@bearcatfan our HS had a senior student & parent meeting this week to discuss the college application process. I did not attend but my friend did. I attended the meeting for DD2016 and did not find it helpful. My friend said it was absolutely a waste of time. A GC (who also happened to be my DD’s GC) stood in front of the auditorium and read the Common Application directions aloud. They also talked about taking the SAT and ACT before December. Her comment “Why did we not have this meeting last Spring? September of senior year is a bit late in the game.” I couldn’t agree more.
The best source of college info I have found is right here on CC!
OK - let’s talk Common App. My D18 is freaking out about the activities section. She has a few activities she was very involved in, but she’s feeling like she needs to have all ten slots filled. What are your kids doing?
@amominaz If I remember correctly, she filled in what she had. I don’t think all 10 slots were filled in, but what she did fill in were long-time things like extracurriculars she’d done for years.
I wouldn’t worry about filling out all 10. Some kids really will have 10 quality ECs, others will be scraping the bottom of the barrel because they think leaving something empty is bad. I imagine an admissions officer’s eyes probably glaze over at some point and they look at the first couple and move on.
@labegg One of my daughter’s friends already had admission to his number 1 pick before school even started - it was a graphic design school so maybe that’s different. Her other friends are just starting to visit schools, so I think more kids are in the beginning stages of all of this. We here on CC are definitely not the norm, although you Type As are my peeps.
My feeling is you can’t rely on the GCs to help much if at all in larger public schools. That’s why I don’t regret helping my DD as much as I did during the process. I am the Queen of All Things Google in my house, which is how I found CC.
That is crazy. Maybe those kids don’t need merit aid, but taking the SAT in Dec of senior year is unreal (unless you are trying to increase score and a school you already applied to accepts updated scores).
Most merit aid deadlines I know of are in Nov/Dec, some in October.
And FAFSA should be filed asap if you need federal or state aid.
ACT is king at D’s school too with the top students prepping after sophomore year and taking it the beginning of junior year (and again in fall/spring if needed). Waiting until Dec to take it the first time seems foolish! We needed scores early to be able to target D’s schools, research, and plan visits over junior year and last summer. Waiting to do that piles a lot of unnecessary work into senior year IMO.
D’s school’s PTA publishes a college planning guide that includes a timeline for testing, suggested class progression for different academic tracks and lots of other good info. It’s designed for a family to begin utilizing it in freshman year as there is content specific to every year of high school. It’s very helpful and content is spot-on was written by the counseling dept. Its a nice tool and one you wouldn’t expect from a big public HS. I’m sure it cuts down on a lot of traffic for the counseling dept, particularly in the first 3 yrs of HS. A win/win situation =D>
Thank you trish02. Writing is a big issue for him as well as sketching, which is necessary in his AP Calc AB class.
He has never had a notetaker or recorded lectures, but he did have a 1-to-1 aide who did take notes for him on occasion. I’m really trying to get senior year in place with accommodations he would have in college.
I’m shocked more kids don’t take ACT or SAT sophomore year. Our plan has been once during sophomore year, usually spring, then again junior year if necessary.
I feel like junior year is really busy and to get rid of the “what’s it like?” worries about standardized testing is a good thing, even if the score doesn’t meet the expected range.
December ACT or SAT (in my opinion) feels very late in the game, although not impossible, especially for schools without rolling admissions (that Jan 15 deadline). For us getting those scores in earlier made sense because her top 2 are rolling and so is merit aid. My D18 took her first SAT at the end of 8th grade, they selected students they felt would benefit from the experience who had a chance at higher scores later in HS. She then took her PSATs in Sophomore and Junior Year (I don’t believe the first set counted towards anything but was seen as a practice test) and took her SATs and ACTs in September of Junior year with a follow up to improve scores in December of Junior year. Her final ACT was taken in May I believe (can’t recall exactly) just to try to get the coveted score she needed, which she did, and she was done. A LOT of her friends retook ACT and/or SAT again at the beginning of this school year but it was typially their 2nd or 3 rd go at it. I saw her GC yesterday at Back to School Night and thanked her for being proactive, she said she’s still her only student who submitted appliations, I was very surprised. One other student from her class who has a different GC was admitted to West Point a few weeks ago and that’s it as far as admittances thus far. She still has to finish some supplementals for a few other Common App schools and her big public in-state Safety needs to be finalized this weekend; other than that she seems to be ahead of the game.
