alphahydro

idk anything about cars/motorcycles in Japan, but I'm sure there's some great stuff. on the food side, i'm sure you can get lots of good recs. here are some more generic thoughts-just stuff that stands out in my memory. each town (every town(?), most towns(?), idk, tbh) has a special food or snack they are famous for. i would definitely give it a shot in every town you visit. i wanna say it was hamamatsu - has a lake that is supposed to be perfect for freshwater eel. had some fresh, simply grilled unagi there that was insane. haven't had unagi since that even comes close. it's really cool (imo) to sample the snack each town is famous for, and different places are, for example, known for different types of udon (or ramen or whatever). i would definitely sample the specialty in each town/prefecture/hood. your favorite fish fresh from the fish market spicy ramen shop in tokyo tbh i've had mixed luck with kobe beef in japan. i've had great stuff at random places and been let down at places supposedly known for it. if you see a dessert that looks tasty, just buy it, imo. one of the best desserts of my life was some random cream puff sold by a vendor outside of a zoo in tokyo. i think these places are a trip. sensory overload, which is part of the experience. lots of options. easy way to sample wagashi. https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/shopping/best-depachika-food-halls-in-tokyo prolly sounds dumb but this is like the tokyo version of a parisian cafe for me. heh. one the one hand, part of what makes eating in japan cool is the novelty. like a major fast food burger joint has burgers where the bun is like sticky rice (https://www.mos.jp/menu/pdf/global_regular_menu.pdf) and there are all kinds of snacks and treats that seem exotic. and those a great to sample. so, imo, if you have a choice between the equivalent of the regular burger and the rice burger, get the rice burger, imo. that's part of what makes it cool to visit japan. the other thing that makes japanese food great is - if you go to a restaurant that the locals consider a nice place and order like a traditional fish soup - man, the flavors can be amazing. so clean, pure, well balanced. the craft that goes into traditional japanese broths is amazing. have fun! my daughter is 18 and her and her friend are going this summer also. i'm very jealous. for dad and son, idk off hand, but i would prolly try to check out a baseball game and a sumo match.

this might sound weird, but for me there are only a few places in the world that transcend the-stuff-there-is-to-do-there. japan is one of those places for me. i've been a handful of times, stayed in rural areas with locals who were friends of friends, been to big cities, etc. my advice is: 1) 2 days minimum in tokyo 2) 3 days minimum in kyoto. 3) it's not super easy, imo, to get a lot out of the more remote places without someone who speaks japanese 4) most importantly, i would go to just vibe. i overplan most of my trips, but i would love to just hang out in tokyo and kyoto and just wander and do whatever comes up. imo, it's not a place i would go with a massive itinerary, like how you might visit paris or rome for the first time. i would go any season, explore randomly, and do whatever comes up. i don't mean to reply to chopper. just saw this thread pop up and wanted to lay down my $.02

I view the schools as falling into tiers. with undergrads, it's something like top 5/6 (harvard, princeton, yale, etc) rest of the ivies plus a few other top schools next tranche, including the top public schools through Georgia/Texas-ish and so on First, the same school might fall into different tiers depending on the major, etc. Second, at each school, there are levels. Say: top handful of kids at a given school, top 5%, top 20%, bottom half. Yes, the top kid in tier 3 does better than a bottom half kid in tier 1, but comparing top kid to top kid in different tiers, there's a difference in outcomes. If you compare outcomes across levels between two schools and they are roughly the same, that's how you know those two schools are in the same tier. Third, I'm personally not a big fan of tier 2. I think you are better off in tier 3 in you can get in state tuition (unless you have money to burn). My original post was: if my kid didn't get into any tier ones and missed the local, in-state tuition tier 3, but got into a tier 2, i would send them to community college, then have them transfer to the local tier 3 before i would pay for the tier 2. Finally, I agree that if you are at your final destination school (professional school or undergrad if not getting an advanced degree), in my mind you should (rule of thumb) go tier 1 or best local/regional school, because of the regional bias and networking benefits. going back to the yale law data. basically the top 25/30 kids at Yale/Harvard undergrad get the same results as the top kid from Florida/Georgia/UNC every year. If you had paid for your kid to go to a tier 2 school like Amherst or Williams, they still have to end up as the top 1-2 applicants from their school, same as if you had sent them to UF, UGA, UM, etc. If you go to a tier 4 or below school (much below FL/GA/UNC), you could be the top applicant from your school that year and have basically zero chance at Harvard or Yale Law, Harvard Business, etc, in a given year (or in a multiple year span). again, my only point was, a lot of parents i know are pushing their kids into tier 2 because they think it puts them in a better position to get into a good grad school and i personally wouldn't if i had access to in state tuition at a tier 3 public. maybe im just cheap. but i don't see the appeal of the williams and amhersts

