Grades portal is seperate from all registration, finances and everything else college related portal for DD’16. She gave me the log in for both. I have never checked the grades portal.
That’s interesting @labegg; I’m looking at the letter that D got and it says she has earned priority consideration that comes with fantastic benefits to include no application fee. But then we were wondering why there was no special code included in the letter to put on the application to get the fee waived.
Now you have answered that question for us…
That seems a bit deceitful that they would send that letter implying that a student is being offered some special incentive when that’s apparently not the case.
D18 is working towards a final list…but she isn’t quite there yet. We have a few more visits scheduled for the Fall. She has a draft of the Common App essay done but doesn’t like it…still a work in progress. She is away for 8 weeks this summer working as a Councilor at the overnight camp that she attended for 8 years. She is home 1 day a week but not much college “stuff” gets done on that day. Just some sleep, catching up with friends and work for the business that she runs. She really won’t get going on applications until late August. It will be a busy September/October as she has many schools that she will apply to EA. Thankfully she is done with testing.
WOOT! for @traveler98 for the first acceptance!
Re: WASHU - I’m sitting on my hands over here so I don’t go to the url for S’s fly-in application to fill it out for him because today is the last day to apply. He doesn’t want to go. Even if they gave us good merit, it would never match the NMF full rides he’s looking at, and we’d get socked with big need changes in year two. I have to keep telling myself that S. Doesn’t. Want. To. Go. breathing into paper bag
Aside from WASHU, I’ve found my zen with S being done with apps.
Re: other stuff - the summer is going by so fast! S is in finals again, this time for his EMR class. He has three class periods left, including a written final and a practical final. For the practical final, he’s part of a team and they’re given a situation with a volunteer patient. They have to deal with the situation start to finish - assessment, treatment, everything.
The team thing is interesting because it’s pass/fail only, and fail means anything below a B. If the team passes, everyone passes as an individual, and if the team fails, everyone fails as an individual. S gets super angsty about teams because he usually gets stuck doing all / most of the work, but this time, he’s super-happy with his team.
The pass / fail thing makes for interesting dynamics from the standpoint of the instructor. You can’t ration out your best students - or your worst students - one to team. The rest of the team shouldn’t pass if they’re carried by only one or two people. Ditto for not failing the whole team because of one poor performer.
S says the teams are grouped like so: the super buff fire dept. guys are together, the police academy guys are together, the other allied health students are together (includes lifeguards, nursing home staff, etc.), there’s a nerdy group that’s together, and then there’s one whole team that S says probably won’t make it.
S is on the nerdy team, LOL! He calls them that because this team aces all the written work, memorizes all the vocab and procedures, but they have various minor weaknesses in areas such as physical strength (S has trouble lifting a gurney with a heavy patient), freezing under pressure or getting flustered, etc. He says the other teams have minor weaknesses, too. The fire / police guys tend to be less strong on the written stuff, frex.
The misfit team - one is defensive, snarky, abrasive and won’t take directions, one isn’t passing the written stuff, one has done really poorly on some of the other timed procedures, etc. S thinks this team probably won’t pass the class. Kind of brutal to group them all together, but I can see why you would do it that way. That one who doesn’t work well in team environments? Not the kind of person you want on an ambo crew, right? Ditto the one who can’t pass the written work.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I have an essay question, and I think it’s okay to ask this because it doesn’t ask what anyone is writing about.
When your kid is doing his/her essay, do they mention the college in the essay? The essay prompts don’t specifically ask “why do you want to attend here.” It’s stuff like the Common App essay prompts.
For example, if the essay is on how you have overcome things in your life, do they mention “and that’s why I belong at State U, because I’m a fighter”? Or do you keep it more generic and don’t mention the school you are applying to?
Just be sure the individual edits are made so it doesn’t accidentally say “and that’s why I belong at State U” when the essay gets recycled for OOS Merit School or Hail Mary Private. 
Each health insurance situation in unique.
Our kids are on our family insurance plan but our POS plan through Blue Cross Blue Shield does not include out of state providers except in very limited border areas.
