Closed tomorrow.

This is RULER's Year 1/Lesson 1: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1J0sP7rfikEl8KpObVeVDvbO4qwm4gJfdoMFQVvmBHVw/edit?usp=sharing.

I'm curious to know what "the research" says about non-SEL experts, such as myself, being asked to teach SEL lessons.

Anyway, here are some highlights.

Slide 2: Day 1 with these lessons and we're supposed to ask, "Has anyone ever had a conflict with a family member where there was a disagreement that escalated and emotions got out of hand?" Yes, let's revisit some trauma.

Slide 5: "Each of you will pick a role and re-enact the scene so that an agreement is reached that is acceptable both people. (sic)" This slide was optional. We did not do this. I commented to the instructional aide that we would not be doing what John Bender did in the Breakfast Club. (I think she got the reference.)

Slide 9: Watch the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence count to 10.

In my Patriot Period, we (I mean mostly "I") only talked about slides 7 and 9.

Does anyone else want teachers and kids to have 30 minutes of their day back?

Anonymous wrote:Please stop calling it UIUC.

My son got into UIUC. I just searched my inbox for UIUC and got a bunch of hits from Grainger, their engineering school. None of the gear at the bookstore seems to say UIUC, but it's ok to say if departments on campus at Illinois call it UIUC.

Penn State, Pitt, UMD, NC State - accepted at all for engineering.

DS has only gotten UVA so far, which offered a very generous grant. He’s also seriously considering Purdue, VT and UIUC. He hasn’t gotten any letters from them, but, being realistic, my guess is full pay for OOS and a small scholarship at VT. Purdue just pushed their decision date to June 1.

DS will study engineering. The whole family was wowed by the facilities at Purdue and UIUC, but the UVA price can probably not be beat.

From my experience at UNC and UVA, the beginning and intermediate classes could be kind of boring and tedious. For 4th semester Spanish, your daughter might have had to do what all the other classes were doing (same homework, quizzes, exams, etc.). The next course might have been something like reading and composition. Those classes still tend to be standardized. All of what I've mentioned so far could be taught by graduate students, lecturers and adjuncts at larger colleges.

The most interesting classes and the ones with less of a prepackaged feel are going to be the upper division courses. Your daughter should speak with upperclassmen and find out if that is true at her college.

As the PPs were noting, your daughter could benefit from a language table, a weekly/biweekly/monthly opportunity to get together and speak the language. She should continue consuming media (YouTube, news, movies, literature) during her break. I hope she can end up taking fun courses and get the most out of them.

HS senior DS got notice of his several hours ago this evening. It's the first one he's gotten. I really hope he picks UVA!

I don't know if the offer letter was online first and if there was a delay in an email being sent out. If your admitted DC hasn't gotten an email and wants to check, here are the steps:

Your preliminary financial aid offer is ready to view in your UVA Student Information System (SIS). Log in at http://www.virginia.edu/sis. Then:

1. Click "Financials" in the left menu, then "Finance Center"

2. Click "View Financial Aid" in the Finance Center

3. Click "2025"

On the next page, you'll see your full-year amounts as well as the amounts by semester. Click the "Award Letter" link to get a printable .pdf version. We don't mail paper copies of the offer letter, so you'll want to print or save a copy of the .pdf version.

All I can say about the music department is that as a grad student at UNC, I was very happy to listen to the jazz combo performances at the end of every semester. There's also a very special ensemble called the Charanga Carolina that plays Cuban music. I wouldn't know how the music professors there teach, but what I heard was wonderful.

Maybe it's not an Oberlin or Berklee, but the music students know that and probably have other reasons ::cough basketball cough:: for choosing UNC. The school spirit is incredibly strong and the people are very friendly. Your daughter should be able to carve out her niche there quite easily.

Anonymous wrote:I'd be worried that my kid would refuse to come back.

A classmate in college mentioned somewhat apologetically that she might look a bit older than the rest of us. It was her second time in undergrad. The first time she went off to Paris for study abroad—single—and came back six years later divorced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC Chapel Hill. Our son loves it! Is it a fool’s errand for him to apply? They said that only 18% of students are from out of state. We are in Arlington.

Ask yourself this: What does UNC have that UVA doesn't?

I had to be back at UNC for business when I was teaching at UVA. A UNC kid I was talking to (from NC) shared that he got waitlisted at UVA, his dream school. But he got into UNC and came to realize that he loved UNC for the same reasons he loved UVA. A lot of grad students at both universities end up being professors at what is basically their sister institution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

TheSpanishDoctor wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

TheSpanishDoctor wrote:DS got into engineering. 4.4 weighted, ACT 35. He got into 7 other public engineering programs. NC State is not in contention for him, and I understand why. I wish I'd have a reason to go back to NC frequently though.

Why? I don’t understand.

We're in Virginia now, and he got into VT and UVA. He also got into Purdue, UIUC, UMD, Pitt and Penn St. His ranking is Purdue, VT and UVA. Mine is UVA, Purdue, VT.

Neither of us have considered NC State based on his other options. Having lived and studied in NC, I know about the Research Triangle Park, but I think the connections the VA schools have with government and aerospace would have to be better than the ones at NC State. I live by Dulles and see evidence of the job opportunities for my son every day. The Purdue connection with aerospace and the automotive industry are obviously very strong. We have never seriously considered Pitt, Penn State or NC State based on price and opportunities. The PA schools would be 50K+ for us at a minimum.

This makes sense for engineering. For Tech, I think NC State has the edge. However, between UVA and VT, I think your son is right. UVA's program is more theoretical, and VT's is more practical. Just ask a few engineering firms what they prefer. As a mom, I can see where you're coming from. I would be thinking about the possibility that he might change his mind about engineering.

