Kiddo just came upstairs and told me that he realized that there was a grammar typo in his essay that he’s sent off to two schools. Oh, well. It’s not that bad - an extra ‘is’ in a sentence. Oh well. This is why we submit the safeties first.
He’s been watching ‘what to pack for college’ videos and getting excited for the whole moving out aspect. It’s going to take me all year to get ready for that.
Second day of school is done here and so far, not a lot of homework. S19 had a test on the summer work for AP Euro and said it was easy. Both kids have a number of long terms subs including in AP Stats which is currently being staffed by the basketball coach who doesn’t “know math” and is shortly going to be out for paternity leave as well. But I’m sure it will work out eventually!
He finished the draft of his main common app essay, it’s been through 2 revisions and he’s meeting with his favorite English teacher for one last review tomorrow. He has been zipping through supplementals so I think he’ll be able to start submitting this weekend. He’s thinking he’d like to do early action for a couple of his safety schools - is there any downside to doing it for more than one school? His perspective is that it would lower his stress levels if he already has one or two acceptances when he heads into auditions over this winter.
@mindatwork There is no downside to applying EA to multiple schools. EA is non binding at the schools he is interested in. S19 was encouraged to get as many out of the way as possible and so far has been accepted to all of the safeties he has applied to. As a matter of fact, S19 will apply EA to all of the schools on his list…none will be ED or RD.
EA is great if you have a good GPA, good test results. and you have done a good job on the Common App and essays.
The only thing I’ve seen happening is that because EA is non-binding at a lot of schools they are simply deferring the EA kids to regular decision unless you have great stats compared to their normal student body. So if you apply to safety schools EA, expect to get in. Apply to more selective schools and expect a chance of deferral.
@4MyKidz My DS16 applied EA to all of his schools . He had 5/5 acceptances by Christmas. He just had to wait for Honors acceptances. Made for an enjoyable second semester. Also, remember that many schools require EA to be considered for merit opportunities.
Back to school is in full force here.
Wisdom teeth out last week, pretty hysterical experience with him afterwards which included writing notes (couldn’t understand him through the gauze) and a reference as to why RIT might be perfect as ASL would be super handy. RIT also has a National Institute of the Deaf program and deaf culture is something taught to first years and many students take it as their immersion series of classes (3 courses outside your major).
XC started on Monday although due to scheduling issues (aka a new physical needed), S19 didn’t start until yesterday.
Which really, given the unhealthy level of smoke in the air (wildland fires) is not the worst thing. He’ll still have enough for the first meet and isn’t a varsity runner (though is “varsity” lol) so it’s really ok. He also had a bad morning after 3 shots at the physical so it is just as well that it was a full 2 days later.
Marching Band started last night, pretty low key compared to many programs but it is still “time”.
If we are lucky he will finish up the last of the AP homework before classes start on weds. He’s got 2 chapters left in AP Lit and some writing to do, so very doable.
His schedule? We will find out at 3pm tomorrow. All we know “for sure” is that he is enrolled in a class only offered at the other HS in the district, AP Micro/Macro. And we only know as all of a sudden the emails from the other school are flooding my in box. This involves taking a bus. Not a biggie except for the fact that the district is changing to a half day Wednesday schedule this year and for the life of me I can’t see, even if he had a car, how he is supposed to get to the other school and back, with 10 minute passing periods on each side, for a 35 minute class. It is a 10 minute drive, possibly 15 with parking on both sides. There are a number of kids taking this class, some of whom drive/have a car, and on the “normal” days, it runs into the lunch period which provides buffer. It will be interesting to say the least.
It is also interesting (not) that because of this, we get 2x the HS emails as he is considered enrolled at both.
And sad to say, the arch rival is more on top of communications than our HS by 1-3 days. Sigh.
Today, S17 took S19’s senior pictures, at least part of them. He wanted to try. All we really need “now” are headshots for the annual, the rest can wait so we broke it into what was manageable to attempt today given that S17 heads back to UVM early Saturday morning. They will do a more extensive shoot over winter break. I took a quick peek, and I think we can work with them.
Monday is the big BTS night with BBQ and club meetings to recruit the freshmen, band playing to recruit/inspire there as well. S19 has 2 clubs that he runs and is in band so it will be a very busy night and I foresee a weekend of trifold triage that hasn’t been started yet.
Fee waivers. We’ve never received one by asking, have received a couple that were unsolicited. S19 currently has 2, one as a legacy and one as a named award. I feel like S17 was offered one from a school on S19’s list so realistically unless S19 adds another school, that’s the only extra one that might come through.
