Common App - AP Curriculum

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I am almost ready to pull the trigger on the Counselor part of the Common App.  I have the school info, student info, homeschool supplement, transcripts, etc. done.

 

When I preview the submission, the first page is a CA summary of the details submitted in the school profile section (demographics, grading policies, etc.)  There is a line for "AP Curriculum" with no information listed.

 

I have searched all through the fields and cannot find anything that I missed or anything relating to this field.

 

I have answered questions about the total number of AP and honors courses.  That information is filled in on the preview.  I'm looking a couple lines further down.

 

Did anyone else notice this?  Any solutions?

[cjzimmer1]

I am almost ready to pull the trigger on the Counselor part of the Common App.  I have the school info, student info, homeschool supplement, transcripts, etc. done.

 

When I preview the submission, the first page is a CA summary of the details submitted in the school profile section (demographics, grading policies, etc.)  There is a line for "AP Curriculum" with no information listed.

 

I have searched all through the fields and cannot find anything that I missed or anything relating to this field.

 

I have answered questions about the total number of AP and honors courses.  That information is filled in on the preview.  I'm looking a couple lines further down.

 

Did anyone else notice this?  Any solutions?

 

No solutions, but I encountered the exact same problem.  Couldn't figure it out and finally gave up and hit submit.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

No solutions, but I encountered the exact same problem.  Couldn't figure it out and finally gave up and hit submit.

 

Drat.

 

I wonder if it's something that would show up if he weren't homeschooled?  Or is it an odd artifact of last year's application?

 

I put in a query and may give chat a try tomorrow.  Then it's going in, so I can work on the counselor recommendation.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

OK I had a chat with CA support. There isn't supposed to be more information. The entry AP Curriculum is the information. It tells the college that AP courses were available. Sounded like a school with an IB program or no AP would have different entries.

 

Also the chat support was quite helpful. She was able to go into the account and see what I was seeing.

[cjzimmer1]

OK I had a chat with CA support. There isn't supposed to be more information. The entry AP Curriculum is the information. It tells the college that AP courses were available. Sounded like a school with an IB program or no AP would have different entries.

 

Also the chat support was quite helpful. She was able to go into the account and see what I was seeing.

 

Good to know I didn't mess anything up.DS has been less than enthusiastic about the whole college app process.  I finally reached a point where I'm not going to spend hours stressing about every little detail when he can't even be bothered to fill out basic profile information without me sitting right there (although I shouldn't be surprised DH is the exact same way when he has to fill out forms).  So I'm giving everything a once over, if it looks good, in it goes and my part is done.  I've got more than one kid to tend to so DS doesn't get to suck all my energy with the college stuff.

[mamato4]

Related to the topic so I'll ask here instead of starting a new thread.  Did you answer every question in the school profile section for the counselor? So far, I only answered the ones that have an asterisk and was going to skip the rest. DD did take AP classes but I didn't know how to answer the questions about # of AP/honors classes offered and # of AP/honors classes student is allowed to take if I did check the AP and honors boxes.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

For me the number of AP offered matched the number taken. I counted all courses I weighted as honors and explained what I counted on the written school profile and the transcript.

 

I think I ended up with something like

AP 5 (5)

Honors 12 (12)

on the actual student summary sheet. But I think you'd be OK to just explain it in the school profile.

[swimmermom3]

For me the number of AP offered matched the number taken. I counted all courses I weighted as honors and explained what I counted on the written school profile and the transcript.

 

I think I ended up with something like

AP 5 (5)

Honors 12 (12)

on the actual student summary sheet. But I think you'd be OK to just explain it in the school profile.

 

Sebastian, I am still mulling over the whole "honors" issue.

 

For AP, I did the same thing you did. The number of AP classes offered matches the number taken or in the process of being taken.  For weighting, I followed our local high school's policy which gave one additional grade point to grades of A, B, or C for Advanced Placement and other college-level courses. They do not weight courses marked "Advanced" or "Honors."

