@2manybooks, welcome to the thread. As you skim the past posts I think you will see several where we vent our frustration about lack of motivation. Have you tried pulling your hair out lol
@2manybooks Welcome. I am also new to here starting 3 months ago but I already had a lot of great information and advice. Hope you have good time here.
Hi @Mysonsdad - yes, I definitely noticed that! Iām just also noticing that your kids are now apparently managing to get things done. Bribes? Threats? Iāve suggested once that if I have to do any significant work for his college apps, I reserve the right to go to college with him (weāll be roomies!) - and that did manage to get him to poke around a few websites for EA deadlines. (He knows itās an idle threat. Iām a huge believer in letting him go and explore.)
Thanks for the welcome, everyone, and for the great ideas (and ā¦ to whomever posted it - the NM essay prompt, too).
Welcome @2manybooks lot of great parents and information here.
Hair-pullingout (mine, not his 
) may be my next strategy. He agreed to do a bit of the college work today, but has apparently decided that he should first get all of this weekās homework done first. Fair - heās got an XC meet on Tuesday and night class on Wednesday. If he starts reading for the following week, thoughā¦
@2manybooks, my S surprised me the other night when he walked in and started asking me about how to condense activities into 150 characters. I didnāt even know he had started the CA. He also is studying for 2 SAT subject tests he plans on taking in October and is studying more than I have ever seen him study (over 20 hours so far this weekend alone). I think the reason for the current spike in motivation is some of his friends from a national organization he belongs too have done better on the SATās than he has and he wants to keep up with them. Everything I tried (threats, bribes etc.) didnāt work.
Peer pressure does help the DCs. So does GCās requests.
@2manybooks ā Welcome. Although Iām not necessarily an expert, going through the application/admission/choice process with S14 made me at least experienced when it comes to motivating a son who canāt get into gear with his applications.
In no particular order:
Great stats ā am assuming heāll submit the ACT score only (in addition to the Subject Tests). Given that heās apparently looking at some highly selective schools, is he applying to any of them SCEA or ED? Although there are exceptions heād probably enhance his chances of admission if he goes that route. Of course there are lots of reasons to not go that route. My S14 was a different kid in October vs. April, and would not have been able to make an informed decision in the fall, but we werenāt looking at schools that were as selective. If one of your sonās Ivies has SCEA, he might consider applying via that route. Not a lot of downside. Am bringing this up because the earlier application deadline might help get him into gear.
Am assuming that youāve toured schools. I guess that didnāt get him going.
As others have pointed out on the thread, filling out a lot of the Common App is clerical. If he hasnāt started that, you can either schedule a time where the two of you are going to do it together, or you can do a lot of that yourself. Seeing his āstuffā in the CA might make this all more real/tangible. It at least gets him into first gear. And if you do it on your own ?maybe it will embarrass him into doing more on his own (obviously heās a kid whoās capable of getting his work done).
I know that those here with procrastinating daughters might disagree, but I think that boys are worse in this regard. They can be total knuckleheads. We had two girls, then a long hiatus, and now have two boys. My wife says if the boys had been first there never would have been children three and four. . . Our carrot and stick (more aptly stick and carrot) approach included the following:
ā begging and pleading. The main line of argument was, āYouāve put in so so many hours of work to get this far, and you have remarkable opportunities available to you. Youāll hate yourself if you do a half-ass job on these applications and fall short. Youāll be upset when the kids you donāt like have better choices than you.ā (This is working better with S16, whose stats are pretty similar to your sonās).
ā yelling and screaming. Wasnāt effective at all, but was cathartic for me.
ā deadlines: We (together) would set deadlines for specific pieces/tasks. If the deadline wasnāt met, S14 sustained a consequence. Consequences are obviously tough with kids this old. Usually the deadline would be on a weekend day and the potential consequence was being grounded that night.
ā appointments: Weād set up appointments where, if a task wasnāt done, weād do it together. Actually, sometimes this was very productive. We largely ābrainstormedā during these apptās, or got started on a piece of writing by doing an outline and/or writing the topic sentence for a number of paragraphs. The work was all his, but it helped him get over the activation energy hump to have me there ā heād actually pay attention to the task at hand instead of texting or working on his fantasy football team.
ā delayed gratification: Once we hit Sept 1 S14 could not buy any new video games until his applications were completed. We set a deadline of the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend as an absolute deadline, after which thereād be all sorts of consequences. He finished his last application (notably, it was for the school that he ended up attending) that Saturday night, and promptly went to Target to buy a game.
Your son appears to be such a high-performing kid that I have to imagine heāll get this done. The parental angst is just part of the ride.
(from the East Bay side of the Bay Area)
Welcome, @2manybooks !
I am all about the bribes, and occasionally, veiled threats. And with D, sometimes not so veiled. Iāve found the phrase ālook, if youād rather I just back off and you want to just go to (insert name of community college), thatās fine. Really. Just tell me.ā S gets a pained look whenever I say it, but he gets moving. I think D is still considering it.
