@stlarenas D keeps thinking about dropping U of South Carolina because the app for that is long, with unique, long, and hard supplements.
Can someone post a link to the OU thread?
I’ve got a D16/NMF headed to OU this week-- our 1st term bill looks like it will come in around $2800-- that includes tuition, fees, housing, food. Does not include books, travel, personal expenses. But she’ll also get a $2k check for technology and $625 stipend - these are not posted to her account. The tech $ is one time; but the stipend is every semester. There were some fees associated with particular classes (sciences, engineering) so YMMV. Still less than our state flagship.
** Pets in dorms ** Unless they are service animals. I don’t think pets like cats/dogs belong in dorms. Rats/mice, fish, lizards would be OK. Honestly dorms just aren’t good places for big pets, students only live there 2/3 of the year anyway. If you want to have an animal at school go somewhere you can live off campus, or wait till sophomore year and live off campus. Our students will survive.
** Number of essays ** At this time … DS has two “Insight” essays, which are 4-6 short answer. A standard common app essay, that can be dual purposed out count for 2-3 schools. And one “why us” essay. I’ll count that as 4, but you could could all the short answers as separate essays? How are others counting the new UC “Insight” write 4 short answers out of 8 questions? Essay writing is like pulling teeth for him. Honestly wish UC hand not changed their essay so we could dual purpose the common app essay.
QOTD2
Activities list vs Resume vs Brag Sheet
What format are your kids using and are you helping them with it? We’ve got the activities section of the common app to tackle but a few schools allow for a resume to be uploaded as well and I would assume the resume would be very helpful for the LOR’s. We aren’t allowed to request LOR’s until school starts but I want S to do it right away so am wondering if we are better off doing resume first and activites section afterwards. I want S to do this himself but a good resume is not something one just whips out, especially the first time and would love to hear how others are approaching this. Approaching it as a CV or a “job” resume including stated objective/goal, etc? Our school doesn’t have a standard brag sheet form to fill out. Our version of naviance does have the “resume” feature and will build one but it’s somewhat limited in my opinion.
QOTD
Essays/Supplements
Looks like 12 that with management is really only 6. Based on today’s list which could change. However that does not include one schools 6 supplement app which will have some overlap with the 6 but increase the overall total. I’m not sure the school is staying on the list though so am not really including it in the total. I do include short answer questions in the total. A 10 or 100 word question can be as, or more, difficult than the 500 word main essay.
activities resume I sent my D this and told her to pick a format from the samples at the bottom of the article. I think any would work. Once she picks one I’ll help her create the formating in word or google docs so she can add her details easily. http://www.riversidemo.com/recreation/page/harts-helpful-hint-top-ten-dont-dos-college-application-resume
That’s an interesting question when/how does your H.S. expect your teens to ask for letters of rec.
As D17’s school they encourage the kids to ASK for letters the spring of junior year. The sooner the better because teachers are allowed to set a maximum of letters they will write. And if you want a popular teacher, you better ask early. Teachers are not expected to write letters until fall although some get a portion of them done over summer break. It would be hard to send in any applications other than state schools who only want grades & GPA.
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-score-use-practices-participating-institutions.pdf
SAT score-use practices by participating institutions
@mommdc, yeah, diesel goes to jelly at lower temps. We have two cars with diesel engines, but here in Atlanta it’s rarely an issue. The SUV has a special engine warmer coil that you turn the ignition on, the little squiggly yellow icon comes on for a few seconds (or longer, depending on how cold the engine is), and then once it goes off you start the car. This is on the girls’ car, and they learned to respect the squiggly after the car not starting on a cold morning.
D17 and I looked at her U Alabama application-it does not have any “action” surrounding it, and I’m frankly sort of confused about what to do next. We did the application for the application, and now we think she needs to do the application? I shouldn’t have looked at it when I was hungry, it just made me grumpy and I went and made lunch while D poked around on it some more. We sent the scores last month, but I don’t see a place to look at them on the UA site. sigh I’ll take another look at it with her tomorrow.
U Maryland College Park wants all scores sent, no superscoring.
QotD: How many essays? I have no freakin’ idea. We both got grumpy with each other when D was clicking through the Common App so fast the mouse was blurred and grumped at me for wanting to go slowly and carefully. Everything that kid does is as fast and careless as a bat out of hell, and she has no patience. I’ll try again on another day and we’ll add them all up. I can say it’s at least 10 because she has 10 schools to apply to.
