<p>terinzak–the course offerings isn’t up to the student to put on the apps-that is what is sent over in the school report from the guidance office. I would NOT include that in another letter. As for the two other EC’s, how many did he have on there to start? If he had more than 5, don’t send another letter adding those. If they weren’t meaningful enough for him to remember them on the first app, colleges are going to look at it as padding EC’s.</p>
<p>Steve: He put 3 varsity sports, 1 jv sport, academic decathalon, NHS, tutoring, community volunteer work, spiritual emphasis leader, awards in Academic decathalon and in basketball…I think he put enough. He wanted to let them know that the school he attended in 9th/10th (which closed) offered honors classes in ENglish whereas his new current school doesnt. But to his credit he will have completed 4 APs at the end of the year.</p>
<p>The secret sauce for me was evidence of a supportive environment…lots of academic support available to everyone, not just those registered with the disabilities office. Sure I like small class sizes and relationships with faculty but I need to know that my S doesn’t have to jump through hoops to get help. I also paid close attention to the activities available on campus since my son is looking for a very tight knit community. The funny thing is that his list hasn’t changed that much even though his likely major changed from film to creative writing to computer science. Some came off due to lack of major/strength of major and the couple that were added were still pretty similar to the rest in the qualities we were looking for.</p>
<p>1st day of school down here. Crew has already started up but D’13 is only allowed to go 4 days a week until spring. Too much to do with college apps and keeping her grades up in her IB classes to go the regular 6 days a week (3-4 hours per day). </p>
<p>Hopefully last ACTs this Saturday.<br>
Also waiting on a response/acceptance from Dartmouth for a minorities in science symposium D’13 applied for last week. DD is part Native American.</p>
<p>DD also got the letter & brochure from Harvard. Nice boost to her self confidence but now she has added a couple of reaches to her list(Not Harvard). Then DH came home & added 2 financial safeties to the list. We are a little late in the game to be adding schools. I wish the mailings from colleges would stop unless they contain scholarship offers!</p>
<p>Thanks to the posts on here I realized that there’s no AP certificate here yet either. And GC’s haven’t notified any NMSF’s either. But there was a banner haul of mail today. Including Yale. Again.</p>
<p>Hoping for all our Lucky13ers that the odds are ever in their favor this Saturday when they take the ACT!</p>
<p>RobD: don’t give up hope yet on the AP certificate. My son just got his in the mail today. Hooray! Finally! 
One will be coming to your home soon!!!</p>
<p>We have a winner! Common app essay is complete. I thought it was good, but what do i know? He got two thumbs up from his summer instructor! So one down, 18 to go! </p>
<p>Sounds like AP is mailing in zones like they did with scores…S got his here in Ohio on Friday.</p>
<p>Terzinak, the school profile that is attached to the transcript should list all honors and ap classes offered. The college will see that no english honors is available. They should also be able to deduce from the transcript that some credits are from a different school that likely had different offerings.</p>
<p>Good morning all! D’s senior year is under way as of yesterday! There was much to report after a long day of school and sports practice, but I’ll just share a couple things. She really enjoyed her AP English Lit class. She liked that the class discussion was handled in much the same way as one of her classes at gov school. Due to a scheduling conflict, she also had to select a sports marketing class to complete her schedule. She is one of four girls in a class full of football players. Yesterday they drafted fantasy football teams! She made a call to her brother last night to discuss her strategy. Hilarious!</p>
<p>Thank you to those that shared the idea of taking a picture of your child’s first day of senior year holding a photo of the first day of kindergarten. We did this yesterday and the picture was great! H posted it on fb for family and friends, and we heard from all kinds of people.:)</p>
<p>I think my D got good news from the University of Alabama yesterday. She said there was a new tab on the portal labeled student and the honors app was there with some of her info already imported in it? I told her I thought that meant that she was likely admitted, but she would get a package in the mail formally letting her know.:)</p>