Our first results wonāt be back until December-- S has three EA schools he should hear from then. I kept trying to get him to throw in a rolling admission school or two, but there were none he felt strongly enough to spend the $80 or so.
D has one rolling school on hers, but she hasnāt done anything with the application yet.
Hi from the west side of the Bay, a mile or so from the ocean, @AsleepAtTheWheel - and thanks so much for the suggestions! All of the kids of friends that Iāve taken on tours have been young women, and yeah - they were all completely on top of everything. Maybe boys are just different. I dunno. They spoiled me.
Weāve done a bit of touring, but not a lot. We checked out a small LAC and big state school in the same city so he could compare the two (his favorite EPL soccer team was playing in town, which was the bribe to get him there - with a college visit on either side). He went to a Nike camp at the UC he really likes, but as I mentioned above, he doesnāt want the hassle of the UC app, so will probably just skip that. Then we went back east for spring break, and visited one college then, and itās on his list. They were showing him a ton of love early, but pretty quiet now. He had XC most days this summer and wanted to spend time with his gf, so other than an international trip he took with a school group, he did very little. Last year was grueling, and ā¦ yeah. Iād rather send a not-burned-out kid to a safety than one thatās crispy and exhausted to an Ivy. Some kids thrive on all of that, but heās not one of them. Heās in bed by 10 many nights.
I donāt know that my S16 would care at all about other kids doing better than him. Heās just not that competitive, except in a very few areas. Grounding wouldnāt make a difference, as his gf is now off at college herself. (Hmā¦ maybe she would have more influence over him hereā¦ ) Her very selective LAC is on his list, but neither of them are really focused on him following her there. They both know itās a crapshoot to get in, and are being remarkably mature about their relationship and what being apart may do, even now.
Iām pretty sure heās doing nothing ED, but might do SCEA - or might not. I donāt think the Ivy is at the top of his ranked preference list. His relatively safer schools (both Jesuit colleges) are above that, I think.
Does he not need to submit SAT, or does he just need to give it to CB so they can confirm NMF?
Heās finishing up Lit homework now, then weāre going to get lunch, and then heās promised college work. Heās meeting with the teacher whoās writing his recommendation (officially - Iāve seen a draft) in just over a week, and his schoolās Senior Parent College Information Night isnāt until the end of the month, so Iām guessing they plan on kids submitting applications after then. (His gf was doing hers late, after not getting in ED to her dream school - no deferral - the only app sheād done at first. Sheās thrilled with where she is now, thankfully.)
Weāll see how today goes. If you see a new member, āILeftMyMindInSanFranciscoā - youāll know itās me, and he opted to watch soccer instead today.
Hi @petrichor11 Iām afraid S16 would say āSure - State sounds cool (our local CSU) - thereās a really great Pho place over there.ā OK - maybe not. And truthfully, if he did want to go there (their journalism program is actually great, and another CSU near us has excellent undergrad Linguistics, so much so that Berkeley encourages undergrad Linguistics kids to go there) - Iād be all for it. But - the UC/CSUs are another application, and heās decided to just go with Common App schools.
Heāll survive. Heāll get in somewhere, and will be perfectly happy. Iād just like to have this pile of tasks out of the way sooner rather than later.
Welcome @2manybooks ! Love your āhandleā. Glad Iām not alone in trying to motivate a male child. 
Hi @2manybooks, glad you are here to add to the discussion. If you are willing, I second Asleepatthewheelās advice to help with the clerical portion. This is my second child applying to college (both are daughters), and I wish I had paid more attention when the first one was at the early stages of applying!
@2manybooks Hi from Southern Cal. You may want to remind your son that the UC app may actually be less of a burden than the CA. In fact, there are only 2 essays which are quite vague. My son is using his CA essay for one of them. Then he can apply to many UCs without adding extra info. At least this is what my son is telling me. While CA schools each have extra essays for each school, the UCs are all the same app. No extra work. Just a thought.
Welcome @2manybooks
For anyone who has resume portion of application done, do you just list honors or explain them as well?
@LKnomad did they ask for resume during HMC interview?
Welcome @2manybooks . I too have a son who needs a little push to get things going. I agree to start the apps that donāt require essays . Good luck in your pursuits .
@Ballerina2016 if it wasnāt a well known honor we briefly explained it.
@Ballerina2016 So for none of the 3 interviewers that my son has spoken with has asked for a resume. He choose to give them to two interviewers and neither actually looked at it before putting it off to the side. For the Harvey Mudd interview, he opted to leave the resume in the car because when we looked at it before going in, we realized that it was too generic for the college. He made the resume for the first two interviews and forgot to make changes for the HM interview. When he came out of the interview, however, he told me he wished he had brought it in because the interviewer ran out of questions and they probably would have looked at it this time.
@asleepathewheel, as you know, my D11 is our challenging kid. We figured we had nothing to lose by having a second kid.
As for motivation, I just asked S why is he so motivated now, after all these years, and he told me itās because now is the time to get things done. Oops, I just pulled out more hair.