@3scoutsmom My daughter’s school is magnet school and it is very competitive school. And the % is for seniors.
@dyiu13 My son has 1 app ready to go but our school is very slow with transcripts (3 weeks?) and school doesn’t start until next week. He did submit the transcript form today and it sounds like they may be quicker now than normal since they aren’t busy…sigh. We are also all electronic but they mail transcripts? Makes no sense! But anyway he sent ACT scores last week and one of the schools has had a student from the dept he is interested in email him. Unless they can tell he has a common app in progress or they got his scores I’m not sure how they would have such specific info. He did declare a potential major on the various testing questions.
@dcplanner I also wish he included the incidence which will show another aspect of my daughter. Anyway, hope all the process is done as soon as possible. It is too long…
@dyiu13 Our experience is that admissions offices are forgiving about receiving transcripts and letters after deadlines because they know that high schools aren’t always on the ball. But yes, worth following up to be sure they are received. And I am surprised that official ACT scores would be delayed beyond two weeks.
Somewhere in the Common App help section I read that once a college has been added to your list, they can actually see what you have put in your app. I warned my daughter to work on her rough drafts for her essays elsewhere, and not to put them up until they are ready. That said, I have my doubts that college admission officers have much time to browse unfinished apps in any great depth 
I totally agree @AKFirefly about reading unfinished application. If I am adcom, I would not be bothered to read any application unless application fee has been paid.
@AKFirefly according to that link I posted, they wouldn’t have access to your essays until you hit submit. Here’s the fields they would see: "Any schools listed in My Colleges will have access to the following information from your application: Prefix, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Suffix, Preferred Name, City, State, ZIP, Country, Ethnicity, Sex, Applicant ID, Citizenship Status, DOB, Entry Term, Decision Type, Applicant Type (First Year or Transfer), Academic Interest, Paid Status, School Officials, School CEEB and School Name.
If you permit schools to communicate with you prior to submitting an application, they will also have access to Address1, Address2, Home Phone, Cell Phone, Fax, Email, SSN and IM Address."
Ah! Well, that makes more sense.
The upward trend that we see on states cut offs probably suggests that class of 2016 is very competitive and we will see more and more high stats kids not getting into schools they would get into few years ago. I will not be surprised if NJ will cross 225 this year.
@Waiting2exhale Thanks for your reply. However, I respectfully disagree with your assessment about my S or any other kid chances for a school like MIT [insert highly selective school name here]. People in this website are very much aware that admission to highly selective colleges is not about academic ability because the (overwhelming) majority of kids applying to those colleges are indeed academically qualified -some of them beyond qualified. Remember that we’re talking about highly selective schools. There is a lot of self-selection within the applicant pool.
Not being academically qualified is obviously reason enough for rejection; however, being academically qualified is NOT reason enough for admission. I am not English major, English is in fact my second language, but “not being granted admission” and “getting a rejection” sound like pretty much the same to me 
Have you ever browse through the “Decision Threads” in this website? I suggest you do. It’s scary… unless all those kids and parents are flat-out lying about their stats, which I doubt. Some people might lie, but everyone? I doubt it.
P.S.: If my family and I had the money, we more than gladly would visit MIT or any other U. We can only wish 
@ballerina2016 – You did qualify your observation above with the word “probably”, so I think that it’s a pretty good take on what’s going on with the standardized test scores of this year’s applicants. Obviously we’ll never really know. But I think that it’s a good heads up, together with @kittymom1102’s note, that having stats/scores that put you in the top 25% of matriculated students of a particular school doesn’t mean you have a good chance of getting in.
And BTW, are you a re-packaged @ballerina16? Did you commit some sort of CC crime that required you to cover your tracks with a new identity?
@AsleepAtTheWheel Not really. I do not have access to my email that was associated with my old account. But thank you for paying attention.
Well, everything seems to be humming along. D met with the school CC to find out how to request official transcripts. We have one CC for approx. 650 seniors (3,400 total students in 9-12th. Big school). D was quite surprised to learn how much the CC knew about her. While D was there, she signed up to meet with a couple college reps that will be visiting the school. Apparently, there are a few 12th grade teachers who do not permit students to miss class time for these meetings. Last resort is a parent must write a letter giving the student permission, which I will gladly do considering these are SLAC’s that D is applying to and she needs to show them some love.
We are well into the 2nd week of school and I’ve stopped bugging D about college applications/essays. She’s already up to her eyeballs in homework. Having said that, she’s been working on her various essays and updating her CA and UC information despite my lack of nagging.
I was wondering if anyone could help me out regarding sending ACT scores. I “thought” I had read somewhere that if you send one set of ACT scores, colleges can also see all of the other ACT scores from different test dates. Is that true?
@grlscoutmom I heard that you can delete ACT score if you want. http://www.actstudent.org/faq/delete.html
D went back to school with bells on today. Thank goodness, because she’s spent the last few days skipping around the house, stopping only to squeal, “I’m SO excited!” Crazy kid. She is wrapping up her online class in the next 10 days and she’ll be super busy until then, but after that she’ll start on the college apps.
@nydad513 Thanks. This answered my question. http://www.actstudent.org/faq/morethanonce.html
What is the general policy on fee waivers emails from different schools? Do you ask your child to add school to the list if they sent you a fee waiver?
@Ballerina2016 So far all of the schools that have sent fee waivers are nowhere on my son’s radar. Now if a schools he was actually interested in would send a waiver that would a a great thing. I wont make my son go through the application process (essays and test scores) for a school he has no interest in and would never consider attending.
I was pleasantly surprised to see D got one from Rice! I had always been under the impression that Rice does that for OOS high stat kids to get them to apply.
I think this strategy works. DD just got one from Rice and Rice was not on her list.