<p>Hello, All! Joining because I have a D14 and she is knee deep in the application process. Glad to meet you all!</p>
<p>We went to Senior Night last week at my son’s school. An interesting experience. There are just over 300 kids in his graduating class. About one half showed up, some with parents, some without. Guidance did an incredible job of organizing everything – from packets to GPA/class rankings to meeting with the kids/parents. </p>
<p>The person who drew the loudest applause was our college counselor. She is exceptional at her job, and she put together those packets. The kids who know her understand what she can do for them, including my son, who is one of her aides. </p>
<p>That said, I overheard one kid say to another, “I didn’t know we had a college and career center.” </p>
<p>In other words, he never visits the guidance office. No matter where you travel in the school, you have to pass college and career everyday.</p>
<p>The following day after the Senior Night, my son talked to this same college counselor about a free app he received from a small, Midwest school that has called him about running cross country/track and field. It is an excellent school. She encouraged him to apply, because you never know what could happen. You just may like the school, she said. He’s gotten into the three schools that he sent early apps to.</p>
<p>Welcome, cakeisgreat! I am a relatively new member, but have loved this thread. I have gained so much from the posters here, from other schools my D may want to consider, to financial aid, to just relating to some of the other parents who are trying to get their students moving on the Common App. </p>
<p>Momreads - so good to hear about your school’s guidance counselor! What a wonderful asset to your son’s school! Congratulations to your son on his 3 early acceptances - that has to be tremendously encouraging!</p>
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<p>Welcome aboard cakeisgreat. Buckle up and hang on for the ride. Since you have been reading the posts, you know what lies ahead!</p>
<p>Welcome Cakeisgreat!</p>
<p>Today DS 14 hit his first milestone. Application sent, transcript sent, ACT Scores sent. He applied to University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In our strategy it’s one of our financial safeties. It’s cheaper than our state flagship and we are hoping for an out of state tuition waiver and maybe a bit more.</p>
<p>University of Pittsburgh and University of Illinois are next. </p>
<p>Then the big hairy reaches…
Stanford, Princeton, Rice and Duke.</p>
<p>Then maybe a couple more merit aid hopefuls.</p>
<p>I guess it’s real now.</p>
<p>Dave_N: My DS14 hit a milestone of his own last night: told me that he had decided what to write about for one of his essays 
Believe it or not, that’s 80% of the battle with him.</p>
<p>My DS14 created his common app account today, and filled in “most” of the basic info.</p>
<p>I’d be thrilled if he chose a topic for his essay!</p>
<p>DD-2014 has her essay completed as she had to turn it in last week in her AP Lit and Comp course. They get them back tomorrow so we will see how much reworking or tweaking she will have to do. Her final appliication list is hovering at 7 or 8 schools and she is now fairly convinced that she will apply ED to one school. She keeps waffling because she likes the others just as much.</p>
<p>She also commented that she will do one supplement a week until they are done. If she follows through we will be done well before our self imposed deadline of mid-November. I will believe it when I see it. :D</p>
<p>Welcome to the new 2014 parents! We’re all in for a wild ride.</p>
<p>My son and I got into it today over his application essays. As in, REALLY got into it. I suspect that more than the essay was in play and that other emotions about college were coming out for him.</p>
<p>The guidance counselor told him last week that essay #2 needs a complete revision. I have told him that I agree. (It is tangential, boring, and does not showcase any of his very numerous strengths.) He has been strenuously resisting.</p>
<p>He raised the topic this afternoon and loftily announced that his future will be just fine without a revision, that he read a survey that the essays only account for 5% of the variance in college admissions, that he thinks it’s great and he doesn’t see why he needs to sell out to society’s demands and do a rewrite. Do I really want him to be conformist or do I want him to follow his own path? He put his heart and soul into it and now he’s being told that he’s not good enough, and who are we to judge, etc. etc. </p>
<p>I held my ground and told him that sometimes small things make a big difference, that we want him to give himself the best chance for admission, that he needs to get used to college professors and employers not liking his ideas and demanding rewrites, that being able to adapt is an important skill, that he’s being rigid, and it’s only 250 words for goodness sake. </p>
<p>He cried. I held firm.</p>
<p>He was silent for a long time. When he opened his mouth to speak, I didn’t know which way it would go. Then he said: “I guess I do need to work on handling criticism better.”</p>
<p>Success!!! :)</p>
<p>Thanks, All! You can call me Cake. (I love cake!)</p>
<p>So far, D14 applied in August to Rutgers and hope to get a decision soon! Waiting on guidance counselor for everything else. D14 has had common app done since Aug but we cannot assign recommenders, so we are stuck. Naviance is linked and invited teachers to to recs, but dont know how to connect them. Also applied to one non-common app but again…in limbo until guidance counselor mails the official transcript. Sigh. Done with college visits though (except revisiting Rutgers if accepted to explore major there further).</p>
