Cautionary Note: Be sure your kiddo’s are following up with their applications to ensure that all materials are received
Followed up with a few of DD’s schools this afternoon to see if transcripts had been received (as it seems that 80% of her schools have not received or been able to match up the transcripts with her app). 3 schools still seem unable to match sent transcripts with applications.
For one school the application receipt on the Common App specifically says that the applicant should receive an email indicating that the application has been received and instructions on how to set up a portal to track the application. Well it has been since Aug 1 and still no email that the application has been received.Today said school claims that they have no record that the applications was submitted and then mumbled something about they won’t download applications from the Common App until October 1, check back after that date. Low and behold about 1/2 hour later DD gets a automated email that says:
* "Thank you for submitting your application to **** University - your application has been received.
In a few weeks, you will receive instructions on accessing your applicant portal along with additional information
about our process. On the portal, you will be able to track the status of your application and supporting documents,
as well as ultimately view your admission decision when it is posted.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us".*
I have not been overly impressed with our interactions with this particular school to date. We are scheduled to attend a local admissions event with them next month. They going to have to wow me or they are getting the axe from Mom!
The road for applications did not seem to be this fraught with bumps and potholes for DD2016. I am going to chalk it up to applying too early. Lesson learned, too bad this is the last kid, lol!
Well, seems like DD plans to stick out the AP course. She got lucky enough to talk with her guidance counselor, and he said she really needs to take a science course to have a chance at her first choice since her last science classes were in 10th grade. Then, I mentioned to her that grades in senior year aren’t quite as critical as in junior year, so if she has to tone down the studying a bit to make it through, and ends up with a B, it will be fine. She is a very diligent student, and I know she’ll still do very well, but she puts a lot of pressure on herself when studying and stresses about running out of time each night.
Hopefully she’ll make her decision soon after spending all of last weekend wrapping up work on her top school’s application!
Hi. I havent posted in a while but have been reading. @labegg post struck a chord. My dd did her common app in mid August and submitted to UC Boulder and University of Denver. She got an email from Denver within a couple of days with a link to a portal showing what had been received. Nothing from Boulder. I called them about a week and was told they are changing their system and that they hadn’t downloaded the apps yet and to check back. I checked back last week and was told they were still working on it but that they could check my dd’s file and tell me if they had received everything. They checked and said they had received everything but the supplemental writing which was super weird since she submitted with her common app at the same time. They asked to have her email admissions with the supplemental writing which she did. I called again this week to confirm it had been received. Later that day she got an email with a login to a portal that shows that everything has been received. Sharing to remind people to follow up when they submit to make sure everything is received.
I asked the admissions person if they knew when they would start releasing decisions and was told that they are using a new system in general and that they weren’t sure but that we would hear by the Feb 15 early action deadline! When I said that it looked like applicants started hearing in October last year - I got a very vague response about it being different this year but that maybe we would hear by the end of the year. Boulder is dd’s first choice and was hoping not to have to do additional applications (other than Denver which she likes as well) as her stats are very high for Boulder and she should get in… and to also know early so as to relax and enjoy senior year. If she (and her less than patient parent) has to wait till February - ugh! The website assigns an area admissions counselor so I told my dd to write and try to get some more clarification. Don’t think she has done it yet. Anyone else have a child who has applied to Boulder who has any more info on their timeline? Thanks
I went to U of Toronto’s website to see if their application was open yet. It’s not, but I looked around while I was there. Unless I’m reading it wrong, there are two ways to apply for a Canadian living abroad.
OUAC 105 (Ontario's app, where you can apply to multiple schools). Fee: 156 CAD, plus 90 CAD supplement fee for U of Toronto. That's 246 CAD; 203 USD with the current exchange rate.
U of Toronto's independent international application. Fee: 180 CAD; 149 USD.
I know this is not much money in the grand scheme of things, but still, $-) @-) X_X
If this school were near the top of D’s list, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. But, it’s not. Gah. It’s her third favorite of the Canadian schools. I told D what I’d learned and suggested that she wait a bit to submit that application. The deadline isn’t until January 10, and it doesn’t require teacher or counselor recs. So, maybe by mid-December she’ll have an acceptance or two in her pocket that will make Toronto moot.
