I need general silence on this thread for at least 1 week. Nah, just kidding. =))
Everyone here is making me nervous, except @Veronica02. I hear ya. My D is retooling her CA essay too. And my reaction was… ^#(^
Well, we’re finding out why you don’t wait until the last minute to submit an app. S18 clicked Review and Submit on the common app site 15 minutes ago and it is still generating the PDF and requesting us to be patient.
How long does it usually take to generate the PDF?
3 day weekend = perfect time to finish the CA, right? Playing with emoticons, here’s what’s going to happen at my house… 
Oh no, the emoticons disappeared! Post totally doesn’t make sense now. I had a clock, a bomb, equals horror face. Have a good night guys!
I have edited significantly, thank you all for your input. I have not hit submit…not sure what I am waiting for except to hold out until the 15th to see if she gets the job done on the UofSc app by the deadline. It has dropped off of DD preferences since our visit, so essentially it doesn’t matter, but it is the principle of the thing now. I am betting it does not get done by the deadline.
@Veronica02 I feel yah! D18 is on her 9th draft for her Common App essay. I thought we were nearly done. 
The supplementals for the 2 universities (of the 5 that are due soon) are in better shape though.
I had to give a little tough love last night to my perfectionist DD that it shouldn’t take 4 pages of notes to prepare a one-sentence response. I told her she needs to be more efficient on these apps as they need to actually get DONE at some point.
Wow, I’m glad our S’s English teacher told him not to change anything. I think he’s just about done with everything. Now we wait.
D made final list last night, 14 schools. A little reach heavy but she has true some true safeties and some match. The three of us played a ‘pick which are top 5’ and DW and I each hit 4/5 of what D considers top 5. Just praying she gets in to some of top 5.
We have a goal to hit submit button on 3 EA schools by 10/18. These are all safeties. My personal goal is to have an acceptance, hopefully with some merit, before Christmas. I think then it will be sit back and chill till march for the rest.
Now on me to do the FAFSA and CSS. May as well start as I probably won’t have everything I need so the sooner I start the sooner I can get working on rounding things up…
Anybody else not started the FAFSA and CSS profile yet? Is it okay if I delay this until late Oct (but before Nov 1st)?
@Kayak24 - We haven’t started FAFSA yet either. We’ll just be doing it for potential scholarships at schools so I’m not rushing.
S18 got one application in before the Common App crashed this morning. We got to the payment confirmation page for another and I have the email that I paid, but then it’s not checked off on his dashboard and every time we try to look at any of the schools in his dashboard, we get an error message. 
Boy, I’m surprised the Common App is crashing around this time! I can’t WAIT for this weekend when D goes to submit her first. sigh
@Kayak24, I haven’t started either the FAFSA or the CSS Profile yet. I’ll try to get to it this weekend, but I’m not too concerned about it.
Oh, good info about the CA crashing! I wonder whether it’s because everyone had off yesterday, so there are too many users on today? Another reason why not to wait until 12:59 pm the night of the deadline.
Common App chat person was incredibly helpful! If this happens to anyone else (you pay and get to the confirmation screen, but it doesn’t show the green check mark in your dashboard), here is what you do!
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Click on Review and Submit again. It should take you to the signature screen and tell you they already have your payment. Proceed from there.
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If you still get the error message, clear browser cache and log out and back in, and go to step one.
Also, Firefox just didn’t work for us to access the PDF to review the application. Chrome was simple and fast, whereas we waited 30 minutes last night for a PDF to load in Firefox (took less than 30 seconds on Chrome).
One thing I’ve discovered about FAFSA and CSS that differs this time around compared to when D15 applied is that the FA application deadlines are way earlier…the same as the admission application deadlines. I assume this has to do with changes to FAFSA that allow us to start in Oct. and use prior prior tax info. With D15, she already knew the cost of her EA schools before we filled out FAFSA or CSS. I was able to request a waiver from filling out (any paying to send) the CSS to schools where the cost was way below our EFC.
That’s not going to work this time around. Good thing I discovered this before the first deadline (Nov. 1). Since DH and I are living in different states and he has some separate accounts (inheritance) that I don’t have access to, it’s a good thing he’s coming home for a weekend before the due date. He could give me access, but it’s just better if we sit down together to get it done.
Thanks for the tips @RoonilWazlib99! Hope to put them into action this weekend or a bit after. When there will be, I hope, something to preview & pay for.
I had to total lean on my D to get her brag sheets in to recommenders. Geez finally getting them in today and applying to two schools early action. Somehow kids don’t get it about teachers having 150 other students. Fingers crossed everything gets done in time. Now I am stressed out.
@Veryapparent - fingers crossed for you!
Thank you! Fortunately one teacher e-mailed her back immediately and is going to have it done this weekend. Jury is out on other teacher. Ugh!!
Do the schools require more than one rec? Most of our son’s only want one (or none!). Only a couple want more than one, so she is probably good for the first couple apps!