6 weeks. eek. My D27 only has a few due then, but one is MIT (or at least she’d like to do that one EA), which is all its very own application with its own questions, activities format, and also a whole ‘maker portfolio.’ Which is a crazy amount of work for a very small chance of acceptance, but it would be an absolute top choice and she’d certainly regret it if she didn’t try.
I think I need to sit down with her and have her go through the common app and MIT portals and figure out what exactly she does need to do before 11/1.
I’m not sure if her list (11) is final yet either. Right now she’s only got one true safety on there (though she’ll apply to one of our state schools too just in case), which makes me nervous, but that might be OK if she gets into that one early enough. . She does have a couple 60% acceptance rate schools though, so it might be good enough. And she might want to add a Canadian school as a political safety
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OK, so the mention of the 6-week mark made me catch my breath as well! Yikes, where is the time going?
So, my 27 did in fact make it to the SAT on Saturday, barely… high fives all around. He was almost late, but I am proud of him for stepping up when he’s been overwhelmed. I think it went without saying when we talked about how it went that this would be his last sitting. He said it felt the same as last time, and given that he did not exactly do the studying “we” (ahem, really I) had planned for him this summer, I am not surprised.
His school uses Maia instead of Naviance, and he’s cleaned up his list a bit in there. He’s now got 6 that he is definitely applying to and then another 10-12 that he is still considering. He did randomly put a pretty large state school on there last week that is way out of what I thought was his geographic range, so it will be interesting to hear his rationale when we do our college check-in this weekend. I can see at least two others on there that he will probably cross off the list. We’ll go through it again this weekend and set a goal of getting his head wrapped around the deadlines, whether it’s getting them in his google calendar or something else. Of the 6 he’s definitely applying to so far, four have EA - two with an 11/1 deadline and two with a December deadline. Looking at what’s left, I think that November deadline count will probably go up a bit. And of course, he’s not sure yet whether he will ED somewhere. I think he’ll end up with 10, at most 12 schools, on the list when all is said and done.
Otherwise, things are going much better than last week. He likes his teachers and has a number of friends in his tougher classes, which is a big help. It makes it easier for him to ask for extra help, and at least for some things, he’ll have a buddy or two to study with. They are kind of all in it together. Plus, he’s met with the guidance counselor and is welcome to drop in there anytime he needs to check in or just have a few minutes of quiet. I think at this point, he’s staying the course and has not given any indication that he’s interested in changing his course load.
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So exciting for those who have acceptances already!
The six weeks until 11/1 gave me heart palpitations too! S27 has 8 applications due that day. Six of them have supplementals, which he hasn’t started yet. He is super busy with all his activities plus school, so I’m pretty stressed about him getting everything done.
I think he’s on his third or fourth draft of his common app essay. He had written it over the summer and didn’t want us to read it. When he met with his counselor, the counselor did really like the topic, but it sounds like the essay was kind of a mess, just all over the place and the reflection was really unclear. S27 has done a lot of re-writing and it seems that the essay is in much better shape now. I’m not sure how much more work he needs to do. Hopefully he can get that done soon so that he can submit his applications for his rolling admissions schools.
He has a random day off school next week and we are flying out to the school where he plans on applying ED. He has visited a couple of times before, we just want to make sure before he submits his application.
I hope the start of the school year is going well for everyone! S27 was really surprised when he got his schedule the day before school started and AP Bio was not on his schedule, he just had an extra free period. It took some digging to figure out what happened, but I guess the school doesn’t allow students to take AP bio and one of his other classes at the same time because they’ve found that students struggle a lot. It really surprised me that they have that restriction because students at the school take some super rigorous classes together. It really messed with his plans and he had to scramble to find another class to take instead. He found an honors class to take, but is concerned about how colleges will view the drop in rigor. Although, I’m glad that they have this type of restriction, I wouldn’t want him to struggle with his classes while also working on his applications. He met with the academic dean and they changed the system so that students can no longer register for both classes at the same time. They also added the restriction notice to their course catalog (or whatever it’s called) since nowhere is it listed that students can’t take the two classes together. On a positive note, he’s really enjoying his classes so far. Three of his teachers are ones he has had in previous years and really likes.
