<p>Shawbridge, I feel your frustration. My S submitted a Nov 1 EA Comm App last weekend. His LORs went via snail mail (we sent the big envelope with everything enclosed). Only 1 of 2 teachers replied to his CA LOR invitation. My understanding is that the teachers are supposed to reply to the CA invitation that they submitted the LOR manually. My S asked this teacher to reply. He doesn’t want to bug him as the teacher promised he would do it. </p>
<p>Fortunately the college emailed my S when they received the application and said they would notify him mid-Nov if anything was missing and give him a chance to rectify the situation. Thus I’m not having a canary. My S is totally calm altho who knows what he is thinking.</p>
<p>FlMathMom - Thanks for posting this link. Hopefully CC will leave it up as it isn’t a glowing review of the current situation with the Common App. As many members here have posted, our students are experiencing the very things that are stated in this article.</p>
<p>I find it ironic that the Common App, which was designed to make the process so much easier, has created so many hoops to jump through. As seen in many posts here our students are between a rock and a hard place. The Common App instructions clearly state that documents should be sent electronically. The teachers and administrators do not always want to do this. Our students are asking the teachers for a favor and do not want to appear argumentative so they must accept the method in which the teachers want to send the information. They then have to play catch up with the universities to make sure the documents all find their way to a single place to be evaluated on time…</p>
<p>And on, and on, and on… as if it’s not stressful enough for the students as it is.</p>
<p>Blue - I won’t be surprised if the link disappears into CC netherworld. I hesitated before posting fearing my banishment. Thanks for the NY Times article. I’m reviewing 3 essays at the moment and need a chuckle.</p>
<p>Woo Hoo! D hit the “Submit” button on her 2 EA apps! Such a great feeling for her and for me. Best of luck to all who are almost there. The end is in sight</p>
<p>Hi all - just got back from 2 days at UMinn and a really good visit. Took a tour, met students and admissions people, saw 2 plays. Also went to Mall of America, of course, especially for the sake of our Japanese exchange student!</p>
<p>D got a ton of information not only about this school but in general to help her with the process and with her own personal decision-making. A very helpful trip, and good timing. She’d been on many other school visits, but never post-application and not for several months. We have found out that they can’t promise any answers soon, even though she applied weeks ago - not really a first-come/first-served system, unfortunately. </p>
<p>AND on the way home she wrote one of her CA essays, and has started the other. I knew once she started she’d crank them out. Just needed to put “butt in chair” as writers often say. The other will be done tomorrow. She doesn’t have any 11/1 EA deadlines, but this means 6 apps can go in by Mon or Tues anyway, and another 2 with supplements can go within another week. This gets us closer to scheduling auditions, too. Yay!</p>
<p>Our guidance office seems to roll with the times, so I’m feeling lucky that way. But I’m waiting for whatever snafu is coming. </p>
<p>I’m sorry about the dog news - we’ve been through it, too. I’d say that in our case 1) kids hate to have things kept from them and 2) they always find out, anyway. I’m glad it worked out as well as could be expected.</p>
<p>Congrats on the acceptances! Keep it coming! If anyone thinks we’ve had one, though, I’m afraid not yet. We’re expecting a quick turnaround on one that goes in this week, so maybe soon.</p>
<p>EmmyBet: glad your trip was a success. And so good to hear that your daughter is on a roll with her applications. Sounds like she’ll be in a great position by the end of this upcoming week.</p>
<p>The article about Common App
Naviance and CC was interesting…</p>
<p>our hs is having a lot of issues with CA and Naviance and the hs GCs claim there are secruity issues with Naviance, hence no parents/kids with passwords…
and snail mail for LORs…exactly as described in the article…</p>
<p>Lets face it–its a HUGE money maker for CA and Naviance…</p>
<p>I am convinceed the intel/tracking etc must get recycled/used in some way…</p>
<p>This is the first year my school is using Naviance to submit LORs. Although it’s easier than sending it via mail, it still seems strange how a teacher cannot send it directly via the commonapp server.</p>
<p>4 CA submits today! yeah. 8 to go…boo. And 3 of them are not CA. Those are the next three S will work on, one is due Nov 1, the other 2 are rolling. I will reiterate what I read here or somewhere else on CC, make sure you use print preview. S’s short essay looked like it was OK til we did print preview and found out it got cut off.</p>
<p>EmmyBet, glad the trip went so well and spawned essays! Sounds like she’s really making progress now!</p>
<p>We roll into tech week tomorrow. The show opens Friday.</p>
<p>I have to be out of town on business Monday, and then slam into gear to get ready for out-of-town guests during show weekend.</p>
<p>Thursday, D missed a phone call from an Admission counselor at one of the schools she applied to. The voicemail said she was calling with a response to D’s app and with scholarship information.</p>
