Sibi starts college - 2

There is an extensive support system available in the country for those who chose to pursue studies abroad. We extensively did a lot of research ourselves but also validated and took advise from a group of these institutions which helped in making decisions at various stages.

One of the very first thing we did was to attend the events organized by IDP in various places in the city. They are good because they give a chance to meet with the university representatives (not necessarily the ones we chose to apply - but still it gives a general idea of what to expect). IDP is also one of the institutes authorized to conduct IELTS in India (the other being the British council) and so they help out on the preparations for IELTS as well as in understanding the admission requirements etc of the universities.

The other entity we relied on was USIEF. They organize fairs and have tons of material to understand the application and admission process. They have a center in the US embassy in Chennai and they engage heavily through social media as well.

Once we finalized the universities, started following the university social media handles as well - this is needed as a lot of reminders on the dates and other important updates are posted consistently. All the universities that we were checking on had a very active social media presence. Some, like Memorial University in Canada, send their admission officers independently to India and unless you follow them in Twitter, you may never get to know of this.

Overall, I found the entire application process to be very stressful. Even with all the preparations, the requirements for each university was different - some wanted the transcripts notorized, some to upload, some to send a copy by mail, some to get it evaluated with a third party educational consultant (which costs a bomb!) - all these within the 12 unis we chose to apply. Teacher recommendation letters had similar combinations as well. Added to this, sending the original 10th mark sheets (later, 11th and 12th as well) by mail to IERF for evaluation and and getting it back by mail without losing it, adds to shatter whatever fragile peace of mind that is left.

I should thank the entire teaching staff of AMM School and the principal Mrs. Mahalakshmi - for their continuous support during the entire process to provide the recommendation letters on paper or typing that in the system for some applications and all in between. Their patience to take in every request and process them within the short time frame every time is not something that every school administration does.

And BYU had an additional requirement to have an interview done with the LDS Church officials followed by a phone interview with the Bishop in Salt Lake city as well. The entire leadership team at the LDS church in Chennai - especially the president, Prince Jayakaran,  were very helpful in completing the recommendations (after much challenges in the system) and also in the days afterward in terms of connecting us with the other students in the university. The whole process would've fallen to pieces without their timely assistance.

All this was approximately from October - December 15, 2018 when most of the application deadlines were. While we tried to keep Sibi's involvement minimal, it was not possible as he has to write the essays, following on recommendation letters at school and be generally involved.

However, it was a relief to have submitted the application for all the universities that we wanted to apply. BYU had one extension to December 18 for submission and we submitted on December 18 evening (thanks to some last minute push by J).

After that, it is time to wait for the results and at times, additional requests for information on submitted documents. These requests came in from almost all the universities for us and we kept responding to be on time.

If the application process for stressful, waiting for the decisions to come in was super stressful. Iowa State was the first one to send the acceptance (they have a mandate to accept everyone, so its not a great secret!).

Then came the acceptance from Memorial University - our first choice in Canada. That kept the backup plan on a strong place and so we were pretty certain that some more are going to come through. By January, we had acceptance from Iowa State, Memorial, Calgary, Saskatchewan, BYU - Idaho and an admittance to the PSA program in TAMU. TAMU was a disappointment as we were expecting a direct admittance and not through PSA.

SUNY applications were rejected as they were not 'complete' with supporting documentation - we never really found out what was missing as the common application system hands over the control to the universities at some point and they just update the status and getting a clear understanding of what went wrong was not possible (for us at least!).

Finally the acceptance letter from BYU came through on Feb 16, 2019. At that point, we know that the process is complete for us. 

Sibi starts college - 1

Sibi is starting college this week. In USA. At Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

None of the sentences are as difficult to type in as the above ones. It means Sibi is going to start his life and is going to own up a large chunk of his life from this point onwards. It will be something we will have to deal with in the coming months - getting used to his absence at home. And that is going to be very difficult.

But I started writing this not to mope but to explain the super-exciting, roller-coaster ride of the lifetime we've had till he had his acceptance letters coming in starting Feb 2019.

It has always been our intention to send him back to US for his college. No special reasons except that the college environment is more conducive for someone of Sibi's temperament and that I wanted him to avoid the stale university environment in India.

That leaves out Sibi's wishes as to where he wants to study. So we've always kept that option open - in case, he decided to be in India for his studies, we didn't want to stop him from that as well. So he did his 3 year FIITJEE and hated it - so he dropped out of it by the time he finished his 10th. Anyway, he didn't want to focus on IITs or NITs.

