@AsleepAtTheWheel SCEA is a good idea; however, it appears that everyone is now applying early these days.
I think that ED gives a student the best possible shot since even strong candidates shy away from ED because of its binding nature, as opposed to EA. A lot of people need financial aid options, so committing to a school without knowing the numbers is a no-no.
If money is not an issue, I think ED sounds like the best option for a strong candidate. My 2 cents 
@kittymom1102 and @NYDad513 My son has 2 single digit schools. They are both SLACs here in CA. Highly competitive but he does really fit their profile, personalitywise and gradewise. Both really look at GPA and rigor above all else. The match schools are between 30%-60% and state that student interest is important. He has expressed that through visits and interviews. There are also the state schools which students from our high school are pretty successful at getting into - even with low admit rates (Cal and UCLAa and UCI). And we have one guaranteed safety that is an auto acceptâŠ
Oh and for some reason he wants to apply to, but not go to HarvardâŠSigh. Just to see what happens he says. I am really not looking forward to spending money on something he really isnât that interested in.
@ballerina16 Actually capping number of school helps students acceptance to selective schools. For example, 54 students out of 190 students applied Yale and 12 students got accepted from my daughterâs school. Those students cannot apply all the other Ivies because capping and worries. It helps some students and make 35% of students got at least one acceptance from Ivies, otherwise, I guess acceptance seems to be significantly lower.
@NYDad513 Is it possible for your daughter to apply to a couple safety schools on your own (in addition to those 8 total) that have separate applications, and only need test scores sent and transcripts (no recommendation letters required). Then your school would not have to be involved. Is that considered âcheatingâ in the process your school has? I just donât think a HS should have the power to âmakeâ students limit the number of colleges they can apply to. That seems like a violation of student rights, verging on illegal! This our kidâs futures and the students should have control over the process to get from here to there!
Our school sends transcripts, but also will give me a few official ones sealed if requested, and then we can mail them ourselves. I had those done that for apps for summer programs, and also for scholarship apps. My S16 has already applied to a couple of those easy ones, and we just mailed transcripts from home. We didnât need to ask the school for anything.
@LKnomad, You seem very confident about the process. It sound like this is not your first time. In our case, this is first child, so we have no experience whatsoever. Everything appears so uncertain to us. My sonâs list has schools with Acceptance Rate below 10%, schools with AR between 20% to 30%, schools with AR between 30% to 40%, and 40% to 50%. We just donât know
@NYDad513, Your school sounds like it knows what itâs doing. Just run your daughterâs list by the GC. Iâm sure GC is very experience in how the process works. If she is not worried by her list, I wouldnât worry too much.
@4kids2graduate Generally itâs ok for kid to apply that number. School makes good acceptance history yet. A little stressful but good for kids who is not at the top of her class.
@Cheeringsection, my D is something of a homebody (for which Iâm secretly grateful). She usually spends one weekend night with friends, but prefers spending much of her free time at home with us, and in her room.
I just told her today I want her to eat dinner with us every night, during the week, as much as she possibly can, because this will be her last full year at home with us.
Welcome, @kittymom1102, Best of luck to your son with MIT⊠Has he visited UF? He may end up loving it thereâŠ
My D is applying to 4 mid-sized public schools that are basically safeties (academically and financially) for her. I think one may be a match, but a high one⊠The good news is, she liked all of them when we visited.
Iâd personally like for her to apply to at least two small LACs, since the apps are free, but Idk if she will, or not.
Close to 60 messages on this thread today. Wow. That has to be some sort of record.
@3scoutsmom â That would be a great trivia question (the answer to which I donât know): How many states are there that span more than one time zone?
@4kids2graduate â For winter break during my freshman year of college (which was a long long time ago) I drove down from New England to southern Florida. On the way I stayed with a high school friend of mine who was at UF. For two days I thought that Iâd died and gone to heaven. My only time there, but filled with very fond memories.
@NYDad513 â Of course there are no guarantees in this business, but having Cornell as a fall back option is something that a lot of kids would die for. Thatâs great. And given the acceptance stats you listed I have to assume itâs a private high school, yes?
@LKNomad â Youâd be better off taking the application fee for Harvard and actually buying some Super Lotto tickets. Similar long shots (especially if itâs a somewhat half-hearted effort on the app), but a bigger payoff from the lottery commission.
@BeeDAre â You might want to clarify that youâre HOPING that this is your daughterâs âlast full year at home with usâ. Our older girls are in their 30âs, and weâve already seen some boomerang kids who moved home after college (not ours, others). There are worse fates in the world, but just sayinâ . . .
@4kids2graduate it definitely left me teary eyed. My daughter is my only child and with all these âlastsâ we have been having it really hit home.
@asleepatthewheel thanks for information. This year is definitely going to be interesting to see where these kids end up.
@AsleepAtTheWheel
http://newmapofworld.com/us-time-zones-map-7/
unbelievably Texas is all in one time zone:-)
@AsleepAtTheWheel My daughterâs school is a public magnet school. Her school environment is pretty private school setting which is hardly to be found in public schools.
@AsleepAtTheWheel , good point!
Essay Word Counts: are they strict? My DS is panicking about themâŠ
@fretfulmother I also have the same question. Anyway, I heard that CA essay box has word limit and you cannot write more than the limit. If your daughter wrote longer essay, just write a long essay at first and then chop off something less important and make sentence more concise.
@kittymom1102 Nope, first child. The thing that is helping me is my background in educational research. I have a masters degree in education and I was the person for my little unknown college who filed all the stats with the department of education, so I know how to find stuff. Unfortunately, my experience does not reduce my anxiety about the whole process.
LKnomad Sounds awesome! Unfortunately, we are clueless as clueless can be Our plan is pretty much throw as many darts and see if somehow one hits the target. In other words, the kitchen sink plan We have schools in the less than 10%, 10-20%, 20-30%, and 40-50%, a little bit of everything. AhâŠand a lot of praying and finger crossing
@kittymom1102 You may have mentioned this already (I woke up to over 30 new posts on my list today!) Have you toured to get a feel for what KIND of college your kid likes? We started close to home, and as my son toured different schools he started to show an interest in specific types of colleges (small liberal arts colleges SLACs). Then we started looking for similar types of colleges with a variety of acceptance rates. This way he is able to do a safety/match/reach - but all similar fits.
How have you chosen the colleges on his list?
@fretfulmother â My memory from two years ago with S14 was that the common app software does not allow you to exceed the word limit (650) â You wonât be taken by surprise â When you view your essay (in the common app) it will be clear that it was cut off.
And obviously it wonât be a problem for your son, but there is also a minimum word count. I think that itâs 250.
Regarding word counts: The common app is very accurate with the number of words it accepts. Not only that but some schools identify number of characters instead of words. I canât remember if it was in the common app or not but I very vividly remember S15 freaking out because they counted carriage returns and he needed to eliminate 7 characters that he wasnât planning on.