Went to buy a new pair of XC spikes for S19 which means a long ride in the car to the running store with the best selection. He likes to talk in cars. Said he doesn’t think any of his friends are going to get into their first choice school or that they might get in but their parents are really leaning towards other schools for them. He is feeling really good about his list. He said he honestly likes every school on it but feels most strongly about the ones he’s visited (7/12 of them).
He is starting to feel excited about going to school and he said he’s super curious about where he will get in and if any merit will come through. He has one school that, if he gets any merit, will be his first choice. It’s one of those competitive merit schools, though, so we really have no clue about his chances. The school he likes the most that will be full price is far away. The school I like the most that will be full price has NO downsides (or course). It’s a little closer to home and we have family near the campus.
We just had a little going away party for our niece last night who is heading off for her freshman year tomorrow. S19 and she have grown up together as our families hang out maybe twice a month and they are so close in age. After dinner, we went around the table and each gave her a piece of college advice and we all laughed as we sang “Hit the Road Jack” as she pulled away at the end of the party. S19 said he’d like the same family party next year. I thought the singing was hokey (this is my husband’s side of the family!) but, sure, if he liked it then that’s fine with me.
Quick common app question, are you allowing schools to contact your student via their cell? There’s a section where you check “yes” and then enter the number. Wondering how often a school would actually call. He wouldn’t mind taking calls from schools but I don’t want him in awkward conversations with AOs where he might not know the right thing to say.
@RightCoaster My D was the same - she skipped the bookstores on all visits, except one. That’s when we knew she was interested and found the place she wanted to be.
As for skipping tours - we never got out of the car at Elon. Driving through campus to the admission building we passed two other group tours. D took one look at the groups and quickly (and accurately) determined all the kids looked like they were from her HS, which she is desperately trying to avoid.
We haven’t skipped any tours yet but I wouldn’t be opposed to it as long as we didn’t fly there just for that school. We did skip the information session for two but that was our very first time looking at schools - we were on vacation and took a day out to see two in a day which didn’t give us time for the sessions.
We have officially toured 10 schools (why does it feel like so many more?!) and all we got was one drawstring bag, a poster, a pen, a cup and two cookies. I liked the cookies and pen best and the poster least - who wants a poster of a school where you might not even apply?
D survived the first week of school. I was hoping she would be better with time management this year but I went to say goodnight around 11pm last night and she still hadn’t finished her homework, forget the summer reading projects that are due on Friday! We have a meeting with the new college counselor today, I have a list of a few questions but when I reminded D about it she said, “Why are we meeting her? What am I supposed to say, I don’t know any more than I knew last year.” :-/
We have also been known to just “magically” disappear from a tour group on multiple occasions. We’ve had some really bad tour guides. I can usually tell if my kid is irritated by the guide in less than 1 stop on the tour. If so, we bolt and just go walk around by ourselves. Bates had the most annoying tour guide, Tufts had the craziest exact opposite personality type of my son, and Brown had the most annoying tour group participants ever.
My son has been fortunate to have had the chance to take some tours with coaching staff of schools on his list and the tours are much more refreshing and tell it like it is. Such as " those dorms suck". “the food is better in that hall”,etc. He has liked those tours better.
I will say touring schools has been largely a waste of time for us, small amounts of knowledge gained vs time spent… Before we even visit my kids have had an idea of whether they would even like it or not. They are usually not swayed one way or the other because of a visit. They usually leave a tour knowing that plenty of kids go to school there, so it can’t be all that bad, and even at worse case it beats living at home any longer.
@homerdog we are not allowing cell phone calls to son from admissions. He’d probably hang up on them or tell them he was in a middle of a Fortnite battle and he’d have to call back.
@homerdog I think the cell phone contact, is mostly for texts. Though when my D1 applied to a school ED, they did call her on her cell with the acceptance. Nice touch there.
I answer so few calls on my cellphone where the caller is unknown. I would be paranoid about the kiddo missing important information fi he checked the ‘call me’ button. He pays attention to texts, though, so it would be nice if they differentiated which way the school would be contacting him.
Ultimately checking that box is his choice, though. I’ve filled in everything on the Common App that I’m going to fill in, the rest is up to him.
Where are your kids with their essays? DS has been very mature and responsible with his schoolwork throughout high school, but I had to lean on him hard to work on the essays. He’s generally a good writer although a quintessential STEM kid, but this has been like pulling teeth. His common app essay is way over word limit and still not finished, he has no idea how to end it. At least they’re doing the essays in the LA class so he’ll have an opportunity to work on it. But he wants to apply to at least 4 schools EA, plus possibly a number of RD if he doesn’t get in EA, and each requires 3-5 supplementary essays. He’s putting this off because it’s such a high-stakes project, and he’s already stressed out by the whole process.
@yucca10 S19 is doing ok on the essay front but it sounds like none of his friends have even finished the common app essay. With school back in session and a busy XC season, he knew he had to get some done this summer. So, he’s done with the common app essay and he has five schools that don’t require supplements so those are ready to go. We are just waiting on NMSF info and for his fall XC race times so we can send the most updated info in his apps.
He’s finished the supplements for William and Mary, Carleton, and Davidson. That leaves four essays for other schools on his list. Two of those are “why x school” essays and won’t be terribly hard. The other two are difficult and require lots of thought. He started one of those this weekend and spent a few hours writing and then scrapped almost everything but I think he at least knows now what he will write about in that essay. I think he’s trying to finish weekend homework on Friday nights and Saturdays so he can focus on essays on Sundays. I can feel the pace of writing slowing down already. He had a lot of homework this weekend and it was hard to get the creative juices flowing for an essay.
Like I said, though, most of his friends haven’t started writing yet! He just had a lot of essays and he’s really bad at doing stuff under time pressure so, for him, it made sense to start earlier.
