No worries about competition from my DS16. Applying to only instate schools secondary to generous scholarships provided by our state. I gave him the option of at least applying to some neighboring states that he would be eligible for merit from , and at this point he has declined . @ Cheeringsection I would use the special ap for the school you’re referring to. My guess is they already suspect there is competition and that is why they offered it in the first place. Good luck to everyone in the application process .
@ballerina16 Our prom expenses weren’t that bad, but I suspect at a different school they could be. We have a wide SES range and the school administration tries very hard to not leave the lower income kids out. I think S spent less than $100 altogether this year (tickets were $40), though in the spirit of full disclosure he didn’t pay for a date’s expenses since he went with friends rather than a girlfriend.
@Cheeringsection : S is playing it pretty close to the vest on where he’s applying. People who know him know he’s applying to out of state schools (because anything else would be out of character) but exactly which ones is vague. He’s apparently mentioned a couple of schools that he was thinking about, but no longer is-- so people assume he’s applying to those schools. We’re leaving it at that so that if he doesn’t get into his reach schools, there’s no need to explain how/why/isn’t-that-awful-I-thought-you-were-smart to the people who think an A average automatically means you have your pick of any Ivy or Oxbridge.
Our football program hosts Senior Night, where the senior football, cheerleading and marching band kids are introduced on the field at halftime with a brief sentence about their plans. He’s planning to have them announce his intention to attend Mt. Holyoke. I doubt many people will get the joke; it’s not that sort of school.
@carolinamom2boys If you’re in NC, S would be pleased to have your in-state option. Chapel Hill is on his list.
@petrichor11 Nope, SC. There are some great schools in NC. Good luck to him.
Still some excellent choices in-state, then! We have cousins who are quite vocal on the Clemson/USC debate, so I try not to take sides.
The common practice is not accept an admission until all your packages are in and you make a decision. You can however reserve as many dorms as you like with a fee but from I have heard part of housing fee is usually forfeited at most colleges.
I am also not sure one is allowed to accept and hold all admissions that come their way.
Has anyone worked with Naviance and common app already? I was surprised to see that Naviance can sync up with common app and all the naming and pushing of recommenders is completely controlled on the naviance end. I am not too comfortable with it since the school can see much of what is being planned by the kid.
@petrichor11 Coming from the mid Atlantic states , the only football rivalry that I ever experienced close to Clemson and USC was Army/ Navy. We pull for Clemson, but many of our friends are Carolina fans. Go Tigers!
@petrichor11 my high maintenance DD might save me prom expenses all together. She is not going to go to prom without a date and she is refusing to have a prom date just for the sake of having a date. She has very high standards for boys and so far nobody could reach those standards. It comes from having older brother she adores and also from being very smart and women rights activist. She will need it coming into technology field.
Congratulations @dyiu13 on your first college acceptance! My DD is just about to start thinking about her essays. School starts next week.
@ballerina16 S learned this spring not to wait too long to ask girls to dances, or you end up not having a date and going with a random group of unaffiliated friends. He had fun, and it cost less, but I think he was still a little let down. He has his homecoming date already picked out for this fall.
@ballerina16 My son is also not going to prom. Very shy and won’t ask someone just to go. His HS tends to have 2 extremes between those kids who have no plans to attend and spend hundreds of dollars and the kids who go all out. Some of the girls have already ordered their gowns for prom. I have friends who spent upwards of $600.00 by the time they bought their dresses , tickets , shoes , pictures , makeup and hair. Boys definitively have it easier, and I very thankful that I don’t have daughters . I do secretly hope that he changes his mind and goes though. If not , there’s still hope with DS 19 .
@texaspg - as a teacher, I’ve used the Naviance end to the CommonApp - it is much smoother than using CA directly in my experience. You log in as a teacher, and you search for your student, and you see a list of their schools. The student has (we hope) said, “please send to all” or “please just send to Cornell and UT” or “please send to all but Julliard where the music teacher sends” or whatever - so then you click the right boxes and upload, and they also give you the rec check boxes. Very smooth. The only issue is that the lines seem to get clogged a couple days before each deadline, so teachers are wise to upload a few days in advance at least.
ETA - I think I’ve said this before, but make sure (in a nice way 
) that each teacher really knows which schools s/he is writing for. Apparently there are a couple of music and language teachers in our school who tend to over-upload and make a lot of trouble for the core-academic teachers coming along who then can’t if there’s a limit…
I think it’s a safe bet that D isn’t applying anywhere that any of the other kids from this board are. Even if she was. I’m not sure that anyone at a college really cares about any anonymous kids from an anonymous board, but that’s just me. As for real life people-D’s school is very small and celebrates each kid’s acceptance, no matter where it is. The kids genuinely care for each other and do share many of their application choices. In our circle of friends and relatives, there are no same-age kids (all are much older or much younger) so there’s lots of interest in D’s journey. Other than the occasional, “But she could get into Stanford!” comment, there’s lots of support for her, and HBCU’s are respected by many in the black community.
In our family there are 3 '16’s on one side- me, my twin sister and our cousin. But we all are going in very different paths so there isn’t much comparison. But this is some “why aren’t you making them go to state schools?” Comments from the other side of the family- because we will most likely be the first on that side to go to a private college. As with sseamom’s D, I have a feeling there is no one on here that is applying to my top college just because it is a small women’s college and not that CC worthy.
@Cheeringsection – our HS college counsellors talk to the kids early about playing it close to the best when friends and family ask about where they’re applying, where they want to go, etc.
S14 told everyone who asked in the fall that he wanted to go to USC. He ended up getting rejected, but by spring it was no longer his first choice. However, everyone still assumed that it was, and told him how sorry he was that he was rejected from his dream school.
For close friends and close family we’re open about the process, but for less close friends, classmates’ parents, etc. we essentially finesse it.
@sseamom One of my good friends attended Howard University as URM ( white female) in the early 80s. She loved the school. Hope your daughter has a wonderful experience at her college of choice as well.
@readingclaygirl We are not typical of the CC families on this thread. My DS16 has decided to apply to all instate schools, and being from a southern state, that eliminates most of the schools on other posters list. He has a good GPA, lots of ECs and fairly good standardized test scores while not Ivy worthy competitive for some of the other desired schools. We too have to justify one of our top choices to friends and family. That being said, while our choices may be different from a lot of the posters on this thread, our goals are the same. Find a school where he can feel comfortable , excel academically and grow as a person. When I first started posting on this thread , I really questioned whether or not it was the appropriate thread to participate in because our college journey was very different from a lot of posters, but the more posts I read , it just confirmed that we all have similar hopes and fears regarding the process, and that there’s quite a bit of support for everyone no matter what the journey involves. I’d like to say I’ve learned a lot, and I am looking forward to the upcoming year.
No competition from us either, D is still dead set on OU:-)
Congrats to your D @dyiu13 
The final FA packages are key in the decision making process over here, too!
I’m half and half. S has set some pretty lofty goals for himself, and his list includes a couple of reachy-reach schools. That having been said though, he’s mostly motivated by getting out of our small town and not carrying ridiculous amounts of debt-- so while he has an Ivy or two on the list, the biggest determiner is how much aid he’ll be able to get to offset price tags. That’s why finding mid-range schools has been difficult. Financial aid is spotty and not terribly consistent at a lot of places. So there are a couple of big reaches, a decent state uni or two, and a somewhat weak mid-section…though when he toured one of the state unis he said he really wouldn’t mind if he had to go there, so that’s a plus.
As for D…who knows? Some days she looks like CC might be the best bet, some days it’s Directional State, some days her reach school looks possible. Then other days, we’re thinking it’s time to visit the military recruiter.