random. I live outside Texas. my son was wearing a Texas hoodie to school and another kid asked him about. that other kid is going to UT next year. Said she's getting in state tuition because her dad bought or rented a place in Texas 2 years ago (even though he doesn't live there). does that sound legit? is residency based on the parents or the kid? I would think UT would see her transcripts from an out of state high school and figure out she didn't live in Texas last year. just curious

We might be talking about two different things, but I would say there is definitely a ceiling when it comes to the best of the best graduate programs. for example: https://law.yale.edu/admissions-financial-aid/jd-admissions/profiles-statistics/undergraduate-institutions-represented-yls-2020-24 from your list, in the past 5 years, no one was accepted to YLS from NC State, Minnesota, South Carolina, or Arkansas. (or if they were, they were not attending when this list was compiled). You don't have to go very far down the US News Best colleges list before acceptances dry up. UC Davis, ranked 28th nationally, sent zero kids to Yale law in the past 5 years. Georgia Tech at 33 -> 0. By the time you get out of the top 50, Minnesota at 53, zero; William and Mary (tied 53; zero) Stony Brook zero. Any between 75-85, you have only two schools that sent kids to Yale law in the last 5 years (UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz). It's nice that they took someone from Oregon State, but that kid does not represent Oregon State grads each year. he represents all the graduating students at what 20? peer schools over a 5 year period. https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2019-2020.pdf Page 116 shows the breakdown by undergrad college for the last 3 admission cycles at Yale Law. These are the undergrad institutions from which the law school admitted, on average, 5 or more students each year: Brown (5 per year) Chicago (6 per year) Columbia (11 per year) Cornell (6 per year) Dartmouth (7 per year) Harvard (19 per year) Princeton (10 per year) Stanford (7 per year) Penn (5 per year) Yale (30 per year) Here are the places that send 3-4 per year: Duke Georgetown Berkeley The only other public school with 1+ kids per class were: UCLA (5 kids in 3 classes) Uconn (5 in 3 classes) Florida (4) Georgia (3) Maryland (3) Michigan (8) UNC (5) UVa (7) UW (3) If my math is correct, the top 10 ivy type schools fill about half the class. After Florida/Georgia/UW, you could be the best applicant from your undergrad and still get denied. Going back to your list. in the 2018, 2017, and 2016 cycles, there were zero kids from NC State, Minnesota, South Carolina, Oregon State, or Arkansas who attended Yale law. There were 2 from UC San Diego. If you aren't going to a top 30-50 type school, you could be the best applicant from your school in the past few cycles and still not have a shot. That's what I mean by ceiling. Yale law is obviously very selective, but I think the same trend applies at other top grad programs. You see the same thing at Harvard Law, which has a much larger class. Last year, from your list, zero from NC State, South Carolina, Oregon State, or Arkansas. https://hls.harvard.edu/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/jdapplicants/hls-profile-and-facts/undergraduate-institutions/ https://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/class-profile/Pages/undergraduate-institutions.aspx. HBS class of 2015- zero from NC State or Arkansas. I didn't see anything from med schools. But my understanding is there are similar patterns at the very top PhD programs in the hard sciences. HUGE CAVEAT - I personally don't care about this stuff - my point in the original post was only that if you are the type of parent who does care, your kid is better off a Florida/Georgia/UT/Michigan after community college than going to Williams or Amherst. using the info above, I may have been exaggerating a bit, but Williams put 4 kids at YLS over 3 years; Amherst 6. Michigan put 8, Florida 4, Georgia 3. I would rather try to be the top law applicant from Georgia than from Williams. But that's just me. To go back to my original point - Georgia has a similar ceiling to Williams, imo. But I wouldn't put Arky, Oregon State, NC State in that same category when it comes to the ceiling at the top top top grad programs.

