Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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@thshadow – I have skimmed all the responses really fast, so may be repeating others’ replies, but I think that some of this varies by HS.

To answer your last question, yes, once LOR has been uploaded, student can see which teacher’s LOR has been updated when viewing at the college level in CA, even if student has not yet submitted app to said college. I discussed this in detail a few days back when we learned that there is some Naviance-CA glitch going on with teacher LORs. Son requested that teacher 1 submit LOR to GT, but teacher 1 had not yet uploaded his LOR, so LOR of teacher 2 was submitted to GT even though teacher 2 is not listed in Naviance as the invited teacher. TMI perhaps, but just passing that info along in case your child encounters the situation.

Son’s GC called GT offering to send LOR from teacher 1, and as I suspected, GT’s response was ‘nothing we do about it once it has been uploaded’.

As to the other questions, here is how our school operates.

Students submit transcript request via paper (yes, paper—I think they want students to wander into guidance periodically). 30 day advance notice required but that is really only enforced for first app so that GC can write LOR. Guidance moves colleges from ‘Schools I am thinking about’ to ‘Schools I am applying to’ category after paper transcript request is submitted.

When I go into CA, under Recommenders & FERPA at the college level, I can see the date the counselor report & school report were uploaded and below that, the name of the teacher who submitted his LOR. For GT, I can see that all were downloaded today, but for one of his EA schools, I can see that counselor & school report have been uploaded, and again, down below, the date the teacher LOR was uploaded.

Portal—college will send an email to applicant inviting him to log in to his portal. Working from memory, I think some may provide initial codes or user names and others invite student to create. Can’t recall. This is where I get involved b/c there really is not much else I can to assist in this process. I will monitor the portals to ensure that all info has been submitted. Suggest that your student use some consistent log in and record the info in a note file on computer or somewhere, as this info will be needed at decision time.

Edit: incorrect info about schools moving to ‘Colleges I am applying to’.

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@mamaedefamilia My son may be a candidate for the Honors college but his stats might just be on the edge. He is 3.9wgpa with 1340 SAT, three sport varsity athlete. The Honors college at Umass Amherst can get competitive. Not quite sure he has what is needed tbh. I have said the same thing to him many times. He just refuses to even look at umass Amherst or Lowell. I am not going to apply to a school he will not even bother to look at. More of a point than saving the application fee.

@Aida He would like to stay fairly close to home. Within a normal 2-3 hour drive. We both agree there are plenty of adequate schools located throughout New England that will be just fine for him.

Thanks everyone for the comments.

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Did anyone attend the NYU Open House weekend?

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5 out of 7 LORs are loaded to CA (including GC). Hopefully 2 languages teachers one will be in this week. Some of the schools DS is applying require English and also preference for foreign language LORs.

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@thshadow Looks like everyone’s Naviance works differently. So odd! No info shows up in our CA re LOR. All done and monitored through Naviance. And we can have them sent before even submit app but transcript and other materials aren’t sent until app submitted.

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Sorry I don’t know how to solve other people’s Naviance LoR problems, but now we have one of our own. DS got email from his 1st LoR writer that said:

He did what seemed like the normal way to use the interface in Naviance–selected all his colleges for her except the UC’s, which don’t accept LoRs. But, maybe it would have been more convenient for her to have selected the “All current and future colleges I add to my Colleges I’m Applying To list”?

He does not have any colleges that allow only 1 recommender, so he has the same 2 teachers for all colleges (except the UCs). He will be asking his research professor, but it looks like that goes through MIT’s system and the Common App without involving Naviance.

I told him to email her and ask her to just submit the LoR for his Nov. 1 EA schools–MIT (which has its own system) and Caltech (which is Common App/Naviance). He’ll then figure it out for the January deadline schools with his GC. He hasn’t submitted his application to either EA school yet. MIT should be no problem because of their separate system and he already has the portal. Caltech might need him to finish applying before he can submit, according to what many of you are saying.

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Sunday progress update - We are nearing the finish line! I made my last to do list for D. She has 7 short answer questions and 3 essays left to finish. D plans to have them finalized by next Sunday. After that we wait for tOSU scholarship app to be released in early November. D will meet with GC this week to work through getting his recommendation submitted to 3 final schools then one scholarship app wil still need teacher rec to be uploaded once app submitted.

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Could the GC email the teacher LOR to the colleges?

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Submitting SAT question? We just submitted S17’s SAT’s. I just realized we messed up & will have to submit one more because we submitted right to Cal Poly rather than to UC Mentor.

But it said nothing about Sat Subject tests and nothing about Score Choice? Is that because S17 has only taken the SAT I once? Will it automatically send him SAT Subject test as well. (He’s only take the SAT Subject MATH II?) Only 2-3 of his schools will even look at the Subject test but we do want to have it sent.

