Proud of her

My moods are still bouncing all over the place. I think I almost know what a ping pong ball feels like, only I don't get the warning of being smacked first to alert me that I'm about to change direction. Despite the erratic behaviour, I'm fairing pretty well in my ability to at least get some things accomplished.

I met with my daughter's counselor at school today. The guy is super nice and has a genuine interest in doing everything he can to make sure my daughter gets into the college of her choice on a free ride for all four years, well actually three years since she would start out as a Sophomore. He struggled himself financially, taking over 10 years to get his degree, and he's using the knowledge he gained the hard way to help make things easier for her.

One thing I learned today is that she will get a financial waiver and not have to pay any college application fees. So she can apply to any school she wants, and then some. That's really good to know, especially since application fees can get pricey and can add up quick if you apply to several schools. He even suggested applying at colleges that she's not interested in going to, such as Harvard. His reasoning is that if she gets accepted there she would automatically qualify for a free ride and she could then use her acceptance letter as leverage to negotiate grants/scholarships at the college she does want to attend.

He's already pulled some strings and somehow had her eligibility for the reduced lunch program changed to free lunch and we ended up receiving a refund for a portion of the registration fees we had to pay at the beginning of the school year. He also said he'd make sure we continued to receive the free lunch next year so we won't have to pay any registration fees. There's $200+ dollars I don't have to worry about pulling out of my ass when we register in July. He said he wished he had known about our situation sooner cuz he would have had us switched to the free lunch program at the beginning of the year and we would have gotten a full refund of the $200 registration fees instead of just a pro-rated portion of them.

It was great to see that she's currently ranked 22 out of 487 students, which puts her in the top 5% of her class. She already moved up a slot from the beginning of the year, so by the time she graduates, I have a feeling she should move up even farther, at least into the Top 20. Especially once most of her peers in the academy get into A/P Calculus next year, a class she is already in this year and passing with a solid A. Most of them are struggling just to get through Honors Pre-Calculus and are already worried they're not going to be able to handle A/P Calculus at all.

I'm proud of her, but more than anything, I hope she's proud of herself. All I did was guide her, she's the one that's done all the work to get where she is.