Stay safe, @carolinamom2boys @parent2one and all the rest!
(I went to school at UNC-CH, and not once did I have to evacuate for hurricane or other weather-related reasons, so being 3 for 3 as @carolinamom2boys is, oof…)
My DD is planning to submit her EA apps well before the EA deadline.
She is also planning to submit her RD apps well before the RD deadlines (typically 1 Jan-ish) of her schools. She’ll be well within the ED deadlines but she doesn’t want the commitment that an ED acceptance would entail.
I’m starting to wonder the wisdom of submitting so early now. Are you thinking something new may come up between the time the GC submits and the app due dates and it would be good to put in the GC letter? Or are you thinking the GC letter may have less meaning to the app reviewer if it’s 3 months old? I’ve never thought about the implications of submitting to early.
We didn’t have this problem with D16. She applied ED and got her app in a couple weeks before the due date. As for D19, her dream school doesn’t offer ED or EA.
@BorgityBorg my son attends CofC. We live in SC , so we knew that evacuations we’re a real possibility. I used to live in Mt Pleasant, SC and had to evacuate a nursing home twice in 6 wks a little ok very 23 years ago. Evacuating college kids is a piece of cake. They’ve evacuated The Citadel, UNC Wilmington, CofC , Coastal Carolina, Charleston Southern and cancelled classes at University of SC. They’re expecting flooding and winds in the Raleigh Durham area.
Thanks everyone . We’re far enough inland to be safe. Just some rain and wind.
@ChicagoSportsFn We are also trying to get apps in as early as possible. In our case, we have a really disfunctional guidance counselor and I want to give him a lot of lead time to make sure we actually make the deadlines. I see no downside.
Can you share how you got waivers? And did you, or did your son? Mine would be too intimidated to ask.
I was pretty surprised at how much had changed from the last time I went through this 2 years ago. Our “talk” went from discussion of local unis and other options like Army to “who wants to stay in state?” Our GCs have finally figured out that about half of each class goes out of state.
@ChicagoSportsFn @gallentjill We’ve been told that at D19’s EA likely-admit school, applications will begin to be reviewed before the EA deadline and responses start being sent just after the deadline. If her offer is good enough, then she doesn’t need to do any apps to Calif publics because she would prefer her likely-admit school unless something weird comes up. If it’s not ready by then or is somehow deficient, then we’ll want the insurance policy of applying to some of our state publics, with their deadline of 11/30. But yes…a letter composed in September and uploaded, say, Sept 26, could look somewhat “stale” by the time an AO at her RD school opens it in January or February. Whether this is a problem…I don’t know. She does not anticipate anything much happening here this fall in terms of enhancing her application (no fall sports – not an athlete), it’s just doing more of what she’s been doing. I can’t really see a way around it other than asking the GC to update the letter in December and re-submit it, and that sounds much too difficult to accomplish with our overburdened counseling office (again, it took three weeks to get a meeting on the calendar…), so it is what it is. Coming from a large public school, I would think our GC letter is mostly a non-factor anyway. The GC requested a ton of material in an attempt to make it a better letter, but we still are not expecting much. It’s just a matter of checking off boxes and jumping through hoops. And allowing a month-long cushion before deadlines to get everything processed through the GC. Which isn’t that overzealous – they themselves say they need 3 weeks from the time paperwork is submitted on our end to when they get it all submitted. So…it’s already show time.
I really wanted to get these RD apps off of S19’s plate. He has eleven ready to go and three that still need an essay written. Since his XC times seem to be improving, though, we now think we will wait until the season is over in October to send the first apps. His first deadline is Dec 1 for some RD apps where we want merit consideration. His one EA is also 12/1. We’ve sent scores and requested transcripts for all schools so they will likely have both of those in hand before they get his app. He will just need to keep an eye on the recommendations to make sure they get in on time.
S19 has one interview this Wednesday and another later this month. He also has a meeting with a friend of ours who is a Middlebury alumnus and is still pretty involved with the school. He’s offered to write S19 a letter so that will be a bonus on that app.
14 mile run today and S19 had tummy trouble and is exhausted. French test tomorrow and the first draft of his ten page memoir is due as well. Just daily homework for the other classes. Really hoping he can crank this all out and get to bed!
@momtogkc Thanks for the Tulane report! I’ve wondered about it since I’ve never seen it. And Same on the can’t believe we’re still looking. It’s Sept. for crying out loud. We have not toured a single safety yet either. As a UF grad ages ago, I can confirm that it is great and huge and I have several classes with 600 kids. Glad your daughter thinks it’s still beautiful.
@carolinamom2boys safe travels to your husband and son. NC State canceled classes for Friday already. Don’t think Duke has decided yet. Eastern Carolina cut the week short too. Still hoping it’ll head out to sea. I can’t imagine all of the rain we’ll get in the middle of the NC.
FWIW.
I believe the gc’s write one letter that goes to all. Most do not have the time, energy or desire to write one specific to each school. They will write what they have to, when they have to and be lucky to try to stay on top of it all.