if you are a fan of el greco, i think it's worth a trip to toledo. even just to see Orgaz at Santo Tomé is worth the trip, imo. you can hit toledo on a day trip from madrid, but you should, imo, spend the night, because it's crowded in summer during the day when all the daytrippers are in town. (if you spend the evening, you can visit places in teh morning and evening when the crowds are gone.)

Cosign

ha. yeah, as far as I can tell, the grind (both the grind size setting and the way your grinder grinds) changes 2 things - total surface area and water flow. Here's something else to consider - matching the grind to the recipe/equipment. as I think I mentioned above, I figured out after using the pulsar and switch a few times that I prefer the switch for medium roast and pulsar for light roast. but I never really took notes or did any side by side "tests" to confirm. I kinda noticed that the pulsar flows a lot faster, but didn't really think about it too much. your comment made curious, so the past couple days I brewed my coffee diff ways and noted the finish time same medium roast beans same grinder same grind setting same recipe (tetsu's hybrid recipe in the video) All I did was change the brewer and coffee:water ratio Tried it at 20:280 with hario switch. 2 min 40 seconds to finish. - came out perfect. 20:280 with next level pulsar. 2 min 15 seconds to finish. drinkable but too acidic/bright. slightly harsh. 20:280 with next level pulsar. but I manipulated the spigot so the brew finished in ~2 min 50 seconds. this was close to the first one; about 95% as good. out of curiosity, I extended the ratio to try to change the brew time. 20:340 with hario switch. - didn't track time, but probably around 3:00 - drinkable and nice but a little chocolatey for me. 20:340 with next level pulsar with spigot all the way open. 2 min 30 seconds to finish. better than 20:280 with pulsar, but still not as good as the 2:40/2:50 brews. Then, just now, I brewed some light roasted beans. Same exact grinder and grind setting as above. Just different beans. 20:280 with next level pulsar. 2 min 36 seconds to finish. Perfect. Not going to bother brewing these beans with the switch as I already know it's going to be fine but muddier/more carmel flavor. I assume it will take closer to 3 mins to finish, which, imo, works out a little better with cheaper, medium roasted beans. TLDR - you can run some tests, but grinding finer is probably slowing down your brew a bit, putting you closer to that perfect brew time (for you). (the pulsar comes with a spigot that allows you to change the flow without changing grind size). Also, imo, using tetsu's recipe, which cools the water during the second part of the brew + adds some soak/immersion time somehow makes the cup more rounded, brings out the sugars, and gives you more "margin for error" in your brews. anyway, thanks for the question. like I said, using that tetsu recipe has been like bowling with bumpers on for me, but if the coffee smells good but isn't brewing right, I'm gonna start looking at the brew time to figure out how to adjust. cheers.

i should mention, both my grinders grind coffee in a way that water flows really quickly over the grinds, even when i grind really fine. so, following that hybrid recipe, my brews finish in like 2:15 instead of 3:00, even at really fine grind settings. extending the coffee:water ratio might not be a good idea if your brews are taking a lot longer to finish.