 

For honors courses, I let the designation stand when an outside provider labeled the course as such. So technically, he has  3.5 "honors" courses between Spanish and Derek Owens. I could easily add the "Honors" label to 4 credits of my own classes due to the difficulty of the work and the materials used, but I am still contemplating the following statement that someone on the board had used (and I thought it was you?):

 

"All courses were taught at the college prep level and many presented rigorous academic demands; however, it is difficult to differentiate honors level within a unique, home-designed course. The honors designation, was therefore limited to courses that were labeled as "honors" or "advanced" by an outside provider.

 

Either way, I suppose I should say that whatever I have labeled as honors is the number of honors courses offered?  Would you include those classes that are labeled as "Advanced"? That designation appears twice on my transcript from outside providers. One is for a math class at the ps that squashed two years of math into one and the other is for the Research Writing class offered by Lukeion which covers writing college research papers.

 

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Sebastian, I am still mulling over the whole "honors" issue.

 

For AP, I did the same thing you did. The number of AP classes offered matches the number taken or in the process of being taken.  For weighting, I followed our local high school's policy which gave one additional grade point to grades of A, B, or C for Advanced Placement and other college-level courses. They do not weight courses marked "Advanced" or "Honors."

 

For honors courses, I let the designation stand when an outside provider labeled the course as such. So technically, he has  3.5 "honors" courses between Spanish and Derek Owens. I could easily add the "Honors" label to 4 credits of my own classes due to the difficulty of the work and the materials used, but I am still contemplating the following statement that someone on the board had used (and I thought it was you?):

 

"All courses were taught at the college prep level and many presented rigorous academic demands; however, it is difficult to differentiate honors level within a unique, home-designed course. The honors designation, was therefore limited to courses that were labeled as "honors" or "advanced" by an outside provider.

 

Either way, I suppose I should say that whatever I have labeled as honors is the number of honors courses offered?  Would you include those classes that are labeled as "Advanced"? That designation appears twice on my transcript from outside providers. One is for a math class at the ps that squashed two years of math into one and the other is for the Research Writing class offered by Lukeion which covers writing college research papers.

 

For the field in the CA, if I weighted the grade, then I counted it as honors and listed the student as having taken it.

 

So if you were drawing a Venn diagram, instead of having two circles (AP and Honors that don't join) or interlocking circles (where some courses are AP, some are Honors, and some are both), my way of thinking would be that all of my AP courses were Honors courses, but not all Honors courses were AP.  It's not the only way to look at it, but it was how I considered it.

 

That does look like my line about Honors classes.

I did include Latin 3, which was listed as Advanced, in my Honors courses. 

 

I don't think there is an absolute right and wrong way to do this.  I remember the Adcon at VA Tech saying that one reason they didn't consider GPA was because there were so many different schemes (from no weighting, to +1, to +and assortment of weights, to +2).  They do consider the grade, but not the GPA.

 

With CA, you can only upload one set of documents to all the schools.  I was comfortable with the weighting scheme I came up with.  I think it strikes a balance between giving weight to demanding courses (that might have been weighted in a B&M school) and giving a boost to everything.  What I did try to do was to be very clear in my documents with what scheme I had used.  I even included a GPA worksheet that lists each course, the grade, the credit, the grade point (weighted and unweighted) and the reason for the weighting.  I upload this with the transcript.  I figure that it's easy to pass over if a reviewer thinks they already have enough info, but it makes it clear why some courses were weighted.

 

For my next kid, I might include a line in the school profile that all CC DE and AP courses were also considered as Honors courses, but I think it can be inferred.  

 

Interestingly, in one district we lived in (in NO VA), the schools that were AP curriculum didn't have Honors courses as an option.  A student was at remedial level, regular, or Advanced Placement.  This actually had the parents up in arms, because a lot of students felt trapped into overloading on AP courses because there weren't other college prep classes for them to take.  There was no Honors English 11, for example.  And students would take all the AP courses they could, because to take a regular level would lower their resulting GPA.  

 

There is a lot of Kabuki in all of this.  I think I have to rest in the idea that I'm trying to provide information and paint a picture, but that the little decisions I make in presentation are not going to be the single reason why my kid gets a yes or a no.  Lots of great kids are going to get turn down letters.