@Clementine7624 funny CU-Boulder is one of the schools that I checked on today. We had gotten a similar story from CU in August. DD2018 just received her portal login late last week. (She submitted Aug 1.) Our current hang up is the transcript is not showing as received, although the HS claims to have sent it electronically on 7/18. DD emailed her CU admissions person who checked and said they had everything but the transcript and the GC reports/teacher’s rec (which we know have not been done by the GC yet…) The admissions person asked DD resubmit the transcripts. I called today to just confirm it wasn’t hanging out there in system as it costs us $$ to send transcripts. The IT department was unable to locate it.
We too were told admissions decisions by mid-February.
It seems like that is the comfort zone for many schools! It is nerve racking, the wait. DD2016 had just about all of her decisions (10 of 12) by January 1. Looks like DD2018 will only have 3 or 4 by February. It’s a long time from August 1 to Mid-February!
With the ramping up of the coalition application it seems several schools have changed their admissions system this year. CU, UW-Seattle, UF and Florida State too I think.
Just attended an info night for parents of seniors. Almost none of the information was new to me, but it was really well done. I especially liked the discussion of finding a proper safety. The counselor really emphasized that just throwing an application to a school you know you can get into does not make it your safety. If it doesn’t have the major(s) you’re interested in or you hate the place and would never really go there, then it’s not a safety. She said she sees students every year who don’t spend enough time researching the safety, and parents every year who don’t make sure their kid has a proper safety where they would actually like to go and has what they need and is affordable. She said there’s often a sad correlation with those families, in that many of the students have way too many reaches and an inflated idea of what is a match for the student. So the students end up rejected by the reaches (and the reaches that they convinced themselves were matches) or unable to afford them because the aid package was not good enough, and left with a “safety” that isn’t really a safety because the student never seriously considered going there. Preaching to the choir on this thread of course, it was just nice to hear such frank talk from the head college and career counselor. I wonder how many parents heard it but thought “well, she doesn’t really mean MY kid because Duke IS TOO a match for him and how dare she say it’s a reach for everyone!”.
@traveler98 - I fear that is my D18. Most of the schools on her list are reaches and she has two in state I know she doesn’t want to go to and one OOS where she will very likely get in with lots of $$, but she doesn’t really want to go there. Problem is, when I bring up finding some safeties where she would probably be happy and that has the major she is interested in, my H says I am being pessimistic and “selling her short”. Then says he wants to take her to see Stanford (DUDE - it is NOT happening). Her HS CC and her private CC seem to think her list looks good so maybe I am wrong, but I would rather be safe on a safety than sorry on a safety!
Now I feel lucky that we already have log-in portals for the two Common App schools and some others. I plan on making a list of who has what and who needs what, just to keep track. Some of them have been good about auto-emailing as they’ve received things.
The high school finally released the transcripts, so hopefully those will start getting downloaded by the colleges. That is the last piece of the puzzle for several schools, as they will take the ACT off the transcript. I had to point out to the school that those requests were made almost two weeks ago. The school promises that they will be sent out within three days, but with the guidance meetings things have been busy. Still … come on people, you have anxious students and parents here.
Two of the schools, believe it or not, needed old-fashioned paper information from the guidance counselor. My daughter brought those in the Tuesday after Labor Day with a SASE. Still waiting on the guidance counselor stuff for a couple schools that need things electronically, such as the Common App.
I don’t see why guidance counselors don’t start work a few weeks before everyone else, especially as apps open earlier and earlier.
@traveler98 that is exactly why I am so grateful to have found CC when I did. I would have had no idea of importance of true safety and what in is a true safety. We had a safety for my D, however I now realize we likely can’t afford it. Finding ones that meet all three criteria: can get in, can afford, would be happy attending is actually pretty hard if you don’t look to state flagship.
It’s great that guidance counselor spelled it out for parents so early in the process. Hope they do at my D’s school as well
@amominaz, it seems there are a couple possibilities in your D’s case. Do the counselors know that your D doesn’t like the three schools you mentioned where she will easily be accepted? If they think she would be happy to attend all the schools on her list they might think she has plenty of safeties so they would say her list is fine. Another possibility is that there is a true safety on the list that isn’t obvious to you. Either way it would be good for you to discuss this with the counselors so that they’re fully aware that your D really doesn’t want to attend three schools on her list. Though I have to ask, if she hates them why is she spending her limited senior year time applying to them in the first place?
