Sleep and older children

dragonlady wrote:

In article ,
toto wrote:

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 12:54:20 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

I got a lot more money
from scholarships than I ever could have saved with jobs
during high school that would have taken away from the
grades and activities that got me the scholarships.

Not necessarily. I had a free ride - full tuition and room and board,
yet I worked as a waitress 4 days a week during my junior and
senior year. You assume that you cannot keep up your grades and
your test scores, but that was not true of many of the kids I knew in
high school. We worked many hours, yet managed to get our schoolwork
done too. What suffered was extra-curricular activities and possibly
family time, but not our grades.

I always worked while I was in high school and undergraduate school, and
I always got top grades, did a certain amount of socializing, and at
least a little extra-curricular stuff.

When I was in graduate school, the fellowship I had specifically forbid
holding a job during the school year -- and I hated it. Turned out that
I needed the occassional break from academics, doing something
practical, to stay focused on my school work. I managed to find other
things to do -- met DH, fell in love, got married -- but I much
preferred having a job, at least 10 hours a week, while I was in school.

My dad had to work his way through school completely without help
because when he went to college his dad disowned him. He did it but
he felt that he missed a lot of the college experience, and he could
not take all the classes that he wanted because his job hours
interfered. For instance he wanted to take physics, but the physics
lab was in the afternoon when he was working at a gas station so he
had to take biology instead because the lab was in the morning.

He felt that we should not have a job at least for freshman year. We
had the unfortunate problem of his having just gotten a huge increase
in salary just before I went to college, and so I didn't qualify for
any financial aid. I did work some summers and for three years I
lived in a coop where we worked off about half of the board bill and
about a third of the room bill.

One of our SILs basically worked his way through - his parents didn't
pay much if any, and he had student loans. DD#1 got married midway
through her freshman year and had to do the same - she had jobs
grading papers etc and she had student loans.

In our family almost all the degrees that were taken after the initial
bachelor's degree were done after we were out in the workforce.
(Dad's PhD, dd#1 and SIL#1's masters, SIL#2 law degree etc.) And of
course the same is true for those who did not do the bachelors degree
at the usual time i.e. right out of HS. (DS, DIL and DGS)




grandma Rosalie

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
I don't assume that at all, but these days it's
hard to get a scholarship with grades alone.

I had a consultation with a college planner a year ago, a guy who used
to work in admissions for an Ivy league school here. We talked mostly
about private schools, not public.

He told me that the reality is that our kids won't get any scholarships
- no matter how good their grades and their resume - because we make
too much money between the four of us (my ex, his DW, me, my DH).
Loans, yes. Anyone can get a certain amount of federal loans, and other
loans may be based on grades and extracurriculars and all that. But
unlikely to get scholarships. Which is different than when I went to
school, and there was such things as merit scholarships that had
nothing to do with one's finances. According to this guy, true merit
scholarships are few and far between these days, and even if we did get
one, they won't make much of a dent.

Those
extracurriculars are important, both if you want to be
admitted to competitive schools and if you want to be
more competitive for scholarship awards. I had above
a 4.0 GPA (from a good HS) and was awarded little
scholarship or grant money on that basis alone.

Regarding admission to competitive private schools, the planner said
yes extracurriculars can make a difference if your scores are
borderline. BUT, for those with good scores, the dirty little truth is
that private colleges look far harder at how much money you have
available. By "you" I mean your whole family... including generous
grandparents... and also they take into account *everything* including
funds that public schools don't look at. They'll figure if getting Jr
into their big-name school is important enough to you, then you might
be stupid enough to ransom your house, sell off one of your SUVs, forgo
contributing to your 401K, live on dog food for awhile..... which,
apparently, a lot of people do.

So, if you want to go to say a Harvard, *and* you have the money, *and*
your grades and SATs scores are respectable, you'll get in - with or
without the extracurriculars. Top schools have had to go begging in
recent years, many going offshore to find applicants willing to pay the
tuition, whatever it costs.

Those extracurriculars might make a difference if you are in the lowest
income bracket, but you likely couldn't afford all the lessons and
activities anyway. And might even have had to work through high school,
just to help your parents keep food on the table.

