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People always assume that racial is key. If one more parent hints at the fact that they are plain white so it was "hard" for them, I am going to laugh in their face. Parent of color hear so I am a little suspicious that they are sharing this with me for a specific reason. No one knows what a school wants or needs to get a well rounded class except Admissions on decision day.
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[-]reading posts on how people are cutting 401k and 529 contributions to shore up cash reserves got me thinking: how much do people have in cash savings? i mean actual cash -- not readily liquidatable stock or bond funds. three months worth of total expenses? six months? just wondering where we are versus the general UB population. thanks!
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thanks. we have about $45k in cash, which is six months of savings for us, but assumes that only one of us loses our job. i think we should double that amount, in case we both lose our jobs, but dh thinks i'm being too cautious. we both work in finance, but at firms that have weathered the crisis very well so far, and layoffs at our respective firms have been pretty tame.
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what do you and others consider to be an appropriate amount of cash savings, given the economy? our cash savings right now equal about six months of living expenses, but assume that only one of us loses our job -- if we both were to lose our jobs, which we view as unlikely, we have only three months worth of savings now.
[ Reply | Options ]I think you are right on target. 3-6 months has been rule of thumb, but in this economy maybe more.
[ Reply | Options ]some of that is a personal decision since only you know how likely a job loss is for either of you. for us dh's job is pretty secure. my JOB is secure, but my income is not - it can definitely be cut in half but unlikely to go to zero. also keep in mind that you do get unemployment and therefore you will need that much "less" from your savings each month. i'd say in this economy, i would be more comfortable w more cash, esp. if few of your expenses are truly discretionary (eg. high mortgage, childcare, school, etc.)
[ Reply | Options ]thanks. we don't have any school expenses other than what we choose to contribute (dc is in public), but we do have a pretty high mortgage, common charges, and real estate taxes. we did not factor in any severance or unemployment, or cutting down on truly discretionary spending (eating out, clothes shopping, etc). our base incomes will not drop, though our bonuses surely will. hwoever, we don't rely on our bonuses from year to year, so even if they went to 0, we would still be okay. thanks -- this makes me feel better.
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I was the one who started that post. I am down to 13K in savings. If I got laid off, and laid off babysitter, I could probably make that last 6 mos., but I felt much better when I thought I could depend on my mutual funds too.
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About $500k - but that is all of our savings. We have no money invested in stock or bond funds. We do have a fair amount invested in real estate (two homes), but it is probably very stupid that everything else is in cash.
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[-]did a search on SB test and Hunter on here because we are doing it for our DC right now and I am new to it. wow! seems like there are A LOT of very high scoring DCs parents on UB. do you think posters lie or that it's just because people are more likely to post a high score than a lower one. statistically speaking,it doesn't seem possible that everyone is telling the truth but maybe people are answering for a number of years since people have kids of all ages... WDYT?
37 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]I don't think people lie (woah, how sick-ultra-competitive do you need to be to LIE about dc's sb scores?) I just think this is a self-selected community of people with high scoring dc's who apply to top schools.
[ Reply | Options ]well, we are all applying to hunter if we take the SB and we have no idea how our kids are going to do until they are tested. right?
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Right. If you know your kid is below average you won't be applying to Hunter - waste of time. Do you think people who apply to Harvard and those who apply to Dumbarse Community College are the same crowd?
[ Reply | Options ]The same way people think their average kid is model beautiful they think their average kid is gifted--it's hardwired. Only 10% or so of kids who take sb for Hunter make the cut-off, fwiw.
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my guess is that only those people who think their dc will test well even bother applying to Hunter and taking the SB
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np Actually, I know several people whose kids are clearly pretty average but who had them take it just in case. None of those kids came within 15 percentiles of cutoff. Also know people who said they hated the school sooooo much at Open House that they didn't send their kid to round 2--I think THESE people are FOS and that their kids didn't make cutoff. I only ever saw the school at round 2. The building very impressive, but I definitely would have taken it over at least a few privates to which we applied. Ended up at fc private in the end.
[ Reply | Options ]or: we tested ds. we think he's well above average but not necessarily the most brilliant child, but figured it was worth a shot. he did very well, but likely not well enough to make the cut off for round 2. we are not going to bother going to the open house.
[ Reply | Options ]A few years ago, it was pretty clear when you opened envelope whether your dc made the cutoff.
[ Reply | Options ]it's not like that now that they changed to sum total score, though. this year you don't get a %. just a sum total score
[ Reply | Options ]i think in the past the % ranged from 95-98 so if you were 98 or 99 you could be sure, if you were 97 you could be very hopeful and at 95-96 you knew it was a long shot.
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Honestly, only about 250 get to the second round, so you decide if these people are telling the truth.
[ Reply | Options ]Yeah, but I bet half of those 250 check in with UB. People who are determined to get into Hunter (especially those who can't afford privates) are obsessed with it, IME.
[ Reply | Options ]np, not sure what your statement proves. You can't track which posts are coming from the same people or new posters. Also, there are 250 each year. There could be multiple years posting at any time. Why so many high scorers on UB? One, people share and brag way more openly about a high score than a low one. Two, this is a self selected test and self selected website. Three, some people exaggerate to prove a point, i.e. lie a little, lie alot.
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[-]Anybody had Dalton's parents interview this year already? How was it? What do they ask?
10 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]Babby was just great. Very engaged, very interesting, wondered what we liked about the tour, asked general questions about our child, read from highlighted passages in our essay. no hard questions. fun.
[ Reply | Options ]This was the first interview at which we really felt like we were being interviewed. The others felt more conversational and we mainly discussed what our daughter is like, what we want in a school, etc. At Dalton, our interviewer asked us what we wanted our daughter to be doing at age 35, what sort of physical activity she enjoys, in addition to the usual questions. I left feeling like we had not done very well.
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[-]Fashion police, come to my office quick. This chick is wearing a blue blowse and pink pants. I can't friggin work.
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[-]anyone here who has already gone through the SB5 test for hunter '09 application? I'm just starting the process and finding it confusing to choose a tester. so much conflicting info on here! should I just pick a convenient location and hope for the best?
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[-]anyone here sending DC to catholic school and you aren't catholic? we are considering it because the public school for which we are zoned is one of the absolute worst. the catholic school has a pretty solid rating and would accept us (we already checked into it) wdyt?
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