So whatever that first deadline is, that is the letter. If fall of senior year is so impactful as to warrant a vastly superior or more insightful letter then maybe skip EA’s and ED’sto ensure it’s included.
However, being early in the cycle might mean a fresh mind for the GC or teacher, versus letter burnout later.
That said. I wouldn’t, personally, time anything around when the GC may or may not write their letter and I am (very) hard pressed to believe it carries more or even as much weight as a teacher LOR. To which the same rules generally apply. They write one letter that goes to all, not new ones for each app cycle.
I also don’t think whether I show up or not at the college night (which tbh I’ve no clue when it is and don’t plan to attend) makes a whit of difference. They are writing a letter about my child. Not me.
I could of course, be wrong and am clearly cranky so apologies to all.
ymmv
Today is the second day of school, so the first day of ‘B’ day classes. We had 3 closures due to heat last week, and yesterday was a school holiday. This morning kiddo confessed to me that he suspects that he had summer French homework but he couldn’t find the paperwork all summer so he didn’t do anything except occasional duolingo practice.
Sigh.
Yesterday’s mail brought two different actual letters from Yale. One was an invite to a joint presentation they’re making with Harvard, Princeton, Wellesley and UVA in a town about an hour away. It’s making me a bit mad. Kiddo is a bright kid with great ECs, but we had just about managed to dial his expectations down to realistic levels - there is a 4% (probably more like 2%) chance he’d be accepted into Yale so he should put his energy into loving other schools too. I had put my energy into loving other schools. And now we got this mailing and he’s off into dream world again and my treacherous subconscious is thinking “what if…”.
Parents of year round runners - did your student combine XC/winter track/spring track into one activity on applications? S19 has 2 coalition exclusive schools which only give him space for 8 activity entries. His list was all set but now a paid position came up that really should be included in there but he feels like he shouldn’t cut anything else out and can’t figure how to make room. (He already left out plenty and stuck to activities in which he invested the most time/energy and where he had leadership.)
Options he considered - moving Boy Scouts to awards and listing Eagle Scout rank as an award figuring they will understand the time commitment involved OR combining all of his running activities into one entry.
Ugh, I am looking forward to him just sending these applications in so that the second guessing can end…
ETA - there is not an additional comments section as there is on the common application
@mountainmomof3 S19 only using Common App but divided running into two activities. XC and winter track/track. He wanted to show how the training was different and call out his PRs and awards and couldn’t get that all into one EC
Makes sense. The one thing I like about the coalition is that once he inputs an activity, he can then separately list awards/etc. He is not looking at running in college but not sure if combining them would still hurt him - he is not listing PR’s, etc but other awards/leadership for the teams. Too much second-guessing…
Son19 lumped all T&F info into one activity and literally the only thing he used as descriptions were awards/events he won.
I don’t think there is any wrong way to do it. The admissions officers just look through those activities and try to get an overall sense of what the kid was involved with, how much they participated in it, awards earned, and what type of meaningful contributions they have made to their ECs
Based on attending a few open house events with admission officers at several colleges my opinion is that they are not scrutinizing every word in every activity. They like to see the kid has put in some time in whatever matters to the kid, and see that the kid will probably continue to do some of those activities in college, and what that kid can bring to the school.
So as an example, the AO reading my kids app will look over his activities section and see he was an award winning athlete, played multiple sports, participated in some STEM EC’s, and volunteered some so is an OK person. Then they’ll see he plans to study a STEM discipline and will stay involved in a few of his EC’s in college. The AO’s will have a good understanding of what “kind” of kid they will bring in should they accept my son, or not 
@mountainmomof3 if he can fit what he needs to fit in one running EC, I think that’s fine. On the common app, you have to use a pull down menu for each sport and I don’t think you can combine.
@homerdog - Thankfully, the common app is no issue but having to pare down to 8 on the coalition is hard. I agree, it will probably be fine to combine for his purposes.
@RightCoaster - I agree with you. There is no way admission has time to analyze the exact wording, etc. especially at the schools on S19’s list. I am sure there is rampant overthinking taking place on our end.
What is funny is that while S19 is very involved with ECs/jobs I don’t consider him one of those kids that is running around doing every little thing under the sun. If S19 is having difficulty, I can’t imagine those ultra-involved kids. I guess this is further evidence that schools want to see depth versus breadth?
Quick question. One of Ds schools is coming to do an informational meeting at her high school. A week later they will be a few towns over doing a meeting at a hotel. Is there any reason for her to go to both if they consider demonstrated interest? Is that overkill? I said she should go to both but DH thought that was crazy. The school meeting is during her free period and we have nothing else going on the night of the hotel meeting.
@momtogkc – At a week apart, I feel like attending both would be overkill. I’d choose the high school meeting over the hotel meeting as the number of attendees is likely to be a lot less. If you could find out who was attending both, and if one is the AO for your state/region, then that would probably be the preferred choice.
But I totally get your trepidation. It took me longer than I’m OK admitting to come around to the idea that our D19 didn’t need to attend the CTCL tour this year when she attended at last year (and stopped by a school’s table), and visited that out-of-state school last fall. And really, isn’t that enough demonstrated interest?