He said the best strategy is not to be stupid enough to ransom
everything, that a second-tier school is just as good as a top-tier
school. But to definetly apply to a few schools, get accepted to all,
and then play the offers off one another.

For example a Harvard may get their pen out and try to craft a
comparable deal to an MIT or Yale, bringing the tuition down in line.
Harvard would rather get the tuition than the competition. But likely
the less expensive school will also get competitive because they want
the tuition just as much, and you may end up with an even better deal
with them.

He also said that because there are simply fewer US students these
days, even a Harvard has become a lot less picky than you'd ever
imagine.

jen

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
I can understand that others make different choices,
and I *certainly* think that it's a different situation
when you have adult children living at home. As far as
the jobs situation goes, I understand that jobs can play
a helpful role for some, but given my kids and our situation,
I seriously doubt that my kids will be working significant
hours at jobs that will interfere with dinner or keep them
up late at night, especially during the school year. Frankly,
I'd be surprised if they wanted to given the interests they
have at this point. I would also be very surprised if they
could maintain their academics with jobs requiring late nights,
which would be wholly unacceptable. So, if by some magical
happenstance my kids could have jobs that didn't adversely
affect their academics, their relationships with family,
their activities, their friendships, and their health,
by all means they're welcome to make their case. I have
a *really* hard time seeing how that's likely to play
out given the situation we're in. I'd also drop dead
of shock if my kids would choose working for the summer
over, say, going to Interlochen (or whatever else might
be similar give their interests).

When I was in high school, I was involved in the co-op program and one of
the stipulations of the co-op was to get a job in your professed interest.
Mine was nursing, so I had to get a job at the hospital to earn credit for
the class. Since I was still in school, my shift was 3-10 pm. I was also
working at White Castle at the time because I wanted spending money and
clothes, etc. I think it taught me a lot, forced me to grow up more than I
was already and it gave me more money to pay for my gas. My grades didn't
fall down and yes it meant that it was time away from the family and
definitely not many family dinners, but by this time (I was 16-17 yrs old)
we weren't having many dinners together anyway. I actually wanted to be away
from my family because it was very rocky during my growing up years. So,
just because you think that the kids won't have to work and you don't seem
to think that they will have any interest in working, I think maybe you had
better be a little bit more flexible on that. Because the job they want
might be what they want to do for the rest of their lives and it might help
them out. Working gave me everything that shinypenny's college room-mate did
and I was still very focused on getting my degree.

--
Sue (mom to three girls)

shinypenny wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
I don't assume that at all, but these days it's
hard to get a scholarship with grades alone.

I had a consultation with a college planner a year ago, a guy who used
to work in admissions for an Ivy league school here. We talked mostly
about private schools, not public.

He told me that the reality is that our kids won't get any scholarships
- no matter how good their grades and their resume - because we make
too much money between the four of us (my ex, his DW, me, my DH).
Loans, yes. Anyone can get a certain amount of federal loans, and other
loans may be based on grades and extracurriculars and all that. But
unlikely to get scholarships. Which is different than when I went to
school, and there was such things as merit scholarships that had
nothing to do with one's finances. According to this guy, true merit
scholarships are few and far between these days, and even if we did get
one, they won't make much of a dent.

Hmmm...yes, merit scholarships are fewer and harder
to get these days. On the other hand, some do exist, so
I wouldn't totally give up.

Those
extracurriculars are important, both if you want to be
admitted to competitive schools and if you want to be
more competitive for scholarship awards. I had above
a 4.0 GPA (from a good HS) and was awarded little
scholarship or grant money on that basis alone.

Regarding admission to competitive private schools, the planner said
yes extracurriculars can make a difference if your scores are
borderline. BUT, for those with good scores, the dirty little truth is
that private colleges look far harder at how much money you have
available. By "you" I mean your whole family... including generous
grandparents... and also they take into account *everything* including
funds that public schools don't look at. They'll figure if getting Jr
into their big-name school is important enough to you, then you might
be stupid enough to ransom your house, sell off one of your SUVs, forgo
contributing to your 401K, live on dog food for awhile..... which,
apparently, a lot of people do.

