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Stick A Fork In Me. I Am Sooooo Done!
So done I probably look like one of Jack O'Neill's blackened shards of meat.
Alternate Title For Post: You Can Lead A Teen To Water, But You Can't Make Her Drink
Middle Daughter believes that communicating with parents and teachers is for wimps. She believes that she must DO ALL THE THINGS herself without any grown-up type help. This gets her in trouble time and again BUT SHE DOES NOT LEARN.
We have been over and over what she needs to do to get her college applications done, and I have repeatedly asked for a list of what is due when. "It's okay, Mom. Stop freaking out. They all require the common app, I'm on it, and financial aid stuff is due Feb. 1st." I believed her. She is after all, a truthful kid. Oooops!
She informed me Friday that one of her schools requires the [major, major, major pain-in-the-ass] CSS Profile financial aid application by Jan. 15th. We don't even have W-2 forms back yet. No other forms either. I have to reconstruct everything from stubs, research, etc. I spent all weekend getting the PAIN IN THE ASS FORM done.
On the way I discovered that one of her schools has a merit scholarship for musicians (she is a gifted pianist, with a good voice) she can apply to, but she needs a CD of 2 classical pieces, unedited, from two different eras, and it has to be postmarked by Jan. 15th. She has great difficulty figuring out why her parents think a shot at $14,000 each of 4 years should be prioritized over seeing the boyfriend. To her credit she did practice before and after a shortened visit to the boyfriend yesterday, and spent hours practicing today, but only one of the pieces was mistake free and ready to be put on disk this evening. She'll try again on the second piece, a very difficult Debussy nocturne, tomorrow.
I discovered that one of her schools (application deadline with better chance of admission Nov. 1st, 2012, ordinary deadline Jan. 20th) doesn't use the common application. Oh, and it requires 2 essays.
I discovered that the application deadline for her only reach school was Jan. 1st, 2013, so that one's gone, although I chased down and entered extra CSS Profile info for the place, and paid for sending copies of her standardized tests to them before I knew this.
I discovered that she probably will not be able to audition at her first choice college, because she's late signing up for auditions, so most of the slots are filled. She needed to audition at the school that doesn't use the common app by Nov. 1st, so that's right out. If she gets in maybe she can audition for next year?
Two of the schools require a supplement to the common app. She didn't know that, and wrote a crappy last minute essay for one, because her physics midterm is tomorrow, but at least both supplemental applications can be faxed from Beloved Husband's office tomorrow and meet the deadline. The essay is about how she'd like to start an LGBT support group (the question is about what club would she choose to start at the college if she was going to start one). I certainly hope they aren't Very Conservative. Of course if they are, that college and Middle Daughter would not be a good mix, so there's that...
Now I'm tired, and grumpy, and have had no time to relax for 3 days. I've been spending my weekends with collegeboard.com, irs.gov., fafsa.edu.gov., and the websites of 5 colleges. I will say, that the FAFSA site is refreshingly idiot proof, and so is their help site. [There was a question of how to handle something that "must match your Social Security Card exactly" when it would not allow enough characters to do that.] Beloved Husband has spent his weekend researching things at our online banking site, and the bennies office of both organizations that he works for, and wrangling The Whirlwind.
We've both spent time arguing with Middle Daughter, whose attitude is "Look, I'm too busy to deal with this now. I'm too stressed. I can't do it. I checked the websites carefully. I don't know why Mom could find it and I couldn't. I guess she's just better at that sort of thing. Sorry. Anyway, I'll get to it whenever. It's just going to have to go in late." As if colleges would care that my Special Snowflake was too busy to make the deadline, and give her extra consideration that others don't get.
Maybe we should press gang her into the Marines. It might be the only way to get her to understand that Rules are Rules. They apply to you too. Even if you don't like it. No exceptions for being you. Not that we haven't spent 17 years trying to teach that.
I thought that 17 year olds, who spend their entire lives plugged in to the internet, who have no clue how to research anything in paper books or periodicals, who don't know how to use an old fashioned library file card system, and think all human knowledge is found on the web, were actually better at finding out info on the web than 54 year old homemakers, who did all their graduate research in a brick and mortar library, and only got on the web some 10 years ago.
I was wrong.
Can I weep now?
Alternate Title For Post: You Can Lead A Teen To Water, But You Can't Make Her Drink
Middle Daughter believes that communicating with parents and teachers is for wimps. She believes that she must DO ALL THE THINGS herself without any grown-up type help. This gets her in trouble time and again BUT SHE DOES NOT LEARN.
We have been over and over what she needs to do to get her college applications done, and I have repeatedly asked for a list of what is due when. "It's okay, Mom. Stop freaking out. They all require the common app, I'm on it, and financial aid stuff is due Feb. 1st." I believed her. She is after all, a truthful kid. Oooops!
