@petricor11 Sounds like you’ve got all of your options covered.
I have a question about sending scores to colleges. DD has her SAT 1 and one of her SAT2 ready to be sent. She will be taking two more SAT 2s in October. Should she send her scores now or wait for October results? She will not be using free score option for October tests since we need to see results first.
@carolinamom2boys : I think I’m just reaaaaallly ready for that empty nest.
@ballerina16 When you send SAT scores, you pay each time you send scores to a college, no matter how many scores that is. So, if you pay to send now, you will be paying again to send the rest of them October. If you want until October, you are only paying once to send all your scores. If the school says that it doesn’t need scores until after the October test, then there really isn’t any reason to send them early.
@petrichor11 I’ll remind you that you said that next year at this time. 
Ah! So that’s how it works.
You can pay for access to HOUSING choices before making your final decision on a school, but you don’t “confirm enrollment” unless you’ve picked the school as “the one,” which can only be determined (at least in my house) once the financial aid award is sent in spring.
Thanks for letting me know. The fact that the acceptance letter encouraged her to “reserve” her place for the incoming fall class, with a “refundable” payment had us thinking that we should send the payment.
Any further help to avoid future stupid moves will be appriciated! Thanks!
@MuggleMom Thank you. This is what I was looking for. So we pay by school, not by number of tests.
@dyiu13 It is interesting that they made the deposit refundable. I didn’t think colleges even had that! They are all encouraging you to enroll since they gave the admission but in most cases deposit is paid for housing part when there is a good possibility that you will end up in that school but you are not ready to commit but you will get bad housing otherwise.
This is usually your top choice state school and all state school dorms have first come first serve policy with the provision that not everyone can get housing.
Congratulations on the admission. 
@fretfulmother - thanks for the insight into naviance as a teacher. When my older one applied, they didn’t have it hooked up fully to commonapp but 4 years later the school seems to be in fullswing with Naviance. Couple of more questions for you - so when the teachers uploaded the letter to commonapp, the students usually assign it (at least 4 years ago) but it sounds like teachers have to make each assignment in Naviance? Can the teacher see who else is writing the recommendations? It sounds like in the scenario you described, it becomes an issue if the school restricts letters to 2 or something, additional teachers can clog it up because they are told not to assign their letter to all schools?
@texaspg - yes to all of that:
- The teachers assign their letter to each school (upload long text and fill out check boxes, maybe the check boxes is just once overall)
- Yes, we see the other teacher’s name once s/he uploads.
- Yes, additional teachers could clog it by accident - our Guidance department tells us every year to make sure not to do that, and I think some people don’t pay attention. We’re worried about that for my DS16, actually, that his EA letter-writer, who is not writing for some of the RD places (*), might upload to too many. We’re not sure how to fix this problem because:
(*) this teacher is kind of hard to talk to, and will write a good letter for the school in question, but he won’t address some of the stuff we want in the other schools’ applications. This personality of his also makes it awkward to ask him not to upload to everything. So I’m hoping that we can say “just send to X” and not link the other RD colleges yet…? Does anyone know if you have to put them all at once? Surely you can put the RD schools on later…?
At our school we use Naviance and you hand each teacher who is writing a rec a paper with instructions on uploading and you write what colleges they are supposed to upload to and by what date.
@fretfulmother I don’t know you your school handles things. but we have a huge problem with teachers just going click, click, click and submitting to every school even though its the humanities teacher and you only needed him for 2 schools. My S15 skipped this problem by asking that teacher and only having that teacher’s schools on the common app. Once that was submitted, he added other schools. Yes, there was a teacher that he had to ask to go back and hit click for a few more schools, but it worked out fine. Its really no different than adding schools to your list late in the game. We get so many ‘extended deadlines’ that I’m sure tons of kids add schools in the last minute.
@dyiu13 I did want to say congrats on the acceptance!
carolinamom-Howard is one of D’s top choices. On our tours, we often saw white students either on the tour or already part of the student body.
readingclaygirl-two of my best friends in HS were twins. They went to different colleges and ended up in the same major and very similar jobs in the same city. They eventually bought their parents’ home and lived together, one married with a son and one single. That fascinated me because as teens they fought all the time!
@sseamom I think things have changed since the 80s. She loved it.
@readingclaygirl I think folks on this thread are focusing on helping/supporting each other through this process and cheering on everyone no matter what individual path they may be on. I think any school is “CC worthy” if it is a part of a student’s journey!
Thank you. @4kids2graduate That means a lot. It is a good school, and I set up an interview which is exciting. It just isn’t well known- it’s only 45 minutes from where I live and most people haven’t heard of it.
@AKFirefly - We are eclectic homeschoolers as well and I’ve never heard of friends having issues with recommenders needing to affiliate with a specific school. The Chinese teacher can select “School not listed - Independent” for the school details section. You can always set up a sample account and have your daughter invite you as a recommender to inform you how to guide the teacher. Hope that helps! Out of curiosity, is your D listing the public charter as her school on Common App or is she identifying as a homeschooler?
@dyiu13 - Congratulations on the first acceptance, and for the essay breakthrough! I might need to invite you over to light a fire under my S’s caboose. He’s stuck on that very part of his essay.
@AsleepAtTheWheel - Please help me with a few premeditated lines for those who ask where my S is applying. The last few conversations went like this: “So where is he applying?” Me: “He’s applying widely…you know, UCs…and other schools.” “Oh, he’s really smart…so WHERE is he applying?” (said staring at me intensely while I look for an escape route). And then I stammer and say that admissions is very unpredictable and selective these days…he is realistic about his chances…and end up spilling about his first choice school. I’m not bothered by the competition; I just don’t want awkward conversations next April.
@happymoch Why not say something like " His choices change frequently , so I wouldn’t even venture a guess right now. Get back with me in about 6 months ."
@MuggleMom - thanks!
@happymochi My usual response is “oh, gosh, he’s looked at so many places. I’m not sure what’s on there this week. I think was on there at least until last week, and maybe .” Usually if you throw them names they don’t really care what they are.
We use McGill a lot, because people mostly have no idea what it is but it sounds like it should be impressive and they hate to admit they haven’t a clue, so they change the subject fast. (He’s not actually applying there.)
S just tells people “Hogwarts”.
Mention a school a kid is sure to get into.