Lurker from the parents of 2017 thread here… When I went to MSU in the mid 80s, I was 1 of 4 from the Dakota’s in attendance! ;
Welcome @CatBee ! >:D< And wow! Congrats @labegg on your D getting all those apps done! I am seriously impressed and wondering if she can send a little of that get-it-done attitude over to my D 
I logged onto the common app today with my test account to see what had changed from the last time I looked in June. Unfortunately a lot changed. In June most of her schools showed no additional questions. Now 6 of 8 have the “why us?” Plus a few bonus questions. :(( I guess she’s lucky even 2 don’t have any. Needless to say she wasn’t happy with that news when I told her. But it did serve a larger purpose of allowing me to reinforce the reason why she needs to get that main essay done before school starts, then she can chip away at the little ones. She agreed. She always agrees, she just doesn’t follow up on any of it. 8-|
But tomorrow she has a friend coming over who wants my help with finding schools/making a list. A student willing to talk to me about colleges? I am so there! :)) She’s interested in going to Canada or the UK though which I know little about. So we’ll have to figure it out together. I must be going truly mad that this is now my definition of “fun” 8-}
So I think I am more centered today. Yesterday I was just DONE with college admissions, thanks to my high school’s IT ineptitude.
Worked with Parchment to delete the bad email account and set her up with a new one. Requested her transcript be sent to us so we see what comes through the pipeline - worth the $5. I’m not sure the school understands that they have the wrong domain on the students’ email accounts. Maybe I saved someone else a hassle, but who knows. I will call the school to make sure the request is in their system.
On the other hand, the transcript lady (who has nothing to do with what happened above) did me a solid and put her ACT scores back on her transcript. I was under the impression just the state test was on there, but they all were including the subscores. I am fine with that. Although I think I will have to send several ACT scores through the company because some colleges only accept them that way.
We have one teacher recommendation but the teacher moved to another district over the summer. I think that will still be okay - daughter has kept in touch with her. She needs to re-email the others to make sure they are still a go - they were last June.
My rambling point … do stuff early! Get accounts set up wherever you need them, so you have time to deal with someone else’s mistakes.
Why us? That question is perplexing. What do students write about? Some of them even say, besides location and ranking, why us…I’m concerned about my DS being able to write an “honest” statement that’s not lame. Frankly, we are finding the best regarded schools to make a list of reach, meet and safety. We are making sure they offer the right major selection and that the campus has the right or a tolerable feel. We’re also looking for merit, which would probably not be the right answer, lol. So how do kids approach this? Especially if they apply and haven’t seen it.
On a different topic, how does Naviance and the applications work together, like with the common app? Does it also work with schools that have their own app? I’m envisioning the document management process to be horrible. What about reference letters, can you use the same ones for all schools without having to go to a teacher more than once?
Do the Naviance account email and Common app login email need to be the same? For us, Naviance is using the school email but D18 was planing to use her personal email for the common app. Anyone knows if that can be an issue?
@bearcatfan If your D’s school uses naviance for teacher recs, do you know how you’ll use a teacher who moved schools? I looked there the other day and you can only select the teachers at your school for recs, which really freaked me out because I’m in a similar situation only I want to use a professor as one of my recs. (I did full time dual enrollment junior year so literally have no 11th grade teachers on that list).
So talk of app waivers sent me to check S18’s emails to see if any of the schools to which he intends to apply had sent a waiver code (just one, oh well). Noticed a Northwestern email that included a link to its net price calculator and I wanted to waste more time so figured what the heck. Usually we do not qualify for any financial aid on these but with 2 in college when S18 starts I thought I’d check. To my surprise Northwestern’s calculator estimated a $23,000 “university scholarship.” By comparison, I ran the calculator for Yale right after, using almost the same info, and it estimated $0 aid. The one thing that was different though, which I have not seen before, was Northwestern asked how much I spend yearly on private school tuition for S18’s younger siblings. I would not have thought that Northwestern could have better financial aid than an Ivy, or that it cared that we spend money on private school tuition, but there you go.
There was a question up thread about whether mailings had slowed. For us they have - received only one last week.
But … my S told me yesterday that he just received 32 college emails in one day.
Welcome @CatBee!
I wish we had some fee waivers over here. We’ve been hit with a wave of unexpected expenses and one yet to be determined as one of our vehicles sits at the mechanic and has them stumped on why it won’t start. Sigh.
The amount of college emails yesterday saying the Common App is open was insane. No wonder the site kept crashing yesterday. Of course I used the opportunity to point out the same thing happens if you try to submit your app on Halloween or after 
S also said he got a ton of emails in the past couple of days. Today’s USPS informed delivery email just says there are “some mailpieces for which we do not have images” (usually that means larger items) so I wonder if that means the mailbox will be full of big college books today. I love that informed delivery service!
