@thingamajig we are in a similar situation. Her schools are mostly what you would consider safeties. She is in top 25% for nearly all her schools, but her major has a small cohort (most of her schools are under 30). We have no idea how that works with rolling admission. We were actually told to apply before September if we didn’t want to lose a slot by one of her top choices.
D20 has submitted 4 apps so far and should finish 1 more before school starts. She has a few more apps to submit if early results don’t work out the way she hoped.
Mine took both. Her ACT (31) converts to 70-90 points higher than her SAT (1350) so we’re are thinking that she’s going to submit her ACT score only. I’ll have her double check with her counselor that there’s not a reason to submit both scores, but just ACT is our thought for the moment anyways.
Being away from CC for a week and it is impossible to keep up. Congratulations on all new acceptances and keep it coming. Our school has already started, so DS20 is officially a senior! Yay and sigh! @SoccaMomma good luck to your DS20 too. We will be submitting music supplement and are still in the practice-practice-practice mode. It will feel so good when the “sliding door” is closed. ?
DD20 took both SAT and ACT. She much preferred ACT so took that one a 2nd time when required with her class and was done. She will only be sending ACT. It is higher per the concordance tables. IME there is no need to send both.
@makemesmart Good luck to your DS on the art supplement too. DS just informed me that there’s a fee for uploading to slideroom. Why am I not surprised?
Anyone already getting the senior fees notices? Portraits, graduation costs, AP fees? We’ve only gotten the portraits brochure so far.
D has two senior portrait sessions. One for regular pics and one that is dance senior portraits. I dug out deals so that they combined to cost a good bit less than the normal senior pics in this area. Her two college classes started yesterday, but as is normal the first week is kind of an easy ramp up. She also started her rehearsals for YAGP last night. Still two weeks before band and her homeschool classes start back up.
I finally got DS to contact the admissions office at U of M - Twin Cities about fixing his application last week and it took another week to get him to actually do it once they told him how. I had to basically sit down by him yesterday and say, “Get this done, now”. He emailed the changes and they updated it first thing this morning which was quite impressive.
Does anyone else feel like they are doing more of the legwork than they should be? I’m wondering if I should just step back and let him sink or swim on his own. But some of this stuff effects me a lot…like having the application that they also use for scholarships at least accurately reflecting what he did.
As new, confusing and intimidating as this is for us adults (shoot, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t), can you imagine how it feels to a 17 year old?
My personal opinion is that this is one of the most important documents (applications) and transitions in his/her life. Encourage him/her to do as much as they can on their own but this is not the time that I want to step back and let my kid sink.
I guess my frustration is when I lay out that you need to do X and Y and day after day I come home and he “hasn’t gotten around to it” (meanwhile, he’s playing video games). I’ll admit I’m a bit of an obsessive type A personality and he’s definitely a type B, but part of me worries how he’s ever going to survive without me!
@cshell2 - I can identify with that feeling. Just yesterday me and wife were talking and saying the exact same words (how he’s ever going to survive without us?..:))
I am sure they will be fine - I think the elaborate admission process overwhelms them to inactivity sometimes.
In our DS20’s case - he is always been a hardworking kid and we were usually hands-off, especially in academics…even in his middle school, he used to set goals for himself and generally do well (not a superstar but give his best shot). But when it came to college admissions, he is totally out of tune - can see that he is not enjoying the process and becoming disengaged. Researching colleges, writing-essays, asking-for-recommendation-letters - suddenly we have to plead/beg him to do anything. just hoping that he will get over this phase before its too late.
@cshell2 and @hs2020dad you are describing my DS16. He was very laid back about it all and we worried he was too laid back. Just be prepared that once he decides to do it all, it may not be ideal timing for you. Yes, I was the parent that stayed up late on a mid-week work night, after the soccer game, to review applications, enter the credit card info and cheer when he finally hit send. The good news is it all worked out fine and he is a senior now. My DD20 is different in that she wants to handle it all, and has been, but is stressing herself out. My goal is to get her to finish one rolling application and hit send by 9/30. After they have sent the first one, and the world continues spinning, the rest seem to come more easily. I’ve been taking lots of deep breaths the last two days.
Next priority is lap top purchase. I was hoping to stretch hers through senior year but that does not seem to be possible so I have pulled the laptop requirements for the schools she is applying to and they create a $500-750 difference in what we “should” buy. I really wish we could push this off until she has picked a school.
@hs2020dad - Disengaged. That’s a good word to describe it. While I don’t expect him to be on top of everything as far as due dates and such, I had expected he would at least be excited about college and showing an interest in things, so that’s been kind of hard for me to understand. He says he definitely wants to go, which I was starting to worry about, so that’s good I guess.
When I was his age, I was all pumped about a couple schools and lined up the visits on my own and figured out the finances aspect. It was my mother that had no interest and in the end I had to go to the local school and live at home while working full time at night because I couldn’t get her on board with paying for out of town making sense so it seems odd to me that I’m handing him all these options and am willing to listen to any input he has, but I get nothing.
Just my opinion but I think there’s a couple reasons for the lack of engagement. One the older you get (parent) the faster time goes. Freshman year seemed not that long ago. For my kid at least high school has taken forever to get through. I think for parents there is more of a sense of urgency. Secondly, I may be slightly older than some on here, I think kids today know parents will “take them by the hand” so to speak. I see myself doing things that my parents would never do. And to be honest they probably did a better job raising me. I think in my case and most others on here things will work out. It just doesn’t feel that way right now.
I’m just relieved to hear others are experiencing (or had experienced) the same thing. I was starting to worry that he was trying to tell him he wasn’t ready for college and I shouldn’t ignore it. I guess that could still be the case, but it’s comforting to hear it’s at least in the normal spectrum of behavior.
@cshell2 and @hs2020dad I’m another one with an S20 that is pretty disengaged. We have visited a few Cal States close to home and he has ranked them in order, but he didn’t want to look at anything further than an hour or so from home. Didn’t want to look at any LACs that required LORs or essays. He will apply to 4 Cal State schools which is a single app with no essay and no LORs needed. But I will likely have to sit with him to make sure everything is entered properly before the send button is pushed.
I have worried that he doesn’t really want to go, but he says he does. Until it happens though, I wouldn’t be surprised if he changed his mind last minute and decided to do CC and then transfer. We will see. I am taking steps this year to get him to be more independent and he is very capable, so hopefully he just needs to mature a bit more (he only turned 17 last month so is still pretty young).
My son just turned 17 last month as well. He’s been making strides. Freshman year I had to be on him all the time about homework and he still missed a ton (he was in a Montessori school through 8th grade with no testing, grades or homework, so it was an adjustment). Sophomore year he needed some guidance, and last year he did very well in all his classes with no prodding from me. He still is awful about reading emails though. He’ll either never open them at all or he’ll just glance at them and to get the general gist, quit reading after the first couple lines and miss key information.
My D20 is not as on the ball as I would like her to be. She is done with testing because since she has’nt picked up a test prep book since June and I am tired of talking, we have decided not to sign her up for any more tests. Trying to get her to do the college applications and essays have been a real chore. I am looking forward to getting this process over with.
They sit for senior photos in June of junior year at our school so we have already purchased them. A few days ago we got a heads up about the new fall payment for AP exams.
