How is your house not overtaken by ants? We never leave anything out here, especially overnight. If we did it would be an ant plague of biblical proportions. OP, I have no helpful advice but I am so sorry that you are struggling. As others have said, you are so generous and empathetic with other people's problems and invariably give such thoughtful advice. I hope you can find your way to a better place soon.

Hooray! Congratulations! I have finished all of my documents and plan to upload them to the Common App tomorrow.

I think the current list is 16. And yes, quite a few selective schools. I think one major issue is that while he has some less-selective schools on the list, he really isn't particularly keen on any of them, so his overall list is pretty long. He has gotten a ton done in the last two weeks, though, and I'm pretty hopeful that we can get everything out the door quite soon and then stop thinking about it for a while.

Woohoo! Congratulations!

That is good progress!! Music applications seem like a whole 'nother beast.

Surviving, but not enjoying this process AT ALL. I think I have decent drafts of all my parts -- transcript, course descriptions, school profile, and counselor letter. I do believe that that counselor letter was one of the most difficult things I have ever written, and I have written a lot of stuff. DS is on a tear to complete drafts of all his essays before his girlfriend visits next weekend. I think he said that he has done 27 out of 35 or something ridiculous like that. I have suggested that maybe now would be a good time to focus particular attention on the essays that are needed for November deadlines but got my head bitten off for the trouble, so I am keeping my mouth closed. For now.

Jewish day schools in the US have been sending out cautionary messages about monitoring kids' social media exposure since earlier this week, and when I spoke with my kids one of them mentioned that the IDF had posted a message on Instagram about it.

No. FWIW, I am Jewish and spend a lot of time in Jewish spaces. While I am sick over the events in Israel and very anxious for friends and family there, when it comes to my immediate family's own personal safety, I am far more concerned about our own homegrown whackaloons than I am about Hamas. And while I am glad that our community invests a lot in security (see above, re local whackaloons), my actual biggest Jewish-related safety concern is someone getting hit by a car crossing the street at the horrendously unsafe intersection in front of one of the synagogues/schools.

We had a hamster that was a wonderful pet. He lived for 2.5 years.

Yeah, DS is homeschooled so the recommender/endorser is an outside person, and the system wouldn't let us send the form to her until we were totally done, so I rode herd on him to get it finished early enough to give her a few weeks. She hasn't sent it in yet, though, have a reminder on my calendar to poke her again early next week.

Hurrah for submissions! Very exciting! We are making steady progress over here. DS has written a new Common App essay and I have substantially revised the school profile. Tomorrow I plan to make headway on the counselor letter, and DS has his first (zoom) interview.

We are finally moving along. DS had been really struggling to get it in gear, but we have had some productive conversations and he seems to have some newfound energy. Recommenders are all lined up, and he has written drafts of most of his supplemental essays. He wrote an earlier version of his main essay but has decided to start over with that. There will be some scholarship essays to write as well. I am done -- except for proofreading -- with the transcript and course descriptions, and I have a not-very-good draft of the school profile. The goal for this coming week is to rewrite that and make a good run at the counselor letter. DS and I both finished our parts of his National Merit application and sent that off to the recommender/endorser. DS's college list is almost certainly too long, but unfortunately for him he is my practice kid.

That would be my guess as well. My DS took the PSAT last year at a private school not even in our state.

Congratulations! If you are comfortable sharing the name of the school where he was accepted, I will post it to our annual list thread. You can PM me, post it here, or post it in the acceptances thread

This is mostly how US law school classes still work, with all or nearly all of a student's grade in a course based on one final written exam. We still have to use Canvas, though 😞

I have spent the afternoon revising documents and working on National Merit stuff. My only big piece left is the counselor letter, and I am waiting for DS to finish his Common App essay before I write that. DS has finally buckled down and seems to be making progress on his essays. I would really like him to get his requests out to recommenders but am struggling to walk that line between helpful reminding and nagging. He also needs to schedule interviews.