No essay work done yet beyond selecting prompts and topics. Activities list is started but certainly not done. S19 does plan to have some work done before the first day of school. We will see how that really plays out soon! Not a huge deal as no apps are going in until his AP Physics grade is adjusted post AP test results and they work on the essays in AP lit anyway.
@homerdog You’ve given me a pit in my stomach thinking about the ‘sleep’ issue. Summer was nice in that D was always in bed well before midnight. More like 10:30-11. Last school year, that was a rarity!
Our last weekend of summer vacay is here. Sigh. Things have been slowly winding up the last few weeks but now it’s reality time. Last night we went to a pep rally for my D22 who just got into a magnet HS and is now playing volleyball for that high school. She tried out on Monday and things have been crazy ever since.
Hey does anybody know about how long it takes College Board to send scores to a school when you order it? Just curious. So far we’ve ordered exactly one.
D19 was able to get her AP English teacher from last year to write her a LOR. Yay! What is the customary gift for this? My D was saying now we “have to get her a Trader Joe’s GC”. I said sure, I’ll give her whatever. Just let me know what amount.
D thinks maybe now Texas Tech is kind of cool, since she saw Insta pics of the dorm that her friend just moved into there. :))
Nor a whole lot of sleep going on by S. Last Friday, after leaving before 6 to go work out at school before classes and going to swim practice after school, S fell asleep at 6:30 and was done for the night. Couldn’t get back up for dinner and slept through the night. Hoping he’s able to stay awake tonight to do some studying for the SAT subject tests. He’s still determined to take Spanish, Lit and US History.
We had curriculum night last night, and I asked a few teachers if they had any experience with or knowledge regarding subject tests. It looks like it is very rare for kids at our school to take them, even though we have the IB Diploma program.
We sent score reports last Thursday (8/16) and got an email from one of the schools that they were received on Wednesday (8/22.)
@jellybean5 Consistent results. Ordered 7pm EST on 8/16, showed up in the school’s portal on 8/23.
Just ran across something that doesn’t make sense to me, the bolded below (D is not applying to this school; I’m just curious):
Wondering if that could be old info.
Yesterday was sleeping until 11:30. Today he was woken up at 9:15 by texts from a friend who was moving into his dorm. I refused any sympathy.
From what I’ve read, MOST of the time you will get the SAT scores very quickly but some scores will always be pulled for further investigation. If two people in your test room have suspicious patterns of activity (multiple same wrong answers) then the whole room has to be rescored.
So it doesn’t ALWAYS take 4-6 weeks, but the SAT doesn’t guarantee them to you before that time.
At least that’s my understanding.
I don’t recall any sort of long wait for SAT scores being sent to the schools on son17’s list. I think the majority of the time it happens within a few days.
Perhaps they mean from the date of sitting.
Just so you guys know, I am having a really hard time with college board at the moment. I recently ordered and paid for SAT scores to all of S19s schools and they are all processed within five or so days. Except one. It doesn’t even show up that I ordered it, and I have a receipt via email and I also printed it out. Now I have emailed and called college board five times and they are either not answering the question, vague with their response or say they are going to open up a case and never do. I am just going to stop payment on my credit card At this point and order a new one.So frustrating. So keep doublechecking you were sends just to make sure they are going through.
@cakeisgreat How do we even know if they are 'going through" to the colleges? I’ve sent a bunch but S19 hasn’t sent in applications yet so we don’t have any portals to check.
Regarding the how long does it take for a school to receive scores question- I haven’t sent any SAT scores yet, so don’t know the process, but for my ACT kid, it depended on how schools chose to receive scores. It they receive scores electronically, they get there as soon as they are sent, but then the school has to process/open them. But some schools elect to receive them by mail, so that would take longer, because ACT is going to send in batches. Then some schools elect to receive scores via disc. And in that case, ACT sends out those only 2x per month. So if you happened to request scores on the day after the disc was sent, your scores would’ve go for another 2 weeks.
@homerdog sometimes the school will send an email confirming they received an update to your file, or they post up on the portals once you have actually submitted your app. I wouldn’t worry much about it, until you get nearer to the deadline dates. The schools should get them. I think my son had one school that had a problem with one of the scores sent over, and we had to have them resend it. It wasn’t a big deal at all.
I’m glad you guys brought this up- the only place we have sent scores is Clemson and I haven’t heard f they got our scores or not… I just went and checked to see if they got there and realized they don’t have a portal. We got a confirmation email when the application was complete then another saying they were missing the official transcript and the scores. I sent the scores weeks ago and the transcript was ordered this week. I guess if we don’t hear anything in a week or two I will have D call and make sure everything is there.