The Girl finished her sophomore year of high school this week.  It ended unceremoniously: she came downstairs and announced that she had turned in her last assignment.  The next few days would have been final exams, but those were canceled, so the only remaining bit of sophomore year is dropping by the school next Tuesday to pick up the contents of her locker. 

(A shout-out to whomever pulled “locker cleanout” duty.  Ugh.)

She’s officially a rising junior.  That means it’s time to start thinking seriously about colleges.

With The Boy, the fall of the junior year was the kickoff of the college tour.  In New Jersey, the public school teachers’ union has an annual conference in Atlantic City every November, during which the public schools close for a couple of days.  Those days mark the unofficial start of college tour season.  That was when The Boy and I went to Boston to see Northeastern and BU.  At the information session at Northeastern, there were probably 100 people in the audience.  When the host asked for a show of hands of how many were from New Jersey, it was probably at least 80 percent.  She chuckled and said that that week is unofficially known as New Jersey Week.