<p>I thought all this planning made a difference, but now we are just stuck in limbo. I know…we are super early but I wish the guidance counselor would move us quick to apply and competent families along!</p>
<p>calla1–what you shared was so awesome.</p>
<p>Calla1, That’s a great outcome. Heartfelt congratulations.</p>
<p>calla - a victory and a great milestone for your s. I love his defending his position, but honestly being able to handle criticism is a skill you need in your adult life both in work and relationships. Good for him!</p>
<p>cake - welcome and our school secretary is having trouble uploading to naviance as well. I’m just thinking - figure it out lady, we’re on the early side, but pretty soon you will have a lot of upset families waiting for this to all go out. I’m hoping our app being sent is enough to put us in line.</p>
<p>My D is already wondering if she’ll get homesick, like her roommate, be able to make friends easily, etc. She’s applying to some schools pretty far from home and my dumb sister told her this weekend she hoped she didn’t go to one of them because they were so far away - I could have kicked her. We talked about how essentially it doesn’t even really matter. Her brother comes home for breaks that are essentially every 6 weeks - fall break, thanksgiving, christmas, spring then he had 4 full months at home. She’s the one who has chosen no schools nearby. She’s such an outgoing, friendly extrovert the social stuff is really not my concern with her.</p>
<p>Calla 1, thanks for sharing your story.</p>
<p>Cake ~ Welcome to the party! Hopefully you brought cake… stress makes us hungry. ;-)</p>
<p>Calla ~ What an awesome story… and what an awesome mom you are. Few of us can get our teens to realize the error of their ways that quickly. Kudos!</p>
<p>Not much change over here, still waiting to hear the official word from admissions. S just really wants that physical letter from A&M in his hand – I don’t think it’ll seem real to him until that point. We talked a bit about maybe having a fallback… maybe a private school like Trinity that would potentially offer more aid. </p>
<p>I’m feeling kind of panicky that all the smaller institutional scholarships, federal grants, and work study won’t add up to enough and that even when he takes out whatever he’s allowed to in fed loans, there will still be a deficit. I have no idea what I’d do then – take a second job, I guess. But I know and he knows that he and TAMUG are a 1000% perfect fit, and neither of us can see him anywhere else. I have to just hope it all works out… and that he writes like he has never written before and manages to snag one of the coveted $10K renewable scholarships the school offers. I’m just tired of it keeping me up at night worrying about all of it!</p>
<p>Sorry, didn’t mean for that to turn into a big whine… I know in my heart it will all work out!</p>
<p>Cake - Good luck with Rutgers, hope you hear soon! Welcome, I’m a newbie also. Rutgers is our State School, but D will not be applying there.</p>
<p>Calla - love the “coming to Jesus moment!” Deep down he knows you are right…</p>
<p>I never get the feeling that my D is behind the wheel with the whole college process. She just doesn’t seem interested. She did mention to me the other day that she showed her boyfriend and a friend how to submit for recommendation letters from their teachers on Naviance. I was quite shocked, maybe she is internally motivated and doing things, but is doing it on the sly so I have no idea! She does some stuff, but just doesn’t seem as gung-ho as other kids. I guess her motto is slow and steady wins the race!! :)</p>
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<p>The other day, I was talking to some parents at my DD’s sports practice, and one of the mothers claimed that her daughter said: “Mom, what difference does it make, just pick a school and sign me up.” This is not a mother whom I’ve regarded as an exaggerator, so I was shocked. </p>
<p>Zebra, your daughter probably is doing things on the sly. :-)</p>
<p>Cake - Rutgers is our state school also, but for DS14 it’s just too close to home to appeal to him. I would foresee him bringing home his laundry if he went there, so maybe it’s just as well :-)</p>
<p>@Calla1 - We have similar DS! Mine did not want to take a SAT prep class because he did not want to support the “gaming” of the system that it represented! We talked him into it - not that he is really trying to get that much out of it! But we get challenges all the time - “It is mine life and I will handle it my way.” On occasion, he acknowledges that we might have a bit of good advise! It is a battle for me to pull back and let it happen “his” way as the fighting is just not worth it! If only he would listen a little, he could do much better! He is not very far on the college application path - but said he has an appointment with his GC on Wednesday so he would like to meet with me before that! Mostly so he will sound like he knows what he is talking about on Wednesday! I love him but he drives me crazy!</p>
<p>My S decided to try to test out of two required classes this year. To do that, they allow students to take the final exam for the course and if they pass with higher than a 79%, they get credit without taking the course. I just checked his latest transcript and he did get credit for both classes! I’m excited for him He really wanted to take some interesting courses in lieu of these others and he has a good grasp on the others. So I’m truly pleased he passed! Now he can take a humanities class about myths, legends and lores and two creative writing classes that he has been trying to get into since his freshman year!</p>