Kids, School

1st Day, Round 1 and early college musings

Grateful Kae

Ethan’s official 1st day pic, from yesterday:

And then I made him take another one, today (Day 2), where he looked a little more “scholastic”, in my opinion. šŸ˜…

Sounds like the first day went well, and he was very happy to have his CAR BACK to drive there!

The passenger seat will be installed on Monday, too. Yay! We’re still dealing with insurance to hopefully get our deductible and rental car expenses reimbursed. Still pending.

Ethan has a busy year this year, as I think junior year sort of always is. He has 3 AP classes in the mix (AP Language and Composition, AP Biology, and AP U.S. History), plus a Digital Arts (art credit- 1st semester), Sociology (2nd semester), a required Religion class each semester (Moral Philosophy and Christian Ethics 1st semester, then Peace and Justice Studies 2nd semester), Spanish 4, and Algebra 2 Honors. He has an open mod 8th period, which he’s thrilled about.

I’m suddenly out-of-the-blue feeling a bit anxious about the whole upcoming “college” thing! We ended up missing the optional College Prep Presentation offered at school in the spring (though I do have the slide deck), and it’s been a very long time since I applied to college.

He thinks he wants to be a dentist (ultimately an orthodontist), though we all know these things can change. And also… dental school is not an easy (or short) path. So I guess time will tell!

He does know he wants nothing to do with a math heavy career (ie. engineering or the like), and he has always been very disinterested in business. He says he doesn’t see himself enjoying sitting alone in an office at a computer all day typing into spreadsheets. Things like computer science, coding, etc have always been no. He is strong in reading and writing, but has never seemed to enjoy writing that much really. He’s rather shy, so he crossed law off the list (I think he envisions that law= Perry Mason in front of a courtroom… lol. I have tried to explain this is not necessarily true, but regardless, doesn’t seem interested.) He also feels he is not “artistic” or “creative”- things like… architecture, or marketing, or any design type field are a hard pass from him.

He seems to envision himself in more of a hands on career- hence the dentist interest, I guess! He has always enjoyed science. He’s a practical and level-headed kid but also very empathetic and kind-hearted, so I do think I could definitely see him somewhere in the health sciences.

He’s joining the Health Occupations Students of America club this year, and I guess we’ll see how he likes AP Biology! He’s planning to take a medical terminology class next year too. We shall see!

In terms of schools, so far, he knows he wants to be close to home. That one decision definitely makes things a lot easier, as it narrows the scope a lot! From his current perspective (having not officially toured a single school yet), he REALLY REALLY wants to go to UW-Madison. Which would be great! Excellent university, 20 minutes from our house, amazing campus and culture, plus I went there, so that’d be fun….

BUT, it is not easy to get into. It is also huge. We know of many top performing kids with the whole gamut of AP classes, extracurriculars, super strong test scores and 4.0 GPAs who get rejected. I think one person I know of was even Valedictorian and didn’t get in. šŸ˜³ Then again, there are other kids we know of who seemed a bit more “average” on paper, if you will, and they’ve gotten in. So, I really have no idea what to expect.

His current 2nd choice (again, based on very little real data at this point) is Marquette University in Milwaukee. He loves a city atmosphere. (I think he’d actually love to go to school in like, Chicago or somewhere, but…. ew I hate driving in Wisconsin –> Chicago traffic so much I don’t even know if I’d want to go tour schools there. hahaha.)

He’s also toying with maybe checking out some smaller private schools, like perhaps Carroll University which is in Waukesha (it’s not far from us, and even closer to my parents who are in the Milwaukee-area, so he likes that!) and he could have potential to play D3 soccer there, possibly? But that’s a much smaller town + campus- definitely not the big city vibe he’s interested in- so I’m not sure if he’d like it or not. Maybe?

He has absolutely thrived in his smaller, more family-like private schools (big part of the reason he’s there)… maybe there’s a smaller school but in a bigger city that would be best of both worlds? I don’t even know. But he says he really wants to be able to get home easily and often- like I think ideally, he’d like to be within an hour or so! (Hence UW-Madison or Marquette would fit those bills.)

ANYWAY, we have done nothing official anything yet and I am not even totally sure how this all goes. Ha. Maybe we’ll try to hit up a couple open house weekends this fall?? I think it would be good for him to get on some campuses sooner than later, just to get initial feels for what this is like.