Sure. However, if you are a very desirable student
to have, schools will compete for you--including ponying
up grant money. He's not your average kid by a long shot,
but we've got a kid at our local HS who is an amazing
percussionist. He's got scholarship money out the wazoo,
including free rides offered to pretty much any top music
school you care to name. I think he's settled on Juliard,
which is not known for giving lots of scholarships since
they can get plenty of customers to pay full freight. (And
his family at least has enough money that he's spent the
school year traveling all over the country to audition and
visit schools, so I don't imagine he qualifies financially
for a full ride scholarship.)

Those extracurriculars might make a difference if you are in the lowest
income bracket, but you likely couldn't afford all the lessons and
activities anyway. And might even have had to work through high school,
just to help your parents keep food on the table.

That really isn't what I'm seeing with the local
crop of graduates that I know around here. I'm not
suggesting that everyone is getting boatloads of
scholarships, but of the graduating seniors I know,
a good half or more are getting some kind of scholarship
that's basically related to excellence in academics and/or
some kind of extracurricular activity, and none of them
are in the lowest income bracket (or even close).

He said the best strategy is not to be stupid enough to ransom
everything, that a second-tier school is just as good as a top-tier
school. But to definetly apply to a few schools, get accepted to all,
and then play the offers off one another.

I agree that one doesn't always need to go to
the absolute top tier school to get a very good education.
I certainly wouldn't ransom everything to do so! You also
have to look beyond the name and find the school that is
a good match for your child's interests and temperament.
I went through a lot of schools to find one that fit
what I needed to do. Now, a number of kids won't really
*know* what they want to do with their lives when they
go off to college, so in those cases you need to look
for somewhere that offers a reasonable number of options
in potential areas of interests and makes it reasonably
possible to switch around if need be. I think too many
people don't really get beyond the general name
recognition of a school. There are lots of schools
that maybe don't have the name recognition of a Harvard
or Yale, but *do* have top notch programs in particular
areas or are particularly good at meeting some students'
needs.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Sure. However, if you are a very desirable student
to have, schools will compete for you--including ponying
up grant money. He's not your average kid by a long shot,
but we've got a kid at our local HS who is an amazing
percussionist. He's got scholarship money out the wazoo,
including free rides offered to pretty much any top music
school you care to name. I think he's settled on Juliard,
which is not known for giving lots of scholarships since
they can get plenty of customers to pay full freight. (And
his family at least has enough money that he's spent the
school year traveling all over the country to audition and
visit schools, so I don't imagine he qualifies financially
for a full ride scholarship.)

Sure, there's always going to be some truly gifted kids. I suppose you
could say this kid who went to Juiliard had a definite "passion," huh?
Did his parents sacrifice family time to help him pursue this passion?
It sounds like they did, if they were willing to allow his passion to
send his family traveling all over the country to audition.

What I'm saying however is that the vast majority of kids taking piano
lessons aren't going to get a scholarship. Those who have a gift and
spend hours and hours putting in the time to perfect that gift (often
to detriment of family time and other activities), may get a
scholarship.


That really isn't what I'm seeing with the local
crop of graduates that I know around here. I'm not
suggesting that everyone is getting boatloads of
scholarships, but of the graduating seniors I know,
a good half or more are getting some kind of scholarship
that's basically related to excellence in academics and/or
some kind of extracurricular activity, and none of them
are in the lowest income bracket (or even close).

Yes, they may be getting some kind of scholarship, but are you privvy
to the details? Do you know the amounts? Are they getting scholarships,
or are they getting loans?

The college planner said this is a big misconception many parents have,
when planning for college. Most of these scholarships are paltry
amounts, like $600-1000, enough to buy a semester's worth of books.


I agree that one doesn't always need to go to
the absolute top tier school to get a very good education.
I certainly wouldn't ransom everything to do so! You also
have to look beyond the name and find the school that is
a good match for your child's interests and temperament.
I went through a lot of schools to find one that fit
what I needed to do. Now, a number of kids won't really
*know* what they want to do with their lives when they
go off to college,


Yes, this is why I think a kid having a high-school job can have an
advantage, can get a sense whether business is something they might
want to pursue. You really don't get exposure to business in high
school classes, and a lot of people wind up in business. I suspect my
DD11 will. DD13 - hard to say. She does have a strong bent for
sciences.

jen

"shinypenny" wrote in message
oups.com...
The college planner said this is a big misconception many parents
have,
when planning for college. Most of these scholarships are paltry
amounts, like $600-1000, enough to buy a semester's worth of books.

