The Class of 2024 College Application Thread

[Samantheia]

My oldest is applying this year. Homeschooled k-12. He applied to one school with rolling admissions and was accepted, so that's a relief (for me!). They only required his transcript and SAT score. I'm still finishing my docs for the other 6 schools he plans to apply to. Do you include course descriptions for the 12th grade courses as well or just for the completed 9th to 11th grade classes? Thanks!

[kokotg]

11 minutes ago, Samantheia said:

My oldest is applying this year. Homeschooled k-12. He applied to one school with rolling admissions and was accepted, so that's a relief (for me!). They only required his transcript and SAT score. I'm still finishing my docs for the other 6 schools he plans to apply to. Do you include course descriptions for the 12th grade courses as well or just for the completed 9th to 11th grade classes? Thanks!

I've always done 12th grade, too

[JennyD]

38 minutes ago, Samantheia said:

My oldest is applying this year. Homeschooled k-12. He applied to one school with rolling admissions and was accepted, so that's a relief (for me!). They only required his transcript and SAT score. I'm still finishing my docs for the other 6 schools he plans to apply to. Do you include course descriptions for the 12th grade courses as well or just for the completed 9th to 11th grade classes? Thanks!

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  

 

 

[Eos]

10 hours ago, Samantheia said:

Do you include course descriptions for the 12th grade courses as well or just for the completed 9th to 11th grade classes? Thanks!

Yes, but I described them as "anticipated credits" or similar on the transcript itself.

[kokotg]

Current irrational worry: my counselor letter for this kid is 83 words shorter than for my last kid. What if colleges think I can't think of enough good things to say about him?! 

[kokotg]

This poor kid has now asked three of his five recommenders. He needs two academic, two music (only one music school requires two recommendations, just to make things harder), and then he's going to ask his piano teacher, too, for places that allow an optional third on the common app, since she's known him for forever and should have very nice things to say. But he's making good progress! I'm going to encourage him to get the early action/early decision apps submitted in the next few days...in at least one case, he can't get access to the music school app until that's submitted. I'm overwhelmed by all the moving pieces here, and I wish this was the kid who loves making spreadsheets to keep track of all this stuff. Alas, that's my oldest; this one has inherited my spreadsheet illiteracy.

[blue plaid]

My middle kid is applying this year.  He has started on the common app -- but still lots to do.  He has made a start on the main essay and we talked about revisions yesterday -- still lots to do there.  I fear he is underestimating the time that this and all the supplemental essays are going to take (which I have mentioned to him.)  But he is my super organized and responsible kid so I know he will get it done one way or the other but I am still stressed.  I have my school profile, counselor rec, and course descriptions 99% done but procrastinating and agonizing over that last 1%.  Transcript shouldn't be too hard as my husband will fix all the formatting for me once I enter the data (need to calculate GPA and figure out courses planned for spring of senior year.)  Son put his recommenders' info a few weeks ago into the common app but no progress on that front (he asked the teachers if they would write a recommendation at the end of his spring classes.) So he needs to email them this weekend.

EEEEEEEEK.  Thanks for letting me vent my irrational worry.

[kokotg]

On 9/15/2023 at 5:59 PM, blue plaid said:

My middle kid is applying this year.  He has started on the common app -- but still lots to do.  He has made a start on the main essay and we talked about revisions yesterday -- still lots to do there.  I fear he is underestimating the time that this and all the supplemental essays are going to take (which I have mentioned to him.)  But he is my super organized and responsible kid so I know he will get it done one way or the other but I am still stressed.  I have my school profile, counselor rec, and course descriptions 99% done but procrastinating and agonizing over that last 1%.  Transcript shouldn't be too hard as my husband will fix all the formatting for me once I enter the data (need to calculate GPA and figure out courses planned for spring of senior year.)  Son put his recommenders' info a few weeks ago into the common app but no progress on that front (he asked the teachers if they would write a recommendation at the end of his spring classes.) So he needs to email them this weekend.

EEEEEEEEK.  Thanks for letting me vent my irrational worry.

sounds like you're at the about the same place as we are. It's so hard to find the balance between helping them with the pacing and letting them figure it out on their own! 