I also attended a “paying for college” webinar last night and…. yeah. YEEESH. Need to start learning a bit more about that whole process, too. šŸ˜³They brought up some very interesting points about what to consider when looking at public vs private and things to consider when using your 529 plan savings, scholarship and other merit aid, etc. I do not feel well-versed enough in most of this at all yet!

Trying to not over-think it all and FREAK OUT. Haha. šŸ˜¬ (I do realize this is not rocket science, but it’s just new for us! I seem to have blocked out most of my memories from when I went through all this, and Ivan went to college in Mexico which is a totally different process, so he’s not much help, either.)

Give me your college tips!! šŸ™‚ He’s got time, but time seems to fly, so I want him to be proactive…

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful that Ethan’s car was back before his first day, even if it’s not 100% quite done yet…

23 thoughts on “1st Day, Round 1 and early college musings”

  1. He looks so handsome in his BTS pics! He is a strong student and will figure out his place. Maybe some of the satellite UW campuses would be a fit, like Eau Claire? College applications were so different for us. I only applied one place – UND. I knew I was paying for it so I went with a state school that gave me a good scholarship based on my ACTs. Now itā€™s such a different world. Especially in my industry where I work with very affluent people. They take their kids all around the US to look at schools and the tuition is insanely expensive. I want my kids to have a great education but I have mixed feelings about how much you really need to spend on a college degree. Itā€™s good that E knows he wants to stay local. That takes some of the insanely expensive schools out of consideration. Anyways the whole thing sounds very overwhelming between the cost and narrowing down the list of schools. Plus there is early admission, etc. Itā€™s a whole different world! Sarah seems to have this figured out between working at a university and having a 2nd kid go through the process. Iā€™m so impressed that Jack is done with his applications. I feel like my nephews were not that on the ball! Paul will graduate in 2036 so this process is a long ways off. Just think – you could he a grandma when I am sending my oldest child to college. Lol. Taco will graduate in 2039.

    Dentistry is a great path. There is no AI solution for that. šŸ˜‰ A good friend from college is a dentist and her husband is an orthodontist. They met in dental school. They seem to both like their jobs!

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  2. I have so many thoughts! Especially with two kids going to Madison this year! Madison is especially competitive for kids in suburban Milwaukee and Madison because there are so many of them. I think choosing a more uncommon major does make it easier to get into. Marquette is a great option (especially for dentistry!) but the neighborhood there does require a mature college student to navigate the safety concerns. We know kids at Carrolll who like it too! I went to Carthage which was an overall good experience and Concordia is a good option too.

    itā€™s SO much for parents to learn but I promise it will all work out! Youā€™ll probably hear my tears though later this month while I drive by your exit after dropping off my girlsā€¦

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  3. I’ve had many kids go to college , and although I hate the current atmosphere of college applications,I can suggest:

    1. Visit the school of interest. It gets you “bonus points” on the students application at most schools – displaying an active interest.
    2. visit a few schools of different size and location if student hasn’t been on many college campuses.
    3. look at potential majors but don’t worried about getting locked into sonething. Pre- dental will gave a lot of classes applicable for many majors.
    4. do not go to 20 different schools – they will start looking alike after a while. Focus on real contenders or go only for fun.
    5. tour guides can make or break a kid’s interest in a school. Even though it’s not really fair, it happens. ( My recent college entrant vered away from one top choice because the tour was on a below zero day and the tour guide ignored her the whole time; another place because the tour guide talked mostly about sports and she had no interest in it. Sigh.)
    6. don’t let the kid apply to a bunch of random schools just because the common app makes it too easy. No one can realistically chose from 13 schools.

    having some APs is great if the school

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    1. whoops! APs can help, but not all schools accept them for credit.

      there’s no one strategy that will get a kid into a school ( two of my kids got deferred from early admissions and got into ludicrously competitive school, others got rejected outright from places that should have been shoe-ins). The Covid period really messed up a lot of known guidelines, so things that helped 10 years ago might not help now.

      Have kid do most of the work – a spreadsheet or table of deadlines and requirements can help. Ask for teacher references with plenty of lead time. Some of the best teachers will be writing many letters; give them a decent heads up.

      I’m so glad to have a few years off from the college admissions game.

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      1. Thank you for all these really great tips!! I so appreciate you taking the time to write that all out for me!! šŸ’• So interesting to hear about the wildly different experiences your kids had, too!! That seems to be the word on the street in general.

