@STEM2017 I was told that they could switch to non writing on day of if “space was available”. Which wouldn’t seem an issue for dropping writing but would for adding.
@BigPapiofthree —I could have written your essay paragraph above. Same exact concerns. When you have the stats and are applying to schools that are lottery for anyone, the essays have to matter. I don’t even know how many he has to write, but I know that he does not have enough complete to file a single app, primarily b/c he has not written the CA essay, which hopefully can be copied for the NMSF app also.
Agree with @Ynotgo about sending SAT scores, although I have only sent for the Oct 15th & Nov 1st schools. Want to make sure he finishes those before moving on to the next round!
@fun1234 – I think that ED/EA schools tend to look at 1st Q grades but do not bother to recalculate class rank or do much more than glance to confirm that grades have not deviated from transcript. But, I am not in admissions, so what do I really know! The conventional advice is to maintain one’s grades and then Sr year will not help or hurt.
@STEM2017 I can’t speak to the day of, but for the September test, I was able to go back in and take the writing part off of D’s registration. They recharged my card for the full amount of the new test and then gave be a credit back for my original test.
@stem2017 - I’ve been through this. In June 2016, my DS was scheduled for ACT with writing. He had decided not to take the writing section so we read the FAQs on ACT website which said you COULD switch if space was available in another testing room. However, when my DS approached the test center worker, she said “nice try, you have to take the test you signed up for”. (I did complain and got it resolved.)
So, have your child take a printed copy of the ACT FAQs with him/her to the testing center. These “employees” don’t know all the rules. Chances are, there will be space available.
Good luck.
D is filling out a direct non-CA app as I type. Yay!
Debate
D stayed home from her martial arts class (which she hates to miss) to watch the debate. She’s very interested in politics. She and I watched closely. H and S18 half-watched while playing video games. Men! 8-|
We had a good discussion afterwards as well.
Old QOTD
I enjoyed reading these, so will add my own more wordy version:
Applications: Zero out of fifteen submitted!
Common App: Mostly done other than essays.
LORs: Two teachers and GC have agreed and been requested on Naviance – one submitted so far
Essays: CA essay almost done (waiting for slow family members to critique – grrr). Eight colleges require supplementals (four of those are EA), but for the most part they don’t look too bad. She does need to get going though.
Interviews: Three done. Two “recommended” to go. One scheduled this week with AO who will be in town. One may be with alum.
Testing: Done. This was a point of contention. She took ACT once and got a respectable score. I urged her to take it again (maybe even twice). One more point would put her at 75th % for two more schools. Bumping two points adds another school (this is where I’d like to see her). Three more points brings in the remaining two reaches as well, but that much improvement would be a stretch. But she HATES testing and has put her foot down. I’m good with it now.
Visits: Eight schools visited and two more next month. Remaining five will only be visited in the spring if they are admit/merit possibilities that she still likes.
My anxiety level: Maybe five, but it bounces around from “She’s got three safeties; everything will be fine” to “She might be miserable if she doesn’t get into a good “fit” and it will be all my fault for not doing enough research!”
D anxiety level: Four. She’s back and forth, but not as much as me.
@curiositycat333 Our kids are probably taking very different application strategies. D is applying EA practically everywhere, for honors, and for the top merit award at each school. The deadlines are firm and most do not wait for the deadline to make decisions. Multiple schools strongly encouraged getting apps completed before the deadline for best chances. We’re following that advice. It may be different for different schools. D isn’t applying to any top schools.
**Big milestone last night: **First application submitted! The essay was optional and actually not needed since my D is auto-admit based on class standing, but we treated the app, resume and essay like it was her top choice school. It was a good dry run and gave my D some confidence. The essay was pretty poor, but it won’t get read for this app anyway. D now is thinking about how to improve it for when it really counts.
She was so stuck I was wondering if she was actually going to make the deadlines. I sat with her and we powered through the app and then she pulled out a rough draft essay she had and got it to fit the word count and we hit send.
@itsgettingreal17
We are taking a similar approach. Only three apps but need to have them all in by Oct.15, either because of an early deadline, need to apply for housing or one school that hands out most of their scholarship money in November. Honors program apps will run November through February (hopefully).
I’m just going to say how nice it is to come hang out here with you all. 
Occasionally I venture out to other forums on CC. I know that many of the frequent posters have the best intentions and want to help. I know this. I do. But, sometimes the tone seems so … aggressive I guess. I am just reading some of these posts out of curiosity and * I * start to feel defensive on the OP’s behalf. Sheesh.
@iabooks I feel the same way a lot of the time. I take the other boards in doses. Don’t ever start a thread unless you are willing to go with the flow. I started one yesterday and I seriously debated whether or not it would be worth it before I posted bc I knew what some of the reactions would be. It is a serious question, though, so I decided I was willing to listen to all POV.
I am asking Dd to look into 2 more schools based on that thread. Don’t know if she will add them, but she might. She just got an email from the only Catholic university on her list and the response was essentially don’t come here and good luck finding a better dept. With that school now a dead end, she will probably want to add another.
We are also waiting to here back from another school that we didn’t realize until this weekend requires homeschoolers to take the GED. No way. Not happening. I sent them an email asking them to let us know bc she will withdraw her application if they will require it. They have her complete file, so they aren’t making a generic reply. (And if they do require it, it is absurd. Dd is in the top 5% statwise of their applicant pool.)
@Mom2aphysicsgeek While I understand the possible reasoning behind the GED requirement, it seems odd when she has other test scores that are so high. I can’t imagine anyone would look at your D’s app and think, “Well, I don’t know. We’d better have her take the GED just to be sure.” She’s a better candidate than my kid or 99% others. I hope you get a positive response.
I’ve been following your other thread and was hoping you’d get some wheat among the chaff.
