College Admissions? Research help!

Anybody out there work in college admissions or know anything about it?

 

For a book, I need to know what would happen if someone didn't apply until April or May of his senior year.

 

I realize it probably depends on the school and the circumstances, but I'm just trying to get a vague idea whether it would be possible for a student with good grades, good ACT score, but no extra curriculars and some behavior issues to still get into a four-year school for fall semester if he applies so late. Would he be waitlisted? Considered for spring semester?

 

Also, while we're on this subject, what else do college admissions folks look for? I don't remember anymore! He'd have the grades and the scores, but there would be a lot of absences on his record. Notes about illnesses and incidents at his high school. Do colleges actually look at your "permanent record"? Would it be possible and/or ethical for the principal of said school to include a note about a student's difficulties when sending in the requested info to the college? 

 

Thanks for any help you out there in cyber-land can give!

 

: )

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Okay, Austenland is another fabulous book for Jane Austen fans, especially for those who are obsessed with Colin Firth's version of Mr. Darcy. I love the way it's written, and it's just a fun story. Basic premise is that there's a resort-type place that caters to the Austen-obsessed. If you can afford it, you spend two weeks at an English manor, following the customs of Austen's time with other participants and actors to play scripted roles. They even promise "romance." Our intrepid heroine, Jane Hayes (AKA Miss Erstwhile) has had less than ideal luck with men, some of which is due to her constant need to compare them to her ideal, Mr. Darcy. She longs to live during Jane Austen's time and find a man like Darcy.

 

A great-aunt bequeaths her this opportunity to visit Austenland, and the adventure begins. The situation is closely monitored [hence the Big Brother reference just below] by the actors, who are paid, and by a headmistress type person who insists on keeping everything as true to the time period as possible. No cell phones, no technology, no calling a woman by her first name...unless you're engaged. There are, thank goodness, certain allowances made for toilets and electric lights instead of kerosene lamps, but that's about it. And you can get kicked out for not following the "rules." It's like a reality show without the cameras.

 

My favorite line, and I don't think this is giving too much away, is the following, "In all the years Jane [our heroine] had fantasized about an Austenland, she never considered how, once inside its borders, she would feel like an outsider."  

 

Also, when she says, "If you're listening Big Brother, I refuse to be Fanny Price." Ha! I love that.

 

This is a great book for all Austen fans, particularly if you've picked apart the characters and know exactly who you would be (or would not be) if given the chance. I'm with Jane Hayes--I refuse to be Fanny Price.  : )

Writing about your exes

I'm listening to the latest Alanis album (thanks, Stacy G.), which I believe she has all but said is all about her break up with Ryan Reynolds, and wondering if he feels bad when he hears these songs on the radio and realizes how badly he made her feel. I mean, it's one thing to break up with your significant other, but to have to hear about it on the radio as you're driving to work? Or to have millions of other people hear it and know that it's about you? Some of these songs are devastatingly sad...and pissed off. They're very personal, too. You feel like you want to give her a hug and kick him in the shins.

 

I wonder if people give him dirty looks now. Didn't he break up with her to go out with some younger, blonder starlet? Can't remember who. (Ah, Scarlett Johanssen. Looked it up. ) Just remember wincing and thinking, "Ouch," on Alanis's behalf when I heard.

 

I guess I'm partial to her side of things ever since "You Ought to Know," the advent, in my opinion, of angry girl rock, and the first time I'd ever heard anyone describe in a song what it felt like to be dumped and the things you really think about during that time. (Even if it was supposedly about Dave Coulier, which I have trouble imagining).

 

These songs, too, hold that raw emotion that captivates me. I think she's at her best, songwriting-wise, when she's really hurt and really pissed. But what a way to be successful. Eeesh.

 

My favorites are "Not as We," "Straitjacket" and "Torch."

An author by any other name...

Thinking about changing my name for my YA novels. It will still lead back to one website and everything, so it won't be one of those deep cover author names where you discover I'm an entirely different person after years of research and digging around in public records or whatever.

