<p>swizzle-I keep forgetting to say that Quinnepac was on our list for a while. I really liked what I saw on paper but DD didn’t get good vibes from the coach for her sport so we crossed it off the already too long list :D. Glad you had a good visit!</p>
<p>To give you an example how my daughter rolls…As I’m typing above she comes in my room where I’m lounging in bed, sprinkles water on my face and asks me what our plans are today. SIGH… We’ve been traveling since Thursday. Her college roommates are going to LOVE her! (Sarcastically, of course).</p>
<p>Amazhon–how does she take payback? Sounds like my DD–they would have fun pulling pranks on each other :D.</p>
<p>@SteveMa-Not very well. She’s a spoiled sport! I can’t even imagine her rooming with someone like her. LOL. When would they sleep? They’d probably keep trying to one up each other…</p>
<p>Lol Carla, yes, maybe I should’ve used that tactic. They have a great engineering program there and at the state school in our backyard. She wants a change of scenery. So I suggested getting a scholarship to cover a dorm or apt. Didn’t work …</p>
<p>Morning 13ers! Looking forward to hearing all the great news at the stroke of midnight tonight!!!</p>
<p>So S13 was semi-productive yesterday one good essay, one not so good. He was able to push the button on tOSU this morning. 6 down, 7 to go!</p>
<p>To whoever was asking about the alternate version of the CA . . . it was pretty easy to follow with one caveat: if you’ve already added all your colleges, you have to move them to the new version it instructs you to choose the MOVE button on your colleges page, but there isnt a MOVE button. You go to your colleges page, select a college, and press the REMOVE button, THEN the option pops up to move the college to a different version.</p>
<p>I’m enjoying reading what everyone else is experiencing, the ups and the downs. We’re in a bit of a lull here, which I guess is good. S can focus on schoolwork for a while…LOL. All of his applications through November have been submitted. He said he’s not going to do any additional work on his CA essays, so I guess there’s no need to worry about the alternate application.</p>
<p>Well, DD is doing well on keeping up with homework. she is working on SAT practice tests this morning and says she has “a lot to do on my essays”. I am feeling that there may be hope in this process. She took the ACT. How does it get reported? Only by email? Does she have to go onto the site to get the scores or will they send an email with some kind of code? of course, she keeps coming up with more reaches to apply to, when we should be looking at some safeties!</p>
<p>Yes, you or she log into actsudent.org where you registered for the test and will see “view your scores” when they are available. They will also send a hard copy in the mail if you requested one. Occasionally scores are not available during the posted date if there was an issue reading the student’s test. It will be scored manually which adds to the wait period.</p>
<p>Today’s homework and studying day. Love it. Totally.</p>
<p>/Rant/ I love it when my friends don’t believe that I have a ton of essays to write. I literally have 17 essays to write. My friends telling me that they don’t believe me are the ones who do alright in school. They don’t take things as seriously as me and my other friends, but they do try. They’re mainly looking at tier 3 schools. While that’s all fine and dandy for them, I’m looking at many top tier and second tier schools. I’ve been working on my list for a while, so I know what I want. I’ve narrowed down my colleges time and time again, and I feel confident with what I currently have. With that said, not every college I’m applying to is making me write something. There’s a select few (like Barnard, NYU, and Emerson) that want me to write more than one or two supplemental essays. I’m fine with writing them and I’ve expected it. It’s just hard to balance a social life, school, and college stuff all at the same time. It gets me so angry when some of my friends say that I should “pace myself” and not do all of these essays at once. It annoys me when they tell me that I should “live a little”. I don’t have time to “pace myself”. I work 15-20 hours a week, am a part of so many things, have so much homework, and the only time I can get my essays done is during the weekend. I’m fine with it. And, you know what, I do live a little. I live a lot. I do things alllll the time. Just because I decide to stay in one Saturday night for the first time in a long time doesn’t mean that I’m a homebody or that I’m a nerd, or that I’m socially awkward, or anything like that. It just means that I want to freaking stay home and work on stuff. I think that spending my time this way is more productive than going out to some fair that I have to pay money to get into (which, by the way, I don’t have any of right now). Ugh. High school. /end rant/ </p>
<p>Sorry about that! I’m sure some of your kids can relate to this, though. It really sucks when some of my friends don’t really understand why I go through and do certain things.</p>
<p>I look at college as a new start in life. It’s really important for me to get into the schools I want to get into, because it’s a matter of a whole different way of living.This whole process is literally me figuring out how I’m going to live a new life. I know that not everyone can understand this, but that’s just how it is for me.</p>
<p>Congrats on the Pitt acceptances!</p>
<p>DS is dragging his feet on essays.</p>
<p>NMF essay is due next Sunday. I am really begging him to be done the Bama Honors & UFE essays by then as well. Once he gets the Bama Honors app done I’m hoping I can relax. </p>
<p>He has 4 interviews set up and has an alumni request in at another school, so he is at least moving things along.</p>
<p>All this college stuff on top of regular school and EC activities is overwhelming to me. I don’t know how these kids do it.</p>
<p>My biggest frustration is that some of the schools he wants to apply to aren’t affordable for us without loans. We’ve had the money talks ad nauseam, but he “just wants to see” on some merit. With the great Bama scholarship, I really wish he would drop more schools. Or wish he’d get on the ball with the essays. </p>
<p>This was so much easier with my niece - When it is not you kid, it is much easier to not have guilt over money and anxiety over applications. I just didn’t expect to feel this way. Esp with the rolling admissions at Bama. I can’t imaging the psycho I’d be without that early acceptance.</p>
