@crowlady – great find on that link answering the question about CA essay.
When Eckerd visited S14’s high school the college counselor begged him to go, so there would be at least one kid attending the presentation. He ended up applying. I cannot overstate how impressed we were with the quality and professionalism of the admissions office. Excellent communications. There is really a lot to like about that school. I think it’s the type of place that truly exists only to educate their students, and they would really treasure a kid with your son’s abilities. Great school for him to have as an option.
Nothing much happening here. There are only two schools due on Nov. 1st and another one Nov. 15th for early application. DD is not focusing much on CA after her initial input during mid September. I think she’s writing essays but she never wanted me or my wife to read her essays. So I leave it to her. One of DD’s best friend at her school decided to apply RD only saying it is too stressful to focusing on application at this time. There is still high academic pressure in my DD’s school.
@4kids2graduate, S hasn’t had any interviews yet, which is unfortunate because he is more of a face-to-face person than a writer. He has applied to one school with rolling admissions and no interviews required and the second is EA with the app due by in a week which doesn’t do interviews either. Then he has two UC’s and they also don’t do interviews. I have wondered about all the posts about interviews too. I am also unfamiliar with scholarships yet it seems like everyone is filling them out.
@crowlady, thanks for the info, I was wondering about changing CA essay also.
@Mysonsdad@4kids2graduate My son had 4 interviews. They were all for private small SLACs. We noticed the opportunity for interviews listed on the website when we went to schedule tours. They all suggested interviews. Three were local so it was easy to just drive up. One was out of state and my son got an email stating that they would be in town for interviews and invited people to schedule. There was a link in the email and my son was able to sign up from the email and the interview was at a coffee shop. My son is applying REA to an Ivy this week and he chose not to worry about the interview. It seems that the Ivies typically have alumni interviews and I have read they don’t do much so he is not really concerned about that school. The schools where he interviewed at are very small and at 3 out of 4 of the schools he interviewed with someone from the adcom. The out of towner, I think was the adcom who reads our area. Those, I think, were important.
No interviews here, either. D’s got schools similar to NYDad’s D this week and next-2 due on Nov. 1 and one on the 15th for EA. She has outlines of her essays ready to flesh out for the Nov. 1 schools and will do them in the coming days. She told me the gist of one and it sounded very solidly on point for the topic. We’re waiting on the SAT scores-she took it on Oct. 14, and the SAT people emailed in response to my question that scores will be released between Oct. 30 - Nov. 4. Only the Nov. 15 school will be getting the SAT scores in this round, so I think we’re ok even if they come out on Nov. 4.
Well it has been hard to keep up with this forum! So active. I have been so angry that I needed time to calm before posting. About 2 weeks ago my S asked me to email his SpEd teachers and ask for a meeting. We were going to update them on his social progress these past months and ask them to write a LoR describing how having autism has made it very difficult for my son to join in activities in and out of school. We were hoping that they would be able to talk about the great improvements he has been making these past months (he has done a real turn around. It has been amazing.) We chose to do this for only two schools - one Ivy and one West Coast Ivy. Both weigh ECs heavily and the adcom at one of these schools suggested we do this.
So I emailed and the next day got a phone call from one teacher saying she just didn’t know my son well enough and wouldn’t do the LoR. She kept suggesting we contact a freshman gen ed teacher to talk about all the difficulties he had…WHAT??? He never had difficulties in class!!! Ever! This this teacher is my son’s case carrier!!! The person in charge of his SpEd services and she has been working with him on his interviewing skills. I gave up trying to explain and emailed the other SpEd teacher. This was worse. He emailed me and basically accused me of asking him to be dishonest, comments like - S16 will have to get in on his own merits, I cannot common on things I haven’t seen, I can’t be unethical.
I saw red.
My son has really become active at school. It has been fantastic. He has worked so hard to come out of his comfort zone. And now this from the teachers who are supposed to be tracking him and helping him. I had asked for a meeting to update them and they wouldn’t even meet with us. So I got a bit angry and emailed back, that as SpEd teachers they were supposed to be on top of things. Then the teacher told me I was being disrespectful…WHO SAYS THAT TO A PARENT??? Anyway they teachers decided to talk to my son to see if what I was saying was true. And indeed, once they spoke to him, they found out that I was not lying and that my son had actually begun to become more social at school. So they are writing a letter.
