<p>Just mailed all the guidance office and LOR paperwork to the 8 schools d is applying to! The only thing left is one supplement for d to finish. Now the waiting begins. A couple of the schools are rolling so we should hear by the end of November.</p>
<p>As I’ve posted before, I also had an '09. I am so glad that our guidance office has finally leapt into the 21st century and will complete on-line rec forms. Two years ago, they would have nothing to do with them. Son applied to one school that didn’t even have a paper form to print out…</p>
<p>Three years ago with my son, all the paperwork was done on paper, too. He applied to five universities online (no common app, they were all OOS universities and each had its own application website). But all the LORs, transcripts, counselor forms, etc. were put together by the GC. We supplied large manilla envelopes and postage, but the GC left them sitting, finished, on her desk forever, so I finally had my son pick them up from her and took them to the post office himself. We mailed them with a return receipt request, so we’d know the colleges received them. It was like pins and needles waiting to get the post office notification. I remember one of them seemed to take forever and I was sure it had been lost, but it hadn’t.</p>
<p>I like this online-thru-the-common-app way SO much better!</p>
<p>Of course, my '11 D thought I was an idiot for sending her to the GCs office with hard copies of the common app rec form, but better her dim view of my mental abillities than waiting for the hard copies to be mailed!</p>
<p>I was amazed to find out our school does everything on paper. Apparently they would need Naviance to do it electronically and it is too expensive!</p>
<p>Holliesue, my D’s school doesn’t have Naviance. I think through the Common App, they just link to a webpage where they upload their rec. Maybe the transcripts have to be sent by “snail mail,” though. I’m not actually sure how D’s GC does that. I know she submitted the school report via Common App, but I don’t know if it actually contained the transcript. D gave her a transcript request form for each school, with the office of admissions address on each one, in case she does have to mail them. Fingers crossed that it goes off without a hitch.</p>
<p>One of my daughter’s recommenders emailed the letter to her (as well as sending it to the school). It was a good thing, as he made a mistake in the number of years she had volunteered. As she didn’t want a discrepancy between what she reported on her application and what he wrote, she emailed him, and he was very nice about it. Unfortunately his recommendation letter had already been sent to some colleges.</p>
<p>D is discouraged today. She believes her relationship with one of her recommenders has gone downhill since she asked for a LOR. She needs to leave his class early each day to get to another school across town. She has worked very hard to keep up in spite of the schedule conflict, but he has been making disparaging remarks in class about her leaving. Her schedule is not at all due to her choosing, and the principal had refused to meet with us at the start of the year as we requested to ward off these type of issues. She is worried that he might not give her as good of a recommendation as she had hoped. </p>
<p>She also just texted that the top scholar at her school (4.0 UW/2400) has accepted an athletic scholarship to her dream college. Her’s is a small high school, so she thinks her chance of being a 2nd admit to this highly selective school isn’t good.</p>
<p>The best I can do is to tell her not to worry about things she can’t control, and her chances at highly selective school wouldn’t be good regardless. Perhaps she would do well to find more things she likes about the other schools on her list.</p>
<p>DS2 is waiting to press send on two EA applications - common app essay and the supplements for both are done. He just has to ‘let them go’ - and then begin the wait. He too was dissapointed to learn that a student from his HS has been given indications by a coach at a particular ivy that he will be admitted - DS2 also thinks that reality diminishes his chances, although that IVY was not DS2’s top choice…</p>
<p>Once the common app is filed, DS2 will also be able to file applications to all the other schools on his list that do not require supplements. Then the trick will be to get DS2 to do the remaining essays for the other schools before December 15th…</p>
<p>Our school has Naviance but for some reason cannot use its features in conjunction with CA. Definitely would make process much easier. Our GC does an excellent job keeping everything organized even tho it is all manual. The teachers have been very responsive about doing the LORs quickly too. No complaints here. Now if I can only finish the Profile.</p>
<p>I really enjoyed the following entry from The Choice:</p>
<p>[A</a> Father’s Acceptance: His Son Won’t Follow His Ivy Footsteps - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/a-fathers-acceptance/]A”>A Father's Acceptance: His Son Won't Follow His Ivy Footsteps - The New York Times)</p>
<p>I was delighted to sign onto our Naviance account today and see that one of S’s teachers has submitted his recommendation online. I knew it was supposed to work that way, but it was really nice to see it nonetheless. </p>
<p>I believe kids can also log in to their Common App account and see which forms the schools they have applied to have downloaded. Has anyone done that? S checked a couple of days after submitting his first app, and saw that his EA school had downloaded his application and supplement. Since the the other stuff (teacher recommendations, SSR) hadn’t been submitted yet, nothing was else listed. I’m curious whether those get listed on the Common App account too. Anyone know?</p>
<p>Remember how certain info didn’t show on the Common App when we printed it or hit print preview? D warily submitted it anyway. I just went on to the Common App site and this is what it said under the application:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It sure would have been nice if someone at the institution could have told us that!!!</p>
<p>mnmomof2-thanks for the link. great article!</p>
<p>LOVED The Choice. This one was truly wonderful!</p>
<p>SDMom – Yes, DS has applied via the Common App to two schools; on Monday, his GC finished her recommendation, and the next morning when I logged in to CA, it showed that both schools had downloaded his stuff. As for the teachers that you’ve requested to submit their recs, on ours right now it shows them as “Invited” and I believe when they submit their recs, it changes to “Submitted” or something to that effect. DS had asked his two teachers at least a couple of weeks ago and went by yesterday to remind them, now that the GC had done her part.</p>
<p>Thanks cgpm59. I could ask S to check, but he would roll his eyes and ask why. I guess I will have to ask him to give me his CA login info so I don’t have to bug him to check on the status of stuff.</p>
<p>^ Worth having your student login on your computer and have explorer save it—
I was able to check on our dd’s app and the GC stuff etc…so our student knew what the timeframe is… So we know the thing was downloaded Saturday…etc.
It’s very helpful ;o) L</p>
<p>I’ll bite and say I’m not the parent totally seeing the light on the essay. With my oldest student (as the student in the article) I found, and found the approach necessary for all of us. We had to change our definition of success. He was his own person!</p>
<p>I have a middle son who is also an individual who is a totally different student with different goals. So what about students who are high achieving? For parents whose students are not apply to an Ivy, is it selfish to hope that they get into their top choice? If we aren’t trying to pull strings, fill out their apps, write their essays, etc. do we fall into any form of acceptable behavior?</p>
<p>After having read that I feel badly for not just tossing up my hands and saying ‘Oh well, whatever. I’m cool.’.</p>
<p>I have a basic question for all of you who are farther along than we are.</p>
<p>Several schools’ checklists say something like 1) Common App; 2) Transcripts; 3) Teacher recommendation; 4) Essay; etc.</p>
<p>Why do some schools list an essay when the essay is included in the Common App and/or supplement? If they give extra essay prompts, do they want yet another essay (even if the prompts are essentially like the Common App essay?)? If they give no prompts, can we assume it’s just the Common App/supplement essays? </p>
<p>We’ve contacted one school to ask (the one that gave extra prompts). But now I’m seeing a couple of others that list “Essay” separately from “Common App” and I’m wondering if it’s just a reminder to include it in the Common App.</p>