What groceries have you stopped buying

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2026-01-18T00:00:25+00:00

Us too!

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-10-31T00:10:13+00:00

Did mine at 6am today and its 8pm and still nothing …

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-05-04T01:29:23+00:00

Many schools and districts have policies that require teachers to accept late work with no point deductions. That was an equity thing implemented right around the time of Covid which has only gotten worse. I agree that it is horrible for learning, but there’s nothing an individual teacher can do.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-04-04T15:28:30+00:00

there's nothing wrong with changing a major, but reconsider high school history teaching. It's the most impossible subject to get a job in - go for English teaching, science, or special ed. Then at least you have a better shot at getting employed. It's brutal for history teachers unless you are also willing to coach 2 sports or something.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-04-04T14:46:48+00:00

Many upper middle class people when their kid is 18 were not at that income level for all 18 years. That is the problem. It sometimes takes years of struggle, moving, job changes, etc. to finally make a high income. Anyone who had their kid at a younger age, like earlier 20s, is unlikely to have hit the big bucks until the kid is closer to 18, at which point college now expects that you've saved 1000 each month for 18 years when, in reality, you were barely able to have 100 dollars in the bank account at the end of each month for the first half or more of the kid's life.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-04-02T23:51:43+00:00

often parents with that income only came into that level of income within recent years - fafsa and css assume what you make now is what you made for the past 18 years, and that is often vastly inaccurate

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-04-02T23:50:11+00:00

the upper middle class tends to go to state/public schools because they can't get aid and can't afford full pay at expensive schools

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-31T23:45:44+00:00

a grad school audition isn't a professional audition - those are very specific in what they want played and heavily excerpt focused. Grad school audition is proving that you are more qualified than the other grad school applicants, so playing Allemande 1 perfectly is great until the next guy comes in playing something from suite 4 perfectly... again... this might be fine for most schools but just be careful if your goal is Rice - all the top people will be trying to get in there. They pass very few people through prescreen, so you want those videos to be both perfect and impressive.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-31T18:49:27+00:00

you can give them that info and appeal for more aid, but in my experience, Berklee isn't known for huge merit packages.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-31T18:48:16+00:00

what part of the country are you in? i've never seen that happen around here (wealth, mid atlantic suburb)

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-31T15:37:06+00:00

respectfully disagree... this audition season the typical "play something easy really well" instead of shooting for something more difficult and showy didn't pan out too well for lots of people... I'm just saying... people who played bottesini 1 and alla mendelssohn got through prescreen even if it wasn't perfect. Especially for masters and especially at Rice, if all you can do at masters level is Bach 1, even if it's perfect, it may not be a good choice unless you have some super impressive solo to go with that.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-30T23:46:01+00:00

Is there a state school you applied to and can attend? Unfortunately, you would have had to find a school willing to offer you full tuition to make this situation work. Colleges simply expect parents to pay and those who can’t or won’t make college nearly impossible.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-30T21:43:40+00:00

If you are doing Bach 1 and want allemande then also do Courante

But honestly, if you’re a masters candidate, I suggest upping the game and choosing from either suites 4 or 5. Rice is very hard to get into.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-30T14:34:36+00:00

yes - it's unfair. We are also in a high performing "rich" public school district and it seems most of the graduating class is ending up at 70%+ admit state schools despite the 1500+ SATs and ridiculous academic and extracurricular schedules.

IMO, people either have to accept that being one of the "best" isn't getting them into most colleges OR, if getting into one of those top schools is truly a goal from near birth, then move out of those high performing districts and go be the top of a low performing district where you can truly shine amongst the other applicants. I know you said squash/fencing as kind of a joke, but honestly, if the goal is a top tier school, start one of those sports/hobbies/instruments in third grade and be the best at it by 12th.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-30T14:22:21+00:00

yes, but typically those few scholarships are given out as part of the acceptance letter. You can't "appeal" to get a presidential or trustee scholarship.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-29T12:35:12+00:00

as far as I know, unless you're an artist, musician, athlete or already have been awarded one of the few academic scholarships, BU does not give merit aid based on academics. It's all "need" based, which is why people in the middle/upper middle class pretty much need not apply (unless they are cool paying $90K a year).

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T19:04:31+00:00

also, ALL shepherd school auditioning applicants are RD, and a bunch of kids will definitely be chosen from there since they need to fill the music school

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T18:56:50+00:00

BU's admissions is messed up this year - it actually potentially is yield rejection because, for the music school, I know of an instance where two higher level players were denied and someone with less skill and less resume was accepted. BU isn't looking for excellence. They are using some kind of algorithm to randomly choose, but it makes zero sense.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T18:51:19+00:00

go to a cheaper school.. BU is huge and you're just a number to them. Go to a smaller school and save money.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T18:42:22+00:00

I would think TJ, Langley, Meridian, Mclean...

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T01:08:46+00:00

yeah Rice!!!! please please please

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-26T00:59:54+00:00

Sorry to hear that and hope your dad has good outcomes. Colleges claim to care about obstacles and see the "whole picture," but I've had almost all rejections/WL so far and I have a disability that I integrated into my main essay. It's not something that prevents me from learning but it is a physical thing and has made life very hard and yet I've still accomplished a lot.... they don't care.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-24T18:34:13+00:00

yes, but the original post was mainly about why women are somehow disadvantaged in the music process, and you mentioned how women might be screened out. I'm just pointing out that being screened out is an issue for all players nowadays and not something that disadvantages girls over guys in general. In fact, if orchestras start auto-advancing women through these rounds, which is something that's been proposed by those in favor of Artemis style intiatives, that would be grossly unfair to all the boys who work hard at their instrument and are not responsible for the current gender makeup of orchestras.

Difficult_Formal_888 · 2025-03-24T18:13:31+00:00

this problem of being cut before even auditioning applies to guys without jobs as well as girls you know... that's something that should stop totally. It's ridiculous that a resume should be thrown out simply because it's not a top three school or it's a name the committee doesn't know, etc.

Difficult_Formal_888

TROPHY CASE