seconded. it's a no brainer purchase for anyone doing pour overs, imo. i don't mess with my v60s anymore. and the pulsar is super easy for anyone doing french press who wants to try something new. if you use that pulsar with that hybrid method in the video above and tweak the ratio of coffee to water as necessary, it's insanely easy to dial in with the pulsar. frankly, i prefer that hybrid recipe to any of the recipes that came with the pulsar. if you've found another good recipe for the pulsar, let me know. i have a hario switch that i got before the pulsar, and it brews a little differently. with the spigot wide open, the pulsar flows faster than the switch, and i think the pulsar does better with lighter roasts. but with medium roasts/cheaper beans, i tend to prefer the switch. i could probably get the pulsar to replicate the switch by messing with the spigot/flow rate, but i use both - in part to use up the hario filters.

I assume so (?) I use this recipe every day and I never change my grind setting. I do have two grinders and i swap between grinders and between the hario switch and the nextlevel pulsar depending on the roast level and what i am in the mood for, but i haven't bothered with my grind setting since i started using this recipe. basically i have two grinders set at different grind settings and they're both fine, just different. as long as your grind setting is reasonable, you can get great cups. one thing i have started changing is the ratio. i think he recommends 20:280 (and then he waters the coffee down if it's too strong.) for me, depending on the roast/bean/grind setting, 280 can be really fruit forward and 340 is more chocolatey. i had the same beans yesterday and today, yesterday at 340 and today at 280 and both cups were great. that's the awesome thing about this recipe - i think it's mostly because you cool down the water in the second half of the pour - it's really hard to screw up the brew. instead of making adjustments on a knife edge, you have a lot of latitude in brewing. (i started experimenting with ratio because on a really light roasted coffee that flows fast, 20:280 was pretty gnarly/overly bright.)

this is how I would think about it. 1) I would spend most of my time in Malibu and Santa Barbara. locals might fight with me, but I think there is a big drop off between these two cities and anywhere else along the route, with the exception of ... 2) If you are into wine, I would definitely spend some time in Santa Ynez/ los olivos. (cool boutique hotel or airbnb) and... 3) re music and other events - west LA/hollywood might have something you're interested in. just depends on timing and what kind of music you like. other thoughts: A) I would go on alltrails and find a hike that looks good to you. I would do my hikes around malibu B) lower your expectations re food, imo. no world class food along that route (again, locals may disagree, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think the food is exceptional. I would keep low expectations re food and just pick some spots that had good ratings on yelp or google maps. this isn't a region where I would build any part of my trip around food). C) the Getty is worth a short detour if you want to add a museum. D) downtown LA is imo world class when it comes to contemporary art. E) west LA has nightlife and shopping, but you didn't mention that. great trip though. have fun.

I think it's $800 per person in Uganda and $1500 pp in Rwanda. I think you almost have to buy 2 days of permits- it would suck to fly all the way down there and not see any gorillas on your trek, then fly all the way back. So, depending on how many people are in your group, the price difference could add up. One good thing about Rwanda is you can just order the permit off a website from the gov't. In Uganda, it seems a little sketchier. I think you basically have to go through a third party (or if there's a way to book directly, i didn't see it). In Uganda, they also have habituation permits ($1500, iirc - but more time with the gorillas), where you trek to gorillas who aren't fully habituated yet. Sounds great on paper, but based on the reviews, it sounds like the unhabituated gorillas most often just go deeper into the forest when they see you, so most ppl just end up hiking through the forest a lot chasing the unhabituated gorillas. as a result, you get to spend less time actually near the unhabituated gorillas. Unhabituated gorillas could be spectacular and you get test charged and live to tell about it. Or you could spend 10 hours slogging through rainforest to get 8 glimpses at a gorilla from afar. When I was looking through the reviews, people who did the experience in Uganda consistently raved about it. Comparatively, the people who saw the gorillas in Rwanda were a lot less effusive in their reviews (on average--could be wrong, but that was my definite impression). I think area near the rainforest is a little more spectacular/exotic in Uganda, and they do a better job of getting people to the gorillas. Like the overall experience that day seems more authentic. Idk. In Rwanda, each morning they pool every park tourist for the day in one spot, and from the reviews, it seems like the morning gathering is disorganized/feels like waiting around at disneyland/kills the vibe. I got the impression that Rwanda is less of an experience (the difficulty of getting to the forest in Uganda is part of what makes the entire experience). It kinda felt from the reviews like Uganda was more remote/wild/authentic and Rwanda feels more like a conveyor belt out to the gorillas. Idk. Just my impression. idk, after all my research, i thought uganda sounded better, but it wouldn't fit into our trip, because of the extra time needed to get from the int'l airport to bwindi. so i was gonna go to rwanda, then decided to do this trip another year (had nothing to do with gorillas - we were gonna spend time in egypt to kill the jetlag and egypt just shut down the country's best tomb plus their national museum is basically temporarily closed).

