<p>Welcome Stressedmum! We are here for eachother - you found the right place.</p>
<p>Classof2015 - LOL! re the mind meld via the computer screen. I am afraid the trick might be too dangerous to attempt: if the timing is not exact, your DS might end up stuck in front of the tv watching ESPN for hours and hours ;)</p>
<p>S1 surprised me yesterday, called with questions for the CA! Hooray! He got through the basics and invited his LOR teachers (after e-mailing them), worked on his essay draft too. Now if only he would look at the summer AP homework. Baby steps, I keep telling myself that. :)</p>
<p>Welcome stressedmum! I agree that you aren’t really behind. Our school just sent home the guidance schedule for the year and their College Planning Presentation for seniors and their parents isn’t scheduled until Sept 9th. The College Fair for the local area is Oct 3rd. Kids/parents on cc often tend to be way ahead of the norm.</p>
<p>Hooray for my2sonsfromca’s DS! And a belated welcome! :)</p>
<p>calla1- He’s ALMOST done. There are some rocks left over after filling all the letters and edges in. He ran out of spray paint about halfway around the border- which is blue. The paint was given to him by the school and they don’t have more. It’s hard to find paint- it’s the paint they use to paint the handicap blue color lines in parking lots. Ugh. We may be buying 20 cans of a different blue and re-spraying the borders. </p>
<p>Tonight, he and his dad are going to “clean it up”- fill in any spots that look low and find somewhere to put the rest of the rocks. I’m shopping tonight with my daughter because she leaves for NYC Saturday morning! </p>
<p>It turns out the “football game” someone mentioned that is supposed to be tonight is actually just a scrimmage. It is super humid today and may rain tonight- not a good day to paint. We will pick up some paint and spray it either tomorrow night or Saturday during the day, depending on the weather. The heaviest work is pretty much done though- phew!</p>
<p>^^^Almost there, BarnardMom! My son had some cleanup too. But having the heavy work done is a big accomplishment, and the rest is easy in comparison. For us, it started sinking in several days later after our muscles recovered and we caught up on sleep. Congratulations to your son!</p>
<p>It looks like thunderstorms tonight so we’ll be taking a much needed break from the project today. Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and less humid so I bet we can get it done more easily with some rest and some nicer weather for the last of the work :)</p>
<p>The principal has some spray paint too, so we might not have to buy any. We have to find out how much. </p>
<p>S14 has worked so hard this week. Then today he had high school prep day and since he’s on the exec board for the freshmen mentoring program, he had to be there all day. Then he had tennis practice from 3-5. He has his first tennis tournament tomorrow and has to be at the school at 7 am for that. He’s wiped out tired. (Ok, we’re ALL wiped out tired!)</p>
<p>Finally had a big heart-to-heart with our son and picked a “final” list of 8 colleges to apply to. Yay! He’ll be back to school Monday so that’s a nice way to start off senior year.</p>
<p>I am working on the admin assistant bit of this (ordering SAT scores). I do know all about score choice options but I have run into some confusion. The college board claims that they have given the schools the choice of which score policy they want, and it will show up in the college list you have chosen as recipients of the scores. Every school on his list shows up as All Scores. However, the schools’ individual websites do NOT request all scores. Several say they will superscore, some say they won’t look at subject tests, some say they will consider subject tests if sent… each is different. </p>
<p>He took SAT twice, and one subject test. The second sitting was uniformly better (i.e. every single score was an improvement over the previous sitting) so there is no apparent benefit to sending the first set of scores. The subject test was 690 so that is not beneficial to send either. College board warns that if you don’t send all scores you’re violating the school’s policies… but these aren’t the school’s stated policies.</p>
<p>Does anyone know about this? Should we send all scores? My cynical side would like to know what college board gets from making people send all scores when colleges don’t want them. The price is the same.</p>
<p>Seattle_mom, you got me. We’re an ACT area, so each score report costs. We would not send all scores simply for that reason.</p>
<p>In other news, i would like to *itch a little bit about these essay prompts. D’s last school had an essay prompt asking how she would contribute to the school’s diversity because it was SO important to them. She can’t answer. “Dude, I’m brown,” is only 3 words (4 if she replaces the contraction). </p>