[kokotg]

Don't mind me...just live blogging this very hectic weekend. I just uploaded the counselor letter after insisting my husband proofread like 3 times. Signed the permission for him to do ED. And then I had a moment of panic when I couldn't find my school profile from his brothers and thought I'd have to start from scratch. found it--phew! made minor edits and now I think that's ready to go. DS I think has finally finished his essay and now just needs to do a short supplemental before submitting the Vandy app. Which will open up access to the music school app so that he can, I'm sure, write MORE supplementals. He's flying to Orlando to go to Universal/Halloween Horror Nights with a friend this week, and he very much needs some fun/a break, but he also has so much he needs to get done before he leaves! 

[cintinative]

I haven't been on this thread in awhile. Cheering you all on!  

[MagistraKennedy]

Popping back in for an update ---

I finally got the brag letter finished --- thanks be to God -- that thing was taking me for.ev.er. Now we just need to send over the formal request letters. (we requested in person months ago)

We're heading to a regional college event this evening --- can anyone tell me what the expected dress code is for these things? I tend to lean toward dressing nicer, but it's that weird time of year in the South where the weather is all over the place and complicates matters. 

We have 7 schools on our list currently, and I'm waffling on one, so we may ditch that school and drop it down to 6. (I'll bet @cintinative can guess which one is on the chopping block) I'm also waffling on a safety school that would also be VERY affordable, but my daughter dislikes the school, so I'm torn. (My workplace offers complete tuition remission to the local university, but we were terrifically unimpressed on our tour)

ACT scores came back today from Sept, and we have to make the decision to try one more time, or close the door on that chapter. 

Next up for me: write the class descriptions.

[kokotg]

On 9/19/2023 at 2:34 PM, MagistraKennedy said:

We're heading to a regional college event this evening --- can anyone tell me what the expected dress code is for these things? I tend to lean toward dressing nicer, but it's that weird time of year in the South where the weather is all over the place and complicates matters. 

 

How was it? Was it like a college fair with a bunch of different schools?

[JennyD]

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.

[cintinative]

We might end up changing a class we planned for 2nd semester. I assume that would be included in any updates I send mid-year? I figured definitely the transcript would be updated for grades. My guess is that I would also update the course descriptions if we change a class.  I hope this doesn't hurt him for scholarships--we are looking at a more rigorous class to replace the one we scheduled.  This is all pretty new to me. 

[cintinative]

If you need a laugh,  

 

[kokotg]

2 hours ago, cintinative said:

We might end up changing a class we planned for 2nd semester. I assume that would be included in any updates I send mid-year? I figured definitely the transcript would be updated for grades. My guess is that I would also update the course descriptions if we change a class.  I hope this doesn't hurt him for scholarships--we are looking at a more rigorous class to replace the one we scheduled.  This is all pretty new to me. 

I think minor schedule changes are very common (for traditionally schooled and homeschooled kids)  and not something to worry  about. Note it on the mid-year report and that's it. If something happens like you say they're taking 4 AP classes and then they all get dropped, that's a different story. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by kokotg

[kokotg]

3 hours ago, JennyD said:

 

DS's college list is almost certainly too long, but unfortunately for him he is my practice kid.

It seems like too long college lists are the norm these days! My oldest (started college in 2019) applied to 16 schools, which seemed crazy at the time (but I think in retrospect was probably a good idea; he had a TON of waitlists, so I think there were a lot of schools that could easily have gone either way for him and there was no way to predict beforehand), but now seems very common from what I've heard. Current senior kid will likely apply to at least that many if he doesn't get in his ED school. 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 9/21/2023 at 10:06 AM, kokotg said:

How was it? Was it like a college fair with a bunch of different schools?

No, it was for one school --- a regional event, as in the school visits different areas of the country and has a meet and greet sort of thing. We've been to another one in our area for a state school - partially because I LOVED the venue, and partially because we were interested in the school. 

They were VERY different --- the one we went to last year was a very SLICK presentation, while this one was quiet and intimate. Good experiences with both events, but very different flavors, so to speak. 

 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:24 AM, JennyD said:

 

DS's college list is almost certainly too long, but unfortunately for him he is my practice kid.

How long is too long? 

We're sitting at 7 right now. We've got a couple of schools to visit, and I think our list will end up being between 5-6, depending on those visits. 