<p>Finally, how did you all select senior pictures?! D had hers taken Sunday, and we are having such a difficult time choosing!</p>
<p>Our school has a 1/2 day the first day for soph-seniors and just the freshman report early. The kids go to some assemblies to start and just go to class for 10 minutes/class. Today is the first “real” day of school. The kids are taking their transcript request forms to the GC to get that process started. I didn’t get a chance to talk to DS about his classes but DD likes her classes (students). Her physics class is made up of her gang of friends, about 14 of the kids in the class. She is loving that–I said that the teacher is going to love that class too. They are all STEM kids, all looking at medicine, engineering type careers.</p>
<p>Ok, some confusion about the common app essay–that is the one that can only be 500 words, correct? So, for schools that want an essay that are on common app, is that all you need to do or are you supposed to do another essay on top of the common app one?</p>
<p>SteveMA - Some of the schools do require additional essays as part of a supplemental application. Not all CA schools have supplements and not all supplements require/suggest essays.</p>
<p>Bah … Crappy start to a dreary day. I’m waiting on AAA to give my car a jump. I’m hoping the battery just got too wet from all the rain we got yesterday. I hate going in late.</p>
<p>Blueshoe- glad the pic went well! We did the kindergarten/senior pic too and although it wasn’t great, the sentiment was. Picking sr pics was hard for us too. But I am really happy with what we chose.</p>
<p>Ree- hope your car battery is fine. Sorry you had a rough start to your day.</p>
<p>Transcript requests- I don’t see it on Naviance at all. Is it only on the student log in and not the parent log in? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Received S2’s “formal” senior pics yesterday - the ones taken for yearbook and cap and gown. They were terrible. His eyes were half closed in all of them. Picked the best of the worst for his yearbook. I’m having some casual outdoors pics taken by a family friend as soon as it cools off here (still 103 yesterday). I’m sure we’ll get something decent. </p>
<p>S2 only has 4 essays to write for all of his apps. He’s only applying to 7 schools and 3 of them are on Common App. So far, he’s written 2 - so half done!!! Not brilliant, but serviceable. He’s getting in on auditions, so I think the essays are just to make sure that he can read and write English. I’d rather have him spend time rehearsing than writing essays anyway.</p>
<p>Is it bad form to use the same essay for more than one college? They all have the “a subject of your choice” option :D.</p>
<p>Steve…we are using similar ones for 3 apps…just make Sure to Proof if it mentions the Colleges name…or isn’t answering the prompt</p>
<p>Ree hope the car started up without a hitch (yes pun intended)</p>
<p>School started yesterday…classes seem great…tons of HW…as I reminded her first semester grades are as important as Jr year grades
Wow this is all happening so fast…
If I’m a wreck I can only imagine what’s going on in her head…
Ahhhh to be 17 again…well maybe Not…lollollol
My 2 cents…stick to 500 words or less…Follow the RULES they are there for a reason
Have a Great day everyone :)</p>
<p>Found a great frame on clearance at Kohls. It is from last may/June but with no date it doesn’t really matter. It says “Graduation” on top. Below one picture it says “Then”, below the second it says “Now”. You put the kindergarten cap and gown in one and senior cap and gown in the other. Regularly $25 marked down to $2.50</p>
<p>Good morning! S3 survived his first day. We also did a collage of sorts for the first day of school picture, I had S3’s kindergarten picture, D1’s first day of school picture (with S3 in the infant seat) and took his picture that morning. D1 showed me all the cute collage aps on the iphone and it turned out cute. I can’t believe how young he looked when he started kindergarten!! </p>
<p>Essays: The UC 2nd prompt is very, very, very similar to the common ap prompt #1, so the hope is to hit that essay out of the park and use it for both. He has a rough draft that I don’t love, but maybe with some tweaking. </p>
<p>We got the AP certificate yesterday. </p>
<p>He is not signed up for this weekend’s ACT (he has a XC race on Saturday), but likely will take it, one more time, in October.</p>