<p>I guess we have to find our own place, somewhere between throwing up our hands and digging in up to our elbows …</p>
<p>Tonight D is exhausted, finally done with her 2 plays, caught up with schoolwork, amazingly, and would like to get some ACT prep done. But what she really needs - and is doing - is to watch a silly movie with her exchange student sister (who also needs a break tonight!) and go to bed early.</p>
<p>As it says in the article, life will go on! I, in the meantime, am making some final lists of specifics for her apps - exactly which ones require exactly which recommendations, forms, etc. I feel it’s the least I can do. Sure, we’re trying to let her live as much as she will next year, for the practice - make her own decisions about sleep, food, friends, etc. - but she’s still only barely 17 and needs some help once in a while. And a few goodies, a few pats on the back, a few hugs and even a bailout under the right circumstances.</p>
<p>I do not have any urge to fill out forms in her name, won’t write a word for her, but I’m happy to reduce her “administrative” load if I can. Especially if she continues being a nice, happy, considerate person.</p>
<p>no commentary from me…
just an interesting tidbit…</p>
<p>====
OTOH</p>
<p>It has been such an interesting week.
Earlier in the week, I had a sweet 3rd grader in my class. The little boy was struggling to do the writing workshop assignment…which was an essay about who he is , and drawing a self portrait…
i sat with him for a bit: helping him consider what he liked, his favorite foods, what he did in the afternoons etc…he told me about how his cat “garfield” gets him into trouble. It was so sweet. My favorite part was his self portrait-- a simple face drawn with markes. Grey eyes, and a balloon caption that read “I LIKE ME” I just wanted to Hug him!! What a great job his parents must be doing that he is so happy and I really hope he continues to like himself.</p>
<p>On the other side, I had an 11th grader, a girl. She had recently been released from a mental hospital. She shared with me how she is suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and depression. The sweet, sweet girl: she said she is struggling to get out of hs while her brother is in an ivy. We talked about how her feet are not in concrete, she can always change paths etc. I wished I had so much more time to speak life into her!</p>
<p>During this time when the apps process seems to be all consuming, I am so grateful to have gotten a broader view.</p>
<p>Emmy, I think they list the essay as a separate entity because (this is just my opinion), technically it is not really “part” of the common app per se. You have to upload it into the CA form. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I’m pretty sure those schools where you’re seeing it listed separately are just referring to the CA essay.</p>
<p>Anybody have more direct knowledge on that?</p>
<p>Glad your D is getting some needed down-time after her show. They just have to decompress a little from time to time. We ALL do!</p>
<p>Fogfog, I envy you those rich moments with students you teach. I’m sure you get your share of “dillies,” but the last 2 you posted about sounded so tender and sweet.</p>
<p>D received email from asst dir of admissions at a school on her list (the one she vocal-auditioned at last week).</p>
<p>After acknowledging receipt of her app and listing what items they’ve received so far and what they are still awaiting, he wrote:</p>
<p>“By the way, I really enjoyed reading your personal essay about your love of (X) and the way it has shaped who you are. I absolutely loved this line: (here he quotes one of my 2 favorite sentences in the essay, verbatim).” He then goes on to link what my D was expressing there with specific opportunities/experiences she can have at this school to build on and continue this facet of her life and personality.</p>
<p>Is that common? We were both happily surprised that an Adcom would respond with such specificity and insight to a student’s essay.</p>
<p>But maybe we’re just inexperienced…first-timers. :)</p>
<p>mosb- I don’t think the ad-com’s do that to all students, at least that hasn’t been my experience. My older kids have told me that their essay’s have been brought up in interviews however, and when that happened it was very surprising. My daughter visited her grad school and the admissions person mentioned her essay and said something like, “I’d like to talk about some things you wrote about regarding x,y,z…” and my daughter drew a blank not remembering a thing she had written. (oops!) </p>
<p>Have you read, “The Gatekeepers”? That book is written about admissions at Wesleyan and the author goes into the essays quite a bit and how they effect the admissions process. Which is why my son, btw, needed to take out a sentence in his essay saying something like, “and I can find out about the world without ever leaving my computer”.</p>
<p>I think it’s wonderful that your daughter was quoted and she should take heart in the comments. Yay for both of you!</p>
<p>MOSB - that was so nice - I think that sounds very positive for your girl!</p>
<p>Our girl’s Common App has been sent to 4 schools - one ED, 2 EA and one regular. I have a question or two though…</p>
<p>1 How can you see if the schools have looked at them?
2. If the deadline is Nov 15th and decisions on Dec 15th, is there any possibility they will let us know any earlier than Dec 15th - I know it’s only 7 weeks but patience has never been a virtue in this house (mum or daughter!)
3.If by some hideous error, something is missing, would the school notify you?
