@ksmom48 Here is a very brief synopsis of what I would recommend you start investigating.
**There are 3 main ways to apply to colleges: the Common App, the Coalition App, and institution specific app. The Common App and Coalition App are both multi-college applications. The student fills out 1 application and the app can be sent to multiple schools. They each have 1 main page of essay topics that students can select from and submit their response as their main application essay. But, individual schools on the app system may have multiple short answer questions, additional essay questions, additional program/honors college applications/essays, etc. Individual college applications are obviously institution specific and will also often have multiple short answer/essay questions.
**Before having your student retest to improve upon a 34, I would make sure it is worth the time and effort. I do not think it is for the schools you have listed UNLESS they update their scholarship information over the summer to indicate an increase in threshold to a 35. Some schools are more “test heavy” than others. (Vanderbilt, for example, is very test score aware. USC, for example, is not. At TS weekend, USC specifically stated that they did not invite several 36ers bc their emphasis was not on test scores but holistic admissions.)
**Students can send scores, request transcripts and LOR, start applications and not hit submit. This is the approach my kids take. The have everything ready to submit and then in Sept when NMSF is announced, they can update their application prior to actually submitting it. That only takes a few minutes. But, their essays/short answers/resumes etc are already uploaded.
In terms of how many essays, etc, if they go ahead and open up the apps for all of the schools they are interested in, they will know ahead of time just what is expected. My kids have created a color-coded system for their essays. They create a master list of topics and then see what topics overlap and how many schools they can morph an essay to work for similarly worded questions.
Expect completing applications WELL to take a lot of time. Can they throw applications faster? Yes. For schools that are awarding scholarships simply based on stats and that is all they are seeking, that approach will work. For specialized programs, competitive honors programs, competitive scholarships, etc, that approach will fail.
HTH