DD told me that she wants to apply one SCEA and a couple of public schools EA. We seems like to wait until next year to see what happens.
DS is applying to 3-6 depending upon when you talk to him. If the early results are good it will get much harder to get him to do the rest. I am up for whatever tracking works for the group but maybe we should only track the applications that have actually gone out by name and the others simply as “likely to apply to x more”. It would allow for a countdown of the “to do” list but save some updating.
Of course, I may prefer this method because DS sent his first one out today!!! Only 2-5 to go.
@ cheeringsection Is it the one I’m thinking of?
Yes, it is!
I haven’t seen a group track where the kids are applying. I’ve only see groups track acceptances and eventually chosen schools. I doubt many people want to report back on denials (or as parents of 2013 called them "redirection"s).
@dragonflygarden You are right – they are acceptances. I’ve jumped the gun – it is a bit too soon for those, right!
DD is applying to 12 schools. Four safeties, six matches and two reaches. This process has really kicked its heels and I am already getting stressed - stressed because its really happening and stressed because of all the requirements and items to keep track and send - just the whole process. I pray I still have some sanity left to enjoy her senior year.
@AsleepAtTheWheel very good post. Thank you.
@crowlady not really. Rolling admissions schools can start sending out admission offers very soon. University of Alabama is a big one for early admission offers.
@crowlady I would still be interested in hearing where all the kids are applying to. We don’t have to follow it up with acceptances and rejections. When the time comes we can just do the acceptances and let the rejections go…
@asleepatthewheel. good advice as usual.
Well, I think we have the most extensive list on the board right now. It may or may not get whittled. My daughter’s uncertainty as to what she wants in a school, and the geographic difficulty/expense of visiting schools makes it somewhat hard to cull. We’re also needing good scholarships to make some realistic. We’ve chosen schools based on the availability of generous scholarships (though at some they are far from guaranteed) or need based aid, as well as the presence of the programs she needs. She is applying for outside scholarships as well (already been turned down for a few though.)
In other words, a wide net is being cast, and visits will probably occur for the most part after acceptances are received. I know with my older daughter, a few schools offered monetary travel assistance after she was accepted, and I’m hoping that may be the case for D16 too.
She’s doing one SCEA, a few public EA, and regular decision for the rest (though the goal is to get materials in and essays written as early as possible. I just think it will all be too overwhelming once school starts. Thank goodness her testing is done.) Several of the schools are Christian, she has a few reaches, a couple of service academies, and her safety is an out of state public with good merit aid. She could attend our in-state publics, but none have much in the way of Mandarin, so it’s not really ideal.
DD will apply to at least two and hopefully four universities. All are large state universities with rolling admissions and food science programs.
We have a poor plan regarding S16’s college list. We are putting too many eggs in his ED school’s application basket. We sorta have a list that goes beyond that, about 8 to 10 schools, but it’s not clear right now how much work, if any, he’ll do on the non-ED applications until he finds out the ED result. This raises the possibility of finding out on Dec 15 that he has a whole bunch of apps to complete (and essays to write) just as he’s starting finals week, with a Jan 1 deadline. Not an encouraging thought in light of the fact that S16 hasn’t distinguished himself this summer writing his CA or ED supplemental essays. So this is still a work in progress.
As @crowlady pointed out, historically parents on CC have played it very close to the vest when it comes to naming specific schools at this point, in terms of applications. I didn’t get this at first, but I do get this now. I think especially on college-specific threads it’s important to be discrete, as to not be identifiable to adcomms. Typically, but not always, it’s loosened up once the decisions come in. I guess as a group we’ll work our way through this piece.
As was also noted we do seem to be a smaller group than the 2014 or 2015 groups. ?Maybe that will change in the next few months.
Finally to those who are feeling increasingly stressed right now, try to appreciate the tremendous advantage you’re giving your child being so helpful and organized keeping them on track with all the moving pieces and deadlines involved here. You wouldn’t feel stressed if you weren’t involved and helpful. And for some of us stress is just part of our style and method of getting things done.
(Typed on my phone w a frustratingly poor network connection (no wi-fi) at a lakeside house in Maine, across the country from home. Loons yodeling as I type. Visits next week to Bowdoin, Amherst, and MIT (the farthest of reaches)).