He went on a trip to UK in 2017 - during his 10th holidays - all alone and loved it. He spent a month with my brother but managed to roam around solo to so many places, he became comfortable with the whole environment.

That and the fact that we've always asked him to focus on going to US for his studies mean that by the time he started his 11th, we started the process of getting him to US for his under graduate degree.

We targeted Dec 2017 as the time for his first attempt for SAT and decided that he will take it by self-study and nothing more. I got his these wonderful preparation books from The College Panda by Nielson Phu and I actually spent sometime studying those and I can say (Sibi agrees!) that they are much better than any of the other books out there.

By this time, Sibi has decided to do Mathematics and while we asked him to consider some other options as well, he declined and so we now started looking for colleges all around the world. We started with the first excel sheet of all the colleges/universities which are of interest. We also included details like entry criteria, tuition and other expenses and importantly, how the college fares in the various rankings published.

By this time, SAT was completed with an above average score. We had no idea what the score means and we wanted to decide on some universities and then decide whether there needs to be a re-write. The focus shifted to IELTS (which is a requirement for the Canadian universities) and targeted to complete that by May 2018.

After a few iterations of the college list over a few months, we ended up deciding to focus on US and Canada. And decided to focus on the universities in places I am familiar with so that I will have a way to evaluate during my trips to US. So, that ended up with the states of NY, CA and a few in the Midwest.

One of the universities I know of was the BYU - due to my trips to Lehi, UT and I started looking into the aspects of the university as well. The other universities which we wanted to focus were the SUNY, Albany and Buffalo, Iowa, TAMU, Memorial University and UNB in Canada. We added a few more later as well based on recommendations.

Selecting a group of colleges to apply to can be traumatizing. There is always a better college you chose to bypass and there is always someone who points that out. But after agonizing over a few times, you make your peace with that. For Sibi, thankfully, he was focused on Memorial and BYU - Provo and the rest were all back up options. However, we felt it important to chose the universities early so that there is a better chance of getting acceptance.

Sibi was in 12th standard by this time and we didn't want to disturb him very much. Meanwhile, I have to learn about FAFSA and a whole lot of details about Foreign Tax returns and Federal conversion rates and had a lot of misgivings about what I understood versus what was expected.

The applications for the Fall semester open approximately one year before for most universities and most close within a 8-10 weeks time frame. And that is not a lot of time if one is applying for multiple universities as the application demands of each university varies. The transcripts from Ninth standard to Eleventh standard, multiple recommendation letters, a whole lot of essays, the extra curricular activity lists and details with even dates , the scholarship application that need to be submitted simultaneously and the essays for that - the list is endless.

We did end up submitting about 10 applications for 12 universities (SUNY and Texas had a common application system for multiple universities). Sibi wrote about 10+ essays on various topics and write-ups on activities and other related questions. He wrote an equal number of essays for the scholarship applications in multiple universities. That puts an added strain to kids in the middle of the 12th standard.

Adventures of Sibi - I

As 2012 comes to a close, here is something from what Sibi wrote sometime ago. Based on the published items from Tinkle, he wrote these. These are some of the excerpts.

 Happy new year!

Adventures of Sibi

1. Lays Vs Eggs

Once my mother asked me to buy 10 eggs from Sathya stores (a nearby shop)  gave me money to buy Lays chips packet, if I want. I went to Sathya stores and there was no Lays. So I went to Maha Yogam (a nearby supermarket). And bought 2 Lays packet. I came back to home.

My mother asked me for the eggs. I gave her 2 Lays packets. She asked me again where are the eggs. I saw my hands and I was holding 40 rupees and I have to go back to get the eggs.

2. Billy Comfort.

Once my mother asked me to buy Comfort (a chemical used to wash clothes). I bought it and marched back to home. I saw a man following me and I ran. He also started running and chasing me. I was about to shout. He said he came chasing me to give the Comfort. I saw inside the cover and nothing was there except the bill. I was ashamed and I thanked the guy and marched home. I told everything to my mother and she laughed.

3. Hit by 3

Once we were playing cricket on the road in front to my Grandma's house. When it was my turn to bat, Aadith, my younger cousin started bowling. Pramoth, my elder cousin, was keeping the wickets. 

On the roadside, a man was eating. I tried to drive the ball.and hit the man's leg directly from the place where I stood. The man started shouting and picked a big wooden stick to beat us.

