my condolences to the Camus/The Stranger kids…
it was my senior honors term paper and it was horrific. not slightly hard, but HORRIFIC. i was a reader, so for some reason the teacher thought it was appropriate to assign to me. how very wrong she was.
i highly reccommend all cliff/spark notes/message boards/goodreads opinions you can get your hands on. :))
yeah, we’re also planning on filling out the FAFSA without her. Although if she ends up having to take out loans, we’ll spend a lot of time going over what that means for her after graduation and how much we can contribute.
edit: H says he’s planning on doing it with her, but after he does a huge tutorial on salary, taxes, retirement, house payments, the whole shebang. He says she needs context for understanding the FAFSA.
DH brought home an article to show my son entitled “WPI grads have No. 2 starting salary in Mass” from the Worcester Business Journal online. Might be interesting for those of you considering schools in Massachusetts. I’ve cut, pasted and paraphrased below -
The firm SmartAsset out of NYC conducted a study that ranked the schools in MA based on a starting salary index that takes into consideration average starting salary, tuition, average scholarships and grants, living costs and student retention rate. Results were:
They only gave salary #'s for the top 3. I have no knowledge of SmartAsset’s credibility, but the study results are interesting. Not too surprised to see Tufts so low on the list since tuition and average scholarships are a factor.
In addition, (more cutting and pasting) WPI also released this week that they have received a $1.76 million grant they will use to incorporate an entrepreneurial mindset of learning into its curriculum. In addition to the grant, WPI is a partner of the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), enabling WPI to collaborate with more than 20 partner institutions to teach an entrepreneurial mindset. Over the next three years, WPI will develop curriculum for 100 courses that will instill the entrepreneurial mindset in all its students and annually host 10 extracurricular activities exposing students to KEEN programs.
I really like WPI, but so far my son is refusing to visit on the grounds that it’s too close to home.
I can’t keep up with this thread, so apologies if someone already posted some of this info!
We talked with our D about how she was going to market herself in her application - basically her Personal Narrative if you’ve read the above linked Prep Scholar article about the Harvard Application. So we look over what she’s done so far and ask how it fits into her Personal Narrative. I think it makes things easier when you come up with that Personal Narrative - what activities to choose and the words and descriptions come out naturally. The short answers and essays also have a theme just waiting.
I suspect there is varying degrees of “assistance” provided to kids in preparing apps. I know kids whose parents made them do entire projects independently starting in kindergarten. Others who were providing major support through high school. There are definite examples of black and white right/wrong with college apps. In other cases there is a lot of gray areas. Ultimately, your kids will be on their own about this time next year. Can’t be helping them with homework and assignments at that point.
With sending score reports and paying app fees, my son memorized our credit card number so he didn’t need to ask. Though he tends to do that with numbers.
** Question for Common App experts (or please help me find the answer on the website). **
Once you have submitted your first application with your essay, can you then change the essay for future applications?
In other words, if you have a very early deadline (Oct 15), can you rush your essay for that app, then change/revise it for later deadline apps?
@STEM2017 I can’t give you 100% yes but I remember reading on this site in various threads that you can.
ok looks like you can: https://appsupport.commonapp.org/link/portal/33011/33013/Article/2696/Is-there-a-limit-to-the-number-of-edits-I-can-make-to-my-personal-essay-once-I-ve-submitted-an-application
@STEM2017 Yes.
@jmek15 I actually don’t find lists like that very helpful. Major is going to significantly impact those numbers.
I am not sure how those top school grads with those numbers would feel about my 22 yr old dd’s income with her 2 yr CC Allied Health degree, bc it is just a tad lower than the Harvard listing.
I am D’s college admissions counselor. People would (and have offered to) pay me thousands of dollars to do what I’m doing for her. The stakes are high, and very few people have achieved what I have in terms of college/transfer/grad school admissions, so she is getting the benefit of my experience for free. There is absolutely nothing special about the Common App or school specific app basic information section. So yes, I’ve filled it out for my D, and we look it over together. We check and recheck over and over. We both have access to all applications and can make revisions at any time. But nothing gets submitted without my final sign-off. D has a very nice polished resume that is the basis for the activities and honors sections of the app. It’s a cut and paste job mostly with only minor editing, and we discuss everything. The meat of the app is the essays, and she drafts all of those, and I give feedback and comments for revisions. She has already been told to scrap two and start over. When an essay gets close to done, I’ll make suggested line edits, she finalizes, I check her last edits, it’s marked done and put into a folder for later submission (copy paste into the box on the app). I prep her for all informal interviews/meetings, telephone discussions, and talk her through communications with schools. I’ve lined up professionals (friends, so its free) to prep her for any scholarship interviews.