@amominaz My daughter did not fill in all 10 slots, she chose I think 8 activities that were significant.
Early testers here, too, for D18 and S20 (he’s taking the ACT this Oct). My S23 will likely not be on the same trajectory. Too much pressure too soon for him. It’s a very individual thing.
Dual enrollment is common here and the standard pre-college track at our hs begins scheduling a college history class fall of sophomore year. To qualify students take the ACT or SAT so they have their scores to apply to the colleges as dual enrolled students by the deadlines which are spring of freshman year. Usually this means scheduling the first test fall of freshman year and if the target isn’t reached they take again in spring to qualify in time.
My D took the PSAT in 10th grade (required at school), did poorly. I bought her a book and suggested she prep for the 11th grade PSAT. She prepped a very little bit, did poorly.
It took that second test to get her focused on doing well. She and I worked through Khan academy stuff together daily for the 2 weeks of xmas break Junior year. She did the actual SAT that winter and got a score in line with her practice exams (and much, much better than the PSAT) so we decided she was done with testing.
10 ACs - my daughter has not filled them out yet, but one aspect is musicals/shows she has been in. We were thinking that she might just put them all down as one thing, and check off each year, but her interviewer at one school said to be sure to include all the names of the shows and roles she had in the application. The only way we see to do that would be to list each show separately, which would fill up most of the 10 just with shows. She might do it that way just for that one school and them combine them for the rest.
@amominaz We worked on this a few days back and we took the stance of bundling in terms of themes. There were a couple of long running activities that had their own slots on the activities list (so as to highlight achievement). Others, we bundled, for example: “Service activities” was just one slot but included multiple school service trips and some smaller events with other organizations. We thought it read better and was easier to provide a thematic framework to the activities versus a straight list. Other than one or two highlight activities, we felt the rest should just help paint a picture. So we avoided using that many slots.
In terms of her major extracurricular, ballet, she cut and pasted from her resume on the apps she could. It was kind of bundling like @chippedtoof - an advanced dancer for these years, featured roles in productions including x, y and z. That was one activity, and left room for other things that were school, church and community related.
I don’t know if I’m in or out of the loop on all of this stuff either, but some schools will do their best to accommodate you if you have issues/concerns.
My concern related to safety & the fact that my D was traveling by herself & we reached out to admissions & a high school friend that attends the school to arrange for her to get a ride to campus.
A great networking tip is to make sure you get business cards or other contact info from the admissions reps you meet at college presentation events or wherever. Then, if you ever need to reach out to the school, you already have a person to contact & that will get the ball rolling. If they can’t help with your question, they can certainly help get you in contact with someone else who can.
We were “late testers” here. And we put zero effort into the PSAT. We didn’t think it had any importance to us. D18 took her Math 2C in January, SAT in June and Literature in August. We try to be “one and dones.” However, now I know the ropes a bit better through CC, we’ll start a bit earlier with D21.
Slightly off topic, but D got her driver’s license yesterday, but not without a little drama. She made the appt. for 10:45 AM and when we arrived the DMV told us our appt. was scheduled for 12:45 PM. Nice one D. :!! She wanted to back out and go back to school, which was mostly nervousness. Anyway, she passed with no errors. Now I just have to figure out the car situation.
@sushiritto - same here; I was clueless when S15 went through the college process, but our CC friends got me through that year & now (this time around) I feel like I have a handle on (mostly) everything; however, it’s sure nice to still have those CC friends around to keep me out of trouble!!
Congrats to your D for getting her driver’s license - My D still doesn’t even have her learner’s permit & is in no particular hurry to get one!
@amominaz - no, no she has it backwards. Schools prefer a few activities that the student is really involved in. All she needs to do is list the activities that are important to her, include any leadership positions and maybe fold one of them into her essay. Your DD is in fine shape!