Luckily, the wall was short and we three climbed over it and escaped from the place.

4. Lost in VGP

Once we went to VGP and when we were coming back, I raced my parents to the car.  When I reached near the car parking, I noticed that my parents weren't there behind me. 

I ran to our car and identified it. I waited for others to come. I saw my father coming towards the car. He asked me to sit inside the car. I saw others coming. They said that they went inside a shop to buy sweet corn, which I asked before going inside.

5. Bateroplane

Once, during my quarterly holidays, we went to Dindigul. There I played cricket in the terrace with Abhishek (my elder cousin).

When it was my turn to bat, I swung the bat. Suddenly there was silence all over. I too noticed that the bat weight has reduced in my hands. 

But how? To found out, I saw my hand and saw that it was holding a ball! Everyone laughed. I went over and checked that the bat was lying in the next house. I actually has swung the bat and it flew into the nearby house and I caught the ball!

The next house was my another Grandpa's house (my maternal grandpa's younger brother) and I went there next day and picked up the bat.

Calculator of Prahalada

This is an update on the school days of Sibi. Sibi is now finishing his fourth standard and I believe, is having a blast doing it as well. At times, I am left wondering what I need to do to facilitate a channel for his energy. At times, he makes me wonder why he is such a lazy boy. I think the real Sibi is somewhere in between.

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The blog title is a indicator of this conundrum. He is called in his class as the 'Calculator of Prahalada' (Prahalada being his section name, his school names each section with a puranic character name) for the reason that he handles big numbers at ease and is able to do the calculations fast and without using a notepad. Nothing is a challenge to him as he understands the intricacies of Mathematics and raises a thousand questions as well. At the same time, his exam papers are full of frustration vented by his Maths teacher trying to come terms with the fact that he seems to be unable to score a centum. In fact in his half-yearly exam paper she just wrote 'Why? Sibi, Why?'. That kind of existentialist tantrum seems to be the norm for anyone coming across Sibi.
In that paper, he simply forgot to do a sum and that cost him the centum. He does not put any weight to it and just shrugs and moves on while his mother is left fuming at his absolute indifference. I am flummoxed to figure how to take it. Talking to him, he is all earnest and says the right things and promises to be more careful the next time. And he goes on to do the exact same thing. It has all the qualities of a farce. And of course, there is an element of innocence still left in him which I don't want to destroy by putting him into the grind.

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Today he told me of a dream he had last night. It was about a front page news bulletin saying 'Muthu Prakash has won the noble prize (he is the grandson of Thangamani)'. He was all sincere explaining about it and we had a good laugh together.

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This academic year, he cleared two exams in Hindi. The first one is 'Pariksha' which is a basics test and he cleared 'Prathmik' last month. He was actually complaining that everyone was talking to eachother in the 'Pariksha' exam hall and were sharing papers. Though he scored a bit low marks (66), he had no regrets about not copying his way through. 'Prathmik' was conducted more professionally and he scored the first mark in his class and was ecstatic with a look saying 'Now who is laughing?' kind of smile. Though I have lots of small fights with him, I never had one over trying to fix his moral compass. He got that right always.

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During this year's sports day, Sibi has won a second prize in Relay running and came out winner in Kho-Kho. Given that I've never participated in any kind of sports, it is a wonder that he managed to do this without any encouragement from us.

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The latest obsession he has is story writing. Last count he has written about 84 pages of different stories (starting with his all time favorites, Moguls to the Indian freedom struggle to a letter to the woodcutters about not cutting trees). It even includes a chapter in Hindi. He keeps writing without watching TV or spending time in computers. The reason he has come up with is to 'become famous'. It is amazing to see the kind of focus he puts into these activities. He cannot think of anything else and every free minute he has is going into the writing of this magnum opus. And with his absolutely loaded schedule, it is amazing that he managed the 84 pages in about 9 days. (Planning to get some of that typed in..)

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And in this year's fancy dress competition in his school, he dressed as, who elxe, but the Moghul emperor Akbar. And amidst the standard Abdul Kalams and the God/Goddesses of his class, he stood out and won the applause. Whether he won a prize, we do not know as it was never announced. His closest friend is a kid named Madhavan (whom he calls Maddy). Since this fancy dress competition took place, Sibi and Maddy are named the Akbar-Birbal of the class.

