Thursday, October 29, is a date many of you would have circled on your calendar... if you still circled things on paper calendars. It's the day SAT scores for the test taken October 12 are available online.

If you attended college yourself in the 80s, 90s or the early part of the past decade, you remember the wait for SAT and other college aptitude examinations. As soon as the test was taken, the most important date on your calendar was the mailed-out date: when your test scores would hit the post offices for dispersal around the country. That slim, square-ish envelope held such hope and fear. I still remember opening mine, in the fall of 1990, squeezing my eyes shut for just a moment before I looked at the score that would herald the course of my life for the next decade.

But today, SAT and PSAT scores are available online a week before they're mailed on paper, changing that seminal mailbox moment to an afterthought of tangibility. The click-and-reveal moment changes the stock TV moment utterly -- no more gathering the family to open the envelope, no more covering one's eyes and waiting for the news to be read by mom or dad. Will my sons have the scores on their Blackberries and iPhones (we're an agnostic family) before they get home from school one day? *Sigh*

It's been happening for a few years, and parents of teens, can you tell me? Do you feel this disconnects you from your children's lives at this crucial time? Sending a child off to college is a huge financial step for you to take... is it bereft of its participatory drama thanks to the increasingly digital availability of scores, grades, and even admissions decisions?