@AsleepAtTheWheel Have a great college tour. Oh, excuse me if I don’t feel sorry you if the loons at your lakeside cottage in Maine are disrupting your train of thought or WiFi connection. 
Hmm…loons yodeling or recalcitrant teens quarreling and garbage trucks rolling by out on the road?
I’m madly covetous of the loons, @AsleepAtTheWheel. And yes, I agree with the point about playing it close to the vest until decisions are in!
@AsleepAtTheWheel have a great time before you head off on your latest college visiting adventure. RE: waiting until mid Dec for ED results to come in can be a bit stressful. We had a friend who SEA to her dream school. They took kids from our school every year. She was incredibly highly regarded. She was deferred while others were accepted and she was heartbroken and now had to write all her apps while not in the best frame of mind. She eventually did great and ended up at a fabulous school, but her mom said repeatedly that so much of the drama could have been avoided if she had at least outlined her essays for her other top picks before her emotions went down the tubes.
I was a member of the parents of 2015 group. There was a lot of chat about ‘Ginormous state U’ and other monikers given to schools, but I think most of us really knew where most were applying to even if it wasn’t clearly stated (all we had to do was check trip reports) Last year my DS had a dream school and nothing else really mattered. This year, DD has a ‘dream list’ where she thinks she’ll be mostly happy at nearly any of them. Right now her list is 23 schools long where 1-22 are actual schools she wants to apply to, and 23 is ‘every remaining school in the US’. Needless to say she’s going to need to do some serious cutting. Even if she could write quality essays for all of those, I can’t see spending that kind of money. She knows what I expect from her, lets see if she does it.
Hi! I am from the 2015 group. I just want to wish you all luck as your kids embark on their senior year. And, while our process wasn’t stress-free, it was for the most part enjoyable and exciting. It helped to get so much good advice through the years from CC, and also that it was our second time around.
Our goal was simply for her to have good choices in April, and to apply somewhere EA so she would have something positive early in the process (before Christmas) - this definitely took the pressure off a bit.
Enjoy the upcoming year!
@carolinamom2boys @petrichor11
Thanks. The loons are great. Only S14 is here right now. And he’s incredibly sweet w his young nieces and nephews (we have two older adult children out here), so his surly teenage affect is, despite himself, absent for now.
S16 comes next week, but I’ll be delivering S14 back to Emory, so I’ll miss the college tours. Fortunately my wife is much better on these tours – she’s able to back off and let our son form his own impressions.
@MuggleMom – thanks for your thoughts/advice. I agree strongly about the pitfalls of delaying work on the RD apps. We’re in a funny position, in that S16 may be a recruited athlete. If he is, we should have a strong assurance if he applies ED that he’ll be accepted. But it will not be a 100% level of assurance, as these sorts of things do fall through despite academic pre-reads and coach’s promises. So first we have to see whether the deal is actually consummated, but if it is we’re not sure how much work he should put into those other apps, which would have less than a 10% chance of being necessary. As an aside, by going the recruited athlete route via ED he’ll be foregoing some other opportunities at schools that are very good academically, but where he’s not good enough to make the team. There are trade-offs all through this process, given the way it’s set up.
We are just back for getting D all registered for senior year. She will be unique in having a mostly junior year schedule while being a senior on all the documents. Found out that the principal comes to your home for a family meeting about senior projects, collage apps, etc. I’m sure that helps get the school its 100% college acceptance brag. The flowers D and her crew planted for a project last spring haven’t all done well over the incredibly dry summer here, and her friend who promised to walk to the school and water them didn’t stick with it. But the tree and bush they planted are fine. I love having a kid happy to be going back to school soon. My other kids weren’t exactly like that.
I do not post much on this forum but I am following along. S’16 senior retreat is Thursday-Friday then his senior year begins on Monday. We will be taking D’15 to school on Tuesday…all I can say is ENJOY the time, senior year goes fast especially after Christmas break. S’16 journey will not be like D’15 journey; two different kids with two different out look on life. Have fun taking the last big trip you get to help plan and go on with your soon to be high school graduate.
We just finished setting senior schedules as well. It went surprisingly easily-- usually S’s schedule is a long drawn-out process, and d’s changes four or five times before it’s set. It helps that they’ve both taken pretty much everything already, and have relatively few choices. And the school actually has hired a physics teacher, which we were told was not likely as of the end of May, so even though S can’t take AP physics (they’re not offering it), he can take honors.