In other disappointing news, S27 should have been a NMSF. He was surprised when the school notified the NMSF students and he didn’t get notified. He checked his PSAT score report to make sure everything was as he thought and his index score was 4 over the state cutoff, but next to the index number was an asterisk saying something like the index was provided for informational purposes only and he isn’t qualified for national merit consideration. It turns out he didn’t answer the three super basic qualifying questions. He has no idea how that happened, it’s super frustrating. It’s annoying that he didn’t notice that asterisk when he got his score because it’s a super easy thing to fix, but it’s too late now. USC is the only school he’s applying to that gives big NMF money, so it probably won’t even matter. D25 was a NMF and received $0 and I expect S27 would have been the same. Oh well.
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Oh, that’s really annoying about NMSF! I’m sorry. I’m impressed you have already seen the ED school multiple times; we are doing a mad dash to look at the only three schools that are potentially on his list that have ED soon. He hasn’t set foot on any of them before, so let’s hope they give a strong feeling one way or the other! (My crystal ball says he will not ED anywhere because he’ll want to see his options, but my crystal ball is also known to be very fuzzy.)
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That sucks about NMSF. It does seem like most colleges don’t give much for it though. (though as a homeschool parent, it’s on me to finish the paperwork now).
I suppose the upside of my kid loving MIT is that they don’t offer ED, so she doesn’t even have to think about it. Most of the low-acceptance rate schools on her list don’t have EA, only ED, and those seem to be the ones with more supplemental questions, so the rest of the 11/1 schools should be quite straightforward.
Now she needs to get recommendations, so I have to help her figure out what to say in a “brag sheet” to recommenders. I have no idea what to include. Are you supposed to tell the teachers about your activities and such or just talk about what you did in their class? My kid only has online teachers to ask – a university prof she’s taking a second class from this semester, a math teacher from 10th grade, and an econ teacher from last spring. The math class was the most interactive, but the least recent, so she’s leaning on using the prof for the main one (the class she’s doing this semester is 400 level, so maybe that’ll help?), and the other two as needed depending on requirements. She also has a local ceramics teacher who knows her well and will be great for “other” recommendation slots.
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oh no, that is annoying!! I didn’t even know there was anything you had to do but get the score?! there are qualifying questions!? news to me! my kid fills out as little as humanly possible with college board so probably would have had same issue..
I think it is generally advised to be more of the latter - let the teacher talk about how amazing your kid is in the classroom and as a student… Now if the teacher happens to be a club or EC leader (which I assume not in your case)
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I have a couple of examples of brag sheet templates that I’ve found online, I’d be happy to share if you DM me. Generally what I see is that they share what colleges they are applying to and their majors, what they learned from the class with the teacher, or any specific moments in the class that stood out to them, and a few other questions that make it easier for the teacher to write a strong and specific recommendation letter.
The NMSF qualifying questions are super basic. The first one asks if they are enrolled as a high school student (traditional or homeschooled), the second asks what year they will leave high school and enroll in college, and the third asks how many years they’ll spend in grades 9-12. I have no idea how he didn’t answer those questions.
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We visited his ED school once when he was young and I guess it really made an impression on him. Then we dragged him along on a tour back when D25 was looking at colleges.
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Oh that is so frustrating. Both the AP Bio issue and the NMSF issue. Kudos to him for meeting with the dean though to help them make meaningful change to the school’s registration system so the same thing doesn’t happen to other students. I would imagine the counselor could make a note in their letter about the school’s policy around taking AP Bio concurrently with certain other rigorous classes? My 25’s GC did that for his letter when they recommended he take AP Lit senior year, even though he had already taken it at a different school (he transferred schools his senior year).
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Had a kind of fun afternoon. Our state has a program that offers automatic admission to a bunch of schools across the state (both public & private, tho not the two flagships afaik) based on a student’s gpa (I think). D27 got her letter today and there are some legit good choices. Only one of them has her intended major, but at least she has that as a safety option!
