I think even when the teacher can recycle the original letter, the administrative hassle of sending it multiple times for multiple students must get tedious at best. I know this particular teacher is very popular with students as she writes great letters and is also a mentor for an ec many of them participate in so the letter is broader than just the classroom. She’s been gracious enough to send at least 5-6 for my daughter and I know a good friend of hers has done a ton of scholarship apps, so has probably done even more for her. You have 20-30 kids asking for 3-10 letters, and it gets pretty insane pretty quickly. I better understand why the IB English teacher states the first day of junior year, that you have to apply to get a rec from her and she only writes them for a limited number of students.
Well, we’re writing this on CC, for parents and kids who come to CC forums for advice, so it does not matter how relevant it is for people who are not on CC.
In any case, it’s not only the kids on CC. It’s true for kids across middle class high schools, and upper middle class high schools. My brother’s kids attend a good high school in the LA area, and the obsession with college starts for many of the kids from freshman year. The stories of student breakdowns from trying to keep up a 4.0 average while doing 10 ECs, repeating SAT to improve their score by maybe 10 points, and then spending 40 hours a week on ECs. There are school districts where the students, on average, take the SATs 3 times. There are those schools where most students re taking 12-15 AP classes. These are stories that make the news ever so often, but then disappear.
It’s not the majority, maybe 10%-15% of all high school students. That’s still 1.5-2 million kids.
It’s also not all that new. In the movie “Welcome to the Dollhouse”, from 1995, the older brother, Mark, does everything to “look good to colleges”. While that was less widespread back then, it was a recognizable stereotype.
Check out Interfolio Dossier
If you’re chasing the big named scholarships, take the time to really analyze what the schools are looking for. Some share detailed bios of semi-finalists/finalists. Great stats and solid ECs are not enough…they are really looking for activists, change agents, and other students with high profile activities and awards.
I feel like we went down a bit of a rabbit hole chasing competitive full ride scholarships. If I had done more research, I might have allowed her to apply to her dream school EA even though the EFC would be a huge stretch for us. I know she would love to have an answer - seems like the wait for RD is never-ending!!
@TrendaLeigh - I agree, the named scholarships can be time intensive. DS only went after one, which would have been amazing to receive, but didn’t make it past the semi-finalist round. But to get there, he had to apply through his high school, they narrowed down the written applicants and chose a smaller number for a panel interview at the high school. From here he was identified as one of two candidates from his high school to apply for the named scholarship, so there were additional essays and 2 LORs for this next national stage. He made it from there to semifinalist- which meant another panelist interview, this time at the university; and that was the end of the line. I think about 25% of semi-finalists make it on to the finalist round. No sour grapes- he was really impressed by the other semi-finalists he met during the interview, and was happy to make it as far as he did. But- multiple essays, interviews etc is definitely something I don’t think we could have repeated for many other opportunities. A silver lining is that we had to buy a suit, and I think he realized that wearing something other than hiking pants and ironic t-shirts could be fun.
That being said- I’m not sure if we had seen the finalist biographies (didn’t know to look them up ahead of time) that it would have stopped us. We knew it was the equivalent statistically to getting into a tippy top school, and thought it was worth going for it.
And- I guess to keep this on the theme of the thread of hindsight, what seems like a cornucopia of Giant Scholarships in sophomore/ junior planning can start to seem like an insurmountable challenge by the middle of senior year. Definitely worth going for in moderation, but if you haven’t already finished your college applications and have a very difficult academic and EC schedule, it could be overwhelming
“I didn’t realize that NMF/ NMS came with great scholarships at some schools.”
I’m not sure if the intent of the OP is ways to reduce stress, but if you’re going for a NMF or other scholarships, there’s no way to avoid stress and pressure, unless you can just ace the PSAT and SAT/ACTs without studying, which a few kids can for sure, especially the math section. While other scholarships like say the Coca Cola scholars, are not test focused, they look closely at community service, ECs, and if you see the application, you better have a whole bunch of leadership on there.
“Don’t let your kids spend their high school years looking at acceptance to a prestigious colleges as the only way that they can validate their worth, and the worth of all they accomplished in high school.”
I think we all agree on this, however adults telling other adults how to view college acceptances, which is what this thread is about, is not going to change anything. Kids at this age still look at peer validation which means, for most competitive students, what college they get in will determine their worth.
Researchers looked at why all the anti-drug, drinking campaigns in the 80s and 90s didn’t work or actually made things worse and they realized those programs did not understand the teenage mind, they assumed the teenager and adult would react the same to the message.
@theloniusmonk - the intent of the post wasn’t to reduce stress (although I think having a rolling admit ‘in the pocket’ at the start of senior year really did reduce stress)… it was more of a reflection on the things I wish we had known and been prepared for. Regarding the NMS/ NMF, the main reflection for me is that I would have potentially coached him to prioritize some prep work for the PSAT rather than shrugging it off since he already had a strong ACT.
I’ve learned so much from these threads…just thought I’d throw out a few other things I wish I had known earlier.
- Starting early takes the sting out of these lessons. Like grade school for the parents, but tenth grade for the kids.
- The student should have a separate email address for college recruiting stuff. It has to be monitored, but it's going to get so much trash that putting it in its own bin is a minor blessing if you start early.
- Parents need to learn to use NPCs early (8th grade?) to get a feel for how financial aid works and to get numb to the numbers. No one wants any surprises in spring of senior year.
- Try to establish an early grasp of Fit vs Prestige. Get a copy of Colleges That Change Lives or something similar in the hands of your ninth/tenth grader before they fill their heads with Fiske or Peterson's or US News. Students should work on self-awareness and let Stanford take care of itself. Corollary: don't give away freshman year, but grades don't need to be perfect and you can skip some APs if you don't care about the subject.
- Schools don't care about The Right ECs, they want ECs to reflect your interests and abilities. Don't join things you hate just to look good, do things you love. Your EC is where you get to invest a little free time and it should not feel like an obligation. People can tell when you're grinding out some hours vs personally invested in something.
- More and more people are throwing up their hands at the cost of college and considering the trades. Do not scoff when you hear this from anyone, as the money is good and the costs don't hang over your life choices for decades. To our surprise (at the time) our S18 did it, and this year he has friends considering the same path. Education is too expensive these days to drift along to the next stop just because everyone does it.
It would be nice if Common App could include a tool or portal for other verified entities such as scholarship committees to use the Common App LORs.
@StPaulDad - love your point #5! I think that for some people, going into a trade is such a great fit. As you say, it can provide a very good quality of life, without going into debt. I would add the same for some kids with the military. Not great for many people, but for some kids it provides the framework and structure they really benefit from. And if I could go back in time, we would have saved a lot of aggravation by following your point #1. 
My son is pursuing healthcare options at a tech school that has a dorm. It gives him the college experience and being away from home adulting lessons he needed with smaller class sizes and a fraction of the cost of a 4 year. Many alternative options out there!