<p>Maxwell, I know that you were joking, but Princeton is SCEA, not ED. The student is NOT locked in (but is locked out from applying elsewhere early). That makes it less valuable for the school, but less constraining for the student.</p>
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<p>S1 had all his apps in before the December break, EA, rolling AND RD. In his case he had to because there were winter auditions involved, but I will encourage D to do the same. Dec 1 is a deadline for a lot of merit scholarships and frankly, the holidays are much more enjoyable without apps and essays hanging over the kid’s head.</p>
<p>Applying to one or two EA schools can really help with that - writing the big essay is a significant item that once done for one school, can often be re-used to get a lot more apps in. S didn’t have many supplements to do but still, those are usually a lot less work than the main essay(s).</p>
<p>My older daughter asked her teachers for letters of recommendation in the spring of junior year. She wrote her essay over the summer and by Sept. 10 of junior year her common app was done and sent in, along with test scores. There were two things missing that had to be sent via Naviance: transcripts and LOR. These were sent in by the beginning of October. The frustrating part for me was that even though the common app checked off that things were downloaded by the college ( ie transcripts), the schools still reported that these things were missing. We sent a transcript 3x to one school because it kept saying the transcript was missing even though the common app clearly showed that it was downloaded. When I called the school I was told that they did not have it- very frustrating. Then another school told me that although it accepts the common app, they want transcripts through the mail and will not accept them through the common app- then after saying that the school checked off that they received and accepted the transcript via common app. Hopefully round #2 will be less frustrating! I think the confusion is that once you take the info off the common app it takes a few weeks to file. </p>
<p>I learned something with my older one. You need to call each college and make sure that they have everything. They don’t seem to mind parents calling as they realize that the students are not home to make these calls during normal business hours. Somebody that I know had his papers in another kids file and the school kept saying they never received his stuff. My friend’s daughter sent in her test scores and one school claimed that they were never received. Checking up on schools became a part time job for me and my daughter was not home to do it- she was gone each day from 7 am until at least 6:00.</p>
<p>Sept of senior year, not junior year LOL.</p>
<p>twogirls
Your d must have been unlucky. D1 applied to 10 schools and I never followed up with any of them. They received all necessary parts on time. She used the common app, our school doesn’t have Naviance.</p>
<p>The only hiccup I recall was with Emory Scholars Application. Emory Admissions lost her essay.The did receive it initially. If I am recalling correctly, they emailed ( and called? ) my daughter and asked her to resend it. I think we faxed it and followed up with a mailed copy.( probably emailed it as well)</p>
<p>Maybe college application process is like childbirth, you forget all the horrible parts! I should ask my college girl if she remembers it differently.</p>
<p>Our school had the common app hooked up to Naviance for the very first time during her junior year so that LOR could be sent through Naviance. It was only two schools out of the eight that she applied to that had the problem, but I remember it being a very stressful experience. SUNY Bing misplaced a family members file and claimed not to have received test scores from my friend’s daughter. It was my first experience with the college app process so it is very possible that I was the one creating the stress. If I left well enough alone perhaps things would have been done- just not at the pace that I was expecting.</p>
<p>Wow Sally really? My experience with both older girls was more like that of twogirls and I thought it was the norm! Humph! My middle dd missed out on an early decision from our state university because the school claimed never to have received her transcript. She had that transcript sent 2 more times before they registered that she had a complete file. Then again the last time I went through this was 2009 and the guidance office actually still kept handwritten logs. I was kind of hoping that the filing process had improved since then. I mean…I file my income tax electronically and everything seems to get to the IRS as expected.</p>
<p>Has anybody else been told that the SAT gets harder every single year? I was just informed yesterday that the 2010 test is easier than the 2011 test, and the 2011 test is easier than 2012 etc. Is this true? Basically if you take a practice test from 2011 ( for example) you can assume that the 2013 or 2014 test will be harder. This was not said to me about the ACT. </p>
<p>Is this common knowledge?</p>
<p>@IJD, Thanks! I didn’t know that. (about Princeton)</p>
<p>D. got her AP scholar letter from CB. We are very happy.</p>
<p>Oh no. I’ve never heard that before and I thought it was the other way around. My oldest D took the SAT when it still had analogies on it and the reading/sentence completions were supposed to be harder. I had heard that there were several trig-based questions added to the math section when the test was revised in 2006 (or was it 2005?) but since then I’ve heard that the math is not harder and even that the PSAT and SAT have the same level questions on them. Can you or your D tell by looking at the older tests if that seems true to you?</p>
<p>Congratulations to your D maxwell! That’s wonderful!</p>
<p>I guess I can look through the Blue Book and try and see, but none of it looks easy to me!! Congrats Maxwell!</p>
