<p>Feeling a bit discouraged, DS has not been focused on practicing and now opportunities are passing him by. He did not get first chair in orchestra, he did not make finals of concerto competition and today Youth Orchestra results come out. His response is, “no big deal, I’m not going into performance anyway,” but these are goals he set for himself last year. I get that priorities change, but it feels like a bad trend. Why not be the best you can be in your senior year, even if you end up changing direction afterwards?</p>
<p>Anyone experiencing major pushback except me? I think the reality of applying is hitting home and it looks like it’ll be a 11:55pm application deadline nightmare at our house…Every time I bring up college applications, letters of rec, etc., I’m hit with “It’s my deal and I’ll get it done. Have I ever turned in a project, paper, homework late?” True, it will get done, but I may need a bottle of Valium to get through this…
Cheers!</p>
<p>Send me ur extra Valium, if you have any 
Yes, the timelines for me and the kid are very different too :(</p>
<p>Yes-major push back. He doesn’t want to talk about senior pictures, college, graduation, last sports banquet, etc. He doesn’t even want to talk about turning 18 this winter.
The state flagship has a Nov. 1 date for scholarship consideration so luckily a number of kids and teachers have this in their head. So that is a hard deadline for my kid. My head thinks mid-October.
I rubbed his back last night because he is always talkative. We talked about teacher recommendations and application fees. We also applied for the FAFSA PIN numbers.
School is helping with the process. All the Val and Sal candidates were invited to breakfast this morning during 1st period to talk about the process and deadlines. Nice.</p>
<p>Momofwon and ctl987, my sympathy and empathy. As my brother has told me, just because he mails his tax return from the post office on the evening of April 15 doesn’t mean that it’s late. I have learned to ration my inquiries and make them very affectless. I might point out that for a school with rolling admissions, she can maximize her dorm choice or access to financial aid, the sooner she applies, but that’s about it. I have learned that she is usually carrying around as much stress as I am, but how can I know that unless she tells me?</p>
<p>I feel her pain, really. It’s all her friends/classmates/teammates are talking about right now. Add in homework from difficult classes, practices, coaching, start-of-year cold…you get it. As an older and hopefully wiser adult, it’s easy for me to criticize, nag, and beg not to procrastinate. But, the reality is she’s 17 and scared of the big changes coming.</p>
<p>Not active pushback, but passive. “Yes, I know, I was thinking that I really should start writing my apps, …” “Yes, I’ll ask Guidance Counselor about that…”</p>
<p>We have a somewhat related, but more pressing issue (pressing in the sense that if we don’t get in an early application or two, we still have regular application cycle). My son was lucky this summer. He applied to an internship that he really couldn’t have expected to get, and got in. He was bubbling with excitement, learned a lot of physics and math, was challenged almost every minute of the time he spent there, and felt a strong sense of accomplishment. Going back to high school has been a big letdown; he’s truly ready for college. There is one class that he enjoys (IB Chemistry), one class where he enjoys the teacher but learned most of the subject matter on his own (Differential Equations), and he has mostly scorn for the rest of the courses. I’ve tried to tell him about looking through the windshield rather than the rear-view mirror, how it’s the end of this leg of the race and don’t lose it now within sight of the finish line, but I worry that the next bureaucratic nonsense coming from an administrator’s mouth will make DS say something that he will regret.</p>
<p>Some of his objections are just teenage nonsense, but he is right about some of it (mostly, the private school pimps out their music/art/humanities students and neglects/abuses their STEM kids). It requires care (that I’m not always capable of) to empathize with him without encouraging him, if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>PS I just re-read what I posted, and should say that it is “more pressing” to us, in our particular situation, not that a re-entry into HS problem is more pressing than procrastination or pushback about applying. I wasn’t trying to minimize anyone’s situation.</p>
<p>This is my third child, and you’d think this would get easier, but it is very much the opposite. I didn’t know how easy I had it with my first two :-)</p>
<p>We have not yet hit the submit button. DS has 4 CA and 2 non-CA applications ready to go. He just wanted feedback from his English teacher on 2 of his supplemental essays and a final OK from the GC. The GC requests that she see all applications before submitting as a final review. He was going to meet with her today and hopefully we will be hitting that button very soon. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, he still has 8 more to go after these. The list was at 15 and is now at 14 thanks to the notification that he is a National Merit semifinalist. He will now be eligible for full ride at one of our State schools he wasn’t originally planning to apply to so he eliminated two other safeties from the list.</p>
<p>Most of the schools also have supplemental essays and/or separate applications (with more essays) for merit scholarships so I don’t think this process will be over for a couple of months. But it will be nice to get something completed and maybe get some acceptances back soon afterword. No matter how much i know he will probably get in most places he is applying to, it’s just nerve wracking until I actually see it in writing. And then, the wait for the money will come after that! Of course, he is fine while I stress over everything. </p>
<p>I keep wanting to say “I can’t wait for this process to be over” but that will just mean it will be time for him to start preparing to leave. Being a single mom with just the one child, I know that will be a tough time for me even though I will be thrilled if he is able to go somewhere he really wants to go.</p>
<p>jrmama496, I’m also a single mother of a single child. I just can’t allow myself to think abut the empty nest next August! And like you, I really hope all this angst on my part and on my daughter’s part will yield a school where she really wants to go. Fortunately she usually grows where she’s planted so even though there may be major disappointment along the way, I’m reasonably sure she’ll find her place in a college where she’s accepted. But we’re not there yet!</p>
