<p>Last week or the week before (are they all running together now?), we got an email from U of Miami saying that because S applied EA we needed to submit financial aid paperwork. I went to the website, it says Feb 1, so I called and was told the email was sent out in error. Got another email today! So went to the website. It says “FAFSA, PROFILE, and 2013 tax returns due - Feb 1st”. Called again. Got another woman who said that the website should say 2014 tax returns and they need the 2013 now. So I sent them. Seems crazy that the website would not be accurate and also freaked me out to send a copy of our tax return. But this is what we need to do, right? In other news… he finished one of the December 1st apps this weekend and is working hard on the other 3. I hope. :)</p>
<p>So I walk in from work & Spawn is sitting there looking at her laptop screen - that’s an every night occurance. I walk away to say “Hello, I’m home” to Mrs. Three and I hear a video playing on the Spawn’s laptop. I walk over to see what’s playing…it’s a virtual college tour of a school she’s sitting there completing an application for.</p>
<p>After Mrs. Three revived me with a cold compress on my forehead & elevated my feet to reduce the chance of shock, Mrs. Three ordered take out for me to go over and fetch. </p>
<p>I’m afraid to ruin the mojo and say that the CA essay is near completion. My poor kid actually has at least 7 completed common app essays. Each one perfected and most with multiple versions. Every time an important person questioned the quality or subject he started over. Tonight, he smiled. Really really smiled. A few teachers still have to look at it, but I’m pretty sure he’s not starting over again. If he could just settle on a CA essay, then he could submit to those schools that don’t have any supplemental essays (2) and get the 12/1 app done, and then move on to the plethora of supplemental essays that are waiting for him. Keeping my fingers crossed that this one is a keeper.</p>
<p>Oh and D16 asked me not to look at her SAT scores that come out tomorrow. Bummer. I was hoping that she was going to forget that they were coming out and I would have been able to peek before she woke up.Now that she asked, I actually have to listen. </p>
<p>Good luck to all the kids who get SAT or subject test scores tomorrow. </p>
<p>Ooh, that sounds pretty good @MuggleMom - fingers crossed for you!</p>
<p>D finally has an acceptance. It’s to a safety school offering a fantastic deal to NMFs and it hits a lot of her “wants” in a school. We have a long road ahead still but it was really nice to get this one in.</p>
<p>Good luck to the kids getting SAT results back!</p>
<p>@suzy100 - Congrats!!! </p>
<p>@latichever We had the same thing with the GC signing the ED…I noticed it wasn’t signed on Common App and told DD to talk to GC…I wonder if something changed.</p>
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<p>My take is that high school teachers have no role in looking at college essays since most don’t seem to understand what is expected of the students by the colleges. The essays produced by kids for their teachers in high school vs what they write for college should be vastly different.</p>
<p>In most cases, parents who are on CC are much better judges of what is right for colleges.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your D’s acceptance, @suzy100 ! It does feel good to know they will be going somewhere.</p>
<p>Hit the submit button on the CA last night for the final application, whew! Now she’s on to doing as many outside scholarships as she wants/has time for. I’m not going to push it like I did with my S’13. D’s going to concentrate her efforts on small, local scholarships. She is not a great essay writer so putting a lot of stock into some of the national or even regional scholarships is not a productive use of time, at least for our family.</p>
<p>Hope it’s good news all around for SAT scores today!</p>
<p>Congratulations on acceptances and finished apps! How exciting to be done!</p>
<p>No news on the SAT today. 