oh and if you go to olare motorogi, no need to work with a travel agent, imo. you book your days at the camp directly with the camp. you book a flight to/from nairobi. then you book a small flight to and from the reserve. (camp can help you with this) then you book hotel for the nights you stay in nairobi. (don't stay at the giraffe manor, just visit the giraffe center right next door for like $10 and get a better experience. visit Fatso's Authentic Swahili Dishes on the way back from the giraffe center. thank me later). that's it.

i was gonna do gorillas this summer. when i was looking into it, it seemed to me that tourists prefer (by quite a bit) the trekking experience in Uganda over Rwanda. (based on talking to people and reading the reviews). But Bwindi (in Uganda) is a pain to get to - either a long ass car ride (like 8 hours each way, iirc) from the main airport, or you have to take a second flight, which is fine, but I would want to budget an extra day or two in case your main flight gets delayed or there are issues with that second flight. My trip was kinda tight, and adding an extra day on each end was annoying. Rwanda seemed easier to get in and get out. Re safaris in general, I strongly recommend safari at a private conservancy in Kenya or at a private game reserve in Sabi Sands. I can def recommend mahali mzuri and mara plains in olare motorogi. I could go on forever, but at the private reserves/conservancies, your guide can drive offroad right up next to the wildlife, your guide can drive any time, including at night, there are way fewer people/vehicles, and reportedly more big cats per square mile (at least in olare motorogi - https://www.porini.com/blog/olare-motorogi-ol-kinyei-have-highest-lion-density-in-africa/). these are all pics I took from my last trip in olare motorogi. we got to see (separately) a leopard and cheeting hunting/killing and we were the only car around. you'd go hours without seeing another human, and the amount of wildlife (monkeys, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, ostriches, etc) was insane. I can't 100% vouch for it, but I almost stayed at Angama Mara and it definitely looked rad.

Mexico City is rad, but imo, if you have a couple extra days, take a quick flight to Oaxaca - colonial town; known for its cuisine: my personal favorite restaurants are Tineperla (order off special menu) and Destilado (get tasting w/ alcohol); Monte Alban is also very cool & chill; the town itself can be slightly touristy depending on season and where you stay/go, but I think pretty much everyone thinks the food is better here than Mexico City. or Bacalar - a giant freshwater lagoon formed by an underground river; they call it the lagoon of 7 colors. town next to the lake is super chill and not overly touristy (yet). Sail the lagoon at sunset and checkout Nixtamal for dinner. Get a room or airbnb on the lagoon. you'll want to rent a car. there are some decent mayan ruins nearby. we stayed at an airbnb called Casa Flores de Mayo bc the reviews were so good. it's more rustic than fancy, but it's nicer than it appears in photos, you get a private dock, kayaks, and an outdoor kitchen overlooking the lagoon. I'm sure there's other good places to stay, but this one had separate little houses - one for kids, one for adults. and that worked well for us. https://travelrebels.com/mexico/bacalar/ Oaxaca and Bacalar are both 1 hour direct flights from cdmx, so it's easy to get in and out. in Mexico City, I liked Zefiro, a restaurant built inside a university, where all the employees are students “working” at the restaurant as part of a class they need to pass to get their degrees. You even grade them at the end. Food isn't amazing, but I personally haven't had luck finding amazing food in Mexico City.