 

Current options being bandied about include:

 

Stacey Allen (real first, with husband's middle name in a different spelling)

 

Stacey Kade (close to my first choice, which is Stacey Kaye, but the website is already taken)

 

Stacia Kade (oooh, exotic)

 

It should be something:

-close to my real name (so I'll remember to answer to it),

-memorable,

-easy to spell and

-decent location on the shelf (so no Zee or anything like that).

 

What do you think? Suggestions welcome!

Movie and Books

Watched Stardust last night. I liked it better than I thought I would. I'm not much for the fantasy/magic/witches type stuff, but this was kind of fun. I'm intrigued enough to want to check out the book by Neil Gaiman. It was a fairy tale, essentially, and I love those! The dead princes/brothers as the peanut gallery cracked me up--I think that was my favorite part.

 

The young Dunstan at the beginning is Ben Barnes--he is cute!--and I realize now why he looked familiar. It's Prince Caspian. : ) I also see that they're making another of the Chronicles of Narnia movies. Dude...I so do not like those movies. *sigh* I know I should. They just...irritate me. What seems subtle and allegorical in the book just feels ham-handed and overplayed on the screen. Eeesh.

 

In my current quest to have enough books to build some large fortified structure with them (e.g., house, bridge, tower to outer space), I've added City of Bones and City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare to my shelves. Loved both of them and I'm waiting for the next one, of course.

 

I'm also reading Mystery Date, a collection of SF/F/Paranormal stories about dating. Some of them are romance and some of them are...not. So far, though, all of them are fun. What I like is that it harkens back to the day when maybe vampires, werewolves, Greek gods and such were not perhaps the best dating material. In fact, one might consider them possibly dangerous instead of, you know, all smoldering, intense and wounded beneath their tough Alpha male exterior. *snort* And yes, I know I'm just as guilty of that, too, though mine are aliens instead. : )

So...what did you all think?

Anybody out there finish Breaking Dawn yet? I dusted off my Harry Potter routine--buy enormous book and read in one day, despite other things that should be done.

 

What did you think?

Breaking Dawn tonight

Yep, I'm a sucker for a good midnight book release. Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book in the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series, comes out tonight. And yeah, I'll be there. Typically, I like to give my money to the good folks at Barnes and Noble, especially in Vernon Hills, where I hang out at lunch. But my need for sleep and the distance between my favorite store and home are going to win out.

 

So, Borders in McHenry, it shall be.

 

I can't decide what I want to happen. I like Edward. I cried during New Moon when he was being all noble and self-sacrificing. But Bella has a much better chance at a "normal" life with Jacob. And I also think loving somebody so much, to the point where it's really sort of uneven, doesn't bode well for the future.

 

I know it's tantamount to heresy to say this about Bella and Edward, but I do think she'd be better off with Jacob, someone who makes her happy without demanding, even unintentionally, so much from her. But I also know that the heart wants what it wants (ever notice how people use that as an excuse to do some really questionable things?), and Bella and Edward are just one of those epic love stories.

 

Note, though, that we rarely see the people from those stories in ten or twenty years after they've gotten what they wanted beyond all else--each other. Does that passion still exist or does it become mundane? If it's the later, wouldn't it be better to be with the person who makes you happy rather than the one who makes you want to give up all else but him? Once you've got him, forever and ever, then what?

 

So, I just kind of wonder how the author is going to resolve this, and what message is really being sent. No matter what happens, some people are going to be disappointed, I think. Of course, that's true of just about every highly anticipated movie/book. I wonder why she introduced a secondary love interest when there never really seemed to be a moment in which she, Bella, would choose Jacob over Edward. Hmmm.

 

This musing brought to you by thirty-two year old Stacey, who, if she's honest with herself, knows she would picked Edward in a heartbeat (no pun intended) at eighteen.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but...

Most of these twenty things are really sweet...and yet some of them verge on creepy/stalker-ish. I supposed it's not creepy/stalker-ish if you love the person, but dude...if I came out to find a note under my windshield at work, I'd be like, why didn't you just come in and say hi to me? And don't even get me started with the idea of loading something onto my computer without telling me...oh, no. Not going to be pretty.