Fingers are crossed. My son has made the final cuts for a presidential merit scholarship for the university he'll be attending in the Fall. He had his last interview with several members of the Board of Regents on Monday, and the decision is expected this Friday. The scholarship is $50K over four years and would take a good bite out of the tuition.

Good luck.... keep us posted.

Kly,

That is wonderful. Best luck to Kly Jr. Let us know.


TIS

Cool, Kly.

All the best Kly..

Klyd, WOW! What an honor for your son. He must have worked very, very hard to have made it this far and you should be very proud! Let us know the final results.

best of luck

Good luck to your son, Kly. 50 grand can go a long way towards college tuition.

Good for him Klyd. My fingers and toes are crossed as well.

Klydon, wish him all the best, one question. Does he need to present with his own topic or is it a Q&A format? I received mine thru Westinghouse, total Q&A session. They presented topics before hand, can remember having a mock interview at home. For whatever it's worth, I thought having some unfamiliar faces I.E. neighbors ask questions. It took the unfamiliar face fear away prior to me getting there. Just a thought.

How exciting for him. I know you are very proud of him.

EHI, all of the essays from the applicants dealt with the general question of how will the values of service, hospitality, justice and service will be incorporated into your professional and personal life.

He impressed me with his essay as it was concise and concrete. My advice to him in composing it was to avoid excessive generalizations and abstract concepts.

Your advice on preparation is a good one, and seems to have worked well for you. I tried to prepare him by asking him questions I thought would be asked, but after his interview, he told me that they went in a different direction, but I was pleased with the way he answered the questions. He did better than I would've done.

I'll let you all know when we find out this weekend.

Regardless of the outcome it's a great accomplishment! And the 50K would be great!

Looks like the drinks are on you Klydon. If you save 50 large then you can aford a round, maybe even two or three!

It's kind of an ethics question Right?

Would love to read his essay. But he might not want us to see it. Well if you have ethics in your life he will have them in his.

If he wins it, it would be $12,500 a year, still leaving a hefty balance, but it would take enough of the sting out of paying tuition that there will be just cause to celebrate indeed.

That is my hope.

Vote for him, I would.

Good luck, Kly!

I can't imagine putting a kid (or even myself) through school at this point. When I went to Rutgers in the '80s it was like $2500/year (in-state), if not even less. It's over $13k now (double that for out-of-state residents), not including room, board, books, etc. Ugh!

And many come out of college without a job after 4 plus years!
Already in debt with student loans and a need to start life somewhere.

So you leave your parents home,(where you are happy to having everything that your parents have but together in their lifetime) go to school and then want to start somewhere but you have little or nothiing to your name. Home never looked so good, but we all wanted to be independent.

I think we've had a few popes that looked like that. Yoda pulls off a saintly look. I'm no Star Wars expert, but didn't he have a catchphrase other than "May the Force be with You?" I was thinking, "Phone Home" but remembered that was ET.

Good points. It seems each succeeding generation of college grads finds itself deeper in debt with a more unstable job market. My older son is in his second year, fortunately doing well in business and finace, and he's hoping to get an MBA after he graduates. I can only imagine the cost. He's doing very well fortunately, and he selected his school wisely, based on the business program and placement success. His field of study is much different than mine, and I can only think what a benefit my late brother would have been for him as he got his MBA at Columbia in the mid 80s.

With two in college, we pay about $42,000 a year. One commutes, has a scholarship, and the other attends a state school, so it could easily be double that. That doesn't include books or fees or food. We also had to buy a car for the commuter and pay for her car insurance.

Mrs. Mark is an absolute wizard with all those college financial programs; FAFSA, Pell Grants, researching any and all tuition assistance, etc. But I also have to give a ton of credit to my daughter as well - her grades, good behavior and positive drive towards her studies have helped with scholarships and numerous grants. A great wife and a great kid is one of the many reasons why she is getting a wonderful and affordable education! We love them so much and want the best for our kids so they have options for their future.

Whenever we go to Florida and meet people not much older than us who have retired, we realize how they were able to do it - they either have no kids or an only child!

Lol - yeah, they get all the options and we get to keep working!

Tell mrs mark to hit me up! I gotta pay for all that shit out of pocket!

Yes, but in the end, we have the greater reward.

This week we have finally talked my mother into moving into sheltered accomadation. She would still have her own flat(albeit smaller than the one she is in now) but it will be in a complex where there are people around and wardens to help. She turns 80 this year and has all sorts of complications with her health. Just lately she has been falling a lot and obviously this is no good. She has been adamant she does not want to go into a full blown old folks home, wants to retain a bit of independence,which is fair enough. Still very hard to deal with, she has always been difficult, God love her. Being an only son we have always clashed at times, she doesn't like me telling her what to do, so now i just advise her
Hopefully this move will help....

Hey New Yorkers. NY made the list of the most miserable cities in which to live:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/...ble-cities?lite