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There are a hundred other things he has done or not done. But at times, I am always left to wonder whether this is the same little boy who shied away to talk to anyone. The other thing that he likes most these days is to visit the 'Anna centenary library'. It is when I see him running around the shelves picking up books and running through them in the couple of hours we used to spend there, I always feel like looking at a piece of myself.

Bedtime Stories

After running through a lot of stories on Anjaneya (this is the name Vanathy prefers) and Muruga, I was trying to find some other stories to tell the kids during bed time. So now we are going through the explorers of the world.

So far, we've covered Columbus, Cook, Amerigo vespucci, Vasco da Gama and Ernest Shackleton. And we finished the Lewis and Clark expedition yesterday. It is turning out to be a very good exercise so far and the kids are liking it so far. We also did some discussions based on the maps and the globe to see the routes they've taken and Sibi is absolutely fascinated by the stories.

Apart from what I've read, I am using the extensive Wikipedia entries on each of these voyages to tell the stories and also ask questions everyday to make sure they really understand. Of course, for Vanathy, only the adventure part registers while Sibi is making the connection with history as well.

So yesterday, J asked Sibi to tell her the story on Lewis and Clark expedition. It was an amazing story which Sibi came up with. He remembered most of the story but embellished it with his thoughts wherever he forgot something. I tried correcting him but then let him run through it as he wished. Now we've agreed to watch the PBS program on 'Lewis and Clark expedition' on the weekend (I've the DVD).

While he was telling the story, I was thinking of the future when Sibi standing on a cliff and watching the mighty Missippi flowing, will remember his father telling the story of the expedition long ago as a bedtime story. It was mushy but worth it.

The kids ask interesting questions while the story goes on. A sample.
Sibi - Appa, how come Columbus is lost? don't they have maps?
Me - Yesda, they dont have complete maps back in the fifteenth century and they were still exploring.
Vanathy - Appa, he could've asked Dora, she has a map.

Some of the discussion yesterday was about Jefferson and I was thinking of coming up with a condensed version of '1776' for the kids and J asked about the 'Civil war'. I am not so sure as Sibi may not be able to comprehend the actual issue of why the war was fought. So that have to wait.

Oftentimes I think I have taken Vanathy's growing up as more matter-of-fact than Sibi's. I think that goes for all second child's. Vanathy is hyperactive when compared to Sibi and has been since she started walking. I am thinking of the number of times we have to take her to the ER in the Apollo children's hospital and it is absolutely nerve-racking bringing her up. She is also more authoritative but loves her brother very much and demands things that she has to have. Now she has drawn up a big list for her birthday and we are trying to figure how to handle that.

Sibi

April 15 will be Sibi's last day in school for 3rd standard. He has learnt a lot this year and I am sure he will continue to do so. What fascinates me (and has always fascinated me) is the way he learns. Though his fascination for the Mughals hasn't faded yet, he has picked up a new interest, the Atlas.

He has owned one for the past few years but hasn't shown any interest in it till recently. He started looking into it a couple of months back and started to learn the states and capitals. Now he can tell the state names or the capital names in whatever order. But thats ok. So he learnt the names of cities in the maps and can tell the state names if you can tell the city name (say like, Belgaum). So our little routine these days is for me to tell a city name and he will tell me the state name. Of course, there are places he did not know yet but he keeps updating himself.

He has this habit of writing down what he is reading, I mean, he writes down the entire thing. He has drawn the maps of the states and has noted down the cities and tries to recreate the atlas in his notebook! He has done this multiple times and I am not sure why he does that but then thats what he likes. Not just the atlas but the biography of the Mughal emperors he read in Wikipedia as well. Costs a lot of notebooks though.

And when I asked him what he wants from Odyssey last weekend, he promptly replied 'Atlas'. So he has got himself another one now. This is more a world atlas and he has already learnt about 30-40 states and their capitals in USA and this morning he told me that he has found that there are states in Canada as well. So I told him that almost all countries have states and he has a quizzical look on his face and said "'Then I need to learn all of it, huh". Happy that he has found something for the summer holidays.

Beyond taking a father's pride in stating this, what strikes me as odd is that I too owned 2 different atlases while I was in 4th or 5th standard and have had the habit of 'reading' through the names of places and wondering what lies in those places. I remember the name of one city particularly, Sofia, which intrigued me for weeks (I had a cousin named Sofia) to figure what and who lived there. I never found that out but I underlined whatever interested me and pretty much teared the whole book by the time I reached 8th standard.

Looking at Sibi, in a way, I am looking into myself.