<p>We, as a family, and the kids in particular are SO SICK of “diversity” programs in the schools. It started when d’14 was in middle school and she got called in to talk to a consultant. See, in a school that’s nearly 50% minority, there are darn few non-white kids in TAG (I know, a nation-wide problem with those programs in general). The consultant kept asking her if she had any friends. Ok, this kid became cheer captain. She knows EVERYBODY. She’s never had social issues, even in middle school. </p>
<p>We’re very race conscious. Being a minority comes with issues; we know that, BUT being held up as some kind of “diversity” icon is just insulting, as is the notion of a school that’s SO upfront about wanting that. We might want you, but ONLY if you contribute to “diversity.” </p>
<p>And what about kids who aren’t diverse? Honestly, differences and diversity are two different things. Were I applying to this school, I couldn’t answer the question. I am white. I have the same religious affiliation as the school. I am from the same geographic region. In fact, before I got married, I lived in the same city as this school. I would not in any way, shape, or form contribute to “diversity” on campus. What could I say in the essay? </p>
<p>Ok, rant over. By the way, d decided to apply to a different school. Still has 7 on the list.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading through the thread and am trying to follow along. Every time I’m about to post there are new posts, I read them and then don’t have time to post.</p>
<p>I have a D who is class of 2014. She’s our oldest and this is our 1st go around with the whole college scene. I feel like she is way behind, especially when reading the forums on this site, but compared to real life friends and such, she’s probably somewhat in the middle of the pack.</p>
<p>We have toured schools and such, but she will only go to a school that has a gymnastics team, so it really does limit the schools that she is interested in. It does seem like she has found her top choice. I am making her apply to at least 1 other school as well, but she knows where she wants to go, but we are in a hold pattern right now.</p>
<p>We submitted her transcripts & SAT scores for a pre-read through the coach at the school, this was back in the end of July - still haven’t heard anything back yet. Coach has been into her gym watched her and has said that if she can get in on her own merit, that he would give her something. Something is the big question. Not sure if that means partial or full ride, I’m thinking partial would be more like it.</p>
<p>We toured school last week and she loves it, we actually like it a lot too and do feel it’s a great fit for her and shockingly, it’s close to home. Based on the information session, she has the GPA to get in and the SAT score, but we still need to wait for the official word from admissions on the pre-read back to the coach. He won’t talk anything until then. It has literally been a month, it just seems sooooooo long!</p>
<p>Since we are thinking that at most she will get a partial, she is taking the SAT again. She is 150 points off from their lowest academic scholarship for incoming Freshman and 250 from the next tier up scholarship. so we are hoping that if she can raise her scores she can cover a good portion of the left over bill with an academic scholarship and then she would be in a good position.</p>
<p>I hate waiting. I printed out the school application for her to look at and get an idea for the essay. Her clock just runs so much slower than mine does!</p>
<p>zebradome–have you seen this section of CC? [Athletic</a> Recruits - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/]Athletic”>Athletic Recruits - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>Lots of useful info and populated by many helpful and well-informed parents. My son will not be an athletic recruit but based on others’ war stories, I would be wary of granting much weight to the coach’s statement “if she can get in on her own merit, that he would give her something”.</p>
<p>SeattleMom—I will be curious to hear the reply to your SAT score reporting question also as my son has a similar situation. Higher score on all three sections for second sitting. I thought there were few schools who required reporting all scores. (Cornell is one that does require all scores.) We are far from reporting/filing/submitting anything yet so I haven’t even looked at the CB site other than to register for yet one more SAT attempt.</p>
<p>Zebradom - (welcome!) Doesn’t sound like you are behind at all. You have one SAT in the bag, you have visited schools, D has a first choice and it looks doable. I’d say you are looking pretty good right now.</p>
<p>CT - Yes I have seen that section and have followed if for a couple of years now, not really posting, just following along. I have gotten some information there, but no one has really been in the same sport as my D. I have seen one poster that their D’s in the same sport, but that has just happened recently. We have been on the ball with everything in her sport, since her Freshman year. I’ve had a difficult time getting her to focus and Fall of Junior year was frustrating. She knew she had to have a good academic year & a good season in her sport and instead of stepping up, she basically shut down and it was hard to work through and then throw in what was supposed to be a season ending injury… ugh Junior yr was somewhat stressful.</p>