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  4. Of course I have all the warm and fuzzy feelings for UW Madison (I worked and DH did his PhD there, and our oldest was born at St. Mary’s), but I feel like I remember a lot of people who also went to UW Whitewater. Is Lawrence University in Appleton good? All I remember is that I went there once for an art exhibition, and it was gorgeous. So many decisions! I feel like we’ll be there before we know it.

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    1. Asher did a swim camp at Lawrence once! I didn’t see much of the campus, though I recall it being a smaller town feel? Appleton seems like a decent sized city, though- I really don’t know it well!

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  5. It is harder to get into colleges now! University of Florida is super hard, just like you were saying, some valedictorians even get rejected (???) Extracurriculars count a lot, as does having a job. If he can show that he has a job where he got promoted to a higher level, that’s also great. This all, by the way is what I hear from friends. Since my son went to college for music it was a different route. Anyway- I think it’s a LOT to put on kids nowadays. It seems like they can’t just go to school, study hard and enjoy themselves.

    I also know there are people you can hire to help you navigate all of this- from helping decide what schools to apply to, to helping with the essays. Again, not something we did but I know some people who have and they found it very helpful.

    I think it’s great Ethan has such a good idea of what he does and does not want for a career! He’s got plenty of time to figure it out. Even if he enters college with one idea and changes his mind, that’s completely fine.

    It’s also amazing Ethan wants to stay close to home! Not only will it be great to see him often, but flying back and forth to school gets stressful and expensive.

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  6. can we start a group chat on this topic? It has been in my mind for weeks, almost in a panicking mode as I know some people already started prepping their kids at mid school.

    I like your line of thoughts, by elimination, by their interest and competence. I will love to learn more about the process.

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      3. Where do you think youā€™ll be living come college time for the girls? Are you envisioning theyā€™ll attend college in the U.S. or wherever your job is at the time or elsewhere?

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  7. It’s crazy that the time has come to start thinking about college applications for your family. The good news is it will make the process 10x easier when it’s Asher’s turn!!!!

    I haven’t even started to think about this yet in our household, but the time will be here before I know it. I think the process is a bit simpler in Canada. We have A LOT fewer options. I’m secretly hoping our daughter either goes to the university in town (a 3 minute drive from our house) or to my alma mater (a 2.5-hour drive), but we’ll see what she’s interested in doing when the time comes.

    A dental career is great. Good salary, tons of job security, and it sounds like it would really suit his personality. PLUS, he’s had braces and I really think that is an asset when talking with kids about getting them.

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    1. Yes, Ethan would LOVE to just go to the university here in town- which is not small, at all, it’s by far the largest in the state. But it’s so close!! It would be amazing to just swing down there and take him to dinner, etc… I know some kids want to “get away” but he doesn’t seem to have those feelings. Which secretly warms my heart, haha. He wants to be close to us!!! šŸ˜‰ (Or something like that.) And yes- excellent points about dentistry! We’ll see what happens in the long run…

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  8. Itā€™s been a bit since my daughter went through this, but hereā€™s my 2 centsā€¦

    Junior year is HARD. She did just like him, AP and Honors, and later told us that she had a good cry in the shower most nights before bed. I donā€™t know if thereā€™s much you can do to help him through that, but be there for him.

    We went through a big bout of unemployment and underemployment a few years before our daughter went to college, so we didnā€™t have much set aside. I encouraged her to apply to private schools, as they have better financial aid. Which was true, but she didnā€™t get enough to make it feasible for us. The offers she got did bring the price down to about the same as a public school.

    I donā€™t know how it is in Wisconsin, but in California, there is a Master Plan (sounds Nazi, itā€™s not) where if a student does their first 2 years at a Junior College, they have a MUCH higher chance of getting into a UC. My daughterā€™s dream school was UC Berkeley (nicknamed Cal), and they had a deal with our local JC, so she was able to do 2 years at JC and then transfer to Cal. She lived at home all 4 years, which saved a TON of money. Like $120K at least. Your results may vary.

    I do know that our daughter was resentful about the stress she went through in HS to then move on to a Jr. College, but in the end those AP classes meant she could take a lighter load while she was settling in her first year or two, since they counted as college credit. She never had the college experience that many kids have, since she lived at home. I regret that. I do not regret that she graduated debt free.

