A measure of my impending insanity -- the pre-college spreadsheet

[citygirlsmom]

all we did was this

one folder for certificates, letters of recomdenation, and misc papers

one folder for test score reports, transcripts (grades), other classes taken, school information

one for ECs, and out of school volunteering, etc

she started a brag sheet/resume and updated it periodically

that was it

worked fine-

[speckledegg]

I've been keeping the chronological binders with transparent page protectors, into which all of my kids' paper goes related to school, EC's, family activities, etc. The active binders are on a shelf above my desk (for convenience- and it's near the door so sometimes I put programs or whatever in the binders before I take of my coat), and the binders of previous years are on shelves in another room. When they were preschoolers, I'd intended to use what I'd saved to make nice scrapbooks, but now that sons are ages 16 and 21, I believe the binders will just remain as memorabilia archives exactly as is.

Last year this thought occured to me: why do I keep binders of my kids stuff and not of my own stuff? Where is my scrapbook, my memorabilia? It's in random files and binders of volunteer work, holidays, family photos, and etc. Does anyone keep their own personal adult scrapbook/archive, and how do you do it?

[condor30]

owlice - a tip........for a college info. spreadsheet.......it's helpful to also track the INCOMING contacts from the colleges..... type (email, phone, mail), who (what department & title), and date of contact. that sort function is a handy dandy tool........sort by date of last contact, sort by name of school, etc.

[CountingDown]

I keep a folder with certificates, awards and list of various ECS/community service and another folder with SAT scores. I *do* save copies of the school curriculum, as sometimes classes are no longer offered by senior year, or for when colleges ask if it's an honors/post-AP, etc. (MIT asked for all of this stuff and we were glad to have saved it.) This was also useful when a couple of classes S took were listed on the transcript one way and were actually another (S described the class/sequence, and the GC backed it up via school report and rec letter). S included this in an "Additional Info" section which he attached as a pdf or sent as a hard copy along with his apps. We also saved job descriptions, got school profiles from the GC for previous years (so we knew what info the college would be getting about S's HS), etc. Ditto the recommendation on good writing samples.

S maintained the resume, which was a non-trivial task. He included it with every app, including those who wanted "just the highlights." His rationale was that the longer resume would fully explicate his long-standing interests and pursuits between that, the essays and recs, would fully develop what he had to present.

We did have to chase down AMC/AIME scores, but happily, it is possible to get those from the USAMO folks!

[citygirlsmom]

you can mae yourself nuts by coming up with this colume and tracking that contact

and that can get you caught up in minutia and miss the bigger pictures

I say less is more in the college hunt- a few simple folders, print out the page of dates directly from each colleges website- that usually has contact info, etc. glue it to the front of that schools folder, get a big calendar and put dates there as well, set deadlines AHEAD of college deadlines, don't get all excited by each piece of mail, they are meaningless, except for inormation

and as far as contacts...put any "real" mail in each college of interests folder, created a folder in email for those contacts etc...

[gladmom]

speckledegg: After years of filing away my kids memorabilia, I had a brief lull in the action and started the same system for myself and H. I have something like 7 notebooks with the transparent sheet protectors filled chronologically with our stuff. It was in definite danger of basement mold syndrome, so I am glad I brought it up when I did. When a notebook gets filled, I just fill up a new one with the page protectors and put things in as they show up.

Sometimes life is just too crazy to do this, so I might get a pile accumulated, but then a lull comes along and I put them right in. I rarely look in the books, but when I do I enjoy it immensely. For example, I was able to put my hands on my and H’s old copies of SAT, ACT scores from the 60’s -- didn’t share our results with the kids, just looked. Amazingly, our scores were pretty much the same as theirs. None of the four of us ever did any test prep. Maybe much of this kind of test aptitute is inherited.

[LIMOMOF2]

I use the binder/transparent sheet protector sytem for a few other filing projects. I have binders for clipped recipes, quilt patterns, home improvement projects, and warranties/receipts for major purchases (appliances, electronics, etc.). These are in addition to the one I keep for D. I haven't started one for S yet as he's still young.