Apparently, because my son took his subject tests with accommodations, the scores aren’t out yet. Do you think he should notify his EA schools? It says to check back in a week. One school requires two subject tests from homeschoolers, so they are waiting on these scores.</p>
<p>No SAT subjects test here either . D was with accomodation too, but last round they were posted on the first day…
D only needs these for UofT and has time.</p>
<p>Hoosier, when my son took the SAT in January, they were posted on time, too. I wonder if it’s something about being subject tests that makes it different. Thing is, the one EA school says they need the scores by Dec. 1. I thought there would be time, but I’m not sure what they’ll do. Roll him over to RD maybe. Bummer.</p>
<p>D has 8 schools that seem to be settled (2 EA apps out). She has another 8 or so that keep coming on and off the list in rotation (plus there was the brief flirtation with a big state school). This week is do or die time on finalizing the list. If she just sticks with 8 that is fine with me! But she has to whittle it to no more than 12. She took a stab at it last night and I think she is at 10. For her, it’s because she likes so many schools. I guess that is a good thing. Her two EA schools should be rock solid safeties and she likes them and she has several more in her sweet spot. So she can throw a couple dreams on the pile if she wants and if she has the stamina for the supplements. Speaking of which…</p>
<p>Good news on the CA essay @MuggleMom!! I feel your pain. D still has some revisions to do but I believe, hope, and pray that there will be no more complete changes of topic from here on out. She has to start on those supplements.</p>
<p>Congrats @Suzy100!!</p>
<p>Good thoughts to all those waiting on SAT scores.</p>
<p>Congrats to Suzy100 for the acceptance; Wrights1994, ILMom13579, and Threesdad for the submittals; and to all who’s kids are DONE with standardized testing (like mine) =D> </p>
<p>One of D’s choices, Fordham, unexpectedly started sending emails notifying applicants of EA yesterday. Weren’t supposed to come out until December. Of course, I learned this on CC. 
I asked D to check her email, and she said she had nothing. But it was bothering me so I hacked her email account and sure enough the admissions email was there. She had skimmed it and thought it was just about applying for aid, completing missing the CONGRATULATIONS part! Now I will have to resist hacking her account every few days to see what else she is missing!</p>
<p>@suzy100 Wonderful news!!</p>
<p>@vistajay - I have had situations like that where I have found out my girls missed very important emails (student loans, scholarship info., etc.) It’s kind of scary. I really think the deluge of emails they get from colleges is sort of training them to ignore college emails. I made a strong point of this with D’15 yesterday. Hopefully it sinks in.</p>
<p>The college email burden is ridiculous. I had the kiddo make a “publicly available” email account so I go in and delete the obvious junk - I leave unread (and sometimes flag) the ones I think she’s likely to want. And then if I see they haven’t been opened by when I next log in, I ask her to go read them. Funny enough, when the emails she really wants (like scheduling an alumni interview or personal notes from the guidance counselor) come through, she finds them immediately and is the one to tell me about it. So apparently she is just allowing my sad over-parenting self to serve as her unpaid email curator.</p>
<p>My son had accommodations for later rounds of College Board testing, and his scores were held up because the school coordinator “forgot” to send in the right paperwork. Ridiculous amount of time to get it fixed. And we were told “don’t worry, scores are randomly held up, don’t bother to call” by the school, until we went to CC and were told to call, which we did and found out the school was to blame.</p>
<p>As for FAFSA and CSS Profile being formulaic… I didn’t get a number out from filling out the CSS Profile. I’d love to get an exact number so I know who is providing 100% of need-based aid and who is providing less. We’ll have to try to figure that out.</p>
<p>For schools in the 60K per year range, with no merit or need-based aid, the prices range at least 20K different, and we aren’t poor either, 150K per year together only one kid will be in college. It feels like colleges are saying “yes, we know you would have to pay 20K more to attend our school, but hey, wouldn’t it be worth it?” yet the ones with the best aid are a few Ivies and top private schools.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be poor to have diverse NPC results, just not full pay. Poor is relative to me, my dad had to steal food to survive, that’s poor. </p>
<p>I specifically asked DS to check email each day this month for contact from his ED interviewer, and sure enough, despite his telling me he was on top of it, he missed it. By the time he noticed the follow up email, the alum was annoyed and panicking to try to reach DS and get the interview done before the college’s deadline. Not exactly a stellar first impression, but that’s how it goes with my spacey teenager.</p>
<p>My son had missed emails. I discovered it was a gmail issue where some emails were skipping “Inbox,” and going right into “All Mail”–a feature not a bug. </p>
<p>Geez, two math whizzes for kids, and dinosaur dad still doing the family tech support. </p>