It's time for everyone's favorite thread! PM me or post your info below. Decisions in bold. American University, DD of jplain Amherst College, DS of kokotg Auburn University, DS of Clemsondana Baylor University, DS of blue plaid Bowling Green State University, DS of cintinative Bryn Mawr College, DD of jplain Clemson University, DS of Clemsondana Coe College, DD of historically accurate Colby College, DS of kokotg Dickinson College, DD of jplain Dillard University, DC of Dmmetler Duke University, DS of mirabillis Eastern Kentucky University, DD of MagistraKennedy Emory University, DS of kokotg Franciscan University of Steubenville, DD of MagistraKennedy Freed-Hardeman University, DD of lanabug Grinnell College, DS of kokotg Hamilton College, DS of kokotg Harding University, DD of lanabug Indiana University, DD of jplain James Madison University, DS of UmmIbrahim; DS of VAMomtoboys Lawrence University, DS of kokotg Lincoln University, DC of Dmmetler Lindenwood University, DC of Dmmetler Miami University (Ohio), DS of cintinative Morehead State University, DD of MagistraKennedy Murray State University, DD of MagistraKennedy North Carolina State University, DS of UmmIbrahim Northern Kentucky University, DD of MagistraKennedy Oberlin College, DS of kokotg Oklahoma Christian University, DD of lanabug Old Dominion University, DS of scbusf Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, DS of Clemsondana; DS of UmmIbrahim Rutgers University, New Brunswick, DS of UmmIbrahim St. Catherine University, DC of historically accurate St. Olaf College, DS of kokotg, DD of jplain Swarthmore College, DS of JennyD Tennessee Tech University, DS of Clemsondana The Ohio State University, DS of Acorn United States Air Force Academy, DS of Doodlebug United States Military Academy West Point, DS of Doodlebug University of Alabama, DS of JennyD University of Alabama - Huntsville, DS of Clemsondana University of California, Berkeley, DS of SanDiegoMom University of California, Davis, DS of SanDiegoMom University of California, Irvine, DS of SanDiegoMom University of California, Los Angeles, DS of SanDiegoMom University of California, San Diego, DCs of SanDiegoMom University of California, Santa Barbara, DCs of SanDiegoMom University of California, Santa Cruz, DCs of SanDiegoMom University of Connecticut, DD of jplain University of Cincinnati, DS of cintinative University of Florida, DD of chiguirre (January 2024 start) University of Georgia, DD of jplain; DS of kokotg University of Kansas, DS of blueplaid, DD of jplain University of Kentucky, DD of MagistraKennedy University of Maryland, College Park, DS of UmmIbrahim University of Tennessee - Knoxville, DS of Clemsondana University of Virginia, DS of UmmIbrahim; DS of VAMomtoboys University of Wisconsin, Madison, DS of UmmIbrahim Vassar College, DS of kokotg Virginia Tech, DS of VAMomtoboys; DS of Clemsondana; DS of UmmIbrahim Western Kentucky University, DD of MagistraKennedy Wright State University, DS of cintinative

I remember being very unpleasantly surprised by this same issue when I went to college myself, lo so many moons ago. Very glad that the scholarship helped you work out such a good solution.

Yay! I will start the list.

Ugh. I was hoping that I had just missed an option somewhere. Do you have any idea what happens if a student initially assigns a recommender to one school, the recommender completes the recommendation, and then the student adds more schools? I know that Common App will send the recommendation, but will the recommender also be notified?

I don't see this choice anywhere. When I click on a college, and then click "Invite Recommender," I can then choose between types of recommenders (Invite Teacher, Invite Parent, etc.). If I select Invite Teacher, I am put through to a short form that asks for the recommender's contact information. I then input the (fake) recommender contact information. Finally, when I log in as the recommender using the link sent, I as recommender can see all of the schools that I as student requested recommendations for. Would the ability to turn off this "enable preview" possibly be located somewhere else in the system? Yes, this is my understanding as well. I am wondering if they receive notifications, however, when students add additional schools.

I set up a practice Common App account and sent a pretend recommender request to DS, just to see what it looks like on the other end. It appears as though recommenders can see every college to which the student is having their letter sent. Is this correct? Should DS just assign the recommenders all to one college and then add others later? (Will they receive notifications if he does this?)

Watching TV/movies from other countries or communities always reminds me how universal the human condition is. People are people, no matter where or when they live.

Oh, poor girl! Change is so hard. Even good and exciting change. Hope she feels better after a good night's sleep.

Do you have a Costco membership? If so might be worth looking there to see what you can get in bulk. I don't remember for sure but I feel like I have seen those Nutella packs at Costco. I sent oldest DS some of those That's All fruit bars when he was away this summer, and I know I got those at Costco.