Re your husband’s concern, I can relate. My H didn’t do much college research for S and didn’t realize how much the landscape had changed since he and I were applying for college in Pennsylvania in the mid-90s. He really had a bit of snobbishness going on when I set up a tour at UT Dallas, like “my brilliant kid isn’t going to some UT satellite school, he is better than that and why would you even suggest this school for him?”. And then H saw how much S loved the school and agreed that the fit and opportunities at UTD really were great for S, and that fit was so much more important than prestige. Even after the tour it took H a while to accept that UTD was not just on the list but close to the top. But he did come around and by the time S asked if we’d be ok with him applying nowhere but UTD my husband was fully on board and ready to buy a UTD polo to wear proudly.
oh I would love to play the odds game again, but I fear what will be coming.
We are going to Virginia to visit schools this weekend (Washington and Lee, UVA, Richmond), so maybe then I (and he) will have a more of a clue. I think he will pick whichever of his competitive merit schools he gets (if any, and there is my worry). Those include in addition to the three listed above places like Vanderbilt, Emory, Wash U and Duke. So once he gets merit at none of them, he will most likely be picking between Minnesota, Miami of Ohio and Oklahoma. He has some smaller D3 schools on his list too, but I think he is wanting bigger right now.
I want him to strive, but I’m not sure I’m ready to handle the heartbreak when he gets none of those crazy crazy competitive awards. I don’t think we can swing 280K for college either.
We have a couple of good safeties. D18 wouldn’t be super thrilled with either because she’s so focused on her favorite but I imagine she’d warm up to them over time. My main concern is the middle tier. I’ve found it surprisingly difficult to find three or four target schools that we all like. Her favorite is at the borderline between target and reach because of the admission rate of 18% (she’s at the 75th percentile on scores).
I’m beginning to think that D18 shouldn’t apply to more than two reach schools. The odds are so low and the application requirements increase for them. I’m not even sure she’d actually like going to any of them, either due to the location/weather or the difficulty level. In addition, I don’t think that many of them have a huge bang-for-your-buck return on the investment other than the obvious HYPMS elites where the name brand has value.
My personal preference is for her to go to an easier school where she can have some freaking fun for a change. I don’t want her nose embedded in a book 24x7. HS has been a disaster socially.
The subject of safeties sure hits home. This is where my DD failed. It certainly was not lack of communication on our part, it was about not being realistic on her side. I don’t manage my DD’s college app process, this is her deal not mine. We laid out the budget as well as what we were willing to do in regards to additional loans etc. We are always open for discussion, have helped locate schools and research options but when it comes down to where she is going to apply, how she is going to apply and why, that is on her, not me. Sure, I’ll help out when asked but I don’t do it for her. We do not believe in large student loans and will not enable her to have them. She cannot exceed what she can obtain via Fed Loans, we won’t sign her up for anything else and we won’t incur debt, she has a fixed amount to work with on top of the Fed loan but if she does it right, she won’t have any debt. This is our goal for her.
My DD IMO intermingled “safety” with “match” - she got into some great schools that I am sure she would have done very well at but they were beyond her budget. She got into a mediocre LOC that despite loads of $$ thrown at her was still way out of our budget and the school IMO could not justify the cost for what they offered.
The great school that was beyond budget was a good match for her strengths as well as most of the items on her “want” list for school. The LOC really didn’t have much to match her strengths but crossed off every “want” on her list as well as had a location she dreamed of. Neither one was doable and she left herself with no other real options.
She has opted to skip the reach schools and is going after the safeties. She doesn’t want to put the effort into chasing the competitive merit that would make some of those match schools possible and I’m not going to do it for her. I can’t want a college education for her more than she does, so safeties it is.
I just booked a trip to UAH for their open house/tour day. Not the easiest location to get a direct flight too, aye yi yi LOL. Opted to fly into Birmingham and rent a car opposed to the smaller jets that fly in/out of Huntsville and take us the long way around or are just insanely expensive for a direct flight.