<p>My D14 filled out the entire Common App and non-CA apps as I sat next to her to be a second pair of eyes and answer family questions. It was a very bonding experience, and I think it helped her to feel confident in her answers. It was cool to watch her hit the submit button…we looked at each other with excited hopeful expressions. Fun!</p>
<p>Way to go fogfog and cakeisgreat - you guys have 14s that a re in great shape!</p>
<p>My guy is loaded with ECs this month, so I had to break out the calendar and show him how close Nov 1 deadline is (for EC schools) when one eliminates all of the Oct. play practice, community service and sports dates. We are right up on it now.</p>
<p>@mathmomvt, You stated: “My “wondering” about self-reporting scores is if he self-reports the ACT and the only SAT subject test he took, does he also have to report the SAT I? It’s not horrible or anything, but it’s not as good as his ACT and SAT II scores. But it seems like once you’re in that section you’d have to answer the SAT question too.”
That is exacting my question, too.</p>
<p>Thank you 1dilecon and Moonmaid. I just ordered the book and got it on my Kindle.</p>
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<p>And don’t forget the mints!</p>
<p>Hi all, My son just discovered he had some invitations in his email to apply to some colleges & they will waive the fee. How would they have gotten his name/email?</p>
<p>wedgedrive, they seem to get the names from College Board. I’m so glad that during registration my email address was used, because otherwise DS’s inbox would be flooded (and my filtering is better in Outlook). </p>
<p>What I actually find discouraging is that some colleges seem to have no sense when it comes to snail mail. Sending an email costs essentially nothing, but yesterday my son received a glossy from some-college-we-never-heard-of that cost $2.72 to ship on top of whatever it cost to print. Is anyone watching their marketing budget? This is not the first time we’ve received such a thing. Wasteful misuse of funds.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all of the people finished with their apps. Wish I could say it was my kid. Still needs to do the CA essay. THe essay for NM was hard enough for him. It kept getting longer before he managed to cut 500 words! It is so hard for him to write about himself and to brag. He is the most humble kid I know. I am feeling very discouraged about the whole process and getting a lot of mixed messages from GC. 2nd ACT didn’t move and that was a huge surprise. Feeling like the colleges aren’t going to get a true picture of my kid and I feel that he is not going to get acknowledged for how hard he has worked. No hooks-just BWRK, I guess. School admin is clueless, never got the NM letter, I had to track down, finally shook his hand privately in the office, no announcement or anything and there have been plenty of assemblies. I know it’s not the biggest deal but the school is like Lake Woebegone-where all the children are above average. And the school is small. I’ve seen gigantic schools be more proud of having NM than this little one. So sorry for the rant, the process is just getting to me. I think I’ll go find some chocolate cake.</p>
<p>Mrspepper, your school should have done a better job with your ds NM recognition. You should not have to be the one tracking down NM with the school, there is potentially scholarship $ involved.</p>
<p>DS came home yesterday and said that school office told him that he is nominated for the Presidential Scholars Program. They also said that ds will need to turn in the application in two days!!! They apologized for the delay in notifying him and said it got pushed to the ‘back burner’! The application is like a college application with requirements like essay, activities, honors, etc…</p>
<p>@mrspepper -you are not alone on the CA not being done! I sit here not quite knowing the way to attack this. DS had the SAT last Saturday so I did not want to push too hard before that was out of the way. He said he was going to work on essays last night and it did not happen. He has a meeting on Thursday in school to review essays and he has none at this point. He has off Monday the 14th so I suggested he clear the decks and that is just an essay day. He pushed back at first and then gave in a bit when I pointed out that he has been “trying” to get to them for a while and not gotten there so maybe he needs to try something different. I battle with myself over pushing harder which only turns into a fight. He just does not seem that interested even in college. I asked if he wanted to go see an in state safety school next week to see if he likes it and his answer was “Not really”. Sometimes I wonder if he is not really ready for college.