My oldest had ongoing medical problems and attended a college out of state that had no student health center. Students were expected to go to a medical office near campus. She was only about 100 miles from home but I didn’t want to take any chances given her history.
If my next kid ends up within a hundred miles or so, I probably would not get the student health insurance because she’s pretty stable health-wise, especially if there is a decent student health center.
You have to be a little careful these days because I was surprised to see some college health centers expect real payment and bill insurance.
The insurance we had cost about $1600 each year, which was cheaper than what it would take to access out of state benefits. So that also played a part in our decision.
I’ve seen some student health insurance plans that are around $2500. Yikes.
My D had a scary medical problem come up and the secondary plan came in handy because it covered co-pays and deductibles, and it seemed to make it easier to get pre-authorizations when we needed expensive testing repeated several times.
In any case, you have to apply for a waiver by showing your child has insurance with access to providers at college. From what I’ve read here, most of the time the waiver goes through without a question.
Re insurance, I read in many comments on CC about colleges requiring waivers to prove the student is covered. I don’t know if this applies to all Texas publics, but UTD for sure does not require a waiver except for international students. Domestic students can opt in to the UTD student health coverage but it’s not automatic. So if your insurance doesn’t cover the student at his/her college, you might have to take extra steps to opt in to the school’s student health plan. Anecdotally from the comments on CC it seems common for colleges to start every student on the health plan unless they opt out with a waiver, but it’s definitely not universal. Just one more thing to add to the checklist in preparing for college. That checklist sure is getting long…
For my D15’s school, they automatically add the student to the insurance coverage and you have to actively waive the coverage so you don’t get charged for it but they give you until the middle of September and they sent us and our D plenty of email reminders. If your child is 18, he/she can sign the form themselves but for those with a 17 year old, there are different forms and hoops to jump through.
@bearcatfan We went to this workshop with Admissions Officers and they all recommended that if the school doesn’t have a “Why Do You Want To Go To X College?” supplemental essay to tie your personal essay to the school. Otherwise, they have no idea why you want to go there (if at all).
S18 has decided to apply EA instead of ED, at his top school Furman. He needs to be able to compare financial aid packages between Furman and his other 2 choices: College of Charleston, and Franciscan University of Steubenville. In every other way, S18 meets the criteria for Early Decision. It’s his first choice, his grades remain solid, and the college fits him. But we need to see the financial aid and/or scholarships from everyone.
I wonder how that would even work for the Common App though @odannyboySF ? Would you have to re-do and re-upload your essay for each school as you apply? Seems very risky and likely open to mistakes happening. I guess I can see it for schools where you are applying using their own app, but not so much for Common App schools. I think it would be surprising if Common App schools expected that of applicants’ CA essay. :-?
Did the AOs give advice for handling this in the Common App?
Well, I think I’ve learned my lesson about staying away from here for a few days! It’s hard to get caught up, and I imagine it will only get more so, but it’s a good problem to have. Welcome to all the newly de-lurked and the re-emerged! :x
I’ve really enjoyed the conversations, and it’s sparked some movement over here. My D has never been the driver of this bus, she prefers to sit in the back and read her book, look up occasionally, maybe move up to point something interesting out, but if I start to pull over to take a closer look, or heaven forbid, hand the wheel to her for a bit, she scurries quickly off to the back to hide again. 8-| Basically, she wants to go to college, but is terrified of it, and that conflict causes her to freeze (yes we are working with a therapist). I have tried many things to get her engaged, but I haven’t found the right button, or at least not one that lasts for long. However, after reading all the discussion here, I finally came to a resolution that I must put this more in her hands, somehow. So, I did something so basic, I honestly should have done it ages ago and don’t know why I didn’t. I transferred my excel spreadsheet to google docs and shared it with her. It’s basically my full travelogue as bus driver, lists of schools still on the list, those that have been removed, data I gathered on admit rates/grad rates/retention and all kinds of other crazy things she wanted to know like the hours the dining halls were open on campus (yes really).