This has nothing to do with indepedence, etc. D is very independent and I have no doubt she can handle her business in college, although she can call me at any time for advice. But there is just too much at stake to leave her to her own devices for college admissions.
Filling in the Online Apps:
In our house S17 hasn’t even created an account yet. But it’s not that important since common app is used for only 1 school. ( I’m trying to talk him into a second, since I don’t think there will be lots of extra supplement) But it’s not his priority. But he will be making the account & filling the thing out himself, I will insist and proofing it before I fill in the the credit card number and before he hits submit. But that’s partly S17’s personality and where he is in his personal growth. He is ready to grow up and wants to do this stuff HIMSELF. This is true for everything around here, he filled out the forms to register himself for school this year and just asked me to sign them.
But I’m don’t have a problem with parents playing secretary. (As long as they aren’t writing essays.) Some of these kids have very busy live, and some sections of the apps are very tedious. So I have no objection to a parent saving the kid hours of time transcribing transcripts. For my D12, we sat down together to fill the applications out. D12’s common app schools had only minor supplements. But D12 has always needed a bit more hand holding.
JOTD:
Teacher: Today we’re studying percentages. If there are ten questions on a quiz and you get ten correct, what do you get?
Pupil: Accused of cheating.
Texas State: It would totally be on our radar, but they don’t offer any of the fields D17 (or D19, for that matter) is interested in. 
Filling out the Common App: My daughter is filling it out, but I’m sitting next to her and offering guidance. This is for two reasons: (1) Some of the information is stuff she doesn’t know, like all the places her mother and I went to college; and (2) she has a tendency to undersell herself—and knows it—and so I’m there to operate as a check on that.
Speaking of filling out the Common App: My daughter conducted an independent research project sophomore and junior years (genetic manipulation of a particular strain of bacteria to change its behavior). This was not an extracurricular activity, since it was connected to a bio class designed to facilitate independent research projects, so it doesn’t go in the extracurriculars section, and there were no honors or awards associated with it—but it’s an important part of her package. So where does it go? (It’ll be mentioned in her LoR, since the teacher who mentored the project is the letter writer, but that’s presumably not always part of the initial scan, you know?)
My D filled out the common app, but I am pretty sure she isn’t applying to any schools that require it! I have filled out the simple questions at the beginning of some of her app and then she has finished them.
I just finished the parent recommendation letter that’s part of the Board of Review for S’s Eagle Scout rank advancement! Happy Dance! <:-P
QOTD1: Are volunteer hours required at school:
Not at S’s school, athough he has a lot of volunteer hours through Boy Scouts.
QOTD2: Are parents filling out the CA for the kids:
Unequivicolly NO. I haven’t even seen what he filled out on his CA. His counselor reviews it, but he has not shared it with me. I will make him review it with me before it is sent however.
We also are waiting for the NMSF cutoffs, so no apps will be sent before the number comes out.
@dfbdfb Did that experience influence her career goals? Can she some how incorporate it into an essay or short answer?
So wait, do the super-expensive professional college admissions groomer type people do the apps for the people who hire them?
@dfbdfb I’d try to find a way to fit it into Activities. The character limit might short change the full description but if there’s no where else to write about it I would try.
Also, make sure to look for “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” supplements that might be hidden in some schools apps.
@dfbdfb That’s a great question about your D17’s research project. It’s similar to that discussion about band students and the various bands/orchestras they are in, and whether it’s related to an actual class. I’d be interested in what you decide, but I agree it’s not an EC…which is where I would probably put it if push came to shove and I didn’t have another really good place to put it. That’s good experience you want to call out. Yeah, you could put it in an essay…I’m just not sure that the people who look at general app stuff are the same people who look at essays?
@jmek15 those lists are interesting but I just roll my eyes.
The top three salaries quoted from those schools are pretty much ANY engineering graduate from any no-name school in the country.
Case in point: H is an engineer from no name school in North Dakota. Starting salary was right in the range of the top 3 on that list and this was back in the late 80s. He had minimal debt.