Still, I don’t trust them to do it right, and neither does my son. So he is using his extra essay, to the Ivy, to talk about his disability, something he didn’t want to do. We are not mentioning autism by name. Instead he is talking about one aspect that has been hard for him. His inability to recognize faces and how that has made socializing difficult. I just read his essay, It is almost done, it is fascinating, eye opening, and really tells his story. I am very proud.
In the end, it is all a lottery, but he is really putting a great effort in. If a school can look at his explanation and allow him to have a place, well they will be OK with a disability. If they look at his explanation and say that he doesn’t belong. Well it was the wrong choice to begin with.
S has six applications in: has had one interview, three don’t interview, one says they will contact after November first, and one we simply haven’t heard from. The next batch of schools to be sent include four which interview and two which don’t-- but they’re all January deadlines and March notifications, so he’s not expecting anything any time soon.
The only interviews my son will have are for scholarship opportunities at 1-3 schools he applied to. One is in November , and will be a group interview. This one in particular is making him a little nervous because he wants to be memorable over other interviewees because of his attributes not because he dominated the interview . He has a difficult time talking about himself and is looking for a way to identify his strengths with confidence , not arrogance. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated .
@LKnomad I’m so sorry you are encountering such behavior and mindset with your child’s sped teachers. Now that my DD is in 12th grade, I can say I pretty much hate each sped case manager and sped teacher she had throughout school. And “hate” is too light of a word. Maybe one day I will forgive. Maybe.
@LKnomad, I don’t understand the big deal about LOR’s. I consider it an honor when a student asks me to write one. They are trusting me with one of the biggest decisions in their life. I wrote three just this weekend. If there is a student who I don’t think is worthy of a letter I tell them before they ask me. Can you get his other teachers to write about how he has done in class? I know the West Coast school allows a supplement from someone outside of school, is there anyone else that can write it?
From what I have read over the years about your S, if I was his teacher I would write about how he is intelligent and got great grades despite that fact that it is difficult for him to be in an environment with others it didn’t hold him back. Something along those lines…hope I am not being too personal.
@AsleepAtTheWheel Glad to hear Eckerd gets good marks from you. I confess I am finding schools for S16’s list that always intrigued me. We have more visiting to do if he gets into some of the more distant ones.
@LKnomad I’m sorry this process is harder than it should be. It sounds like they just don’t know him as well as they should, and perceive parental interference where they shouldn’t. I’m glad they talked directly to him – too bad they weren’t doing that all along. It is a good thing he’s taking matters into his own hands and writing about his challenges. That speaks volumes. Best of luck.
@LKnomad I am so truly sorry to hear about the rudeness and insensitivity displayed by your son’s Sp Ed teachers. They beyond anyone should understand the importance of wanting to relate the impact of your S going out of his comfort zone to become more socially involved in his community. Coming from raising a S with Asperger’s and Autism I can truly relate to your anger and frustration as well as to the lack of trust you both must feel now that they are relenting to write the letter (but wondering if their heart is really in it). Kudos to your S for pushing through all this garbage and making his applications reflective of his drive and determination. Any school would be privileged to have a student like your son!
If schools in on Naviance, is there a way for recommender to retract recommendation from the specific school on Common App that requires a different type of recommender?
Re: the CSS profile
It’s a lot easier than I expected it to be, probably owing (as someone else said) to not actually owning a business, a farm, a trust fund…a vehicle younger than my children…
The only glitch came when it wanted to know where the sibling will be attending school next year. Well, yeah, the sibling would like to know that, as well!
Also, they wanted to know how much parents will contribute to sibling’s college costs. Apparently “as little as possible” is not an acceptable answer.
I haven’t posted here in quite some time, but mailed out my taxes to my son’s ED school this morning and it all suddenly became real! Looking forward to contributing more…
@ballerina2016. D’16’s HS uses Naviance. Exact same thing happened to my D’16. Supposedly there is a way to correct it, but if your school is anything like D’16’s good luck having the error in submission corrected! GC told D’16 “don’t worry about it, I am sure everything will be fine.” We have given up and decided to let the cards fall where they may. On a positive note, the one school on her list that she wanted a science LOR for, and only accepts one LOR, got the rec from a social studies teacher, she was accepted to on Friday.
But yes, I have been told on CC that the LOR can be withdrawn as long as it is before the App deadline. Not sure that it can be withdrawn if the school has already “downloaded” it. D’16’s LOR went from submitted on one day to downloaded by the school the next, so there wasn’t a lot of time to make corrections.