Good Morning! I’ve been lurking here for a little bit now, and I just have to say how much I love this forum! I have learned so much already from you all, although I have had to google quite a bit of things :))
I’m a newbie college app mom - S18 and then S19 right on his tail. Here’s the thing… S18 isn’t all that interested in touring, researching, or even looking at many schools. He did tours at UCLA, Rice, UT, and TAMU. He says he’s done, doesn’t want to see anymore. Applied to TAMU and will apply to UT soon, I think ??? Here in Texas, we have auto-admit for the top 10% and 7% (UT) for state schools, and he qualifies for both. I’m wondering if I should push it for him to look further or just be happy he has made up his mind? He seems pretty determined to do undergrad at TAMU and grad at Rice. I’d love your opinions
Welcome @trish02 If he’s happy with TAMU then I wouldn’t push him. My ds is also a TX auto admit he only plans to apply to UTD and maybe UT as safety (he could commute to UT).
@trish02, if he’s happy with TAMU and auto admit, I’d say let him be done if he wants. Like @3scoutsmom and your S, my S is auto admit everywhere in Texas. He loves UTD and has already been accepted there, and at the moment isn’t planning to apply anywhere else. Several of his friends are also planning to be “one and done” at TAMU, UT, etc. In my case, I told my S he still has time and it’s perfectly fine if he decides later to apply to more schools but he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. I’m confident he really will be happy at UTD and it’s well within budget even if he misses NMSF (he’s sitting at 222 selection index which is probably safe for NMSF but not guaranteed). If your S will be happy at TAMU and you know you can afford it, then there’s really no need to make him apply anywhere else.
@3scoutsmom @traveler98 Thank you for reassuring me that it isn’t crazy to be “one and done”. Whew… I feel like he found his place and any pushing from me falls on deaf ears. It is so good to hear that other kids are doing the same thing.
@1822mom I had been seriously thinking about having my daughter attend a UK school, so I’m passing along what I learned.
First, if you are thinking about applying to med school later, you need to study in the US or Canada. There is some kind of central clearing house for med school applications, and they will have to convert the grades etc to the US system and will only do it if they CHOOSE to give you a waiver. Getting into med school is hard enough, you shouldn’t add more issues.
Second, for UK schools, as a rule you have to know exactly what you want to major in, and it can be very difficult to change between majors. Our HS GC said that several of the kids from our school have attended UK schools and ended up regretting the decision because they wanted more flexibility. When I went to the St. Andrew’s Scotland presentation, they said that they have been adding more flexibility to their system so that you can switch more easily between related fields. FYI, St. Andrews is really known for International Relations, if that’s of interest. Trinity Dublin said that with regard to science, there is a program where you can generalize in science in your first two years and then specialize in your junior and senior years. But, you have to be careful with this and really look at the major requirements for whatever schools you are looking at. For instance, at Trinity Dublin computer science is in a separate school within the university, so you can’t switch between that and physics. I can think of two advantages to going straight into your area of study. One is that you don’t have to take classes in areas that you don’t like (so no more foreign language classes for the science student that hates them!). Another is that you might come out of college with more knowledge in your area than your American contemporary since you’ve had so many more classes in your subject matter.
A third point is that in the UK schools, they don’t have as many assessments as the US schools, so your grade might be based solely on a final and a mid-term. This could be good for some students, but disastrous for others. You also need to look at how the particular school handles the finals: Trinity Dublin is in the process of changing their system so that they will have finals at the end of each semester; previously they had a fall semester, a spring semester, and then a 4 week study semester, and you would take all of your exams from both the fall and spring at the end of the study semester. Just passing this along as something you should look at in case any other schools still do this.
Make sure you look at whether the school has adequate housing and whether they have meal plans. Some schools don’t.
The drinking age is 18.
Some of the schools are rolling admissions. You need to look at this carefully.
Another one and done auto-admit here, though I made S apply to his #2 school (also auto-admit) just in case. If the school is a quality, affordable school that the kid likes, then I don’t see any problems with the one and done approach.
Re the Canadian schools, I’ve been told by people on CC that U Toronto, McGill and UBC all have pretty serious grade deflation (with U Toronto being the worst).
One other question that I don’t know the answer to, are US kids at these schools able to easily get internships/summer jobs in Canada/UK, or are there work permit issues? What about after they graduate, are they allowed to get a job there? Or do US companies come on campus to interview? I think that’s an important question, and I’d think how desirable your degree is with US companies would have a lot has to do with what your prospective major is.
@snowfairy137 My school doesn’t use Naviance.
I don’t think the Common App specifies it has to be a teacher from the actual school … her Spanish teacher moved to another district. In playing around with the Common App you can also specify if this person is “other” but that might vary school to school.
You could always use that person as an additional recommendation? Not really sure on that one.
Welcome @trish02 . I agree with those who advise to not “push” the unwanted expansion of the college search. Count your blessings. Sounds like you have a kiddo with confidence, who does not feel compelled to do what “the other kids are doing.” TAMU is a great school with an unbelievable alumni network. Congratulations!