  The hubbs said all they talked about was how much money was required and when you had to pay it.  They do not offer the scholarship opportunities the previous University did.  Sprat was not impressed with any part of this University and neither was my hubby.  He said they were treated like a herd of cattle and there was not red carpet feel at this one.  The other thing that troubled me was that only 20% of the students were in state students and I am sorry I have a problem with Universities that only take a very small portion of students from their own home state.  

I do not need to be treated like a queen but I do want to be treated special since we are considering paying a great deal of money for a top notch education.   We do not have any other tours on the calendar right now because Sprat is pretty serious about school number three.   We will wait and see how the summer goes with his online class at our community college.  I think he will apply to school number one and school number three.  

We will have to wait and see though, you know how teenagers are and how they change their minds.

Stay tuned for the college search and application process. 

College Prep and Other Stuff. . .

Preparing to send a kid off to college is no easy task.  Sprat is two years away from going to college but there are still things that have to be done at this stage.  Sprat is supposed to be preparing by taking classes and being involved in clubs and the community during these couple of years before applying to college.  Our high school offers many AP and Honors classes for the kids preparing for college.  They changed things up this year and required the parents and students to attend an information session about the AP classes.  If you did not come to this meeting your student could not apply to take the AP classes.  I agree that parents have to be involved and that both parent and child should be aware of the commitment required to do well in these classes but, I think this may be a little far reaching.  The students were also required to sit in on a talk by the teacher about what ever class they were interested in.  If they did not sit in on that session then they were not allowed to apply for that AP class.  I say "apply" because they made the students write an essay on why they thought they deserved to be in this particular class and what they were going to do to excel in that class.   Again, I think this is just a little over the top for a high school.  They have now scared my kid to death about taking AP classes.   I thought the whole point of our education system was to encourage our kids to learn and want to excel and want to do their best.  Our high school seems to be discouraging our kids at every turn.  I wonder what would happen if all 450 students in my sons' class did not sign up for a single AP class?  I know that won't happen because the parents in our high school have been brain washed to follow the pack.  

Sprat is so afraid of taking those courses, he is afraid he will not do well and it will hurt his GPA.   So, instead of encouraging our kids to stretch their limits our school is trying to squelch them.   I am trying to encourage Sprat to stretch his limits but he is afraid because of what the administrators have told him.   He is taking honors classes, so that will help.  

Sprat will be a junior this year and this is the year to start applying for some scholarships.  We still have a few more tours to do when I can work them in.  Then he will start actually deciding on where he wants to go and start filling out those applications.  He already knows of two schools he does not want to go to, one because it is too big the other because it is in the mountains and is very cold in the winter.  How is that for choosing a college?   Everyone has their own criteria I guess.   At least he has an idea of what he wants and does not want.   I found this giant book of scholarships at my local used bookstore and it has a lot of scholarships that kids can apply for and some do not require essays.  There is one in there that only requires the kid be over six foot two inches in height.  There is another one for kids that are left handed, I cannot remember if that one requires an essay or not.  

By the time I get Sprat ready to go off to college I should be an expert on this stuff and Big T should be a breeze.  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned lots going on. . .   The hubbs made salsa last week and feel another batch to come. . .