I love that idea!!
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Exactly. And definitely less so when youâve already written 20 essays. 
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I think your D22 and mine are at the same schoolâŠand I guess it kind of has a defined perimeter? 
I had to drag my D22 kicking and screaming to even tour because she really didnât want to fly anywhere, and she didnât want to go to TX, and it was a stupid idea for me to even suggest it (friend of mine in her college advising office strongly suggested it for her), and blah blah blah â and then she fell in love. Funny how that happens!
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Yes, thereâs a hedge that surrounds campus, though there are gaps in a few places. We were told that this would be sufficient. 
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We donât live far from Berkeley and S22 was not even going to apply to UCB, guess where he is at! And very happy I might add. He applied to 13 colleges plus UC and CSU app. We didnât tour a single one before applying.
S26 hasnât thought of his list yet. But heâll be applying to colleges on both the coasts. Not applying to any in the South.
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This might be the best reason to retire to Chicago that Iâve ever seen (assuming they allow auditors). Very cool questions!
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Yep! Although she was able to repurpose and edit for a lot of the more generic questions. And some didnât have supplemental essays (Middlebury, Wesleyan, Kenyon). Yale and Columbia were the hardest.
And sheâs very happy at UCLA. And she only applied to UCs bc we made her. She was determined to go east and seriously considered choosing Smith. And a surprise LAC in Kenyon. But she went to UCLAâs admitted student day and loved it. And that was that.
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D26 is in the midst of doing make up work this week from having the flu the week before spring break. BUT she had a little free time this evening, so she & I took about 20 min for her to do 2 College Essay Guy exercises.
Roles & Identities Exercise:
We used this â The Roles and Identities Exercise
Out of a big list of roles/identities, you pick the 10 that you connect with the most. Hers were:
- realist
- question-asker
- nerd
- listener
- observer
- doer
- details person
- critical thinker
- planner
- thinker
Then out of that top 10, you pick your top 5. Hers were:
- realist
- observer
- doer
- critical thinker
- planner
Then either from your top 10 list or the big master list of roles, you pick 3 that you are wanting to be or want to experience more. D26âs were:
- thinker
- improviser
- problem-solver
She spent a few minutes explaining why she picked each of them. It was a really great conversation. Thereâll be a lot of stuff she could come up with a Common App personal statement out of this.
Also had her doâŠ
The Values Exercise:
âŠwhich is available at The Values Exercise.
Thereâs a big list of values and you pick 10 of them that you connect with the most. D26âs were:
- responsibility
- knowledge
- truth
- safety
- global awareness
- expertise
- accountability
- quiet
- respect
- patience
then out of the top 10, you pick your top 5. Hers were:
- accountability
- truth
- responsibility
- global awareness
- safety
And then out of the top 5, you pick your top 3. Hers were:
- truth
- responsibility
- global awareness
And then she spent a few minutes talking about why she picked each of those 10 values.
Sheâs meeting next week with the college counselor at school to start talking about college stuff. Iâm going to have her bring this list with her (she wrote it all down on a piece of paper).
I had D24 do the same. Her lists for these 2 exercises were a little different, but her lists totally captured who she is. Just like D26âs lists for these exercises, I think, totally capture who SHE is.
Anyways, sharing these details with everybody here in case itâs helpful between now and application due dates later this year. I think these exercises are awesome because it gets the student thinking in a slightly different wayâŠand it can give them some cool stuff to talk about in college application essays.
College Essay Guy also has an âessence objectsâ exercise thatâs really cool.
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I really love College Essay Guy â his brainstorming exercises are so good!
My D26 hasnât started any of them, lol â she just finished asking three teachers for rec letters, and she turned in her âwhy statementsâ â which give said teachers extra info for the letters â to her college advising office. (It was quite an extensive list of questions for each teacher and took forever.)
We did brainstorm some potential essay topics while we were road-tripping last week. Last school year, she lived through some harassment (I wouldnât call it bullying because it wasnât that strong) because she was a sophomore parking in the school parking lot for sophomores/juniors, and one junior got in her face and told her that she had to park farther away and leave the good spaces for the juniors.
She ignored him. (There was no such rule, written or unwritten, and sheâd ridden to school with her older sister for years so knew that for sure.) He continued, and then he and his friends left a nasty note on her car, spread rumors about egging her car, etc. It turned into a giant stupid thing that went on for a couple months.
I tentatively reached out to school administration about this, and the dean said that I should identify this kid right away, and he would deal with him. I didnât do that because itâs a strict private school, and I knew they could suspend or even expel this kid for threatening property. The school does NOT play. And I thought that would be a harsh punishment for boneheaded teenage behavior.