<p>Walker - I need 24/7 basement hours!</p>
<p>Thanx amazhon, that report was well done. My D goes to a school that sends 5-10 to JHU each year. They are ambitious kids (who choose JHU) so I imagine a pretty competitive, study most of the time, atmosphere. In fact, I think schools that feel the need to address student competition on tours (or talk about a lounge built to foster more cooperation), probably feel a great deal of it on campus.</p>
<p>Happy Sunday! Went for a lovely walk in the local lake/nature area with DH & D2 yesterday. Weather is wonderful. I have a big pot of sauce & meatballs simmering today. </p>
<p>Longhaul: the UA honors app takes 15 minutes. It shouldn’t take long to bang that out. D2 got the letter about UFE yesterday; right into recycling. She still has to finish the app for Blount. </p>
<p>I’ll be happy to see scores tomorrow; D2 thinks it was her best sitting. I’m hopeful it will reflect her current superscore.</p>
<p>After our AI chatter, I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about D2’s list. She hasn’t seen 2 out of 8 of the schools on her list yet (plus a late addition black horse) so they may or may not still be on her list after visits are completed October 24th. Which would leave 6. 3 of those she’s only seen in the summer, so maybe they won’t be a good “fit” when students are there. Of the remaining 3, one is a HMFR (love that!) one she’d need their big merit aid to make it work, and then there’s UA (which is a wonderful school, and she keeps insisting she’s fine with it as her safety but…)</p>
<p>So I keep second guessing “the list.” She’s not preppy or Greek, would like someplace a little quirky, but doesn’t want it to be smaller than her high school. Which is the kicker. There’s lots of quirky LAC’s, but they’re almost all smaller than 2000. So she won’t consider them. Sigh.</p>
<p>In honor of fall, I think I’m naming today Hard Cider Sunday.</p>
<p>RobD</p>
<p>UA Honors app - I think my biggest frustration is because it is easy responses/essays. I don’t get why he doesn’t just get it down. UFE is very appealing to son; CBHP, not at all, but too many on campus told son to truly be considered for UFE, he should show interest in CBHP. Maybe that is his hold up - not knowing which way to go for CBHP.</p>
<p>He has no interest in Blount, even though it sounds very much like some of LACs he is interested in…</p>
<p>Son hasn’t seen 3 out of his 9. 1 was a safety that he has since lost interest in. The other 2 would only warrant a visit if accepted with big merit. </p>
<p>I ran the AI - Thanks for the link - and it makes me feel better about his big reach schools. </p>
<p>Swizzle - Rant away! Your friends are correct, you ARE giving up a social life and writing many essays. You know what you want. You know that the trade off for today’s social life is getting yourself to the life you want next year. Just know, it doesn’t get easier. Plenty of our family and friends don’t get why we sacrificed a better lifestyle for our kids education. You’ll enjoy your friends, but seldom will all your values align.</p>
<p>UFE/CBHP connection: really? I hadn’t heard that but they’re so different. UFE is so community service focused & CBHP is so programming/research focused. They’re pulling from the same pool of top kids, but I never heard about the connection. There is no way that either D would have been interested in or accepted to CBHP, so I admit that I tune a lot of their specifics out. </p>
<p>Just remembered that I want D2 to finish up her NMSF app today…</p>
<p>This is beginning to feel like True Confessions Sunday, so I’ll join in.</p>
<p>I don’t want to understand the AI because I. Don’t. Want. To. Know. Some of college admissions is science; some is art. I think I was a little conservative with ds1. He applied to 11 and got into nine, WL’d at one. Pretty good. So I haven’t been as conservative with ds2, and, between you and I, I’m beginning to worry that his list is too reachy. There are some pretty big-name schools on it, but, really, he’s got great stats, leadership, URM – I think he’s competitive just about anywhere. But maybe I need to prepare him that he shouldn’t expect to do as well as his brother because his brother didn’t aim as high.</p>
<p>I wish I had some hard cider. ;)</p>
<p>Congrats on the Pitt acceptances!</p>
<p>DD13a went to an honors/campus visit to University of Louisville. I think she was more impressed with it than expected to be. I think she had it in her head that it was equivalent to a CC or something. Learned differently and I think is now okay having it as a safety. We are visiting NKU in a couple of weeks as her other safety. Progress. She has an interview this week for a $2500 scholarship. It’s between her and another girl to move on to the final selection. I’m thinking about hunting the kid down and breathing my current funk in her face. Spreading the wealth, so to speak.</p>
<p>Freaking out a little about auditions coming up so soon for DD13b. We will be traveling quite a bit to get all of these auditions done. At least we have a lot of her applications done and she is now working on scholarship apps for schools.</p>
<p>I’m worried about those scores coming out tomorrow. I’m in the basement pre-medicating and watching Game of Thrones with the girleens. Sex scenes are so awkward to watch with the fruit of my loins.</p>
<p>Amazhon, thank you for the instructions and information! Very helpful.
sauce and meatballs…can I come over??</p>
<p>Its a chili and cornbread kind of day here in NEOhio. </p>
<p>RobD 15 minutes? I wish! Your D is a writer . . . my math kid took ½ a day to write a crappy paragraph for the UA Honors app and he still has to do the CBHP essay. </p>
<p>My S13 has only seen 5 out of his 13. </p>
<p>Reeinaz S13 did an alternate version of the CA because he realized he should use his EC paragraph in the writing section to explain a different EC for his apps. No way hes writing another CA essay! lol</p>
<p>I’ve got three kinds of hard cider in the fridge: Angry Orchard, Woodchuck Amber & the seasonal Fall Woodchuck. Help yourselves. Oh and there’s a loaf of italian bread next to the sauce, so feel free to taste :)</p>
<p>MommyD: that is true. But I bet your math kid would power through the math homework that D2 agonizes over. I am very thankful that there isn’t a math section on the applications!</p>