Question for everyone who has applied to Pitt - We would most probably be submitting the Pitt application through Common App this weekend. Can we create a STARS account before that and fill the data already, and then link it once the portal is set up? Or should we wait to submit the app and set up the portal first?
Argh, this was just 5 weeks ago, but I have already forgotten! I believe D submitted the Common App and STARS on the same day â but it wasnât linked to her account until she set up the Pitt portal (instructions arrived a few days after the app was submitted by email). Looking at the STARS right now, and it says âsubmittedâ 8/16 (the day D submitted the Common App for Pitt) and then âsent to Pittâ on 8/19 (the date she set up her portal).
1 Like
Thank you so much!
D26 did everything through the Pitt website. Kind of wish she had started with a separate STARS account because it sounds like thatâs easier to work.
1 Like
You can set up and submit STARS before or after submitting the application itself. Linking the two does not require setting up the Pitt portal; my D didnât get around to setting up the portal until I think a week later. STARS will link to the application automatically if the same email address is used for both. However, linking might take a few days after everything has been submitted. You will be able to see the linking status in the STARS account.
3 Likes
We have several family members who graduated from UD, and they have nothing but awesome things to say about that school! My D26 is also waiting for her September SAT scores 
(sheâs worried that she messed up the second math section)!
1 Like
SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU ME?!?! My D26 can go for free at in state school and sheâs ED1 at a highly rejective school too.
Solidarity!
6 Likes
Ugh, in a super fun bit of parenting, D26 needs to revisit the STARS thing on her Pitt application â the only thing she has left to do besides creating a video for one schoolâs niche major â and was planning on looking at it tonight, because it was giving her trouble yesterday.
BUT, we just had a crisis over her STEM class, which Iâve been dubious about from the beginning because I think itâs going to be unduly challenging for her.
Indeed, she just got a couple of zeros for not turning in checkpoint assignments â and I can totally see the ADHD overwhelm, where sheâs in over her head and just canât do the work.
I know this about her, but itâs currently tanked her grade, and the class is such that she has to go back and do those assignments anyway â even though theyâll stay at 0 â otherwise she canât move forward with the project.
Sigh. And any haranguing from me is just met with tears and then a complete shutdown.
And then, sheâs got a BC Calc test and an AP Bio quiz tomorrow, and her grades are mid in both classes, so she has to do well to bring them up. And currently sheâs peeved at me for asking her to plug her phone in downstairs (which she has NOT done yet), and then come down so I can help coach her through the STEM stuff.
In a bit of irony, her project is to build a mobile app that basically gamifies a to-do list for people who are paralyzed with ADHD overwhelm. HAAAAA!
11 Likes
One of the counselors in my daughterâs high school told me that they have students who routinely break down in their offices after they get a B+ on a test. Just thinking about that breaks my heart.
5 Likes
Hereâs some extra info for those applying to both UMN and Pitt⊠oddly enough, STARS also linked itself to my Dâs UMN application (according to its status messages), even though UMN requires Courses & Grades in the common app, and doesnât mention STARS anywhere this year.
So I was glad that my D entered the exact same things in Courses & Grades on the common app, and STARS, because it would have worried me if there was a discrepancy somewhere. 
4 Likes
D19âs first friend group (in 8th/9th grade, after we moved here) was like this. They were lovely girls, but D19 couldnât take the academic peer pressure from the group and shifted to a friend group from drama who ranged all the way across the academic spectrum.
D26 has literally told me about one of her friends doing this exact thing, but breaking down with her rather than counselor.
1 Like
D26 is one of those kids. She woke me up early on Saturday morning in tears because she missed 2 questions on a quiz after the teacher promised that the notes covered everything⊠she immediately sent an email to the teacher - and everyone now has the opportunity to retake the quiz if theyâd like now because of it. As somewhat of a hippie that has gone throughout life assessing the vibes (shoutout to all those kids in this thread!) and going with the flow, this has always terrified me. How did I end up with one of these children??! Well, I married a man just like that I guess, thatâs how. 