<p>D tried to return call Fri after school, but had to leave vm. We shall see what Monday brings…</p>
<p>mamom: regarding the essay cut-off: although the CA gives 150 word max, it’s actually 1000 characters with spaces. before my S cut and pasted that essay, he worked on word and made sure that he didn’t exceed the 1000 characters WITH SPACES. that’s key. as far as print preview, he reviews it first and because he wants to make sure nothing is missed, he’ll ask either my H or I to take a look too. he prints it out b/c he thinks it’s easier for him to catch mistakes in hard copy.</p>
<p>fogfog, i thought that article about naviance, CC and CA was interesting too and have sent it on to some friends. this is the first year that my S’s school is using naviance eDocs for the recs/counselor report and initially they too had problems with it. and obviously, there are some glitches b/c i’ve noted on this thread that others experience some of the things we’ve experienced. for example, it will say that the CA is downloaded but not the supplement.</p>
<p>and i’m hoping that nothing will crash the system in the next two days before EA and ED apps are due. My S’s app is complete and downloaded but for that one teacher rec that I’ve been complaining about here. i wonder, is the the app considered late if one teacher doesn’t send their rec in on time? since the school uses naviance eDocs, it’s clear that she invited herself onto his apps on Oct. 14 but has yet to submit the letter. nothing like adding a lot more stress to a stressful process.</p>
<p>Congrats to all with acceptances in hand and to those hitting the submit button. I am sure we are going to be able to have that party here soon. Lots of D’s friends are submitting early apps this weekend but she seems unfazed. </p>
<p>Good luck with the show opening MOSB. Exciting times! The musical here is in a couple weeks and while D isn’t in it I am really looking forward to it because many of her friends are and she will be on the Tech Crew.</p>
<p>Kajon, I am so sorry about your dog. Kids are funny aren’t they? But it sounds like he was able to process it and knew you were seeking the most caring way to handle it with him.</p>
<p>The Naviance/CA article was very interesting. This is the first year our school is using Naviance and now I am a bit nervous. OK, I was already nervous because its a brave new world doing everything on line. </p>
<p>We have scheduled all the auditions that don’t require an application to be submitted first and now I wait chomping at the bit for those to get in. Apparently D does not feel my same sense of urgency. She was soooo close to submitting her first, super easy app but got cold feet. I think it will happen this week and I am hoping getting in one will feel so good it will start to snowball. A mom can hope, right?</p>
<p>We are joining the Happy Dancers who submitted apps tonight. #4 & #5 are in. Two more to go. Both were due mid-November. More important, the teacher who had not responded to CA LOR invitation (LOR sent snail mail a few days ago) finally responded. Fortunately his son is my son’s best friend so he was able to contact him at home to give him a nudge. As I said earlier, his Nov 1 school is going to let the students know what is missing by mid-Nov and allow them to submit then so RenMom I would not worry too much. Still annoying!!</p>
<p>MOSB - can’t wait to hear about your D’s call.</p>
<p>We are off to Houston in the AM for a quick visit to Rice on Monday. We’ll return home Monday night. No school/work on Tues - Election Day. Until then…</p>
<p>Thanks madbean, I’ll gladly take a slice!! Serious comfort food at midnight! :)</p>
<p>Sounds like busy weekends all around. No additional apps submitted here, but lots of SAT2 studying for next weekend. First and second drafts done of the Common App main essay were done today. Looking pretty good. He’ll send it for teacher review Monday. He’s waiting on two essays to come back from another teacher, so hopefully with a few revisions as suggested they should be ready. That would put app #2 out of 3 out this week. If he can get that app in, a final edit on the Common app essay, and be ready for the SAT2 next week, I’ll consider it a huge victory.</p>
<p>Thanks RMom! His essay did have an empty line between paragraphs, instead of indenting. We eliminated the empty line and indented the paragraphs and it fit perfectly.</p>
<p>Cake with coffee is a great way to start off Halloween! Thanks. Every time I was out shopping the past few weeks I picked up a couple bags of candy thinking we weren’t going to have enough. Well I am now convienced I bought way too much candy, it will have to go into work with H Monday, D and I have a serious sweet tooth.</p>
<p>@renaissancemom: my guess is that the november 1 date is mostly for the applicant. I think there is some leniency for counselors and such. If the LOR is a few days past nov 1, I do not think that will have any bearing on anything. after all, most colleges state that they will accept test scores from november sittings for ED.</p>
<p>Today is the last day for EA right? I guess I know what DS will be doing today. He says 3/4 are done and he needs to edit the essay. He is working all day, so I’m sure it will be another long evening to start the week, as I’m sure there is homework as well. Ugh.</p>