[swimmermom3]

For the field in the CA, if I weighted the grade, then I counted it as honors and listed the student as having taken it.

 

So if you were drawing a Venn diagram, instead of having two circles (AP and Honors that don't join) or interlocking circles (where some courses are AP, some are Honors, and some are both), my way of thinking would be that all of my AP courses were Honors courses, but not all Honors courses were AP.  It's not the only way to look at it, but it was how I considered it.

 

That does look like my line about Honors classes.

I did include Latin 3, which was listed as Advanced, in my Honors courses. 

 

I don't think there is an absolute right and wrong way to do this.  I remember the Adcon at VA Tech saying that one reason they didn't consider GPA was because there were so many different schemes (from no weighting, to +1, to +and assortment of weights, to +2).  They do consider the grade, but not the GPA.

 

With CA, you can only upload one set of documents to all the schools.  I was comfortable with the weighting scheme I came up with.  I think it strikes a balance between giving weight to demanding courses (that might have been weighted in a B&M school) and giving a boost to everything.  What I did try to do was to be very clear in my documents with what scheme I had used.  I even included a GPA worksheet that lists each course, the grade, the credit, the grade point (weighted and unweighted) and the reason for the weighting.  I upload this with the transcript.  I figure that it's easy to pass over if a reviewer thinks they already have enough info, but it makes it clear why some courses were weighted.

 

For my next kid, I might include a line in the school profile that all CC DE and AP courses were also considered as Honors courses, but I think it can be inferred.  

 

Interestingly, in one district we lived in (in NO VA), the schools that were AP curriculum didn't have Honors courses as an option.  A student was at remedial level, regular, or Advanced Placement.  This actually had the parents up in arms, because a lot of students felt trapped into overloading on AP courses because there weren't other college prep classes for them to take.  There was no Honors English 11, for example.  And students would take all the AP courses they could, because to take a regular level would lower their resulting GPA.  

 

There is a lot of Kabuki in all of this.  I think I have to rest in the idea that I'm trying to provide information and paint a picture, but that the little decisions I make in presentation are not going to be the single reason why my kid gets a yes or a no.  Lots of great kids are going to get turn down letters.

 

So what you are saying is that your student took 5 of the 5 AP courses offered and that 5 of the 12 honors courses are those 5 AP courses? On your transcript, your student has 5 AP courses and 7 additional honors classes?

 

You always give me things to ponder.

 

One more question:

 

On the certification that you sign on the CA, it says that you will send a copy of the transcript with the school report. Is the school profile the same as the school report? I am tweaking my school profile a bit more today and then hoping to hit the send button. I need to move on.

 

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

So what you are saying is that your student took 5 of the 5 AP courses offered and that 5 of the 12 honors courses are those 5 AP courses? On your transcript, your student has 5 AP courses and 7 additional honors classes?

 

You always give me things to ponder.

 

One more question:

 

On the certification that you sign on the CA, it says that you will send a copy of the transcript with the school report. Is the school profile the same as the school report? I am tweaking my school profile a bit more today and then hoping to hit the send button. I need to move on.

 

 

 

Yes, that is pretty much what I did with counting Honors.  5 AP courses, several DE courses and I think 2 courses that were from Lukeion that were listed as being on an advanced level.  But again, I don't think this is the only way to present it.  You could state that there were no Honors courses, even though many courses were rigorous.  You could count as Honors only courses that weren't DE or AP.  Schools aren't all the same in this.  What I think Adcons are trying to do is figure out a student in the context of their environment.  If your counselor info, AS A WHOLE, gives enough information to paint this picture, then I think you are good.

 

 

On the CA mechanics.

 

I think that when CA refers to school report, they may mean the total information sent by the school on any individual student.  IE, it is the product of both the counselor profile, school details and student specific info.  If you are logged in as a counselor, then click on a student, it opens up the student info in the Workspace tab.  The first section you work through is labeled School Report.  If you look in the upper and lower right hand corners of that Workspace screen, there is a button labeled Preview.  That will open up a pdf document that has a page or two of summary info drawn from the school and student entries, followed by whatever documents you have uploaded (school profile and transcripts).