I think NC State has the edge because of its robust co-op program (NCSU and GT have the best ones in the country). You should look into it. The participating companies are all over the country, not just local. My son did an AE co-op in Houston and continued on after graduating. Your son should look it before writing it off.

The first college that mentioned co-ops to us was Purdue, which I had never heard of as a humanities person I suppose. I looked up some rankings and saw that Purdue is in the top 10 nationwide for co-ops. Purdue is still very strong in the running for us because of their co-ops, internships and the many scholarship opportunities for continuing engineering students. Their price for us would be a few thousand more than what VT would be based on the NPC. It's not too far behind in engineering rankings compared to UIUC, which might be too much for us.

VT and NC State would be a wash for us financially. UVA would be the most affordable based on their NPC and recent announcement of expanded funding this past December. However, I met with a career development counselor at UVA who sent me a spreadsheet of outcomes for 2023 grads. It was quite impressive. I'll see if my son would be willing to learn more about NC State. He was concerned about their ranking (30) and UVA's (37) on US News' undergraduate engineering page. I know people say it's not that important, but our friend in aerospace (working at THE Aerospace company - real name lol) mentioned having hired a bunch of Purdue, Tech and UIUC folks over the years. The Aerospace Company was on the spreadsheet the UVA advisor sent me, but my friend wasn't aware of any UVA hires. I'm not sure he mentioned State, but maybe it was because we didn't mention it either.

The boy doesn't know anything about football (despite being in marching band 4 years), so he won't care that the stadium is so far away. In March, I decided to quiz him on how many players are on court or on the field for each side in basketball and football. He got both answers wrong :/

Anonymous wrote:

TheSpanishDoctor wrote:DS got into engineering. 4.4 weighted, ACT 35. He got into 7 other public engineering programs. NC State is not in contention for him, and I understand why. I wish I'd have a reason to go back to NC frequently though.

Why? I don’t understand.

We're in Virginia now, and he got into VT and UVA. He also got into Purdue, UIUC, UMD, Pitt and Penn St. His ranking is Purdue, VT and UVA. Mine is UVA, Purdue, VT.

Neither of us have considered NC State based on his other options. Having lived and studied in NC, I know about the Research Triangle Park, but I think the connections the VA schools have with government and aerospace would have to be better than the ones at NC State. I live by Dulles and see evidence of the job opportunities for my son every day. The Purdue connection with aerospace and the automotive industry are obviously very strong. We have never seriously considered Pitt, Penn State or NC State based on price and opportunities. The PA schools would be 50K+ for us at a minimum.

DS got into engineering. 4.4 weighted, ACT 35. He got into 7 other public engineering programs. NC State is not in contention for him, and I understand why. I wish I'd have a reason to go back to NC frequently though.

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids go to UVA almost a decade apart from each. When each applied the ratio for in state versus out of state enrollment (basically two to one) was exactly the same as it is today. So the claim that it’s OOS enrollment that’s causing the problem is bullshit.

Also, my second kid got in almost a decade after my first from one of the alleged top NOVA publics with lower SATs than my older one but higher grades. In fact, the SATs were lower than the 25 percentile range for UVA students and she hold no hooks. None. UVA has always cared more about grades and courses taken than test scores.

Which leads to my third point: the poster suggesting that all you have to do is move to Southwest Virginia and get a 1400 on the SAT has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. The fact is, some of those places don’t even send a single student to UVA. The only students getting into UVA from any school in the state of Virginia are students at the very top of their class, and to suggest that they will take just about anyone from coal country is complete, total, disrespectful and unadulterated bullshit.

What is really going on nowadays is that students are applying to many more colleges than they have in the past because the process is easier. But the same students are getting into UVA that always have: the ones at the top of the class.

I think most people get this idea from states such as Texas: "Public universities in Texas are required to automatically accept every student who graduates from high school in the top 10% of their class. But UT-Austin is an exception: Right now, state law requires that 75% of UT-Austin’s freshman class must be automatically admitted if they graduated from a Texas public high school in the top 6% of their class." https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/22/texas-legislation-ut-austin-affirmative-action/.

When I heard a friend explain to another parent how UVA has to take X number of students from each county or region or whatever, I pointed him to the UVA Admission FAQs: "Do you have quotas or targets for certain schools or areas? No. While we maintain a 2/3 majority of Virginia residents in our student population, there are no restrictions on how many students we may admit from a particular school, town, county, or region." https://admission.virginia.edu/faqs. I thought he understood, but a couple years later he was sharing the same cautionary advice.

I don't know how long UVA has been doing admissions this way, but it's definitely been more than a decade: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/does-uva-have-a-quota-for-northern-virginia-admissions/2013/11/25/559685ba-557b-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html.

Anonymous wrote:Duke made a change this year to their merit scholarships by only offering merit scholarships to enrolled students instead of accepted students, meaning only students who are committed to Duke can be considered for these scholarships. However, other Ivy leagues like Penn, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell will continue to use merit scholarships as a tool to recruit and enroll admitted students to convince them to take their offer over other peer schools. Thoughts?

First-year students only discover their merit award status after enrollment deadlines, in case others were wondering: "There is not a separate application process for merit scholarships for incoming first year students, except for the Robertson Scholars Program. Your application to Duke University is the basis on which eligibility for merit scholarships is determined. If you are selected as a finalist for a merit scholarship, you will be notified via email from this office in early May. Finalists will then interview with scholarship selection committees and merit scholarships will be awarded no later than mid June."

Perhaps the change was made in light of the Initiative for Students from the Carolinas: https://financialaid.duke.edu/initiative-students-carolinas/.