<p>She is starting to see why her grades are important though and I point that out when we go on these college tours. She is not a 4.0 student, she does not have AP courses, she is a solid B student, but is in the NHS and the French Honor Society. She is not too particular in going to a D1, 2 or 3 school. She also has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up and I’m not pushing her. She is a young upcoming Senior (school doesn’t start until 9/9) and is still just 16, doesn’t turn 17 until 9/17. Right now for her the most important thing is passing her driving test. </p>
<p>I did just get in on the last day for registering for the ACT without having to pay a late fee, she wants to do this. I also got her registered for the SAT on 10/5 and she is going to (and wants to) take a SAT prep course that lasts about 8 weeks. She will take the SAT about mid-way through the course, cause she is hoping she can raise her score & apply to her school of choice. Then I will register her again for the November test as well. these are crazy exciting times, for sure!</p>
<p>Hey, all. DS’s scrimmage was canceled today because of weather so he is actually doing some work as we speak. </p>
<p>DS has gotten tons of promotional stuff from schools, but now he is getting phone calls. Last night was Ursinus. I’ve seen the name but it is not on DS’s radar so he politely declined the offer to chat. At least now I know how to pronounce the school. </p>
<p>He seems so relaxed about this whole thing!</p>
<p>In the last 10 days or so, DS has been hit by a wave of mailings, emails and phone calls as well. There is some serious marketing goin’ on!</p>
<p>My D14 has been gone for a week, the stack is growing. Today I was surprised that there was only one postcard for her. Most days there are multiple mailings.</p>
<p>ordinary - I get the diversity thing - you don’t want to be the spokesperson but judged on your own merit. I also feel like a lot of schools do an awful lot of social engineering. However, I totally get the idea behind it and wanting to encourage more minorities to higher ed. It’s weird to go to so many college campuses and see so few African American students. </p>
<p>The question that kills me is how did you overcome adversity? What if you had parents who worked hard at raising a good, middle class suburban kid? It feels now like my kid is punished because we did what society want parents to do - provide a stable, loving home. Now she has nothing interesting enough to write about.</p>
<p>I’ve been setting aside all the physical mail just out of curiosity to see how much it would end up being. I think if it were stacked it would approach four feet. As for emails, I glance at the college email address about once a day and I can’t even tell you how many emails are in there. Lately there have been a bunch waiving fees and essays. Flattering but not good fits.</p>
<p>Since it sounds like you all are ahead on applications, I am hoping you can talk me down from the ledge. DS had been working on the Com. App. and I wanted him to get a good start before I checked on it. I can’t believe how limiting it is. Are your kids attaching a CV/resume/brag sheet? There is no way for this kid to describe the depth and breadth of activities he is passionate about or even just simply list them on the space provided. He is not a EC padder by any means but just kid who has long time involvement in a lot of activities. Activities like music tend to lead to more activities in music, for ex. but could never fit under “School band” since they involve multiple groups, instrumental groups, vocal groups, in and out of school orgs, etc. I am even reading sites that suggest students not fill out all of the spaces because that would look bad. Seriously? </p>
<p>It is the same with other sections of the form. I have heard a rumor that our GC suggests not sending a resume. I hope that is not the case because he will be sending it anyway. And what do the actual superstar HYP students do? I can’t imagine they don’t need more space. Is there even a place to list summer activities? Sorry if I am painfully out of it. If anyone knows of any helpful sites for the common app, please let me know.</p>
<p>Mrspepper—I may be wrong about this, but I thought I recall reading last fall or spring that the 2013 Common App would no longer allow the uploading of a resume or other attachments unless the college requested it. Previously any student could upload attachments for any college, but beginning this fall, the school to which your son is applying must allow students to upload attachments.</p>
<p>Again, I may be wrong as my son does not have anything to upload so I was not troubled by this change!</p>
<p>Re: the mail. I cull and only save the ones that I find most amusing and share them at the dinner table. </p>
<p>Retaking SAT one more time here also, but probably not worth the effort to ramp up again after a nine month absence. Trying to determine the risk-reward on this one.</p>