Vanderbilt sent an email with a link named "Show your interest -> " 
DS says, “Mom, Demonstrating interest is for thoses who are interested.”
CASPer moment :((
Hey folks…I went out for the evening and expected to return to some witty banter…and, nothing!
Are we at the ‘grinding it out’ stage? Wish I had a JOTD to add.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Seriously? Isn’t your uber-accomplished kid a NMSF, among other virtues? If the GED requirement is non-negotiable, that suggests a rigid bureaucracy that is best avoided. Better to know that now than later.
@IABooks I hear you! People are really nice and supportive here. I once started a thread that got a lot of traction very quickly. Amidst the helpful suggestions were quite a few pointed critiques and snap judgments. No harm done, and a university that had not been on our radar ended up on my daughter’s list. But it certainly was eye-opening.
@IABooks I agree and have to be careful to start threads, as with @mamaedefamilia I’ve gotten some very helpful info and some…not so much at all! It can be frustrating when you simply want input and are pretty clear about it (or so you think) and instead of input you get the critiques and judgements.
But…for some that is their idea of help and input so you have to take it all, or not ask. @Mom2aphysicsgeek really a GED? That’s ridiculous in your situation. But hey, if 2 schools popped up as even worth looking at, it sounds like the thread was worth it. I know I keep looking at schools as well, you never really know and why not turn over the stone. Or pebble, or grain of sand…
TL;DR: Beware nerds with spreadsheets in academia—they look at curricula in crazy ways.
As some of you may recall, my daughter is interested in double majoring in two quite different fields (neuroscience and conflict studies). She realizes that she might have to major+minor to get through it, but she’d rather not.
Well, she’s been accepted to two of her safeties, Kansas and Alabama (both now officially financial safeties, too—she got the letter announcing her Presidential Scholarship at Alabama today!), and so we looked at how likely it would be for her to successfully double major at each of them.
TL;DR: Yes at Alabama, with careful planning. At Kansas? Not so much.
First of all, I would like to complain about how difficult it is at some schools to find out what the actual gen-ed requirements are. Both schools were guilty of this, but in different ways: At Kansas it was hard to find out what the actual requirements were, because there are separate university and college requirements and they use different language—radically different, though somehow equally opaque, language—to describe what they each are; Alabama because they apparently don’t ever want you to know which courses actually satisfy their requirements. (At least both of them made it easy to find out what AP test scores would award credit for which classes, so at least there’s that.)
So we found, at first run-through, that she would have to take 208 credits at Kansas and 156 at Alabama. However, of course, many, often most, gen-ed requirements are designed to be satisfied in one’s major, and even though her intended majors are very different, there might be some slight overlap (and limited double-counting of courses between majors is allowed both places), plus she’d get a few credits guaranteed from the AP tests she’s already taken (English language, and stats).
That pushed both of them down—Kansas to 157(!), and Alabama to 109. So yeah, if she went to Kansas it’d be a major+minor, which doesn’t make her entirely happy.
The most interesting thing about Alabama’s number is that that includes a language minor (probably Spanish if she can test into junior level, given what courses count for it, otherwise Italian, since they allow courses from 101 on up to count for it), because conflict studies requires a language minor.
When she toured Alabama, the professor she met with in poli sci (which administers conflict studies as a track within the international relations program) expressed doubt that she would be able to complete a double major in neuro and conflict, largely because of the required language minor, so he suggested she look at the straight-up poli sci program as well. (Not her preference, but so it goes.) So we looked at the poli sci program for kicks, and yes, it would take fewer credits—it brings it down to 101 credits, which is slightly easier but not enough to sway her from her preference.
Now that we have a basic idea of how to do this, we’re looking forward to the fun (no, really) of doing this with other schools she gets into.
And yes, like I tell my students, you have to be at least a little OCD to be a successful academic. Why do you ask?
@Mom2aphysicsgeek - I’m sure you’ve looked into this by now, but U. Richmond has a Russian Studies dept., a living-learning Russian language dorm and a full-ride competitive scholly that your D is likely competitive for.
@dfbdfb I’ve been doing the exact same thing the past week. Right now we’ve looked at 5 schools so far. I’m very frustrated with 1 school as they make it very difficult to figure out their degree requirements. And I was loving the school until this little exercise. Since D is looking at a double degree (different schools so seperate degrees not a double major) and a minor, even with all or almost all gen eds satisfied (thanks to AP courses, which has been the plan), D is still looking at a very intense 4 years to fit everything in. When you add in her AP credits and study abroad credits, she’s going to have a very large number of credits when she graduates.
@dfbdfb – assuming my son ever gets around to submitting apps and then to being accepted at more than one school, I will be reaching out to you to learn what your hourly wage is to conduct this analysis!
He plans/hopes to double major in theoretical CS & applied mathematics, but if he ends up at a school where CS is not in the A&S/Letters & Arts college, this could result in additional coursework. (He eliminated Columbia b/c of the core requirements that would have made a double major impossible.)
@dfbbfb - congratulations on the scholarship confirmation! As for the distribution requirements, you’re in academia, you know how university bureaucracies function… or don’t!
And for those of you still researching schools that offer obscure languages, this arrived in my email (or FB) yesterday.
http://cornellsun.com/2016/09/24/new-arts-and-sciences-minors-aim-to-broaden-appeal-of-humanities/
Cornell is also “one of the few North American universities” that offers classes in Old Norse languages.
The university is now offering a Viking studies minor: “In the Viking studies minor, students study the impact of Viking migrations throughout history.” Who knew the demand existed?
Meanwhile, same university wrote to son promoting ROTC. HA!!! Laugh of the day. Could not imagine a person more ill-suited to the rigors of ROTC than perhaps his mother!