I assume this doesn’t send AP tests. Not that any school asks for them at this time.

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Sunday progress update: not that close

DS re-edited all his MIT essays yesterday based on feedback from me and the outside person. He also started the research supplement. DH read the revised essays and had some comments, so one of the essays needs substantial revision, but the others only need minor changes. Research supplement seems like it will be fairly quick. Maker supplement isn’t started yet.

Caltech’s 6 essay questions plus 2 Common App essays for EA application aren’t started yet.

Today is a homework day for his UC classes.

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@thshadow It does seem everyone’s naviance works a little differently which doesn’t make sense but then again much of the process doesn’t make sense. When I log into S17’s naviance, under colleges I am applying to the first EA submission (10/15) says Initial Materials Submitted. When clicking on the LOR tab, there are 11 schools listed so it says (far right hand side) ‘Status’. Under status, it had the status of each teacher.

Then I went and logged in to CA. Under the Colleges list, I clicked on the the school, clicked on recommenders and FERPA and there I see the Counselor section has a green check mark and lists the date the transcript and counselor recommendation was submitted. When I look at the LOR section, well it’s currently yellow.

I almost wish I hadn’t been curious enough to look because I now have a headache. When I went to Naviance, I noticed that the LOR for one teacher status changed from Submitted to In Progress. I suspect that is why the LORs have not been uploaded to CA for the EA submission? I’m not worried about it not being submitted because the schools have until 11/1 to get everything uploaded for this particular school but I know last week naviance said Submitted for this LOR. S17 told me on Friday that the teacher stopped him to tell him that she was so happy with her LOR. This was the one who was meeting with the college counselor to make sure the LOR reflected what she wanted to convey because this was going to be her "best in my career’ recommendation. Given all that she has said to S17 and what the college counselor has said about the strength of this LOR, I am not totally freaked out but admittedly slightly anxious right now. S17 will have to ask college counselor tomorrow. Maybe they found a typo at the last second.

one more thing I noticed. The counselor recommendation and school report are only uploaded for that one particular school. Not uploaded for any others. Not even the schools with a 11/1 deadline.

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@curiositycat333 – I have ordered my son’s SAT score reports and other than for schools that require all testing history, he has the option of including the subject test scores. The subject test scores appear below the SAT I score, and he could elect to suppress some of them, but is sending all.

Perhaps log back in to CB and ‘pretend’ to order score reports (but stop before CC payment time). See if the subject test appears below the SAT I, as that is what I have seen each time I have ordered reports. And I have now accidentally paid to send the report to one school twice. Annoying!

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I am not sure but doesn’t it send your complete SAT test history (unless you use score choice)? Could you try to send SAT score and see what all is listed? Your child should have a Colleboard account.

Yes, AP test reports should be separate. But you won’t need to send that until child is accepted and then only to the school they are attending for AP credit purposes.

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Well, we are finally in the “at least 1 app submitted” group! Rose Hulman was just submitted… :O) :!!

My guess is that the reason naviance works differently for everyone is that it might be a manual process for the school to update it. Some schools might update it with application status meticulously, and others might not update it at all.

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@curiositycat333, we submitted the SAT and ACT scores directly to Cal Poly. Was I supposed to do something differently? We’re OOS, so not familiar with how the Cal State apps work. He is only applying to Cal Poly and no other CSU. Thanks.

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I don’t believe Cal Poly wants any scores, transcripts, or anything unless they request it.

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I sent ACT and SAT scores to Calpoly also. Not applying to any other Cal States. As far as I know, that’s correct. You don’t send transcripts until later, but I believe you do send scores. DS hasn’t started that application yet. I did find the following on their website, which indicates to me that you send scores now:

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DS has to ask his UCSB professor if he can take the 2nd Linear Algebra midterm early.

His teammates for the hacking competition trip want to leave at a reasonable time instead of taking the red-eye that day. I don’t know whether the answer will be positive. It’s a 600 person class. The syllabus says there are no makeup exams, and it’s 20% of the grade.

Eeek.

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@Fishnlines29 Sorry, not sure I’ve heard much mention on NYU on this thread, at least not lately. How was the open house?

OK, daughter’s boyfriend has left and returned to college. Back to work. I go back and forth between thinking we can get the final EA apps in on time. I also go back and forth between caring about it. :slight_smile:

For those who were glad to be done with IU Wells, prepare thyself for the SSA.

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@Fishnlines29 My son visited NYU last year for a competition and will be there again this year over Veterans Day week/weekend (hence my post above about missing a midterm). They didn’t have a lot of time to tour the various colleges, but I gather they saw some of the Tandon School of Engineering. Which College at NYU is your kid interested in?

Note: NYU is quite expensive.