Excluding the common app-she has 3 schools not on the common app, so those, too.
Mostly at this point I just need to sit with her and talk about prioritization-what ones does she want to finish first, what sections are the toughest for her? Her time management skills are ok, but she tends to bat-out-of-hell everything, so I’d like a more measured, mindful pace for this.
I’m going to ask H to sit with her probably next weekend and do the FAFSA stuff. This weekend is our 23rd wedding anniversary, and going over the money is the opposite of fun :).
It appears Emory very recently updated their standardized testing policy to drop (or, make optional) the essay requirement. We are celebrating at our house b/c D17’s ACT without essay scores are higher than with essay–the difference between 25th percentile and 75th percentile! I keep reading it over and over to convince myself it it true.
Very surprised with the change at this late date.
@MotherOfDragons …you got the CWID email, right? I agree it is confusing. Fill out the application to get the application!
@carachel2, I think we did-she had to click through the email and make a new password. We did that today (I think it came on Aug 2). So now I’m guessing she has to find the application on there somewhere after she’s logged in and then do their application, and then they’ll tell her to do the honors application? One step at a time. I need to go over to the Alabama forum and lurk there, because I’m betting I’m not the only one who finds it a little mystifying.
I didnt think I’d have a lot to put on her “to do” list this week, but there were 8 things! The biggest thing is to create a new filter that sends all the emails from the schools she is applying to into one folder that she looks at, because we had to do a few searches in her giant pile of emails to find the bama one. (Hint from mom to all-knowing kid: don’t search by “bama”, B-) )
D’s new theory: 2 Bachelors + 1 Master from Alabama >= 1 Bachelor from elite college
She is thinking that if she goes to 'Bama on the NMF scholarship, she can finish a double major BS plus an MS in 10 tuition-paid semesters. (She will be coming in with near junior standing, thanks to AP and DE credits). She thinks this would be a more valuable result than a single BS degree from an elite college, for far less money.
I don’t know if she will actually be able to pull all that off, but let’s pretend it is possible, for arguments sake. Is her logic sound? Would multiple degrees from Alabama be as good or better than a single degree from an elite university?
We are visiting 'Bama later this month. If she loves it (and she expects to), she is thinking she will only apply there and Oregon State University (in state) and be DONE. This is a big switch from her attitude a few months ago, when she intended to also apply to many “top” universities and hope for big merit or generous financial aid. So I suspect she is rationalizing the real issues (essays are hard! they’re just going to reject me anyway!). But I do think she’d be very happy at 'Bama, and I love the price, so I’m okay with her new plan, regardless of the soundness of her logic.
@srk2017 The International Medicine Olympiad was apparently pretty rigged. The guy who organized the competition and the paid camp beforehand gave basically all the materials to those who attended the camp. The winner and many of the gold medalists either attended the camp or received study information from people who attended. Results of the IMDO really shouldn’t be regarded as legitimate!
Our list is still evolving, but for the 7 schools that are on it as of now, we have 24 essays including the short answer ones.
QOTD:
I have no clue how many essays D’17 has to write. I tried to keep a tap on it but after she showed me the CA one and a couple of supplements, she stopped willing to show me more. She has never shown me her CA application either. My DH was just talking about the girl from our school who is going to MIT this fall. How she did the whole thing all by herself with no parent intervention. I have decided to let her be the sole driver for this journey and I’d just sit back and relax!!! :)>-
@Mommertons Our ds will graduate from Bama with his master’s in physics at the same time as his bachelor’s in physics and math. (He will do it in 4 yrs.) He applied to 6 REUs this past summer and was offered 3 (2 of them were top 10 physics dept’s and one was a special project position in Sweden. He will have a lot of research experience, should be published this yr, has recommenders, etc. Win-win from his perspective.
so i have a LOT of reading to do here… we were away for two weeks and I return to 1.5K new posts on this thread
^:)^ Dd decided that she wanted to tour Harvard while in Boston – on a whim. well - she loved it (duh). Now off to find a school similar to Harvard that will be a bigMAC school —
I am off to try and catch up on some reading
An m.s. in science is pretty easy to get without paying anyways.
@vickiSoCal Most students don’t really want a terminal masters in science. Bama’s program means that students like my ds who is only a rising Jr can take grad level courses simultaneously with completing their UG degree. (He entered with skewed credits, not loads of gen ed credits. He completed his bachelor’s physics requirements as a sophomore.)