 

If you are in the Profile tab of the Counselor login, the School Profile section has a number of questions to answer, followed by a slot into which you can upload a School Profile document.

 

If you have the Student opened up in the Workspace, in the transcript section, there are up to 4 slots into which you can upload documents.  I used mine for 1) My transcript - signed and scanned, 2) Course Descriptions, 3) Scans of the dual enrollment college transcripts.  

 

In other words, the School Report contains an uploaded Transcript and can contain an uploaded School Profile.

 

Each upload to CA can be 500 KB in a variety of formats.  I went with pdf.

[swimmermom3]

Sebastian, thank you for post 11. I really am grateful to you for walking us all through this process. I think.

 

Now I know this blinkin,' stinkin' thing is like an onion.

 

I see the student portion. It's not too bad and I peel it off.

 

Low and behold there is the portion with the counselor profile and eventually, I peel that off.

 

And then... there is all of the stuff on the individual student in the work space. NOW I am crying.

 

Of  course, not as much as I would be if Sebastian weren't spoon-feeding me and I missed something because I am always so darned impatient.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Sebastian, thank you for post 11. I really am grateful to you for walking us all through this process. I think.

 

Now I know this blinkin,' stinkin' thing is like an onion.

 

I see the student portion. It's not too bad and I peel it off.

 

Low and behold there is the portion with the counselor profile and eventually, I peel that off.

 

And then... there is all of the stuff on the individual student in the work space. NOW I am crying.

 

Of  course, not as much as I would be if Sebastian weren't spoon-feeding me and I missed something because I am always so darned impatient.

 

Oh, I'm definitely in the eat it like an elephant mode (ie, one bite at a time).  I will get one thing done, then realize I have three more things to do.  I think I changed the transcript and school profile several times, uploading, removing, and uploading the revised version.

 

I took a big gulp and submitted the final versions on CA earlier this week. That was a sobering moment of not being able to claw it back for anymore revisions.  (I submitted his transcript for NROTC and then found a typo in the school profile ten minutes later.   :banghead: )

 

Now I'm trying to nail down a few details with specific schools (like the Polytechnic that may expect additional documentation from homeschoolers, but isn't clear what they want) and helping ds get academy nominations requests pulled together (these have some really strange details, like the student uploading the letters of recommendation themselves).

 

I really hope CA doesn't change much next year.

[TeaTotaler]

I was in panic mode last night.  Ds and I thought that the teacher recommendation link had been sent last week, because it showed as "invited."  However he received email from one of the recommenders that she still had not received anything from the Common App.  It turns out we had to "assign" it.  Ugh.  Also, we wanted to send 2 teacher recommendations but the second one is listed as invited but we can't do whatever it is to assign him. 

I think I'm going to get an ulcer from the Common App.  I know I should've been working on it earlier but life just isn't a nice, tidy package!  I'm grateful that I can even tackle this right now.

[swimmermom3]

I was in panic mode last night.  Ds and I thought that the teacher recommendation link had been sent last week, because it showed as "invited."  However he received email from one of the recommenders that she still had not received anything from the Common App.  It turns out we had to "assign" it.  Ugh.  Also, we wanted to send 2 teacher recommendations but the second one is listed as invited but we can't do whatever it is to assign him. 

I think I'm going to get an ulcer from the Common App.  I know I should've been working on it earlier but life just isn't a nice, tidy package!  I'm grateful that I can even tackle this right now.

 

Where do you invite the teacher recommendation?

 

Panic panic panic panic

 

He has two of them so far. I just haven't known what to do exactly.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/565326-requesting-teacher-lors-on-the-common-app/?do=findComment&comment=6607020

 

For the recommendations read through this thread.

 

In short inviting a teacher just puts their info into the database.

Assigning them to a college generates a link requesting they be a recommender and prompting them to create a CA account if they don't have one. This is done on the college FERPA/recommendation page.