D26 has taught me a lot. My anxiety is always on 1000 behind her and Iâm worried about how she will fare in college because of it. I have advised her to pick her battles carefully and I really hope she will. I am so worried.
7 Likes
My D22 was a little like this â well, not the breaking down part. If she got the rare lower grade on a test, she dug in with even more determination to do better. In middle school, she won the âhighest GPAâ award every year. So when she got to high school, she was aiming for valedictorian â and she worked like crazy for it.
I remember DH and I were once at a parent conference in middle school, and the grade chair told us that the teachers had asked her privately if the kid was getting serious pressure from her parents. I am South Asian (DH is not), but they thought maybe there were cultural pressures happening at home.
Grade chair laughed because sheâs known D22 since kindergarten (her own twin girls were in the same grade and friends with my daughter). She told said teachers, âNope, parents are chill. This all totally comes from the kid.â
Junior year, in the a college advising meeting, D22 was told she was in the running for the top spot, but that she would be better off adding another AP class senior year for the boost in GPA. They suggested AP Gov or something that she had no interest in. She politely declined, citing work-life balance, and she chose a semester of standard psychology and a free period the other semester instead. (Free period was in the fall, and itâs when she worked on college apps.) We were stunned, but I was so proud of her for choosing that.
Kid ended up graduating as salutatorian. Her graduation speech was awesome â so very poised and articulate. I wish I could share it here, LOL. (Okay now Iâm just shamelessly bragging, I know.)
Anyway, my point to all this is â I think thereâs a huge difference between external and internal pressure on these kids. If I had done anything to try to get D22 to change her ways, or sleep more, and slack off in any area, it would have just added stress. She is wired the way sheâs wired. And now that sheâs at a highly rejective school (haha, that term is so funny), sheâs determined to graduate with a 4.0 and get summa cum laude. Itâs nuts, but nothing we say or do is going to change that.
D26 â who is equally bright â has a completely different approach. She is skating by with whatever it takes to get an A, but just barely by the skin of her teeth. And she is content with that. (But yes, getting a B in a class has not happened yet â maybe it will this year. Weâll see.)
8 Likes
My son did his stars first and then the Pitt application.
2 Likes
sheâs determined to graduate with a 4.0 and get summa cum laude. Itâs nuts, but nothing we say or do is going to change that.
She has assured me that it will be different in college because she wonât be so worried about grades and the top spot, she can just focus on learning the material for her career. I do not believe her but Iâd sure love for it to be true.
1 Like
So whatâs funny about that is my D26 applied to Brown â because its general lack of letter grades and loose curriculum were hugely appealing. We, too, thought she was looking for an environment where she didnât have to worry about grades and could just learn for its own sake.
Well, she did not get in â itâs the only school she was outright rejected from (although waitlisted at several others). There are standard grades where she landed. Whatâs different in college is yes, no one else has any idea what your grades are, and youâre not really competing with others like in high school.
BUT, she is so intrinsically motivated that itâs just become about reaching that goal for herself. If it makes you feel better, she is having an absolute blast in college, tons of fun (way more than she did in high school), has a lovely friend group and is living her best life.
The pushing herself to excel academically has not changed, however. And whatâs more, since sheâs at a selective school, every other kid there was the same person she was in high school â everyone is a tippy top kid. Itâs not a conducive environment to slacking off!
2 Likes
Maybe they should go to Harvard? I can totally see why kids fall apart when they get less than an A as As are so normalized, so it seems.
The grade inflation at D26âs school is so bad that I donât think an A means anything. To see that grade inflation continues in college is so disappointing to me.
1 Like
Yikes. This is NOT the case at Rice or Ga Tech (which are the only two selective schools Iâm familiar with). In fact, there are always kids and parents freaking out over getting their first ever failing grades. Students are always talking each other down with the mantra âCs get degrees.â
My D22 has had to grind in college. I mean, she was disciplined and worked hard in high school, but college has been insane.
D26 sees this and hears the stories and says, nope. Sheâs not interested in doing that!
1 Like
not gonna lie, I hurt a little bit inside every time I think about the cost differential. we are all in this together!