I'm happy with that number --- I researched things to death, and my daughter also dove in and investigated schools. In my head, when we started this process, I thought 10 would be my limit, just to be able to keep track of everything. 

[kokotg]

Venting: I hopped on Total Registration and signed DS up for his AP exams at the same school where he's taken them two years in a row. I got an e-mail saying it was approved and paid the fees, but then never got any confirmation or a join code directly from the school. So I finally e-mailed to check on it and...the AP coordinator won't respond to my e-mails! Argh! It's a different person than last year. On one hand, maybe I should have asked first instead of just finding the form and signing him up (the past two years I asked and she just sent me a link to the form, so I thought maybe I could save some time for everyone by skipping that step); on the other hand, I'm hoping they'll have a harder time turning me down now that they already have my money! But I need her to respond so I can frantically find a back-up plan if they're going to say no!

 

[kokotg]

Uhh--turns out it's fine! They were on fall break last week, which I'd forgotten about. She sent me the code and all is well.

[ScoutTN]

On 9/22/2023 at 12:14 PM, kokotg said:

It seems like too long college lists are the norm these days! My oldest (started college in 2019) applied to 16 schools, which seemed crazy at the time (but I think in retrospect was probably a good idea; he had a TON of waitlists, so I think there were a lot of schools that could easily have gone either way for him and there was no way to predict beforehand), but now seems very common from what I've heard. Current senior kid will likely apply to at least that many if he doesn't get in his ED school. 

Length of list may depend somewhat on selectivity of the schools to which one is applying?  Applying to tough schools requires a longer list. With easier options a student might not need so many. 

[kokotg]

Vandy ED app submitted! Eek! He's not done yet...this will give him access to the music school app, which will mean MORE essays. Plus a prescreen video. He had to decide if he wanted to put arts and sciences as a second choice after the music school, and he decided against it. If I understand correctly, that means he's shutting himself out of applying for arts and sciences at all--no second chance in the regular decision round. Which seems a little unfair--he's definitely willing to commit to Vanderbilt if he gets in for music, but he would still strongly consider it if he didn't (in which case he could still try to audition into the music school next year). But it's music or nothing! ED acceptance rate was something like 15% last year if I remember right, but it's impossible to translate that to the music school (I think the music school acceptance rate might be higher overall, but it's so dependent on instrument that it's hard to say). So we'll see! He has at least two more EA apps to get in next...possibly 3. And an Oberlin prescreen I guess. Oberlin is very weird this year because he found out the horn prof is leaving. Which means there's no one to get a sample lesson from or anything like that, but I'm also wondering if it means it's a less competitive year to try to get in on horn. He considers Oberlin to be a super long shot--the conservatory, not the college--and I have no way to judge if he's being too hard on himself or not, because the music stuff definitely doesn't come from my DNA! 

[JennyD]

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.

 

 

[Eos]

On 9/27/2023 at 11:41 PM, kokotg said:

the horn prof is leaving.

Bummer, so sorry.  Crossing fingers for Vanderbilt but maybe one day I'll meet you in Ohio 🙂 

[kokotg]

9 hours ago, Eos said:

Bummer, so sorry.  Crossing fingers for Vanderbilt but maybe one day I'll meet you in Ohio 🙂 

Timeline is supposed to be that they'll announce the new horn prof in February, I think, so it would still time to meet whoever that is before making a decision. He happens to be pretty familiar with the work of the current guy, so that was kind of fun, but I'm sure they'll find someone excellent for next year. I do think it's pretty unlikely he'd get into the con at Oberlin but not get in ED at Blair, but stranger things have happened! I think the college and maybe the musical studies major at Oberlin would be a good fit and a fairly likely admit for him, so that's another possibility, too. 

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, kokotg said:

Timeline is supposed to be that they'll announce the new horn prof in February, I think, so it would still time to meet whoever that is before making a decision. He happens to be pretty familiar with the work of the current guy, so that was kind of fun, but I'm sure they'll find someone excellent for next year. I do think it's pretty unlikely he'd get into the con at Oberlin but not get in ED at Blair, but stranger things have happened! I think the college and maybe the musical studies major at Oberlin would be a good fit and a fairly likely admit for him, so that's another possibility, too. 