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S27 mentioned wanting to talk to the counselor about putting a note into his letter about the AP Bio issues. He may have forgotten, so thanks for the reminder!
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Well, our weekend college check-in was… not particularly productive. Boy was he prickly about it! He’s the kind of kid that says “I don’t want to talk about it right now” but then there’s never a good “right now” so it never gets talked about without it being a little more confrontational than it needs to be. Honestly, my timing this weekend was probably poor, and I can own that. I think we came to an understanding though, if not a formal agreement, about some more regular updates as to where things stand with this process. The big thing I came away with from that conversation is that he is currently not going to ED anywhere. I think at this point, he is just too undecided or anxious about making that commitment. I did offer to take him to revisit two of his favorites, even though that’s tough with his schedule right now, but he declined. Other updates? He’s probably going to rework his essay. And he offered no insight into the remaining schools he’s considering and hasn’t decided if he wants to apply to yet. So I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Yes, he is either holding his cards really, really close or he is just painfully indecisive right now. I think he’s avoiding it to a certain extent, but I also think he’s excited by the prospect of what comes next. Reconciling those two things is tough, but I think he’ll get there. I just have to really work on trusting the process. That’d make it a lot easier for both of us!
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FWIW my 25 was thinking a LOT more about everything than they ever let on. I had NO idea until April when decision time came around - lol.
I totally feel you on kid not wanting to talk about stuff. 27 is constantly avoiding doing much of anything, and whenever I want to spend 10 minutes making plans on when they will get stuff done, suddently they have a ton of homework - lol. They do have a final list at least.
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My kid is the opposite – not wanting to talk about stuff, but does seem to want the hand holding. She’s so paralyzed by the entire concept of personal essays that it seems to help her to set times when I’m right there to help, even if it’s only her saying: “Mom – I don’t know what to say for [question about why this major]” and me responding: “you could write about [reasons you have always told me you want to do that major]” A lot of what I do is try and convince her that the prompts are less literal than she thinks – she’s inclined to write down a strict concise answer to the exact question asked and then only uses half the word space because she thinks anything else is dishonest. Yesterday I had to convince her that it was OK to include a sentence about a course she took that further developed her interest in a major, which she thought didn’t count because the prompt said “what led you to this interest?” and she was interested in it before she took the course! This process will be the death of me.
Also, to some extent working together is a homeschooling thing, I think. Scheduling meeting times to work with her on some academic topic is a regular part of our process for that, so college app stuff gets folded into that paradigm.
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In our house we have weekly check-ins about the Kid’s Next Chapter on Sunday mornings. On the last three check-ins, his update was that he had done nothing that week on his college applications.
The Kid has applied to one college. After he was accepted, he crossed two other colleges off his list, because he would not pick those other schools over the one he was accepted to. He still has 6 UC’s (which are one application) and 7 non-UC schools on the list.
My student has quite a bit of free time on his hands. Last year AP Calculus BC took up a good chunk of time, and his workload is significantly lighter this year in comparison. I see him playing video games, drawing, texting his friends, etc., instead of working on his college applications. He is enjoying his senior year. I would not be surprised if some or most of his non-UC schools fall off his application list. That is okay with me, as long as he submits his UC application by the November 30 deadline.
Right now the priority is getting his NMSF application done to work on advancing to finalist.
He has two letters of recommendation lined up. One of the colleges requires a second STEM letter, so I asked him to follow up with his AP Calculus teacher about his request.
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Just have to say that I love the name of your family’s meetings on this topic. So great to have an open-ended title that doesn’t necessarily lean in any particular direction.
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Well, C27 got an acceptance to a school they haven’t even applied to yet. Apparently there’s a program with Fairfax County and George Mason, where GMU will just give an acceptance offer to students with certain stats (except for Nursing), and my kid had that and got an email last week. They weren’t going to apply originally, but figured that having one in hand is pretty solid, so they filled out the forms needed.
So one acceptance!
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