Actually, it looks like that may not be the case this year!
@chicagoshannon Hope Forward is not need based, my D23 was a finalist, she was a good but not perfect student like 3.6-3.7 and test optional.
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My understanding is that every high school that has Naviance configures it a little bit different. So even if my kid has Naviance and your kid has Naviance, that’s no guarantee they even have access to the same set of features, never mind the same richness of data (some of the “likely to be accepted” scatter plots assume that all the kids from the previous years put in all their acceptances and denials after the fact for future kids to benefit from, for instance).
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Yep. I was able to compare my kid’s version of Naviance to his boyfriend’s version (attends a different, larger, and more competitive school). The data is WAY more robust at his boyfriend’s school and you are able to see EA, ED, and tons of acceptances and denials for each school. My kid’s school shows next to nothing.
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Yes, I know it’s not need based, and you only have to have a 3.0, but it seems like they use it to diversify the student body. Maybe now that they’re expanding the amount they give out (40 this year and I think he said they plan to expand to 50 for class of 25) my D25 might have a chance. She’s definitely applying to Hope but it’s her 3rd choice. We’ll see how this all plays out. 
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D25 has finished her 3rd draft of her essay (will be in the “other” category). She finally got it down to 647 words from 888. We’re now wondering if it should be double spaced or single?
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Single. When she cuts and pastes it into the common app she can format it how she likes but the spaces are really big between the lines. You also can’t indent if I remember correctly from D23.
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D25 is so different from S23.
She already is on draft 3 of her CoApp essay. And she actually asked me if she could EA to a school.
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Concur - cannot indent. S25 was loading his up over the weekend and was getting highly frustrated trying to indent when it’s not possible. He didn’t like how the paragraphs were looking, so ended up putting an extra hard return in between paragraphs so there would be some visual space and it would be clear where one ended and another began.
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Thanks everyone. D25 actually asked me to read over her essay when it’s done, before she passes it on to a teacher for proof reading. I’m so surprised.
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It’s the first day of senior year here. I made S25 recreate the pic I took of him sitting on the porch the first day of kindergarten. I tried not to cry during it. He seems really excited for the year.
He has one questionable teacher this year who is known to be pretty brutal for math, but I told him that the goal needs to be to make her his best friend before the end of the year. Some parents are yanking their kids from her class, but I have heard she does a good job preparing kids for the AB exam. And he can learn the lesson that you still have to do your best even when you have an instructor you don’t like. (or a boss, etc)
Common app is almost done other than the activities section and getting documents from counselor and letter of recommendation from his math/physics teacher. Will be glad when it’s done and he can focus on the school year.
Hope everyone has a great day!
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D25 has shared with me that she is working on her essays (I think that she has totaled up that there are between 30 and 40 total to complete), but I do not expect to ever get the opportunity to read any of them. I will be surprised if I do, but that is ok. I do hope that she has someone else review them.
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Wait - 30 and 40 essays? That’s A LOT of essays! I sincerely hope that she can tweak a few and use them multiple times.
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I got to read my D19’s “why this college” essay for her ED college only because her counselor hated it and she wanted another opinion (I loved it and apparently so did the college), but I only got to see the common app essay when she was submitting and I insisted on reading it before I gave her my credit card number for the application fee!
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Whose kids don’t like writing about themselves? D25 is fighting the urge to scrap her CA personal statement because she says that even though she liked it when she wrote it, it now feels “cringey”. This, despite the fact that her English teacher said it was 85% there and was beautiful. D25 says she’d rather write any number of academic essays instead of this. My attempt at compassion: “Kiddo, you’re going to have to get over this. But if you really want to, you can start over…” She declined that.
We also reviewed her list last night. Anything you want to nix? Honestly, she wants to nix a safety and a match, but left them on. I asked her about how she’d feel if she gets a stream of rejections at the end of the admissions season, how she’d feel if she only had two or three acceptances. While she says it’s not ideal, she doesn’t want to nix any of the auditions (13!). She could feasibly decrease the number of non-audition reaches, so maybe that’s what we tackle in next Sunday’s conversation. I’m sharing this here so I don’t stew and bring up college things with her this week.
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My D25 hates!! to write about herself. She’s a very humble and private person and hates to toot her own horn. The only thing that got her started on her essay was watching College Essay Guy. If I hadn’t discovered that site she would probably still be refusing to write one!
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My guy very much definitely wants to drop a safety and match. Which I think would likely leave him with four acceptances, a rejection, and a toss up. And you can only go to one college so that’s PROBABLY enough. But I’m just still nervous. I’ve told him we can wait on submitting the two until after he hears from rolling admission Pitt. Once he hears, if it’s an acceptance, and if he still likes it more than the other two, then he can choose to not apply.
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And yeah, same here with the writing about himself. He’d much (MUCH) rather write some kind of research or analytical thing. I think the only reason he’s done with the common app essay is because he got to a point where he’s just done. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore, so he did what he could and now he’s done.
I feel badly for him because he’s so excited that only two of his schools have supplemental essays beyond the common app, and he thinks he’s done. Except he wants honors college wherever he goes, and those usually ALSO have essays, and at one school he thinks he’s done, but hasn’t realized yet that to get into the college with his major, there’s an additional essay - it’s optional to potentially earn a scholarship, but in my mind, we don’t leave chances for $$ on the table, so it’s not really optional.
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I recently found my main college essay from 25yrs ago and found it so cringey! I think being personal on paper is uncomfortable for a lot of people.
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I looked at mine a few years ago… it was awful! I was so overly emotive in what I thought was an effort to be earnest. I still think the concept behind it was strong, but OMG the execution… 
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Yes, she is only applying to 9 schools (last night that might have dropped to 8, but she had already written the initial drafts), but most schools have more than one to complete and then the honors colleges of those schools also have one or more. They add up to a shocking number. I shudder at the thought of some of these kids applying to 20ish schools - I could not imagine quality work for that many.
She has a compulsion to complete things and often does a lot of planning and outlining, etc., but it turns out that she didn’t analyze the due date schedule of the various applications until she had already begun writing a few essays. As it turns out, those she started first generally have the later due dates.