<p>jrmama – our GC says the same thing – “The GC requests that she see all applications before submitting as a final review.”</p>
<p>But what does that mean? Does the senior give them their CA username and PW (doubtful)? Or does he turn in his essay and supplements to the GC?</p>
<p>At college night they were emphatic that GCs needed to see the apps 2 weeks before the due date, but what are they actually reviewing?</p>
<p>If my GC responded to my emails, I would know the answer…</p>
<p>Momofwon and Cti987 - ditto here. I foresee some very late, down to the minute, submissions occuring here too. Schedule just seems to get busier every week, and D has recruiting visits every weekend before her first app needs to be submitted (Oct 15) for financial aid consideration. It will be one amazing feat if she meets that deadline. We definitely have different timelines. Will be one big celebration when that last app is submitted!</p>
<p>Our current dilemma is a good one – DS was named a NMSF and has that application to complete. His GC gave him a huge “brag sheet” questionnaire to fill out so she can do his counselor recommendation. That will of course help for his regular college app counselor rec also. The topic he’s using for his NMSF essay probably won’t work for his common app (and I’ve told him so). It’s pretty cliche. It would be more efficient to write something that would work for both, but that’s not where we are right now. We are not worrying too much about this app – it should be a sure thing for him to progress to finalist, and he’s probably out of the running for the NM direct scholarships (due to relatively lowish SAT score – ACT is his stronger test, but not looked at for this), and all of the school-based ones he’s looking at are automatic for any NMF. So… this just needs to get DONE so he’ll qualify for those. So, that’s all delaying getting any actual progress made on the common app…</p>
<p>We have a question about recommenders that I posted here in case anyone is interested in reading/contributing to that thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1556535-lors-teachers-no-longer-working-hs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1556535-lors-teachers-no-longer-working-hs.html</a></p>
<p>mathmomvt - DS was asking about LORs today and has plenty math/science teachers he can ask, but not so much on the humanities side. The one that I thought of is no longer at the school, so I’m going to go read your other thread! :)</p>
<p>Speaking of college talk, I guess I’m the guilty one of asking where a child has applied. I think of it as a conversation starter, not trying to be nosey. But in reading some of the posts, I’m likening it to asking someone their salary! I’m going to have to watch myself. 
I guess most of the students in our area are not applying to reach-y schools where one would have to worry about not getting in; it’s mostly our state flagship or the in-state private LAC. </p>
<p>DS made great progress over the summer in getting two apps in and accepted at both schools. Nothing has been done since then … no honors apps, no scholarship apps, no other school apps…</p>
<p>Classof2015 - In our case, the GC asks that the student makes an appointment with her and actually looks through the whole application and reads the essay. My DS did this today and she said all looks good to go. He just needs to upload two supplemental essays and we can send! Now that he only has more CA applications to do, she said she didn’t need to see them any more and he could just email her the essays if he wants her to look over them.</p>
<p>mathmomvt - Same here. My DS wrote a quick essay for the NM application and he just has to add it to the application and finalize it. Once that’s done, I just have to make sure the GC does her part before the deadline.</p>
<p>Son '14 has been totally consumed by an essay for AP English and lots of AP econ work, so college has been placed on the back burner, although I needed him to complete two, short answer questions for a scholarship app that’s due Friday. Once the English essay is done, we can focus on other apps. Now he sees why I insisted he send in several applications before school started. If he’s not doing homework, he’s running in a meet or working or helping with a community service project. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I need to order senior pix.</p>
<p>Beadymom - I also have been guilty of asking about college plans. I never realized until my oldest daughter was a senior that I shouldn’t ask that question. My Ds have complained that adults always think their alma mater is the greatest and try to talk them into applying.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, what is holding back the common app for my D is the senior course schedule. We are still figuring that out since she will need to do an independent study to get English credit. Hopefully we can finalize that today.</p>
<p>
I’m sure that the persons you’re with can tell the difference between your wish to converse and being nosy/prickly. I know that I enjoy discussing the college application process; the whole process is a big deal in our household, and sharing with friends is, after all, part of why we have friends. I wouldn’t stop discussing it as long as you’re sensitive to their (sometimes irrational) reactions.</p>
<p>DS got assistant principal in Youth Orchestra so that’s good news! He has a new orchestra teacher at school and I don’t think they have hit it off so far. But the Youth Orchestra director was his school orchestra teacher for the last 3 years, so I’m glad S still gets to work with him. And we’ll definitely be using him for LOR’s! S is planning to audition for music scholarships even though he won’t be a performance major.</p>
<p>Next step, doing the resume/brag sheet for the GC that S didn’t realize was actually necessary even though it was in the packet to be completed…</p>
<p>D got word from the college coach at her #1 choice that her pre-read from Admissions came back and she will get in. Whew, what a relief!! She sent the college coach dates that she is available for an OV and she is just waiting back to hear when she will be going. At this moment, it looks like she will only be applying to 1 school and she will get in. I will still have her looking at other schools, until it’s a done deal, but it’s looking better for her everyday. She still won’t apply to #1 until after the November SATs. She is trying to up her scores slightly to meet the requirements for one of their academic scholarships. We are still not sure what type (partial or full) of athletic scholarship she may be offered, so we are trying to get everything she can qualify for.</p>