After I shared that, she actually looked at it. Looked at it and was surprised by the amount of info there (thanks mom!), we talked for a bit and I mentioned a couple of schools I had kept on the list that probably I should have removed. But she said no, keep them on for now, I need to do some more research on them first 
A few minutes later, she said this other school though may need to come off. But she didn’t have a reason. I told her that was fine, but she should be able to articulate a reason. Because she works so hard avoiding thinking about college, I think it’s important for her to spend time thinking critically about these decisions and understanding her own reasons. Even if the reason is just, I think it won’t be a good fit, but she couldn’t even say that much, just I don’t know. I actually think she is right about this school and I know reasons why (won’t tell her though) but I want her to be able to look critically at these schools and see the positives, the negatives, and be able to articulate how it balances for her. She agreed that she needed to do that! :x So positive steps! BUT I fully expect it will be DAYS before she even looks at this again. Meanwhile, I’ll be itching to grab those keys out of her hands and jump into the driver’s seat again… [-X
Even though I am so not even close to there yet on the health care discussion, it still came in handy as DH came home announcing that we will have a bunch of new choices for next year. If you all hadn’t been discussing this, it might have slipped my notice that we need to be mindful of how our choice will impact her in the fall.
And @labegg I saw the smackdown you got over the “priority consideration” thing. Crazy. I was in full agreement with you on it. Very disingenuous at the least on the part of Tulane and I was surprised how many people came out in support of the practice. :-q
Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice on the health insurance issue - very much appreciated!!!
O.K. on to the next thing. I started looking at some instructions for the CSS profile late last night, but my mind did not want to deal with it at the time!! Maybe today - I don’t know - there’s got to be something more fun to look at than that!
@1822mom I took D on a visit yesterday. She really liked the school, and on the way home I tried to get D to talk about what she liked and didn’t like.
When I voiced a possible con compared to a state school, her reaction was, “Then why did we go to see it?” I tried to explain that the visit wasn’t just about deciding on that one school but are a learning process to discover what she likes and doesn’t like, what can she live with and what not, how different colleges do things, etc.
Later my oldest D shared her experience about visiting one college and feeling like she could go there until she visited two more. She said it would have been a big mistake if she had chosen the first school.
When I asked D to rank the schools she had visited so far, one completely came off the list. That’s progress!
Hey parents, quick question. Do colleges let you stack need based and merit aid? So say you have to pay 20k after need based FA and you get a merit scholarship for 20k would that mean you don’t have to pay for anything? I can’t seem to find an answer on the school websites.
@kassh4, most schools that give need-based aid will reduce your need-based aid by the amount of an outside scholarship. So, let’s say the school gives you 30K in need-based aid, and child gets a 20K scholarship. Since the school has determined that you “need” 30 K to attend, they would reduce your aid to 10K.
There are a few schools that let you stack, but I think they are few and far between and I can’t recall which ones allow that. I’d check the Financial Aid forum. This question comes up a lot.
No, most of the time merit will replace need based institutional grants, because it reduces the “need”.
But you need to ask how each school deals with it, they might reduce subsidized loans and work study before reducing grants.
@kassh4 Stacking is complicated and depends on the school. Some stack, some reduce your loans first and others don’t stack at all. You’ll have to call the individual schools to find out, or do a search school by school.
Yay for productive college visits and for progress with applications!
I don’t look forward to figuring out the health care thing, especially if D goes to Canada.
D got the Tulane mailer, too. I agree that it’s deceptive, when it doesn’t need to be. D has visited twice and I really love it (more than D does!), so I’m disappointed to see Tulane use these tactics.
Summer is 2/3 over here.
Yale sent D a big, beautiful book. NOT HELPFUL.
D is having a grand time at McGill. She’s learning a lot about McGill and about the other Canadian schools she’s considering. She’s also learning some things about herself, and is adding some new factors and concerns to the college search and selection pot. It’s getting more and more complicated. Her fluid list remains…well, fluid. Soon after she comes home, she’ll tag along on a couple of her brother’s college visits to Trinity U and Southwestern. Does it get any more different from McGill than a Texas LAC? Hopefully the trip will help her clarify things and not just muddy the waters even further. AND hopefully she’ll use some of the drive time to start thinking about essays. :-t
Happy Sunday, everyone!