My nephew has several scholarships, but one of them is only something
like $50. I think the biggest one is $1000/year, as long as he keeps
his grades up. He *did* earn a full scholarship for the first 2
years, but it was not at the school he wanted. When he turned them
down, they upped it to 3 years, but he still didn't go there.

Bizby

shinypenny wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Sure. However, if you are a very desirable student
to have, schools will compete for you--including ponying
up grant money. He's not your average kid by a long shot,
but we've got a kid at our local HS who is an amazing
percussionist. He's got scholarship money out the wazoo,
including free rides offered to pretty much any top music
school you care to name. I think he's settled on Juliard,
which is not known for giving lots of scholarships since
they can get plenty of customers to pay full freight. (And
his family at least has enough money that he's spent the
school year traveling all over the country to audition and
visit schools, so I don't imagine he qualifies financially
for a full ride scholarship.)

Sure, there's always going to be some truly gifted kids. I suppose you
could say this kid who went to Juiliard had a definite "passion," huh?

Yep ;-) Apparently he practices around 4 hours per
day.

Did his parents sacrifice family time to help him pursue this passion?
It sounds like they did, if they were willing to allow his passion to
send his family traveling all over the country to audition.

I'm sure they did to some extent, but he also
seems to be a very balanced kid and in the newspaper
article about him he says that he enjoys spending time
with his family, so it doesn't sound to me like family
time was eliminated from his life (nor did he compromise
his academics, as he's an A student). I don't know his
family personally. I do know another family from the
area with a star athlete (Olympic), and they certainly
made some sacrifices, but they are also a very close
knit family who spend a significant amount of time
together (or at least they did before the kids were
all adults and living in other parts of the country
for school or jobs). So, I don't believe that pursuing
a passion, even at an elite level, necessarily means
giving up a reasonable amount of family time.

What I'm saying however is that the vast majority of kids taking piano
lessons aren't going to get a scholarship. Those who have a gift and
spend hours and hours putting in the time to perfect that gift (often
to detriment of family time and other activities), may get a
scholarship.

I don't think anyone should do activities
just in order to get a scholarship. On the other hand,
I also don't think kids should be forced into activities
that they don't have any interest in. If my boys are
still dancing well into high school and wanted to continue
it to some degree in college, a scholarship wouldn't
seem all that unlikely to me (obviously, the equation
would be different for girl dancers). Beyond that,
even if you aren't elite enough at any particular
activity to get a merit scholarship for that activity
in particular, showing dedication to an interest and
making significant achievements in it plays a significant
role in both admissions and many scholarship applications.

That really isn't what I'm seeing with the local
crop of graduates that I know around here. I'm not
suggesting that everyone is getting boatloads of
scholarships, but of the graduating seniors I know,
a good half or more are getting some kind of scholarship
that's basically related to excellence in academics and/or
some kind of extracurricular activity, and none of them
are in the lowest income bracket (or even close).

Yes, they may be getting some kind of scholarship, but are you privvy
to the details? Do you know the amounts? Are they getting scholarships,
or are they getting loans?

Yes, the ones I'm speaking of I am privy to the
details (know the families), and I was speaking of
scholarship money. A good half of them are getting
some kind of scholarship that is merit related in one
way or another. As for amounts, the individual scholarships
vary depending on where they're going and which scholarship,
but range from around $1000 to $4-5k. A number of these
scholarships were not awarded by the college. They were
things they applied for separately (which often cause
the college to readjust their awards, but if they're
taking the place of loans, the kids are still ahead to
get the other scholarships).

The college planner said this is a big misconception many parents have,
when planning for college. Most of these scholarships are paltry
amounts, like $600-1000, enough to buy a semester's worth of books.

Certainly there are a lot of these little
scholarships around. On the other hand, they do
add up! I definitely wouldn't (and don't) assume
that my kids will be able to rely on scholarship income
alone to make college feasible. I do think it likely
that with work, they'll be able to land some, which
seems in line with the experiences of local families
I know who've had graduating seniors over the last
few years.

