Tonight our schools is Senior Scavenger Hunt. In previous years some kids took it a bit too far…D driving my car with 8 friends (all good kids) but we won’t relax until D and friends are home safe, sound and with no flashing light escorts or high bail amounts…JK LOL.
@indsfolax: Yes in the Common App. Click on the FERPA/Recommenders Section. It will read submitted and the date if the teacher has submitted the LOR and once the college itself downloads it will change to/add “downloaded” and the date it was downloaded.
Not sure if it will show “submitted” prior to submitting the app if you are on Naviance too. I do know one of our outside recommenders showed as “submitted” prior to submitting the application but that was outside of the Naviance system…
ACT/SAT scores do not show as submitted on the Common App. You have to log on to each schools application portal to make sure they have received everything. You will get instructions from the school via email after you submit your application on how to check the status of your application.
@3scoutsmom, just reading old posts that I had missed. You probably already know this, but wanted to tell you that my daughter heard back from OU super fast. It was less than 2 weeks to get her acceptance. No word on extra scholarships though, and it’s been a month and a half since that app went in.
@labegg Thanks. I was able to see LOR submitted in CA and Naviance both.
@labegg - that was the fault of the non-food-science teacher, but it’s not so trivial for him either. As a teacher, the first step is to check off which school(s) to submit to, though it defaults to “all” and it’s not obvious where to change that. We have training every year on this subject exactly, and every year someone messes up. The food-science teacher can still send a paper letter, and either/both can still delete the letter before the due-date, in Naviance.
@fretfulmother. Thank you for clarifying that it is possible for the teachers to check off specific schools! I suspect that the interface between Naviance and Common App must be confusing particularly if you don’t use if regularly which may be the confounding factor in our case. Over 90% of my D’16’s graduating class will be staying in-state which uses an entirely different/separate application system. One that the teachers/GC’s seem more familiar and comfortable using. GC has repeatedly asked D’16 “why aren’t you just applying in-state?”.
I really don’t think that the LORs are going to play a huge part in the decision process for most of D’16’s schools. The majority of her schools didn’t even “require” a LOR nor do I think anything that the teacher would say is going to tip the scale in either direction in her case. Her LORs will most likely simply confirm that D’16 is a good solid student that challenges herself. I am pretty sure that the 1st teacher’s (social studies) LOR was a “generic” enough to cover all the bases. It’s the second (food sci) teacher’s LOR that may have been more specific, but not to the point that I think it would be detrimental to the decision process. He is a senior year teacher so he has only known her for 9 weeks. It was super nice of him to write the letter in the first place. It would have been nice to have been able to use one of her other science teachers, but unfortunately her freshman (biology), sophomore (chemistry) and junior (physics) teachers have all left the school district.
We will most likely let it stand at this point. The whole letter of recommendation thing seems contrived and a bit pointless to me. Unless you are a kid with some outstanding academic achievement or need an a LOR to address a discrepancy in grades/scores/personal issue or are applying to an IVY where the pool of kids is academically homogenous a LOR is just not going to be that telling.
This would be an instance where not having to waive FERPA would have at least allowed us to review a letter before it went out and know whether there was something that we need to address or withdrawal.
@labegg - I think even if you don’t waive FERPA, you couldn’t see the letter until you are admitted/enrolled in the college. Not sure about that, though. But I’m glad if my info was helpful!
@LKnomad , D’s school uses Parchment. We’ve sent three transcripts so far, through the site, and had no problems, as far as we know. According to the schools, the transcripts were received.
But, I’m not sure if I trust their “chance” feature of being accepted to schools - According to Parchment, D has 100% chance of getting into most schools except Harvard and such. !! There seems to be little variance in-between safeties and highly selective…
But for transcripts, it’s pretty simple and straightforward and has been reliable for us.
I’ve always gotten a kick out of Parchment’s “College Matchup” feature, where you can enter the names of two schools and Parchment will tell you, based on kids who actually had that choice, what percentage of kids chose each school. When we did this for S16’s two ED choices the results were 50-50.
Just played with Parchment that was entertaining!
Parchment did pretty well with our list of safety, match, and reach. It gave us some matches that should have been reaches but it did give lower acceptance rates. The funny thing was it gave the same chances for my son and his friend for Harvey Mudd. My son has a 4.0 and a very high SAT. The friend, low GPA and SAT. Either way, same percent chances.
I just introduced my dh to the CSS profile. I’m thinking newly married couples should have to fill one out. It could be a good method of birth control!
So the UC for You had different breakout sessions. 3 college reps at each so students could choose which sessions to attend based upon the schools they were interested in. The most helpful session was on Applications. They went through it line by line. I guess it motivated some D because she worked on her app last night. I was hoping she’d work on her supplimental essays today, but she has an essay exam at school tomorrow that she’s prepping for. Tick tock …
Just found out that for whatever reason the College Board never sent any of DS16s SAT scores despite requesting them to be sent at the time of testing . Time is ticking away and deadlines for scholarships are looming. If we keep finding problems his college fund will need to be used for my medical bills after I have a heart attack or stroke. This whole process is a pain.
@carolinamom2boys so sorry to hear about your SAT troubles. Will they at least rush them at no extra charge since you requested them long ago?
@Cheeringsection DS16 is going to call tomorrow .There’s only one school that they have to be there by Nov 15. Found out today also that he missed out on an Eagle Scout Scholarship because his scoutmaster told him to wait until next month for his Board of Review and the deadline for BoR is Oct 31,2015 to be eligible for scholarship and the Board has already met. It’s not been a good day here.
@carolinamom2boys You mean for testing dates prior to the Oct 3 test? That’s very disappointing! Wonder what happened. Try not to freak out – did these recipients show up as score recipients online but then disappear? Did you get the Score Request Confirmation email (that’s the subject line – we had checked off a box to get important emails sent to our S16). It is almost certainly not too late to get them there by Nov 15. Oct 3 scores are still pending but they should also make it by Nov 15 without paying for rush reporting.
Buttons were successfully pressed here on two applications this weekend, so that’s 3 of 10. But #4 (a safety) he’s decided to try for Honors, so that means more essays to write. And I guess I should send another SAT score report (his previous scores were good enough to get in but improvement on Oct 3 might help with honors)
So sorry to hear about his BoR as well. You could really use some good news in this whole process. I really hope you get some soon.
@crowlady He took the SATs last year and requested the scores be sent then. His ACT scores are much better , but the school requires scores from all tests to be sent. He’s going to call to clarify tomorrow. Thanks everyone for all your support and suggestions.
@Cheeringsection Thanks. What is so hard is there are so many hoops to jump through and people to count on doing their jobs to ensure that everything gets done. I don’t like having to depend on strangers doing their jobs.
@carolinamom2boys I hope it will all work out one way or another.