Supplemental essays? I will consider S19 to have overachieved if he manages to write a single Common App essay that he isn’t completely embarrassed to submit. This is not a kid who enjoys talking about himself (or thinking deep thoughts about himself).
In 1989, I was so annoyed about being essentially forced to go to big state flagship that I filled out my application on the toilet! TMI, probably, haha. I don’t even remember how I got the application? Did schools just send them with their mailings back then?
@amandakayak Thanks for your thoughts on those two schools.
@ninakatarina Right there with you. My son is in marching band and on stage crew. Band camp starts up in August before school opens for the year. So my goal is for him to have everything ready to go, with the exception of the teacher/counselor recs, by the time school officially starts. That way, he can focus on academics and activities.
He agrees with this approach but will need encouragement from me to make it happen.
From what I understand about the Common App, you can assign the counselor and teacher(s) and submit the app without the recs. Then it is up to the counselor and teacher(s) to do their thing. So the applicants can submit their side of it pretty early.
@homerdog I’m also wondering about supplementals. Based on this year’s application cycle, Goucher is the only one on S19’s list that has additional questions. Not long essays but three questions that would require some thought to answer and right now, we don’t know if those will be the same or not. I’m wondering if everything “turns over” when the Common App goes live for the next application cycle in August.
Re supplemental essays: Some of the schools have their supplemental essays tied in with the common app if I remember correctly. When you start filling out the common app you can start adding schools that your kid will be applying to. The schools get added to the kids " Schools applying to" tab. When you then click on each school it tells you all of the essays required for that school. About 1/2 of his schools required some sort of “why this school” essay, or something like that.
My son applied to all schools thru Common App I think. All essays were uploaded thru Common App. I know there are schools that don’t use common app, I’m not sure how they work.
@gusmahler some schools have additional essays. As @RightCoaster said, you see them once you add a school to your list on the common app. I have a test account and I can see all of this year’s essays. I just don’t know if they will be the same for the 2019 kids.
I guess I misspoke when I said S19 will have his apps in by 12/1. Many should be in much before that. He has a handful with no extra essays and those will be sent pretty soon after the common app opens for them. Since he’s working with his AP Lang teacher this summer on his essays, his common app essay will be done in July sometime. He will also work on the supplements as they come out. I do wonder if it’s weird to send RD apps in so early but oh well. They won’t be complete right away, of course, because we need everything that needs to be sent from school like transcripts and recommendations and I don’t expect they will be sent in August!
My son17 worked on his essay once school got out in June, and finished it by 8/15. Son19 will do the same.
When the kids go back in Sept, the teachers will start working on the LOR, and they usually don’t submit them until the last minute.
So, we filled out the common app in the summer, finished essay, then got the LORs and then just submitted everything about a week ahead of time of the deadlines, so maybe 10/15 or so. He submitted all schools at that time, even RD schools. For some RD schools, he had to submit some essays by 1/15 for Honors college consideration and he had a few essay left to write for some school specific scholarships he might have qualified for.
But he was 95% done with everything by 10/15 or so.
Pomona had a weird one - You have been given the option of having one superpower, but, in exchange, you have to give up one of your five senses. If you take this offer, what do you hope to accomplish with your new power, and what would you miss about the sense you’ve given up?
There were a couple others, but that one struck me.
I vaguely remember this website was helpful with S17 on finding out the damage, i.e. how many additional essays were needed for each school. You add colleges, and it shows the essay prompts. I only used their free part. http://www.collegeessayorganizer.com/
@InfiniteWaves - when my D16 was going through the process, she had everything in by November 1st regardless of when the application deadline was. It was just easier to get everything done and out of the way all at the same time.
I don’t remember looking at supplemental essay questions until August when the Common App was out with my D17 but they definitely could have been out earlier. Sometimes they use the same ones from previous years so you could get an idea of what they might ask.
I found some overlap in the supplementals prompts so that one could be likely just tweaked for other schools. But when you need something like a superpower or who would you invite to a deserted island…it’s probably not something you will use again. The one I can’t stand is the “why XYZ” - seems the most relevant sure but always came off as the most trite writing from my kids.
One of the supplemental questions for Davidson was to list all the books my D had read in the last year. Since she has always been a big reader, it was a long list and hard to recreate. Now that she has a ton of reading to do in college, she seems to prefer Netflix on her breaks.
S17 was deferred and rejected from Case. Case became very selective at least for those from my area of Colorado.
I am an alum. We visited and interviewed. It was beautiful, and there were plenty of college kids around.
I timed the visit well, late September, as I knew visiting during December to March won’t sell. We flew to Pittsburgh, visited Carnegie Mellon, drove to Cleveland, and then flew back home. S17 and I were warmly greeted at a department party and had a little reunion with old professors.
S17 liked Case more than Carnegie Mellon and would have gone there if accepted. I liked it as I still have connections there. It has a smaller undergraduate body, undergraduates have research opportunities, and professors are accessible. Oh, well.
The ones who were accepted from our area were offered generous merit, 30-35K. None of them visited Case. One went to Duke on ED. Another went to Brown, a third chose UC Berkeley (OOS tuition!) Only those extreme stat kids who could call Case a safety were accepted, and none of those who were seriously considering it were accepted.
I do not know anyone who chose Case in the end from our school district.
@RightCoaster I would just have DS19 apply and see what happens. They didn’t have a supplemental essay and the application may have been free. Meet/contact the Case admission rep when they come out to his school or Boston. He can visit Cleveland if accepted in April.
I promised my professors to bring along S19 too so will have to plan a trip. I am not sure when to put that into schedule and I do not know if that is going to be worthwhile. At least we will have a nice get-together. I hope to visit when Cleveland Orchestra is in season. Last time unfortunately we missed it by a week. I enjoyed the student seats when Ashkenazy, Kissin, Vengerov, etc came to perform. S17 would have enjoyed Cleveland orchestra and Blossom summer festival.
@elena13 I saw that Davidson prompt. S19 used to be such a big reader but has zero time now. Since seeing the prompt, though, he’s been trying to read more. He read a few books over winter break and has a short list of books he’s interested in for spring break. He’s realizing how much he misses reading for fun but, while school is in session, there is just no time unless he sleeps even less and that’s a bad idea. At one point, we were laughing that he would have to list Peter and the Starcatchers or Wonder from his summers in grade school!
The prompt does say you can list books you read for school but they ask that you note that they were assigned and not just for fun.
