Be careful about starting the Common App too early. At some point over the summer (and I don’t recall when), they “wipe” the information from the Common App. If your kids want to start on essays early, I suggest he or she do so in a different document that can later be imported.
@suzy100 They stopped doing that last year. Your information now rolls over. I assume they’ll keep it for this year.
From the Common App Help section: What information rolls over from my old account?
All of the information under the Common App tab and your list of colleges will rollover.
OK good, thanks @1518mom!
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, you can now set up a parent practice applicant account on the Common App. I set one up earlier this school year so that I could see the essay questions for the colleges S18 is considering. S18 has not set up his own account yet. I figure that can wait until after school’s out for the year.
@1518mom will you see if you can post a link to that? I can’t find it.
@crazy4info A link to what? The help section or the practice applicant account? From what I recall, I started to set myself up as a student and was offered the opportunity to set it up as a practice account as a parent. When I log in now, I still log in as if I’m a student.
Pitt application opened in July last year.
Will have to see when S is retaking SAT. May is too busy (musical). Maybe he can try to prep over the summer.
Not sure if any local schools will be offering the August SAT.
Some of the schools I looked at so far have October merit deadlines.
Wow @1518mom that is so helpful! I had no idea the CommonApp had a practice account feature OR that the data in real accounts would roll over! I figured D and I would be blundering our way through together and it would not be a pretty sight! So glad to get to preview things! #:-S =D>
She’s very likely spending her summer (and fall and winter) recovering from foot surgery, I anticipate her having nothing but time to work on college apps and essays while she lays about with her foot up. She probably plans to get some binge-watching in as well, but I imagine we’ll negotiate. 
@1518mom OMG!! I’ve been asking about how to find out about the writing supplements. I just made a practice account and they are all there! Can’t thank you enough!
@1518mom >:D< Thank you!!
I just made a practice account also. I know that the general Common App questions have been released for the next application cycle, but what about the school-specific supplements? Do they typically change from one year to the next? If so, when does that change happen?
@ShrimpBurrito I don’t know the answer to that question, but I suppose you could always call each school to find out. Seems like that would be the sure fire way to know.
I would bet those school specific essays are from the 2016/2017 cycle. But would also bet that the specific questions for next year will be similar, so at least a place to start generating ideas!
Glad I could help. 
My S18 has a number of schools that overlap with my D15. Some of the questions look familiar. Certainly, Lawrence University’s is exactly the same, with the exception that they’ve added a number of questions about gender and pronouns. LU is not actually on S18’s list, but D15 had a lot of fun with the question, so I looked it up now.
Class of 2017 parent here - I saw some talk about when to get applications in. Our experience is that you should get your apps in as early as possible. If a school offers EA, priority, whatever, do it. I found that kids who waited until the RD round had a harder time getting in than those who applied earlier, although many had similar stats. We had top 10 kids getting waitlisted at schools they otherwise would have gotten into if they applied EA. Take the spring and summer to work on essays, line up recommendations, etc. We do not have experience with ED. We didn’t like the proverbial egg in 1 basket :). Good luck. The process is a lot more stressful than it really needs to be.
@metsgrrrl - thanks for the tip! Do you recommend requesting rec letters before school is out their junior year? That’s what we were planning to do, because it seems crazy to hit up teachers/counselors the first months of school senior year. But if we haven’t started an application yet, there is no place or portal to send the rec letters if the teacher is required to send it through Naviance (or whatever electronic system the school uses). Does that make sense?
My daughter is planning on touching base with her references before the end of the school year, and I am MAKING her ask them the best way to reach them over the summer (despite a lot of sighing and eye-rolling on her part). You never know when you might need to reach them.
I don’t think any of her colleges require teacher recs, but they will all accept them and at least one “encourages” them.
Some advice please…D18 is considering having an off period next year and has elected to take her required Econ/US Gov courses online over the summer and not the AP versions during the school year (this will not effect her gpa as online summer courses are not calculated) I am on the fence about it as I wonder if colleges will see it as her not challenging herself particularly given her less than stellar ACT score. Some background, 4.86 wgpa/3.6uwpa, rank 73/625, ACT 25 (is taking again). She is in all honor/preAP/AP classes and always has been. She will graduate with 9 AP classes. Intended major Sociology, perspective colleges: Auburn, U of Washington, Loyola Chicago, Florida State, Clemson, College of Charleston, Highpoint U, LSU, University of Tampa, Seattle U, University of SC, Texas A&M (in state but not guaranteed admit), UTSA (guaranteed admit). She has been approved by her guidance counselor for the schedule below as she has plenty of credits to graduate.
Senior courseload:
- AP Calc AB
- AP ENG Lit
- AP European History
- Forensic Science
- Sociology, half year/Reel America, half year(Social Studies Elective exploring US History through film)
- Varsity Cheer
- Free Period
(AP classes to date: AP Human Geo, AP World Hist, APUSH, AP Physics 1, AP Psych, AP EnG Comp)
What would you advise, pick up another elective or don’t sweat the free period?
Also anyone have any opinions on the potential college list?
@crazy4info regarding LORs, you can ask the teachers early but most teachers still have to upload the finished LOR into Naviance in the fall ( if your school uses Naviance)…
The process at our school was make a list of schools you were applying to. In the fall, you can click on a button in Naviance and request which teacher you want to submit a LOR to that particular school. The teachers can see the date when the LOR needs to be completed by.
it wasn’t a painful process. Id have your kid start thinking about what teacher they will ask. It can’t hurt to let the teacher know this spring that you were planning on asking for a LOR. In our school I don’t think any teachers wrote LORs over the summer though.
@RightCoaster - thank you. I do think you are right about a lot of schools. I called one of our schools today (Baylor), and they said that they would take the letters anytime - and they can be snail mailed or emailed, or sent through Naviance. If they get them advance of the application being filed, they hold them. So I’m going to see if we can at least get those out of the way sooner rather than later. I know of at least one other school that will let us do this as well. Her ECs are crazy in the fall, so I want to knock out as much as we can this summer!
@crazy4info I would suggest getting as much done over the summer as possible if you have a kid that has a busy schedule in the fall.
I would suggest working on the essay in the summer if you have time. You might have to write more than one essay, and many times schools have a " Why Us " essay to write too. That part of the application can take a while and it is best to have it out of the way.
Once the common app opens up you can start filling in all of the data fields.
Start thinking of what your kid will list in the activities section ahead of time, and prepare some short blurbs.
With my son, we had pretty much finished everything up by October, and then we submitted everything we had to meet the EA deadlines of Nov 1. I think we did 5 EA apps and he heard back from some schools as early as the first week in Dec.
Because he had everything done early it made it easy to apply to some schools RD too.