She informed me Friday that one of her schools requires the [major, major, major pain-in-the-ass] CSS Profile financial aid application by Jan. 15th. We don't even have W-2 forms back yet. No other forms either. I have to reconstruct everything from stubs, research, etc. I spent all weekend getting the PAIN IN THE ASS FORM done.
On the way I discovered that one of her schools has a merit scholarship for musicians (she is a gifted pianist, with a good voice) she can apply to, but she needs a CD of 2 classical pieces, unedited, from two different eras, and it has to be postmarked by Jan. 15th. She has great difficulty figuring out why her parents think a shot at $14,000 each of 4 years should be prioritized over seeing the boyfriend. To her credit she did practice before and after a shortened visit to the boyfriend yesterday, and spent hours practicing today, but only one of the pieces was mistake free and ready to be put on disk this evening. She'll try again on the second piece, a very difficult Debussy nocturne, tomorrow.
I discovered that one of her schools (application deadline with better chance of admission Nov. 1st, 2012, ordinary deadline Jan. 20th) doesn't use the common application. Oh, and it requires 2 essays.
I discovered that the application deadline for her only reach school was Jan. 1st, 2013, so that one's gone, although I chased down and entered extra CSS Profile info for the place, and paid for sending copies of her standardized tests to them before I knew this.
I discovered that she probably will not be able to audition at her first choice college, because she's late signing up for auditions, so most of the slots are filled. She needed to audition at the school that doesn't use the common app by Nov. 1st, so that's right out. If she gets in maybe she can audition for next year?
Two of the schools require a supplement to the common app. She didn't know that, and wrote a crappy last minute essay for one, because her physics midterm is tomorrow, but at least both supplemental applications can be faxed from Beloved Husband's office tomorrow and meet the deadline. The essay is about how she'd like to start an LGBT support group (the question is about what club would she choose to start at the college if she was going to start one). I certainly hope they aren't Very Conservative. Of course if they are, that college and Middle Daughter would not be a good mix, so there's that...
Now I'm tired, and grumpy, and have had no time to relax for 3 days. I've been spending my weekends with collegeboard.com, irs.gov., fafsa.edu.gov., and the websites of 5 colleges. I will say, that the FAFSA site is refreshingly idiot proof, and so is their help site. [There was a question of how to handle something that "must match your Social Security Card exactly" when it would not allow enough characters to do that.] Beloved Husband has spent his weekend researching things at our online banking site, and the bennies office of both organizations that he works for, and wrangling The Whirlwind.
We've both spent time arguing with Middle Daughter, whose attitude is "Look, I'm too busy to deal with this now. I'm too stressed. I can't do it. I checked the websites carefully. I don't know why Mom could find it and I couldn't. I guess she's just better at that sort of thing. Sorry. Anyway, I'll get to it whenever. It's just going to have to go in late." As if colleges would care that my Special Snowflake was too busy to make the deadline, and give her extra consideration that others don't get.
Maybe we should press gang her into the Marines. It might be the only way to get her to understand that Rules are Rules. They apply to you too. Even if you don't like it. No exceptions for being you. Not that we haven't spent 17 years trying to teach that.
I thought that 17 year olds, who spend their entire lives plugged in to the internet, who have no clue how to research anything in paper books or periodicals, who don't know how to use an old fashioned library file card system, and think all human knowledge is found on the web, were actually better at finding out info on the web than 54 year old homemakers, who did all their graduate research in a brick and mortar library, and only got on the web some 10 years ago.
I was wrong.
Can I weep now?
no subject
This sounds like dealing with my youngest sister, B2, (who is twice your daughter's age) and deadlines. At least I don't have to deal with her on this, but my mum and stepdad would probably commiserate most heartily with you on this.
no subject
Oh, well. It comes with the territory I guess. I know it's not just bad childraising technique, because this is not the way the other 3 approach life. I guess some people want to put time and energy into figuring out how to do it the easiest way or the best way every time, and some people don't. Hopefully she'll figure it out before she's B2's age, and make her life move more smoothly. It won't be long before it's out of our hands, and in her own.
I'm old enough to know that sometimes life hands out The Parent's Revenge, and the children end up living with a child or a pet or a boyfriend that is exactly what they deserve, and then they learn.
The silver lining to my fraught weekend is that now that stupid form is ALL DONE until next year, and will not be ruining another weekend. And next year I'll make a point of looking up the due dates myself. In December. For four of the five colleges this icky form will not be necessary again. If she gets into the fifth of those, it will probably be worth it, because it will be the one with the best program for her, since she still can do music there.
Edited because "out of her hands" is not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say "out of our hands". There is, in fact, a significant difference! [And when I try to type fast I kant spel]
no subject
She really needs to move out to a place where her internet and utilities are not subsidised, where she can't nick the meat from someone else's cooking, and where people don't pick up after her because if they don't, they have to live more or less in squalor.
The house/property is looking to be sold in the next couple of years, and B1's already said she doesn't want to live with B2...
no subject
Sympathies!