My D26’s is 650 words. When she pasted it into Common App, it was 651 (it formats differently than Google Docs, I guess) – so she had to remove an adverb or something, lol.
She finally heard back from her college counselor with some suggestions that she didn’t necessarily like, and we’re still waiting to hear back from a good friend who is an AP English teacher and agreed to take a look. So chances are the essay will get one more edit, but not a total overhaul at this point.
Oy, between STARS and official test score, why is Pitt such a pain? 
Every other school on my kid’s list is fine with unofficial scores until you accept an offer, so I didn’t even realize this about Pitt. Dude.
D26’s school uses SCOIR (like Naviance), and they swear that they have some special back-end way to automatically fill out the STARS, that they’re figuring it out now, and that D26 should not do it herself manually. So, she hasn’t touched it. I’ll have her follow up in a couple weeks.
D26’s is at 600 right now, but she wants to elaborate a bit on something, so I suspect she’ll write some more and then pare down.
Had a few bouts of tears. The essay has been by far more challenging than she expected. She is a super private person, shies away from attention, so writing ABOUT herself is HARD. This level of vulnerability is so uncomfortable for her, so she’s taking a break and will resume next weekend. She has time.
C26 has also found it hard, but even more so finds the activities sections, brag sheet etc harder. We come from a British-modeled society where you don’t brag and usually instead understate accomplishments, which you just can’t do in college apps here where most people tend to do the opposite, so that’s what they are finding hard.
This was her biggest challenge with recruiting. Selling herself to coaches. She’s getting better. Am planning to help wordsmith her activities section next weekend.
It is hard. Mine wrote about her creativity, and she’s got great light and funny anecdotes, but the counselor wanted her to add how she sees the world differently every day because of this characteristic.
D26’s response – “I don’t effing know.”
I’ve gotten a lot of this lately.
Here’s a tip we got from D26’s college counselor that I’m sharing in case it is helpful to others. D26 had lots of ideas for her supplemental essays answers for different schools, but seemed to be stuck/struggling with writing much down other than bullet points and rough notes. Counselor suggested that one of us sit down with her and ask her about the questions, and then be essentially a scribe and just type up exactly what she said for her, so that she could later than take all of the things she actually said, and clean up, edit and turn into an answer. We tried it today and it was incredibly successful. For one question on leadership she was having a hard time with and uncomfortable writing on, the conversation turned to an area of leadership that she is really excited about and thinks she is good at and she talked about a whole bunch of examples of where she has exhibited that and how she hopes to continue to develop that leadership in college. D26 made huge progress on the supplementals in this session, and it was literally just asking the prompts, and follow up questions and then writing down what D26 said.
it’s SO HARD for them to write about themselves! And clearly she has talents or she wouldn’t be an athletic recruit!
D26 officially submitted 3 schools today - 2 are her likely schools, one is a high target (but IMO a reach) - only target because we are in-state. so many more essays to go…. and each one is a mini battle.
Oh how I wish this process could move along more quickly.
I used this technique with D24 and it worked really well. Basically had the kid ‘think out loud’ and while she spoke, I typed out everything she said. She used a lot of that stuff in her essays.
We made some progress today too. Most of the Common App is filled out. He’s working on the essay as well. I think he has a decent start on it. Still trying to figure out where else to apply to.
D26 worked on some College Counseling class HW today - a worksheet where you had to pick one major at a college you’re interested in and write down 5 required courses for that major and its prerequisites. Also had to put down all of the course credit granted at the college for any AP exams you passed + note if there’s any special AP credit restrictions.
It was very methodical and clearly the idea is for the student to do that same thing for the rest of the classes on their list. 
D26 went to a U of A info session at school today. The college sent a rep to her high school. there’s a 2nd session later this week but it’s specifically for the honors college. Counselor told all of them that anybody wanting to apply to the honors college should also go to session #2.
D26 took notes! Some highlights she & I found interesting:
D26 was interested & excited about the session today, said that the one later this week is being held during her College Counseling class period. It makes me happy to see her excited. 
Kid also came home with a flyer…the counselors are having Q&A session for 12th grade families on Thurs of next week. I do have some questions but can’t seem to formulate them into words at the moment. 
Wording is hard today. The struggle is real!
This is one thing I remember with my S23 that varied a lot between schools. It’s a good idea to check these policies for each school on a student’s list.
UMN, for example, allows students to put down a $50 housing deposit to “get in line” for priority choice of housing even before the student’s admission decision is released. We plan to do that when their housing app opens (I think November).
Have to say, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when colleges encourage students to pay housing deposits before they know they’re admitted or have decided where they want to go, when priority goes to whoever whips out their wallet fastest. I assume all these deposits are non-refundable. D19’s school asked for a housing deposit only when you accepted their offer (if you wanted housing) and the housing application opened, I think, about a month after 1 May with your place in line is determined via lottery. I know of a few other schools with similar systems, or at least where you are not expected to deposit before you’ve decided to commit. If housing is guaranteed for freshmen, as it should be at least for those colleges who make you live on campus (I do know some where it’s guaranteed even if not compulsory) there’s no good reason for this rush to pay to get to the front of the line. There are people who have to think carefully about shelling out $50 or $175 or whatever for something they’re not sure they’ll use.
/rant over
totally agree w/you.
In the case of U of A, they don’t have enough on campus housing for all incoming freshmen, I think.
2 yr ago when D24 was going through this process, I did NOT like shelling out that $175 that we never got back! Although I think it was $150 at the time, not $175.
Completely agree with everything you say… but, it’s still useful information for each of us to have about the colleges on our kids’ lists.
For S23 in my memory, the only ones on his list where this early deposit seemed to make a difference were UMN and UBC (Canada). UMN sent both of my kids email with app fee waivers, and the $50 housing deposit is less than the app fee, so my kids both see it as a bargain. I don’t think my S ended up doing the deposit for UBC, but he was really close to going to UMN (both my kids like that school a lot) so I have no regrets about doing that deposit.
Honestly, I think that makes it worse, if it’s people who didn’t get in the queue early enough because they have fewer resources they will probably be even more disadvantaged by having to find off campus housing which most places is more expensive than dorms. And I for one do not want C26 off campus in a strange city even apart from the issue of missing out on the whole dorm experience. I believe all the schools on their list guarantee freshman housing (and most but not all require it for non-locals) but certainly something to double check.
C26 got an app fee waiver from UMN too so hmm..maybe will do it too, your logic makes sense! They do guarantee housing for freshmen so there will be “somewhere” to stay if that’s where they end up.