Might be heresy in this thread, but for me only 2 reasons to go to barcelona: 1) clasico when barca is good 2) the food one standout for me is LAB: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187497-d14962029-Reviews-LAB_Restaurant-Barcelona_Catalonia.html it's like ikea chairs on the inside, but really innovative cuisine. when we were last there, the opening dish was tacos, but the shell was lettuce and the meat was ground up chicken bones. that kind of food. but unlike a lot of avante garde places, a) the food was really tasty and b) the meal had a great narrative arc - like the dishes built on each other in a way that made a lot of sense. if you are into this sort of meal, LAB is can't miss, imho. way better than, for example disfrutar. again imo.

really enjoyed: Tikal tour with Gem Trips: https://www.gemtrips.com Rosanta restaurant in Antigua Gringo perdido Hotel in el remate https://www.hotelgringoperdido.com. (las lagunas is a nicer version of same experience, but was booked during my trip). Acatenango/Fuego. Wilcho & Charlies seemed to have a great location. Bring something for altitude sickness though.

fwiw, i think the move from "we're looking for kids who take 18 APs" to "we are looking for kids with a passion" can be just as dangerous for parents. imo, you gotta let your kids find their interests on their own time. trying to make little johnny find a passion at 12-15 (with an eye toward his college app) can be unhealthy, imo. and i think a lot of parents are gonna fall into that trap. i had no idea what i wanted to be when i started undergrad. my brother started in philosophy at community college, then art at a crappy college, then ended up finding an interest in physics. he ended up with a super full ride+ in the phd program in physics at stanford. a good chunk of the people i know who are insanely successful didn't go to top colleges at all. my son randomly developed a deep interest in chemistry (apparently there are people who are drawn to chemistry - shrug). my daughter, who is a year older than her brother, hasn't found her thing yet. nbd, imo.

my kids have been told the same thing. apparently, the top schools no longer want applicants who take 17 APs. They think it means you are probably a maniac. they'd rather see you develop a passion. i'm no admissions counselor, but i think the goal for a personal statement should be that the person reading it would wanna grab a beer with you and hear more about the story you just told.

I was interested enough to google and skim this, but not interested enough to look at it in depth. but it looks like the SAT scores were re-centered twice (?) once in 1995 and again in 2016, so the historical scores might need to be adjusted. https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/sat-now-2018-vs-then-1995-2004-and-pre-january-1994/2022500/54 A 500/500 pre-1995 translates to 1170 (+170) today. A 420/380 would be a 1010 (+210). And a 1600 is still a 1600 (+0). +90 and +70 would be an average mid-range jump If that's true, 1994's 1135 = ~1295 today, which isn't as far off from today's 1355 SAT score average. And is 1355 the average for matriculating students or just accepted students? idk. apologies if this was discussed somewhere earlier in the thread - or if this is widely known. i've wondered about admissions rates going down over time. how much of it is increased college applicants vs available college seats, and how much of it is people firing off more applications (perhaps due in part to techmology and in part due to grade inflation making everyone think they have a chance)? undergrad application is obviously a more competitive deal than it was in 1994. i refuse to believe that the top 10% of 18 year olds are any smarter now than they were in 1994 (get off my lawn - tho i wasn't 18 yet in 94). but perhaps that 10% includes more people now. shrug. one of those things that was always interesting enough to wonder about, but never interesting enough for me to really investigate. if there's a good, comprehensive, well-accepted answer to why acceptance rates have dropped, i'm curious what it is. for example = looking at yale (came up first in my search) https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/w033_fresh_admissions.pdf applications tripled between 1995 and 2018. how much of that was people just firing off more applications? is yale 3x more selective? or are they now just churning through a bunch more apps from people who would have been denied admission in 1995? gen x is a small generation. and the demographics of ppl applying to college have expanded. so it was probably "easier" for the same caliber applicant to get into a good school in 1995 compared to now. but how much easier? and how different was it at Yale vs Texas? Perhaps at Harvard or Yale not so much, as there are always only so many super-achievers, but maybe at less selective schools, theres a big difference? Maybe it's just that a 60th percentile admit at Texas in 1995 had a 65% chance of admission - whereas now it's 30% - though that same applicant will have a 65% chance of getting accepted to a "peer" school. you just have to apply to more places now, because kids are firing off so many more applications. I think it's all of the above, but i wonder how much of each bit. people see the inflated grades, inflated SAT scores, change in ethos toward building a resume during high school and think "I wouldn't get into my alma mater if i had to apply today" but idk how true that necessarily is. you woulda worked prolly just as hard relative to your classmates as you did back then, and your GPA and SAT woulda been inflated. shrug.

