Best wishes to your ds. My ds initially had UChicago as his first choice, but eventually he did not end up applying at all. He decided he really wanted a smaller school.

My ds got wait listed at two schools this week. One of them included a list of FAQs for waitlisting. They said that in the last 5 years (I think it was 5), the percent of kids on the wait list who got admitted varied between 0% and 80%. So it all depends on how many offers are accepted, etc. The other school didn't give percentages, but they said that students who submit supplemental materials will be given preference. They have a list of supplemental materials that included extra essays, new honors or awards, extra letters of recommendation, etc. Edited to add, I don't know how U. of Chicago works, but I'm just adding in our info for general information.

My oldest is a high school senior now, so we haven't dealt with some of these issues yet, and I appreciate all the information here! He has a good bit of money in 529s set up by his grandparents. The one piece of info that I have to add is that if you have to fill out the CSS profile, you may have to declare how much is in those 529s. I don't recall the questions exactly, but I'm pretty sure they asked if anyone else was contributing to the student's college expenses. Our plan (not sure if it will work out) is to not use the 529 money until ds's junior year of college. That way the "unearned income" hopefully will not affect his financial aid for junior and senior years. Obviously I don't know yet if this will work out.

The Coalition App was new this year (2016-17). My current senior only did the common app since every school on his list took it. I've only heard of 1 or 2 schools this year that did take the Coalition App, but did *not* take the Common App. For my current sophomore, I'm assuming that he may need to do both. I'm not sure how it will work next year (for current juniors).

I've been encouraging DS, who is also a senior, to use google calendar as much as possible. You can enter events with due dates, and you can put in multiple email or pop-up reminders. For full disclosure, I must add the ds hasn't necessarily been taking my advice. He keeps everything in his head, which I have to admit has worked reasonable well for him, but I'm convinced it will crash/burn at some point.

If you are looking at the common app, this is information on what will rollover and what will not. I must point out that "Any information you may have entered for college-specific Questions and Writing Supplements" will *not* rollover. Edited to add, you can start early if you want to: "Account Rollover will be an annual process for all users, without consideration to grade level or user type (counselor, parent, etc.). So yes, in theory, a student who creates a Common App account as a 9th grader and goes through the rollover process each year would be able to carry that account through to senior year."

I would definitely recommend to anyone that they confirm any information given to them by guidance counselors. DH and I went to the public school information session last year for juniors getting ready to apply to colleges. They had some good information, some slightly misleading information, and some downright incorrect information. I will add that this is a relatively small public high school where (according to the school profile) only 47% of the students go on to 4-year colleges. And most of the kids who go to 4 year colleges go to state schools. So for the vast majority of the students the information they gave out was fine. DH told me afterwards how grateful he was that I had done so much research, and I was able to tell what was correct and what wasn't.

On the first draft of ds's transcript, we didn't label any homeschool courses as "honors". He has taken at least 3 classes per year at the local high school though, and many of those are labeled "honors". We decided it was ridiculous to have "honors English" that he breezed through with very little work, while some of his very rigorous homeschool classes were not labeled "honors". We didn't want to remove the "honors" from the public school courses to be consistent with the public school transcript that we submitted. So we added "honors" where we felt it was appropriate. I have no idea if this was the right decision. He's still waiting to hear from most colleges.

Both of my kids did this online course in addition to first aid, sex ed stuff, and some nutrition stuff: https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/HumanitiesSciences/EP-101/Spring2015/about

I will add that the CSS varies depending on the schools on your list. If I recall correctly there questions that are triggered by certain schools. So there can't really be a single "CSS EFC" because it depends on the questions asked.

I think that 3 is way too low for students applying to competitive schools. I think my ds applied to 12 (can't remember the exact number), and his public school guidance counselor (he attends part-time) wanted him to shorten his list. However he had schools with single digit acceptance rates, so we wanted him to also have some more moderate choices in addition to the state school safety. She also didn't want him to have more than 2 letters of recommendation even though the common app allows for more. Luckily he did not feel obligated to take her advice.

Congratulations to everyone who has posted so far! So much good news! :hurray: DS got his acceptance from Beloit College today, with a generous Presidential scholarship. It's not his first choice, but he has been through some very rough/stressful stuff lately and it really cheered him up. We're waiting on their financial aid package - I'm hoping the scholarship doesn't just replace all need-based aid. Also waiting on most other colleges. Waiting is very difficult.

I think I'll go with the majority here and only re-calculate the GPA based on the one completed course ds has. Now I just need to get it done!

Do you re-calculate GPA based on mid-year grades? If so, how do you do that? DS has one course (a college course) that is completed, but the rest of his courses are ongoing. For example, let's say he's taking a 1 credit math course for the year and his semester grade is an A. Would I put that in the GPA as a 0.5 credit A? It's possible that I'm overthinking this.

Have you already sent it in? If not, I'd be happy to take a look. I'm not an expert though.

:party: For all of the acceptances so far! Ds got his first acceptance - University of Maine Orono, with merit aid. It was not a surprise, but after getting deferred to his first choice early decision school, it is a relief to have at least one acceptance. Now we wait for the rest.

Mine was also about 1.5 pages. I will add that my ds has not yet been accepted anywhere, but no rejections either (one deferral of early decision).

:grouphug: to everyone stressing about applications. DS got everything done that was due Jan 1, with hours to spare. Now he's got a couple that are due Jan 15. And then we wait. I'm not so good at the waiting thing.

DS is still needs to finish up applications due Jan 1 today. He wants to go to a party this evening, so he's motivated to be done this afternoon. Good luck to everyone with last minute applications! Then DS has a couple due Jan 15 for which he has not yet finished the supplemental essays.

It all depends on your location. In my state, there are no regional contests, just the state contest, and that doesn't happen until April. My dc often don't really get started until January. I highly recommend NHD. My older ds has entered every year since 6th grade - this year he'll do his last project for 12th grade. Younger ds missed one year because he had a conflict on the state contest date. Overall it's been a great experience, and they've learned a lot! Do you know what type of project your dc want to do? Are they working together or are they each doing individual project?

We got DS's early decision application done last night, almost 2 hours before the deadline. I thought I'd be relieved and relaxed once it was done. Unfortunately I'm second guessing all our decisions in my head and I'm having trouble relaxing. DS really should start to work on some essays for the other schools on his list, in case he doesn't get in to his early decision school. Best wishes to those still working on applications.

That's great! I'm so glad that ds decided to apply early to the Nov 15th school and not the Nov 1st school.

My DS is still waiting on a recommender too. He's got more than the required number already though, so we're really not too worked up about it. I'm much more stressed about 1st quarter grades (not looking great) and getting ds to finish his essays.

I remember being confused by the question. I'm pretty sure I put June 2016 (grades reported) not June 2017.

Good luck, Goldberry. It sounds very stressful.