I agree that one doesn't always need to go to
the absolute top tier school to get a very good education.
I certainly wouldn't ransom everything to do so! You also
have to look beyond the name and find the school that is
a good match for your child's interests and temperament.
I went through a lot of schools to find one that fit
what I needed to do. Now, a number of kids won't really
*know* what they want to do with their lives when they
go off to college,

Yes, this is why I think a kid having a high-school job can have an
advantage, can get a sense whether business is something they might
want to pursue. You really don't get exposure to business in high
school classes, and a lot of people wind up in business. I suspect my
DD11 will. DD13 - hard to say. She does have a strong bent for
sciences.

Do you really think that most teen jobs give
a good sense of whether or not kids want to be involved
in business? Most of what I see and do in business
are things that most HS kids wouldn't even come into
contact with. I'm sure some jobs are like that, but
it would surprise me if very many have a lot of
exposure to, say, the sorts of things you'd likely
do with a BBA.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"bizby40" wrote in message
Where is "around here?" You know, of that whole list, the one that
surprises me is that kids are still allowed to have paper routes.

My 13-year-old has a paper route and she does collecting once a month. She
has had the route for about 3-4 years now. All the chores that are listed
are still being done by my children. There are a lot of kids that have paper
routes in my area. They are for a smaller newspaper though and not one of
the big two papers.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 08:08:31 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

toto wrote:
On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 12:54:20 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

I got a lot more money
from scholarships than I ever could have saved with jobs
during high school that would have taken away from the
grades and activities that got me the scholarships.

Not necessarily. I had a free ride - full tuition and room and board,
yet I worked as a waitress 4 days a week during my junior and
senior year. You assume that you cannot keep up your grades and
your test scores, but that was not true of many of the kids I knew in
high school. We worked many hours, yet managed to get our schoolwork
done too. What suffered was extra-curricular activities and possibly
family time, but not our grades.

I don't assume that at all, but these days it's
hard to get a scholarship with grades alone. Those
extracurriculars are important, both if you want to be
admitted to competitive schools and if you want to be
more competitive for scholarship awards. I had above
a 4.0 GPA (from a good HS) and was awarded little
scholarship or grant money on that basis alone.

Yes, but why are only *competitive* schools options? There are plenty
of really good small colleges where scholarship money *is* still
available for good SAT scores and good grades, I believe. Sure, if
only Harvard, Yale and MIT are options, you may be right. But there
are other schols that educate kids well and actually unless you are
going into a field that requires the *old boy* network, I don't think
that most companies are necessarily going to look unfavorably on you
if you graduate from a bit lesser known school.

Best wishes,
Ericka

--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

toto wrote:
On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 08:08:31 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

toto wrote:
On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 12:54:20 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

I got a lot more money
from scholarships than I ever could have saved with jobs
during high school that would have taken away from the
grades and activities that got me the scholarships.
Not necessarily. I had a free ride - full tuition and room and board,
yet I worked as a waitress 4 days a week during my junior and
senior year. You assume that you cannot keep up your grades and
your test scores, but that was not true of many of the kids I knew in
high school. We worked many hours, yet managed to get our schoolwork
done too. What suffered was extra-curricular activities and possibly
family time, but not our grades.
I don't assume that at all, but these days it's
hard to get a scholarship with grades alone. Those
extracurriculars are important, both if you want to be
admitted to competitive schools and if you want to be
more competitive for scholarship awards. I had above
a 4.0 GPA (from a good HS) and was awarded little
scholarship or grant money on that basis alone.

Yes, but why are only *competitive* schools options?

Didn't say they were the only options, but
it seems silly to me to assume one *won't* potentially
wish to attend a school that is difficult to get into.

There are plenty
of really good small colleges where scholarship money *is* still
available for good SAT scores and good grades, I believe. Sure, if
only Harvard, Yale and MIT are options, you may be right. But there
are other schols that educate kids well and actually unless you are
going into a field that requires the *old boy* network, I don't think
that most companies are necessarily going to look unfavorably on you
if you graduate from a bit lesser known school.

Sure, but the networking is useful in some
fields, and there are other things one might wish to
study where there are limited options to find the
appropriate instruction. Maybe those take you to a
competitive school and maybe they don't, but I hate
to close too many doors before I even get to the point
of making a choice! When I got to the point of choosing
schools, given what I wanted to do, the list was pretty
darned short.

Best wishes,
Ericka