prolly doesn't change your mind but for a couple extra bucks you can stay in a "cabin" rather than a tent (that's what we're doing). https://wichocharlies31.rezdy.com/581728/acatenango-private-cabin-all-included-2023-2024-price-for-2-hikers (I wouldn't do the hike if it doesn't look appealing.) mountain biking trip looks awesome. have fun!

in ~2 weeks, i'll be in guatemala gonna hike acatenango/fuego with my son w/ https://wichoandcharlies.com/ (<- they have packages that include jackets, headlamps, you can rent poles, etc. just seemed really convenient and well reviewed). hiking acatenango/fuego is actually 3 separate hikes. a) up to basecamp on an inactive volcano with a view of the active volcano b) after reaching basecamp, that same afternoon/evening, you can cross a ridge and hike up the neighboring active volcano <- everyone says this is the best part, but it's challenging after the first hike up to basecamp. a couple places will take you up to basecamp (basically) in a 4x4 if you don't think you can do the full hike, fwiw. c) up to the top of the non-active volcano the next morning at sunrise timestamped video from the second hike before that, we are staying outside of flores and taking a tour of tikal. it's about a 1 hour flight from the airport near antigua to flores. (some of the other cool spots in guatemala didn't work for me on this trip, because i couldn't fit in a long drive, etc. something to keep in mind if you are short on time) booked this tour based on reviews: https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g1820460-d19253022-Tikal_Full_Day_with_Dedicated_Exploration_of_the_Archaeological_Monuments-Santa_E.html you can also do an early morning tour, which seems really cool. you hike through the ruins in the dark and climb one of the temples to watch the sunrise and the surrounding forest come alive. we're only gonna be in guatemala for a couple days. other things i considered: there's a large, older mayan site you can visit - they are still excavating it: https://www.elmiradorhelicoptertours.com/ and staying at atitlan. problem with atitlan for me - when you start looking at the travel time, and the times the boats run, it really seemed like a 4+ day trip, at least with our flight times.

https://www.bookyourhunt.com/en/wolverine-hunting

dead on, imo. i think it goes a long way if a personal statement reveals that a kid (a) is willing to follow a passion and (b) is capable of looking beyond the views he or she has been force fed by his or her local environment/family. It also sounds like your son's story showed significant, authentic leadership/team building potential. my son plays high level soccer. ever since he started, i said, imagine you are playing fifa and you can go up to each player at key points in the game, punch in a code and they play 10% better - you'd do that, right? Same thing in real life, but the code is words and you gotta figure out what to say to each player. like this: for some guys - and for otehr guys, you gotta yell at them. lol i also told him if you want to go to Harvard, take a year or two off and go play for an academy in spain/s.america/asia. Then write your personal statement about it.