This is such a common question that I can’t find the answer to, but I know one of you experienced parents is likely to know: how long after ordering a score report from College Board does the college receive it?
D is now scheduled for the October SAT and would like to see the score first and, of course, use Score Choice. Scores should be available Oct 19, so presumably by that evening, she would be able to see the score and order score reports (which may include a prior subject test). Her EA deadlines are Nov 1.
“Quick common app question, are you allowing schools to contact your student via their cell?”
D18 received several calls on her cell advising her of acceptance to auditioned (dance) programs, and also calls about her waitlisting and subsequent acceptance for a competitive merit scholarship. All of those calls came during the day, typically while she was actually in class, but her school was fine about her stepping outside to take the calls. That might not be acceptable in other schools.
These were cases with small numbers of acceptances (a few dozen) where the program wanted to encourage acceptance (and perhaps gauge the probability of that happening) and build a personal relationship since they were highly competitive situations. It was definitely a good thing to speak on the phone for that. But outside of this, i.e. if she was just one of hundreds or thousands of regular acceptances, I don’t think a call is at all likely. Phone spam is not likely to encourage kids or parents that a particular college is the one to choose (our daily emails from CWRU were offputting enough).
My son is basically done with all application stuff, unless he decides to apply to a school where they ask for “why this” essay. I’m not particularly worried about the quality of these essays anyways, as he’d only be applying to those schools as an athlete and I personally don’t think it will matter much one way or the other… They either want him or not when it gets to that point.
He had dinner with his friend group last night and none of them had done any AP homework or worked on their college apps, and school starts in 10 days. He was happy he had finished everything and was glad we encouraged him to get it all done earlier vs later. His sports start up again this week and there will be very little time for relaxation once things kick in.
@evergreen5 We order a couple this summer. We ordered on 7/11/18 and the school received it on 7/17/18. Another was placed on 7/21/18 and the school received it on 7/24/18.
@DCNatFan Do the schools let you when they receive? D just ordered a couple last week and I thought she told me two weeks or something ridiculous. I asked her if they were hand-typing them. I realize they must put the outer range on the website, and I can understand electronic batch processing, but 2 weeks seemed long.
@peachActuary73 The couple that we sent were to schools that have their own application (not Common) so D19 was able to log-in to the account and it showed the date received. It was the same date as shown in her College Board account the date sent.
@homerdog - My preference would be to allow schools to contact him. Your S sounds pretty responsible and mature and I’m sure he could easily handle a phone call. You said he’s very interested in Davidson. A couple of days before decisions were released by Davidson, D17 received a phone call from an English prof who told her she was a finalist for their big writing scholarship and invited her to the scholarship weekend. They had a nice conversation and he told her in so many words that she was accepted to the college. I would have hated her to miss that call, and it allowed us to get started last minute planning for spring break and also find out early about her acceptance.
S19’s phone is always dead and I don’t think he’s ever set up voice mail so we’re going to have to look into getting a new phone at some point.
@ninakatarina - You shouldn’t feel guilty at all. It sounds like you had some really nice visits and it’s nice to let kids have some decision-making in the process. My D17 and I visited a lot of schools and she knew after the info. session at Bryn Mawr that she didn’t want to do the tour. A lot of parents and kids don’t realize how exhausting it is to do all these visits and if you skip one, it does not say anything about your kid, your parenting, whatever.
Thanks @DCNatFan that sounds like plenty of time. But, I suspect late Oct is a very busy time for score reports… I wonder if this should make me nervous.
Nothing is completed around here yet, not even opening a Common App account. After all, there’s still two months left. I should have known this was going to happen - never a dull moment. My kids make a real effort to keep life exciting at all times.
@RightCoaster My S19 is basically done with app stuff as well. GC report, LORs, and final test scores pending. School starts here later this week. He has cross country practice before school and marching band practice after. He, too, is happy that apps are in decent shape. And I survived the procrastination. Barely. So glad this thread was here to get me through it. LOL!
Speaking of procrastination, can I just tell you all how much prep is going on for the SAT retake coming up this weekend? Oh, right. None. One of his friends who is already at the state flagship main campus told him not to sweat it. Thanks so much Obscure-Liberal-Arts-Major-Friend! Apparently, S19 is not concentrating too hard on avenging the June SAT math section drama.
Whatever. He is interested in a less obscure liberal arts major at the state flagship that doesn’t involve math. He is just like me, right down to the lopsided SAT score thing. And I got into college, graduated, and have been employed in the same less obscure liberal arts field for over 20 years. And I work with a bunch of English majors and art school grads. We leave STEM to the STEM people.
S19 is telling his friends that he’s done with half of his college applications. Of course, they’re not impressed since he’s only applying to two schools, one of which required no essay or letters of recommendation (UAH) :). So he did that app yesterday, I ordered the official ACT score report and his transcript to be sent. He also set up his account on MIT for his dream/reach/lotto pick. Glanced at the essays/short answers, and logged off claiming he was tired lol. At least there’s some progress.
Good news for him, his GC was able to get him into the online Econ/FinMgmt required class so he didn’t have to drop AP Spanish. Since he’d already finished the AP summer assignment, that made him happy (plus he loves Spanish).
We started talking about what sort of computer setup he wanted in college yesterday. I think we’re going the route of powerful desktop with nice monitor that doubles as TV, and cheaper laptop to cart around to classes if needed. He’s a gamer, and the gaming desktops are MUCH cheaper than the gaming laptops, so I was 100% on board with that plan ;). He’s going to leave his current comp at home (gaming desktop, few years old) so during breaks, etc, he’ll have it (since he’ll likely fly home for any breaks that he’s coming home for, 11 hours drivetime either school he goes to).
