that is a HUGE jump - congrats!
wow! kudos
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Yeah, her school offers the ACT and the SAT for all juniors for free as part of their requirements (students only need to take the ACT but can take both). She ended up being sick on both days of the exams and was not happy with her performance. But she liked that now she knew what she had to focus on to improve her score.
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I think 27 has their list! It is 14, which I think is plenty, though one may still drop off as it is a lot of work, and a super high reach, and would be RD, so have plenty of time to decide.
5 likely, 3 target, 3 reaches, and 3 schools at which they have virtually no chance, and they still want to apply. They completely understand this, but don’t care 
… I guess live with no regrets?
They really like their likely schools, so feeling good about list… and I think they finally have an essay topic 
and are going to hammer out a draft this weekend. feeling very real with Common App opening this week 
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C27 is still mostly avoiding talking about college applications. They did decide to take the SAT again in August, even though they are pretty sure they are still applying test optional to most places. They have a decent generalized list with a couple of ones they will apply to for sure, and a bunch of others they are considering. It is kind of funny b/c they just don’t think any of this is a big deal - and they’re mostly right. They will get into a college that they like, and it will all be fine. Just very different than my older two.
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Yeah, that is how my older one was!
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With the start of senior year imminent, S27 has managed to approximately halve his list down to 12 which I guess is some progress. He has got 3 likelies on his list, 2 targets, and the rest are probably “reach for all” schools, but his process is a bit different because as a recruited athlete he’s gotten positive academic prereads from almost all of the schools such that if he gets an admission “slot” for athletics in ED, he will hopefully not have an issue. The big decision in the next month or two will be trying to figure out if he is ready to make that one ED commitment this fall, or if he wants to chance things without the slot and give himself more time to figure things out. He (at least on the surface) seems less stressed out this whole process than me. He has been scheduling overnight athletic visits, and he started filling out the Common App. He has at least been brainstorming about his personal statement, but not much progress there yet.
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S27 mostly has his list ready. He has 12 plus most of the UC schools (I count that as one since it’s the same application for all). He has 5 reaches, 3 targets, and 4 likelies. Most of the UC schools are also reaches. I’m wondering if two of the reaches might end up coming off the list once he’s sick of writing essays. Overall, I think it’s a good list!
He’s planning on applying ED to his first choice school, which is a pretty big reach. That definitely makes me nervous. I just want him to be realistic about his chances of getting in.
He has written his first draft of his personal statement. He doesn’t want us to read it because he said it’s too embarrassing. He did tell us the topic, which does seem like a good idea. D25 was the same way, she didn’t want us to read her personal statement and we never knew her topic. We did read all of her supplemental essays. Before the end of the school year, S27 went over his topic idea with his counselor and the counselor thought it was good if done correctly. Writing is not S27’s strongest area, so I’m eager for someone to read the essay. From our experience with D25, the counselor is really good with giving honest feedback.
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Hi everyone, I’m new to CC. I’ve been reading a lot of old threads and have been learning a lot. Wish I had found you all sooner!
I’m a CA resident, have one S27 who is interested in electrical engineering. I also have a D30, who is much more driven than her older brother (she chose to take Integrated Math 2 over the summer so that she starts in Algebra 2 in HS in the fall) and is happy to not be the guinea pig while learning about the college application process.
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Welcome! My 25 applied for comp e (which is combined with EE some places) and my 27 is applying for mech-e /aero! I’ve spent WAY too much time thinking about applying to engineering if you have questions 
.
Edit: just realized i responded to your chance me post on other thread:)
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Welcome! My S27 is leaning toward Civil or Chem E at this point (I think finally!). We’ve visited a few of the schools on your list in your other post (Bucknell, Rose Hulman, Case Western that might be tougher for you to get to visit), so feel free to DM me if you have questions about any of them.
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With the context that I have already been through this process with multiple kids, I have a question about activity hours in the new version of Common App and wonder what you all think.
The activity section asks, for hours per week: “Share how much time you typically spend during the busiest parts of the year. It’s okay to use your best guess.” (Emphasis mine.)
I don’t remember “the busiest parts” being included in the past. The activity in question is all year, but involves a massive number of hours (>20) during the busiest parts of the year, in season. Does this change the number of weeks? “Weeks spent per year” has no other qualifier.
Any counselors notice this? Do you simply average the number across the weeks during the busiest part of the year, but what about # of weeks? Suppose you have, say, 5 hours per week in the fall, 20-25 hours per week for most of the winter/spring, and then, say, 5 hours once every few weeks in summer. You would put, say, 20 hours and then 40 weeks per year, or do you limit the weeks to the actual season (maybe 12 weeks)? In the past, I recall averaging hours across an entire year, which would be a very different number.
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Another oddity of the new app. In the education section, under grades, the only required question is graduating class size. While rank was always optional, GPA is now optional as well. If I recall, in past years, whether GPA was required (with a red asterisk) would vary depending on whether the high school gave GPAs, such that most US students would be required to report a GPA number.
So, report or leave blank? I suppose it doesn’t matter much either way?
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Good question! My D27’s main activity is very seasonal and the average vs the busiest would be quite different. Maybe a discussion of the common app changes will pop up on the main forum…
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Well, we have a final college list for D27. 15 schools. 6 reaches, the rest target/safeties but we are looking for merit so that makes everything a reach in a way. D25 and S19 got big scholarships to schools they were very happy with. But I think this is tampering D27s excitement. She says she doesn’t have a favorite and doesn’t want to do anymore visits until she knows where she got in and what they are offering. She will get excited when she knows her choices.
I suggested visiting or even getting excited would help with the “Why X college” essays and she just shrugged. She is a concrete thinker and fairly stoic. I on the other hand, LOVE researching schools (or vacations…or places to live…etc) and I LOVE falling in love with all the possibilities. I have been reigning it in so I wouldn’t be emotionally polarizing with her (anymore than usual) but boy, she is kind of a bummer lol
She did well on her APs, 3 5s and 2 4s, but I empathize with what others said. So sad that she focused on the 4s.
Best news of the summer was D27 got a statewide award for her job/hobby (sports officiating). Adults can win it as well, so cool for a 17 year old to receive it. She WAS thrilled and not stoic about that!
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ditto! Robotics at busiest weeks in winter is a LOT…in late spring? not so much..
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That is SOO cool!!
I think if I have a GPA and a scoring system that aligns with what is inputtable, I would put in; otherwise, leave blank…
My kids’ HS actually does NOT have a GPA calculated…so not all HS in US have a GPA believe it or not. However, if they did, I would put it in, as I would assume it makes AOs lives easier and that seems like a good thing? Not sure! If you have good college advising at school I would go with that too. My 25s school (different than 27s) gave us explicit instructions how to input GPA and scale as their school had 2 GPAs.
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Yes, now that I have thought more on it, I think that entering the GPA is best (when available), in the same way that the high school counselors instructed in the past. Not entering one when the high school provides one would seem odd.
I’m still a bit confused on the activity hours. I think an average across the busiest time makes sense (“typically spend”), but then it’s unclear what to enter for how many weeks, all weeks (say, 40) vs just busiest weeks across which the hours were averaged (say, 12). I tend to think activity hour measurements aren’t important, but the time-heavy activities are, naturally, the most significant ones in the activity list.
Adding, anyone else have thoughts? Maybe @Mwfan1921 @jym626 ?
agree, I am still thinking on activity hours thing, seemed more obvious on the old system to me. My 27 has really good counseling (they are former AOs), so am waiting until school starts to hear what they say on hours…They will have meetings early on..
(They have no early rolling schools, so it doesn’t matter for awhile for them..)
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