4 What is the sequence of events now that the App is in?</p>
<p>Any info would be great thanks - first time doing this and frightened to be relieved this part is done in case we have forgotten something vitally important!</p>
<p>Momofsongbird: Wow! That can’t be a common occurrence. I’ve never heard of such personal praise myself. But I do hope it’s common enough for my daughter to get a similar letter!</p>
<p>Hi folks, I guess I should join this thread. My dau is in 12th gr and we are going through this wonderful EA app process right now, ugh. </p>
<p>Our school uses Naviance & the GC wants all the apps to be Common, and sent through her apparently. She is the best GC in the school imo, Older Sis had her 13 yr ago.</p>
<p>One of the schools to which Dau 3 is now applying has different essay prompts on their “Advantage” application, and Dau wishes to use one of these instead of the ones on the CA. GC does not want her to use Advant App for this school, but use the Common App—she thinks we are hesitating because of the fee waiver and she is wrong, it is the choice of essay. </p>
<p>Also, while she is claiming that all apps go through her & the school will only use the Common App (except for Rutgers, which has its own system), the very day before I received this email, dau came home & got a load of envelopes and stamps from me, to give to teachers who are writing LORs for her — it seems they have not heard the Call To Common App as given by the guidance office!</p>
<p>Dau in tears nearly every night because if she isn’t stressing over some aspect of her own apps, she is weeping for a friend whose parents only want her to go to X school, another friend who hasn’t a clue about something, a third friend who has some other issue and so on.</p>
<p>Welcome, JRZ! We hear you. I hope this place can be some support to you.</p>
<p>Tears about a friend, tears about homework, tears about … whatever. Lucky at our house they’re fairly sporadic. I hope your D can get some downtime - it sounds like some of this is exhaustion. I get it from my college senior, too. At least last night my D in her meltdown admitted she knew it was just being tired, and she got up ready to face another day. This is new with her!! I’m glad she’s found some perspective, because the next couple of weeks are going to be REALLY hard work, cranking out the apps.</p>
<p>Little bit of friend angst here - our HS doesn’t quite have the college competition, but just the usual teenage stuff. D has BF; friend doesn’t - you get the picture.</p>
<p>mosb - Congrats for such a reassuring, reaffirming experience! Your D sounds wonderful, and it surprises me not one bit! And thanks for the reassurance. I’m presuming if there’s no extra prompt, there’s no extra essay. We’ll see what the school with the extra prompts says. </p>
<p>We’re hitting the “real stuff” now, starting to schedule auditions for winter. Wow! But for D that’s the fun part.</p>
<p>JRZmom, emmy bet: you need to go over to cafe and commiserate with the recent poster about her daughter’s mood; she thinks she is alone…I’ve already posted…</p>
<p>MOSB: Wow, I think that’s great news for your daughter. If this admissions counselor loved her essay, I’m sure all the others will as well! </p>
<p>Welcome to the newcomers. </p>
<p>Re: questions about how to distinguish what the colleges have received from the Common App. Click into school forms. For the counselor form (which includes the transcript as well as their recommendation) and the teachers forms, you’ll see one of three different status reports: Invited, Submitted and Downloaded. Each will be accompanied w/ dates, so you’ll know actually what date the file was downloaded by the college. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Here, we’ve got 2 apps submitted and verified completed. My S will be pressing the CA submit on his ED and EA apps next Thursday after he receives his SAT II math 2 results. The apps are completed but for one small optional essay for the EA app. After that I’ll let out a sigh of relief: 4 apps in by Nov 1, and many others to work on thru Dec 10 when they’re all due to his GC.</p>
<p>Mosb – It sounds like your D has done great job on her essay. I have heard about these things happen, but they are by no means common. I think you can be optimistic about your D getting acceptance from that school. </p>
<p>I didn’t realize that one can see if the CA has been downloaded by the school. Thanks to the 2011 parents for the information. I checked statuses of the 2 applications that S submitted and both CA were downloaded, but both Supplements were not. Is that normal? Did he miss a step? He submitted those apps almost 3 weeks ago. Both Supplements are in the ‘Submitted’ status.</p>
<p>Our GC does her LOR on paper. She mails her LOR, transcript and School Profile form with teacher LORs if the teachers also opted to do the paper rec. My S has one teacher who is doing online LOR and one that is doing paper LOR. I hope colleges will be OK with that. </p>
<p>The online LOR was also downloaded by colleges.</p>
<p>My D’s also said that the app had been downloaded but not the supp. That seems ineffecient to me to do it in multiple steps. I would love to see what the process looks like from the schools’ end.</p>
<p>MOSB That is really amazing…I should think she is In at that school, given the specificity of quoting her essay etc. Hope its one she likes… :D</p>
<p>KeyLime, haven’t seen you at the athletic recruiting boards lately-and miss you there…so quiet lately with people “waiting”…or is that a different KeyLime poster?</p>
<p>As I have learned --many use the same names on different web sites…I once tried to get fogfog as an email address…however several use it, including adding a 1,2, etc behind it…</p>
<p>Doesn’t this feel like watching everyone and wondering who is going into labor pains first… lol</p>
<p>MOSB: I think that’s a great response from the AdCom! How exciting for your daughter!</p>
<p>blueiguana: I wondered myself as I read that article. My thought is that it depends entirely on the child. Each of mine is so different…and DS2 who is our senior is high achieving and very driven. I am letting him drive the process and I am providing clerical and organizational support. He is planning to apply to two ivys, and it is his choice. Personally, I think there are better fits out there for him and I’m hoping that when he has some acceptances on the table in April that he will realize that too. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to help them to realize a dream, but I think that it needs to his dream…not mine.</p>
<p>I can say I have seen alot–
these two moments this week were truly blessings.
Really honest, transparent moments–when a child is sharing a vunerable true part of themselves, and I, a stranger, feel priviledged to be able to be a blessing in that moment. </p>
<p>Other days I come home and think , OMG these kids are going to be the tax base and the future of our nation (skills/aptitude/laziness, criminal record etc)–we are doomed!</p>
<p>One of the schools that my son is applying to doesn’t use the CA. They require two LORs and state on the website that there is no specific form for the recommendations. Do you think that it is okay to use a printed form of the CA LOR for these? </p>
<p>Our school uses all printed LORs, even though they use the Naviance system. I wish they were using more features of Naviance, but it’s better than 3 years ago when my older son was a senior and they didn’t even have Naviance. Perhaps by the time my next son is a senior (he’s a freshman right now), they’ll have figured this out!</p>