<p>I disagree with OHMomof2 that supplements are less work. The main Common App essay is longer, but it’s just a single piece and the kid can write about whatever she wants. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the supplementals can seemingly go on and on and on! True, each one is shorter, but there are just so da*m many of them. It can get exhausting, especially if you’re applying broadly and also trying for honors programs and scholarships. Some colleges (especially the elite schools) want multiple supplemental essays. The prompts are very specific, which makes it difficult to re-use material. Also, some of the prompts can be real head-scratchers. A few prompts completely stumped my D1 and she and ended up abandoning those applications. I was fine with her skipping some of the schools (ones I thought weren’t good fit). However, I was pretty dismayed when she gave up on a bunch scholarships. She just couldn’t bear to write any more essays. By then it was late spring, she’d written many dozens of short- and long-answer essays over months and months, and I could sympathize with her needing to put the whole application process behind her.</p>
<p>Congrats Maxwell! Your post made me check our mailbox (nothing there) and then the CB website. I had forgotten that this was the time of year for those letters.</p>
<p>mihcal, I agree with you that the supplements for some schools were much tougher than just filling out the Common Ap, but it depends on the school. D’12 definitely wrote her best essay for one of the supplements (something very specific to that school).</p>
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<p>Comparing offers may be important for schools that offer merit aid. But need-blind/full-need schools tend not to offer merit aid, and their aid offers are quite predictable and roughly comparable. My daughter attends such a school and her school’s financial EFC calculator was dead on with the actual aid she received and comparable to similar schools. The calculators for merit aid schools was less reliable. So the type of school makes a difference. You won’t get full-freight from a full need school, unless you’re low income, but if you can afford the EFC, they’re very predictable. </p>
<p>Another advantage is that acceptance rates for ED are usually at least twice that for RD, although there might be a self-selection of applicants with strong profiles. At Williams it was 37% versus 17%.</p>
<p>If you’re an athlete and want to get a recommendation from the college coach (talking division 3 here where recruitment is a piece not the entirety) you may have to apply ED. </p>
<p>And in my family, my wife, first generation college grad, would like to start generations of Ephs. If my kid is encouraged to apply when he meets with the adcom, that will up the ED pressure. My wife, knowing kid might dash her hopes and dreams, has a Plan B: anywhere but Anherst. </p>
<p>Re the college app, I think this was discussed earlier in this thread, my kid and others take AP language and composition in which they produce their college essay.</p>
<p>Can I ask what the AP Scholars letters are? Are those to recognize kids who get 4s or 5 on “x” amount of AP tests? If so, your kids have already taken that many?</p>
<p>Suzy, yes, that’s exactly what the awards are but they start with awards for 3’s earned and go upward from there as more tests are taken. I think the student has to have taken a minimum of 3 exams and earned 3s on those tests to gain the first level of recognition. The kids get new awards each year as they continue to take more of these exams. In order to gain the highest award (National AP Scholar), the student has to have taken at least 8 exams and earned 4’s or higher on the 8 exams as well as an average of 4 on all AP exams taken. </p>
<p>[AP</a> Scholar Awards](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/k-12/awards/ap-scholar]AP”>AP Scholar Awards – AP Central | College Board)</p>
<p>So, it sounds like several of you are saying that college reps come directly to your high school? I don’t think that happens at our high school. I think maybe they have something with the local community college like that, but as far as I know, there is a district wide college night, mostly with the state schools represented, then there is one in the larger county near ours that students can also attend, but I imagine that is a pretty crowded place!
Someone also mentioned a college counselor. Is that someone at your high school that actually has that title? We have counselors at the high school, and I assume they will be helping with the college application process as much as they can, but I don’t think they would be called college counselors.</p>
<p>College counselor=guidance counselor. They’re just called college counselors at this school.</p>
<p>If you check schools you are interested in, some will have regional open houses. I picked University of Chicago at random (neither east coast nor west coast and well known all over the country) and found on their visit page that they offer a variety of info sessions around the U.S. Then I checked Northeastern because it too is a popular, well known school that’s been the subject of discussion here. When you look at the application tab, you see a “NU in your area” tab that links you to a lot of events by zipcode. (They really get around! I’m amazed at how many high schools and college fairs they hit in my area!) They may well be crowded events, I don’t know, but they seem worth checking out before embarking on big trips.</p>
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<p>Yes, there are colleges that come directly to my D’s HS and present some information (just one class period long). But since she can’t miss class to go to most of these we are going to some of the big regional visits in our area. (One or a few schools do a presentation, usually in a hotel conference room). The huge HS college fairs aren’t so helpful for us since it is super crowded with tons of schools and kids.</p>