    Also, dentistry/orthodontia seems like SUCH a smart choice if he ends up liking it. You are TRULY helping people (my jaw would likely have broken from the pressure of too many teeth without braces – is this true? I donā€™t know, but itā€™s what my mom was told at the time. The orthodontist took one look in my mouth and said the F work), AI canā€™t take your job (at least not for a long time), and they canā€™t ship it overseas.

    Good luck as you navigate all of this!

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    1. Thank you for all of this! Hearing first hand experiences is really helpful. I know the junior college route is definitely SMART. I can see why your daughter would feel a little resentful, though. I do feel like there’s sort of a “bias” of sorts against doing that, like, even though it can make total financial sense and the end degree is the same, sometimes it seems to be viewed as the “lesser option” or something. But the amount of money it can save is, as you point out, SIGNIFICANT! Much better to have that money saved for either grad school or a down payment on a house or who knows what!

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  9. Love this topic! Iā€™ve always been fascinated by college choices, and admissions – I work at the U of M and not in admissions specifically, but I do work with students who are applying to law school so there is some similarities between undergrad and law school. As a parent Iā€™m still a few years out but those conversations are coming up more and more – my oldest is going into 10th grade, and has done some college fairs already (a lot of colleges come to her HS) – she is VERY influenced by the last person she talks to and the UW Eau Claire rep must have been amazing because thatā€™s the one she brings up most! I do think that would be an awesome choice – a bit smaller, pretty affordable, mid-sized town, not that far away from us, etc.

    In terms of career aspirations, I think there are so many ways to use a non-career focused degree that we all canā€™t even conceptualize. I work adjacent to an office that specializes in helping students who are ā€œhighly undecidedā€ so I have a soft spot for those students (which are, honestly, most of them) – itā€™s so normal, and even healthy, for kids to take some time to explore once they get to college – and making sure they go to a place that has options for them (not ONLY good in one program) is probably super helpful.

    We are kind of in the same boat as you with the U of M being in our city (one of the campuses is less than a mile from our house) so I would prefer they go a bit farther away, but it is also an awesome school, so I wouldnā€™t necessarily be sad if they did go there! I just donā€™t want them to live with us, but tons of college kids from our neighborhood definitely do just stay at homeā€¦

    I will put in a plug for this author – I LOVE her opinions and she has tons of experience in higher education, and I think she is very reasonable for both parents and kids who are not seeking out the highly selective schools: https://collegesanity.substack.com/

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  10. Love this topic! Iā€™ve always been fascinated by college choices, and admissions – I work at the U of M and not in admissions specifically, but I do work with students who are applying to law school so there is some similarities between undergrad and law school. As a parent Iā€™m still a few years out but those conversations are coming up more and more – my oldest is going into 10th grade, and has done some college fairs already (a lot of colleges come to her HS) – she is VERY influenced by the last person she talks to and the UW Eau Claire rep must have been amazing because thatā€™s the one she brings up most! I do think that would be an awesome choice – a bit smaller, pretty affordable, mid-sized town, not that far away from us, etc.

    In terms of career aspirations, I think there are so many ways to use a non-career focused degree that we all canā€™t even conceptualize. I work adjacent to an office that specializes in helping students who are ā€œhighly undecidedā€ so I have a soft spot for those students (which are, honestly, most of them) – itā€™s so normal, and even healthy, for kids to take some time to explore once they get to college – and making sure they go to a place that has options for them (not ONLY good in one program) is probably super helpful.

    We are kind of in the same boat as you with the U of M being in our city (one of the campuses is less than a mile from our house) so I would prefer they go a bit farther away, but it is also an awesome school, so I wouldnā€™t necessarily be sad if they did go there! I just donā€™t want them to live with us, but tons of college kids from our neighborhood definitely do just stay at homeā€¦

    I will put in a plug for this author – I LOVE her opinions and she has tons of experience in higher education, and I think she is very reasonable for both parents and kids who are not seeking out the highly selective schools: https://collegesanity.substack.com/

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    2. Thanks Erin!! I was hoping you’d see this post and chime in! I totally went down a rabbit hole this afternoon reading articles on that substack!! She seems much more in line with my general views/ the overall “level” of our kids (ie. strong, above average students but also not off the charts on standardized testing or total “brainiacs” either! Not seeing those super highly selective schools in our future I don’t think šŸ˜‰

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