He does pretty well in school and on test but he has no school related passions - no idea what he wants to major in. But, I think he would view a gap year as being left behind! Oh what to do! What to do! There my rant for the morning!</p>
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<p>Same here. :(</p>
<p>Much as I have tried to avoid it –what I predict will happen is that my daughter is going to wait until the very last minute to get the C/A completely done … and then she is going to scream and yell at me while crying hysterically because the Internet will be done at the house and she won’t be able to submit her application(s). </p>
<p>Just you wait. You heard it here first.</p>
<p>CA essay is still not written. I sat with DS last night and got him to enter all his schools so he could see which ones have writing supplements (just 2, and only one of his EA schools, plus another non-common-app school). The internet was being flaky, as was the CA site. It was very frustrating for him, but I think served as a perfect lesson on why not to leave it for the last day. I HOPE that was enough to convince him. We’ll see.</p>
<p>Mrspepper - the exact thing happened with my oldest D two years ago with the school and having to track down the National Merit letter. At the very end of the school year, the NM award was acknowledged in a general awards ceremony, but the principal still seemed to be clueless. Anyway, I know how you feel. My D, on the other hand, was thrilled that no other mention was made of it. </p>
<p>4beardolls - congrats on the Presidential Scholars nomination.</p>
<p>D2 is working hard on essays, but I don’t think I will get to read them. She is sending them to D1 for feedback. She is applying to UNC-Chapel Hill EA, so she will need to have the CA ready by Oct 15.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this seems to be one of those things where they have to find their own motivation from within. My son was more or less in denial before senior year. Didn’t want to think about going to college…or growing up and being on his own. But eventually, something kicked in and he jumped in and took charge, perhaps despite my nudging and urging. He loves his school and will graduate in June.</p>
<p>My daughter is a somewhat different kettle of fish (so to speak). She’s eager to move off and get on with her life, but she definitely wasn’t motivated about the college search - too involved with living her life in the moment. I did a lot of the initial reading and research and would slip books and brochures and websites under her nose or under her pillow. Most, she never opened. She took the ACT once and the SAT once, both with minimal prep, got comparable scores - okay but not great - and said ‘good enough’.</p>
<p>Last summer, I laid out a long list of schools I’d gleaned from my research (based on the few criteria she’d shared with me) and told her if she wanted to do any visits it was time to make some decisions. Not sure what changed, but she suddenly got motivated. She did her own research, came up with a list from my suggestions plus a few of her own, and we made trips to visit most of her safeties plus a couple of reaches. She was very engaged, and was able to say after each school what she liked, what she didn’t, and if she would apply.</p>
<p>More amazing still, she was so motivated by finding some schools that she just loved that she started her essays in the plane! She finished the CA and submitted her first ap before school started, three more by Oct 1, and is working on three more that don’t use the CA. I think they’ll be out this week. Coolest yet, she got her first acceptance yesterday! It’s from her super-safety with rolling admissions (a strategic move I’ll admit), but still, she now knows she is going to college somewhere, which I think allays a secret fear that kept her from engaging earlier.</p>
<p>Long story to say that young people (at least my young people!) seem to need to find their own motivation to engage in the college process. Once they do, it’s just a matter of providing info, helping with a few course corrections, and watching them reap the rewards of their hard work. More motivating than our input seems to be the fact that their peers are also getting into the process - visiting schools, sharing their plans, and talking about test scores and essay prompts. They may not get on board as quickly as we’d like, and may miss a few early deadlines (fear of change, growing up, failing??), but most eventually do realize it’s their life and they need to take charge. For both my kids, a big driver was finding a school or two that really excited them and where they could see themselves attending. I think that helped them see it as a desirable (and achievable) goal and off they went. All I can say is WHEW! If you get a bit frustrated or anxious, just try reminding yourself that >99% of these same children, no matter how slow to launch, will be off at college by this time next year! 
Hang in there everyone.</p>
<p>I am kind of new to this forum but have enjoyed reading for the past few days! Wanted to comment on the snail mail marketing. My son is an athlete and the craziest part for us is the heavy marketing we are getting from schools where he has already been filtered out by the coaches as a non-match, MIT for example. And yet still we get the stuff in the mail.</p>
<p>His application is done. I mostly just held money for the movies, mall etc. over his head until he completed various parts of his application and supplements until he did them! After starting last spring with a long list of about 25 schools, at last he will be choosing one of potentially three schools in the next two weeks after completing all the visits. He has had admissions pre-reads of the basic grades and scores. I just connected naviance and common app today for him from the home computer so the teachers can load his LORs. Once he chooses where to commit, that app will go in ED and we will cross fingers until December that it all goes well.</p>
<p>Very excited to hear about everyone’s acceptances so far :)</p>
<p>welcome ChicagoMama! Regarding getting stuff in the mail from schools that have already filtered out your son – I think it’s like after you’re dead, your hair and fingernails keep growing :)</p>
<p>mrspepper – I was very discouraged all day yesterday (after getting S’s ACT scores – no movement at all – 3rd time testing and $$$ for tutors). I felt like he had to throw out his whole list and start all over again. But we met with GC this morning and he seemed OK with his list and strategy (no ED; lots of EA; EDII is the back up). I’m sorry you’re not getting clearer info from your GC. Hang in there. Save me some cake!</p>
<p>2 essays down, 1 to go for son’s ED1 app to Claremont McKenna. We sat down and went through most of the CA together - the non-essay parts - and he’s got all of his recommenders emailed, all info filled out, etc. He then said, “I’m going to work on the 2nd supplemental essay and ask you to look at it.” When I asked him why not the main CA essay, he admitted that this one was turned into an assignment for English and is due today! I asked him why he didn’t do that first, before taking over an hour to go through the rest of the CA, since I had to get up early in the morning and it was 10pm at that point. He, being 17, of course just shrugged. He wrote while I washed dishes, and had a first draft for me, which we then went through together. One nice difference between him and his older siblings is that he is great about editing. He puts it down to his years of athletics, and says he is used to constructive criticism. That does make it a lot easier. My oldest acted like editing was akin to me saying he was worthless, lol. He eventually learned to do it without the emotion.Luckily my daughter was just a natural writer, so her essays only ever needed a minimum of tweaking.</p>
<p>And p.s. - got DS’s ACT scores - exactly the same, much to his disappointment. He improved a LOT on his English scores, which is good, but inexplicably went down a few points in Math. He said this fall’s math section seemed a lot harder. I pointed out that while that could be attributable to a testing blip - he made a couple crucial mistakes - the big improvement in English is something that schools are likely to look on positively. He maintained the same very good 34 in his Science section, and wants to be a bio major, so that is good. His schools will have both ACTs with the same exact composite score to look at, so I am sure they will be able to get a full picture of him. He knows that not bombing on Math would have probably moved him up a couple points, though, and is a little mad at himself about that. I said, hey, move on and just write some great essays.</p>
<p>I feel the same way…just get the essay done so we can move on!!</p>