I have a feeling that S19 will just decide not to apply to Common App schools once he sees the application, so I’ll just not mention it to him for about 8 months or so in the hopes that he has some sort of list by then and has no other choice but to fill it out.
Does anyone know of any Common App schools that look favorably on nearly blank applications and the first draft of an essay? 
@mountainmomof3 no idea about Coalition apps, haven’t run into that yet.
@RightCoaster Could your S’s coaches help at all with the recruiting thing?
@eh1234 Hilarious. :))
@homerdog there isn’t much for son19’s coach to do. For track, run fast and do well on your grades and sat and e’ll get recruited, and with soccer he’d only play D3 and has talked to the coaches at the schools he’s thinking about already so it’s just a wait and see.
In an ideal world he’d ace his sat this spring and talk with local soccer coach and send info in this summer and just be done. Especially if they gave him a financial pre-read and they gave us some merit $$. His stats and ECs and grades and leadership stuff should help his case there.
If they don’t give us any money, then assuming he tests well and keeps grades up and runs fast, he can continue talking with other coaches about track and see if there is any sports/merit scholarship $$ for that.
My wife and I already pay full price for Northeastern, so we wouldn’t be too psyched to pay full COA for son19 unless he gets into a truly amazing school. And that doesn’t seem super likely, but there is a small chance.
So there is a slight chance that son19 figures it all out before July and just submits everything and is done. Or we have a grueling wait until Spring his senior year which is possible.
@eh1234 my daughter isn’t going to like those common app questions either.
S18 parent. I had my son work on his Common App essays all summer, so they were ready to go Aug 1. (I’m a homeschool parent who is my son’s counselor, etc.) My son hated spending his summer that way, but admitted later that it was a relief NOT to have application deadline pressure. He could focus on his senior year classes instead. He’s applying the same strategy to scholarship applications now (not waiting until the last minute), which served him well when snow in Savannah delayed mail by 3 weeks. Hope this advice helps!
^ I agree, having everything done early can be a big relief to kids that are super busy in their senior year. For my kids, soccer season in the Fall takes up so much time and energy there is not a lot left In the tank to work on college app stuff.
My goal for son19 is be done with all/most of his apps and essays by the beginning of Aug, right before they start ramping up for soccer. He plans to apply EA everywhere he can, so he’ll have to get LOR’s early in the school year.
It’s my goal as well to have S19 be done with essays - at least a solid first draft - by beginning of school next year. I’m not so sure it’ll be one of his goals, though, lol ;). It looks like a few of the prompts would be good to have “on hand” to tweak for scholarship apps, etc.
@momtogkc
We had that exact conversation with S19. 
This helped us: I created a visio document with rectangular boxes (vertically aligned) containing criteria (“vicinity to Home”, “film production rank”, etc). I told him to 1) put them in order of importance and 2) assign each one of three colors (green - must have, yellow - like to have, red - least important)
We ended up with 14 boxes in a stop light formation (4 green on top, 6 yellow, 4 red). It didn’t solve everything, but it gave us something to work with and talk through.
@apraxiamom Really appreciate your wisdom from going through this process before. You are validating what I’ve been thinking.
I was happy to see the Common App prompts this morning. S19 won’t work on 'em until the summer. But at least he can start brainstorming a bit. He wants to major in English/writing and I’m a professional copywriter, editor, and former journalist. So this is not a super stressful area on our end.
Oh right. Except for the part about getting him to actually write the darn thing with time to spare. Four of the schools on the short list, including his top choice, have rolling admissions. Three are Common App. One is not Common App but can use the same essay. It will benefit him to have these applications in by Oct. 1.
As his editor, I plan on having a first draft deadline of Aug. 1. That way, he can have something prepared before marching band camp starts. I’m sure he will adhere to my guidelines with no resistance whatsoever.
Be careful about doing to much work on the Common App now. When I posted about it a few months ago, some people here noted that the current Common App is for 2018 grads and you may lose some information when they reset the site for 2019 grads. You won’t lose everything, but you might lose some information.
The only thing D19 and I filled out is the demographic information. And I don’t even know if we’re going to use it, because public Texas schools all use Apply Texas and UA uses it’s own system.
The link posted says the info rolls over, I thought?
@InfiniteWaves, it got to a point this summer that I had to sit in the same room with him.
“You want me to leave? Let me see a paragraph!”
:))
Thank you, @suzy100, knowing those prompts is very helpful, though I doubt we’ll get very far on them this spring.
S19 and I were the only ones home for dinner last night. After we sat down, I began to talk about colleges with him, and he proceeded to eat as fast as he could, muttered a few mmmhmmms, thanked me for dinner, and asked to be excused. I ended up finishing spinach leaves by myself and feeling lonely. I think I’ll wait to bring up the topic again for a few more months.
1/2 way through a busy week of school with mid term tests and lengthy track meets. Son19 has an important AP Stats. test in the morning, but has a track meet after school today and won’t be home til at least 9pm before he can start studying.
He said his plan is to have a great meet, come home, shower, cram until 3 am, sleep for 3 /12 hours, go take the test, and come home and nap Thursday afternoon before track practice. Brutal schedule. I don’t know why the schools plan sporting events for the mid term weeks, especially events that go in to the evening hours.How do they expect kids to study and do well? He’s a bit stressed, but hopefully he’ll pull it off.
He is looking forward to the semester being over. He has a fun weekend planned, and a big coaches invite track meet this weekend that he wants to excel in.
One of the common app prompts is the ‘topic of your choice’ essay, so the best Idea I’ve had is just to get the kid journaling from time to time to start building up source material.
I wish d could have a fun weekend after the grueling week of midterms. But there is a Science Olympiad event Saturday and she needs to also do a load of homework that she hasn’t been able to get to while studying for finals 
Kiddo’s teacher for AP Psych and USH has gone out on maternity leave. They have a long term sub who the kids are prepared to like because he is relatively young and he swears a lot in casual conversation. I’m just hoping he can actually teach in between swear words.
@mom2twogirls good luck on science olympiad this weekend! I always thought son19 would like to try that but he just doesn’t have the time to join that due to time constraints. I’m sure he’d love it.
@ninakatarina if your son doesn’t master his AP classes due to the teacher change at least he might pick up a few useful swears and terms he can use in his adult life.
@RightCoaster between your son’s sports and robotics, I can’t imagine he could possibly have the time! D’s friend did both robotics and science Olympiad in middle school and then had to drop SciOly for high school because the robotics time commitment was too high to allow it.