 

One teacher rec can be assigned to multiple colleges. The student assigns them to multiple colleges on each colleges FERPA/recommendation page.

 

I can't log in right now, but there is a link to manage invitees or manage recommenders. I think it pops up when you are on the FERPA page for a college. The manage link takes you to a grid of all the people the student has invited including their counselor.

If there isn't a round refresh/resend arrow in one of the last columns then that recommender has never been assigned and has not been sent an email from CA.

 

This is all done from the student log in.

[cjzimmer1]

 

One teacher rec can be assigned to multiple colleges. The student assigns them to multiple colleges on each colleges FERPA/recommendation page.

 

I can't log in right now, but there is a link to manage invitees or manage recommenders. I think it pops up when you are on the FERPA page for a college. The manage link takes you to a grid of all the people the student has invited including their counselor.

If there isn't a round refresh/resend arrow in one of the last columns then that recommender has never been assigned and has not been sent an email from CA.

 

This is all done from the student log in.

 

Question: when DS started this process we had one school with the common app, he invited his recommenders and they have both submitted their letters.  We have decided to add another school that uses the common app, I'm assuming we can just assign these recommenders to the new school as well.  They aren't going to be requested for new forms are they?  Do we need to notify them that we are adding schools and putting them on it(we didn't specify which school the first time but assumed they could see it when they did their part)?

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Question: when DS started this process we had one school with the common app, he invited his recommenders and they have both submitted their letters.  We have decided to add another school that uses the common app, I'm assuming we can just assign these recommenders to the new school as well.  They aren't going to be requested for new forms are they?  Do we need to notify them that we are adding schools and putting them on it(we didn't specify which school the first time but assumed they could see it when they did their part)?

 

My understanding is that you can now assign that recommendation to multiple other CA schools, without any further action from the recommender.  

 

I don't think the recommender is told to what schools the student is applying anywhere in the CA email.  Their recommendation ought to apply to multiple schools.  

 

The only hiccup we've run into is that you need to look at the specifics of who the college accepts recommendations from.  Some schools only want Teachers.  Some will accept Teacher LORs and other LORs.  But read the descriptions for the Other LORs.  When you invite someone as a recommender, you assign them to a category (coach, teacher, parent, peer, other, clergy, etc).  If the assigned category doesn't match what the school accepts then you cannot assign that recommender to that school.  (Ex.  If you invite a Boy Scout adult leader as Other, but the college only accepts non-teacher recommendations from coaches, teachers, peers and employers; you won't be able to assign the scout leader to that school.)

[cjzimmer1]

My understanding is that you can now assign that recommendation to multiple other CA schools, without any further action from the recommender.  

 

I don't think the recommender is told to what schools the student is applying anywhere in the CA email.  Their recommendation ought to apply to multiple schools.  

 

The only hiccup we've run into is that you need to look at the specifics of who the college accepts recommendations from.  Some schools only want Teachers.  Some will accept Teacher LORs and other LORs.  But read the descriptions for the Other LORs.  When you invite someone as a recommender, you assign them to a category (coach, teacher, parent, peer, other, clergy, etc).  If the assigned category doesn't match what the school accepts then you cannot assign that recommender to that school.  (Ex.  If you invite a Boy Scout adult leader as Other, but the college only accepts non-teacher recommendations from coaches, teachers, peers and employers; you won't be able to assign the scout leader to that school.)

 

As a counselor(recommender), I can see his college list so I assumed the other teachers could as well.  I did see that part about the different types too.  First school required one and allowed a second one.  I can't remember now how we set the second one but both letters are from teachers.  I think the second school requires 2 letters but didn't specify what types (will have to go back and check).  Anyways I think we are okay with the letter we have but then was starting to worry that DS may have to contact them again about adding a school and I hate to keep bothering them with more things to do.  They've already sent letters two different ways and on top of this second common app one he will need letters sent a third way to a different school altogether.  So I am trying to be considerate of there time but DS isn't really done making his college list yet so we don't know how many app he will end up with. I guess we will just have to put the second school in and see what happens.