The seniors at D’s school are all taking the SAT tomorrow. The whole district does the “School Day SAT”. 10-11th grades will take the PSAT and the freshmen take the “PSAT 8/9”. Afternoon they have their regular classes, then tomorrow night is curriculum night. Yesterday the seniors toured UW and sat in on classes and Friday the whole school goes to the national college fair in Seattle. Very college-bound week here.
@lonetreegrad I would check with the schools your D is applying to in order to find out what their deadlines are for submitting the CSS. S12, who applied four years ago, didn’t apply anywhere early decision so the CSS wasn’t due until January or February. Even then, we just made our best guesses of what our taxes would look like for that year since we didn’t file them before either the CSS or FAFSA were due. I think for many EA or REA schools the CSS is usually due in November.
Thanks to all. Yes it has been quite a turnaround. The two schools that may fall off the list are reaches that are not nearly as great of a fit, are unlikely to offer much merit, and are much better options for grad school than UG. We toured them and they are the schools to apply to for bragging rights but not sure my DS really cares about that. We will leave the application decision to him on those. He will still apply to the instate options just in case that becomes the most important criteria, before this whole process ends. The rolling school is, in my opinion, a match with the best fit and his best shot at a great scholarship. I could be totally content if it becomes the one, once the other 3 have responded.
Just learned that our seniors are encouraged to do college visits tomorrow during the PSAT. S16 has requested to stay home to work on the essay for his reach, which he planned to submit in a couple of days. I’ll probably let him, but might make a quick visit to the nearby state safety also.
@Mom2jI Thanks again. Hopefully, November is not the deadline for EA colleges! We will check with schools this week.
@lonetreegrad You need to check each school for deadlines. Some EA schools even have deadlines of 10/15.
@carolinamom2boys Ouch! I will check their website tonight and if I don’t see it there, I will call them tomorrow. Thankfully, I have the rest of the week off from work (Fall Break for the kids), I can get this stuff done.
@lonetreegrad Most are November , but I’d hate for you to miss a deadline .
So, I just checked the websites of all of the EA colleges. I couldn’t find the date for one, but the rest want the CSS by Nov 15th. I think we should be ok. Thanks again. Now I just have to figure out what tax return to use!!
@Cheeringsection – Got it. As cliche as it sounds, it really is all about ‘fit’. I’m so happy for your son (and for you and hubbie) that he’s been accepted to a school that from all indications is a really good fit and will be do-able financially. Also, not such a bad thing for him to live in another state for a while. If anyone would have told you a year ago, or even several months ago, that he’d be sitting this pretty on October 13th you might have avoided a whole lot of anxiety and stress. But that said, without that stress/anxiety maybe all this doesn’t get done by October 13th.
Your son should be proud of himself, and you should be proud of yoursef, for helping him navigate these waters without either of you shooting the other. Congrats again!!!
Thanks @AsleepAtTheWheel ! Encourage those EA applications everyone. Knowing feels good!
@lonetreegrad I just spent some time tonight working on CSS Profile for EA school due 11/15. The tax return I am using is the 2014 1040. And I am just estimating income/deductions/taxes etc. for 2015. I intend to just send the Profile to the one EA school now and then update it for the 4 other colleges with 2/15 deadlines. I believe based on what I read tonight that it is possible to change the profile and then send to other colleges later. I believe you can also update the EA college later with better numbers but I don’t know if this can be done electronically through the College Board or if changes to an already submitted Profile needs to be done by hand to individual college. We will see when the time comes. I also plan to complete my 2015 taxes asap in January and then fill out the FAFSA by 2/15 using data automatically imported from the IRS (this is what I did for D13). I just hope I get all my paperwork early in January as it takes a couple of weeks from filing for the information to be available to the FAFSA IRS Data Retrieval tool.
Well we have 0 applications done here. Son is still working on his essays for the ED school. We have a couple of safety schools in mind but they have pretty late deadlines so there really is no reason to submit them very early.
Our high school pays for all the 9th & 10th graders to take the PSAT. The 11th & 12th graders can choose to take the PSAT or the ASVAB. If they do not take either they will be held in a room until testing is done or if they have their own transportation they can arrive at 11am.
Ugg not looking forward to filing out the CSS profile. I did it once when DD’13 applied to college. The school she attends doesn’t use the CSS profile so I’d forgotten how involved it is.
My senior has completely “fallen off the wagon” and senioritis has already set in. Love that the EA/Rolling admissions process has reduced the stress level at our home by at least 50%. But…now that D16 has gotten into one of her reach schools and one of her safety schools her academic motivation has decided to take a vacation.
PSAT tomorrow means the seniors are on campus lock down in the school auditorium doing some “senior bonding”. D16 has announced that there is no way that she is going to sit in the auditorium for hours on end. The majority of her friends are not going to school tomorrow.
Stupid me, let her take Monday off to finish up college apps (which much to my surprise she was up and out of bed by 9:30 am and working on final supplemental essays which she completed!), completely forgetting that Wednesday was PSAT day (even though I have a D18 taking the PSAT tomorrow) and that she could have stayed home to finish app then. Sort of feel like that insurance commercial where the agent has a $1 on the end of the fishing pool and taunts the client with “Gonna have to be quicker than that”.
If anyone is interested apparently the issue with D16’s common app is that even though she requested recommendations she didn’t go to the next page that tells the app what each teacher teaches. 8-| She deleted the recs and resubmitted them today. The Counselor rec, ACT scores and transcript are all there.
Today D16 is having College and Career Day, where they do mock interview, and look at their resume. S19 is taking the PLAN.
This morning my D’18 wisely said to me. “We can’t all be leaders” There are 577 kids in my senior class. We have less than 50 clubs. That means 7 kids in the top 10% are not going to be “President”. Maybe a better college essay question would be “Tell us about a time that you were a great follower”. It’s ok to not be the leader. How do I let a school know that I am a leader just not a the one that was “elected”.
First, I don’t think for a minute that colleges want only “leaders”. And second, there are plenty of ways to show “leadership” without being the head of a club, or starting a club. That’s because leadership doesn’t actually mean “running something”. It means taking the initiative on something. D is not ASB president, just VP, but some of her initiatives plans this year are the ones that the group adopted. And there was no group at all involved in her and a friend’s plan to beautify the campus last year. She “just” one of the seniors-no office held, but her suggestion and follow-through on the class camp and gown color change is still leadership.
I’ll be I could describe a leadership experience for nearly every member of her class, too. But people who put such plans into action are worthy, even without a single leadership experience. It shows they “play well with others” and that’s important too.
@momofzag Thank you for the information about CSS. I feel that every time we feel that we are done with a school, something else pops up! I get a lot of information from CC, so I am not sure how other parents do it without a lot of research!! So many deadlines for applications, CSS, FAFSA, scholarships, Honors colleges, and etc. And of course, we can’t forget all the dates from her high school for senior photos, Cap and Gown orders, award ceremony, sports, and etc!! Sorry for another vent! With another D who will be graduating in 2018, I have to do this all over again as soon as I get D16 to college. #-o
@labegg Hallelujah we say the same thing in our house about not enough leadership positions available or possible. Thankfully, my D was captain and a starter of multiple soccer teams during high school so that is about the only leadership position that she can show. All the leadership positions in the clubs and student government in our school are popularity contests (as is homecoming, etc.). While my daughter has many friends and acquaintances there is no way she would win any popularity contest (the motto might as well be high academic kids need not apply unfortunately).
My kids use Scouts to show leadership 