Meanwhile, I gently suggested to D26 that she could consider parking in the farther spaces (which werenât even really farther â just on the other side of the curb). Oh my goodness, she was so disappointed in me. She is an idealist, and she said that if she did that, it would be sending a message that this behavior was okay.
I told her that was true, but sometimes the less-than-ideal solution is the one you need to employ to move on in life.
Anyhow. The whole thing blew over after the first semester, but it turned into a huge philosophical debate in our house. And D26 was thinking she could write about the experience, not from a âI was BULLIEDâ standpoint, but from the decisions she had to make while facing an ethical dilemma, why she made the choices she did, and what she learned from it. She thought she could spin a good narrative on why she chose not to report this kid, why she did end up parking farther away, and why she was disappointed in herself (she is 100% an Enneagram 1, lol) â but yet relieved at the outcome. And her writing can be snarky â I think she could make it a little funny, too.
Do you guys think thatâs too risky a topic for her personal statement? Too cheesy? Not descriptive enough of who she is as a person?
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Wow, I love this topic! I love that it gets to the âwhyâ of how she thinks and approaches the world. Seems great!
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Question, probably for some of those with older kids who took SAT (D19 did ACT so this is new) - C26 had somehow ended up with 2 college board accounts and after a process that was really much longer and much more painful that it needed to be, they have been combined, as in, we can see both the âresult pendingâ from the school day SAT (one account) and the Saturday one weâve booked (other account) in the same account. However, itâs not showing their PSAT score (even trying score matching). But Iâm thinking itâs not worth all the hassle to get that on too, or is it? I am pretty sure C26 will be national merit commended but not semi finalist, so thatâs just a letter that they send to the school to give C26 from my understanding? The main reason to link the accounts was to be able to send the SAT score/s to colleges.
TLDR: does it matter if the college board account doesnât link to the PSAT score?
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I think I agree with beefeater. I also think itâs often how itâs written and what it reveals than âthe topicâ itself.
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Not sure if it matters otherwise, but my D was a commended scholar, so I can confirm that itâs just a certificate sent to the school. There was never any direct recognition from CB for that.
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Thanks. Yes, the consensus seems to be that the final SAT score matters more than that but if C26 lists it on their resume then as long as they have something to back it up that should be fine. Ok, I will not be going down the Kafka-esque college board inquiries line again!
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My D22 applied to 17 which was too many. To be fair though, 3 were UCs (1 app) and 4 were CSUs (1 app), so really it was only 12 applications. Most were schools that she hadnât visited (coming off the end of covid lockdown). Ultimately she ended up at her first or second admit, a rolling admissions school where she is very happy!
D26 only has one school on her list that she is certain she will apply to and that is UC Santa Cruz. She has said she doesnât want to go too far away from Nor Cal or anyplace thatâs too cold, but is okay with gray and rainy, so we will be touring schools in the PNW over spring break. Right now she really doesnât know what she wants in a college, or even what major she might be interested in (will be more humanities oriented though). But D22, nearing the end of junior year in high school wouldnât even talk about college, so we are miles ahead in that regard!
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My older one was also a commended scholar, and I think she may have listed it under awards on the Common App just to have another thing to put there â but pretty sure no school followed up to check.
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Kind of related q talking about awards - do you know if doing EA, you can list say âaward (expected)â if you know the requirements for getting it are complete but it hasnât actually been awarded yet? C26 will (if all goes well) have a couple of these that they will have met the requirements for but not officially have by EA application dates.
I have no idea what D19 did or listed as I was not allowed to have anything to do with her common app! I only got to read her essay because I wouldnât pay the application fee otherwise
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I totally would. You could even add the date itâs expected to be officially awarded. Iâm sure schools have seen this before.
Thankfully my kids are used to my being hyper-involved in this process, lol, and they humor me. (I also have an editing background, so Iâm likely to spot an error that they wouldnât!)
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Hmm, my D had one of these (Seal of Biliteracy), and I think she listed it with âexpected,â but I canât remember for sure because I too was not allowed to look at anything in the Common App until Deadline Day (and even then, only over her shoulder as she quickly scrolled up and down). I know she did not list her NMS Commended on her ED and EA apps because there was a delay with the school notifying kids, and even though we were sure she qualified based on her index score, she didnât want to list it without confirmation from the school. You could always double check with the school counselor on whether itâs OK to list âexpectedâ awards.
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Has anyone elseâs son or daughter begun the process of asking for letter of recommendations?
The schools our daughter will be applying to are only asking for one + a counselor.
She has secured the one teacher who is going to do her letter. Had to fill out some formal ppwk as by the high school and update a code in Maia so her teacher can upload it through their portal. She also provided him with her resume and a short brag sheet.
Her intention is to submit the Common App shortly after it opens in August so sheâs trying to get all her ducks in a row to accomplish this, including working out the timing with the counseling office for their pieces of the puzzle.
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