So if one ED’s to Blair but doesn’t get it to music, will they still consider him for academic ED? 
 

[kokotg]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

So if one ED’s to Blair but doesn’t get it to music, will they still consider him for academic ED? 
 

They would if he had checked arts and sciences as a second choice, but he didn't want to commit to going if he didn't get in to Blair, so he didn't

[blue plaid]

Just reviewed and submitted everything for the counselor school report -- school profile, transcript, and course descriptions.  Don't know why I feel so nerve-wracked by all of this!  I have his counselor letter of recommendation ready but will think on it a few more days before submitting. Son is moving slowly on the main essay but at least now has something in the ballpark of appropriate/being ready.  Goal is to focus on one school a week to make some/most (hopefully all?) of his early action deadlines (Nov 1.)

[cintinative]

@blue plaid i know what you mean! I am absolutely terrified to go back and look at what we have submitted and find an error I missed.  Nope, not going to look!! 

Why can't all schools be rolling admit? I think I will have measurably more gray hairs by January 31st. 

[matrips]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:24 AM, JennyD said:

DS and I both finished our parts of his National Merit application and sent that off to the recommender/endorser.  

Congratulations on the NM! The NMF opened up incredible scholarships for my kids. So life changing.

[SanDiegoMom]

On 9/22/2023 at 6:24 AM, JennyD said:

 

DS and I both finished our parts of his National Merit application and sent that off to the recommender/endorser.  

 

Wait, this was finished last month for you guys?? I am still crossing my fingers my ds will submit the essay on time😬.  At least he’s in school so the counselor was on the ball when it came to recommenders and we didn’t have to do anything.  
 

October 11 is the deadline. Tick tock! 

[JennyD]

31 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Wait, this was finished last month for you guys?? I am still crossing my fingers my ds will submit the essay on time😬.  At least he’s in school so the counselor was on the ball when it came to recommenders and we didn’t have to do anything.  
 

October 11 is the deadline. Tick tock! 

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.

 

 

[MagistraKennedy]

Checking in with everyone ---- are we all surviving? 

Registered for the final ACT in October 
Sent off requests for LOR and got confirmation on both of those
Waffling on list of schools --- I think it's because we're both overwhelmed, honestly. Eliminated U Cincy, contemplating FUS (Franciscan University), and sort of tired of the whole process at this point. 🤣

I'm working on the course descriptions, and I'm going to have to set myself a deadline, because then I have to move on to the other things like school profile and such. 

 

[cintinative]

Good job @MagistraKennedy Cheering you on!

 

[JennyD]

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.

 

 

[kokotg]

14 minutes ago, JennyD said:

 

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.    

 

 

That's amazing! Maybe I need to convince my DS to find a long distance girlfriend for motivation (come to think of it, his older brother DOES have a long distance girlfriend, and he's making incredibly quick progress on grad school personal statement writing. hmm....)

[kokotg]

At the moment I feel like DS is making good progress. He submitted a couple of apps without supplementals (we have a common app fee waiver, so no reason not to). Oh! And I finished the CSS for him! I still need to do it for his brother, which makes me want to cry). One more EA to go--he needs to finish supplementals for it. And then he needs to finish recording audition/arts supplement videos for two of the early action schools plus his prescreens. But he seems to be making progress there. We're actually in a hotel in Athens right now so he can tour the music school at UGA tomorrow, get a sample lesson, all that. 

[JennyD]

35 minutes ago, kokotg said:

At the moment I feel like DS is making good progress. He submitted a couple of apps without supplementals (we have a common app fee waiver, so no reason not to). Oh! And I finished the CSS for him! I still need to do it for his brother, which makes me want to cry). One more EA to go--he needs to finish supplementals for it. And then he needs to finish recording audition/arts supplement videos for two of the early action schools plus his prescreens. But he seems to be making progress there. We're actually in a hotel in Athens right now so he can tour the music school at UGA tomorrow, get a sample lesson, all that. 

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

 

[kokotg]

UGA was a hit! I'm kind of surprised; this is the kid who toured it a couple of years ago and told his tour guide, "I'll probably mostly apply to small liberal arts colleges." But I had encouraged him to keep an open mind and consider the music school as sort of a small college inside a big college, and that's what he did. He says it's probably his favorite after Vanderbilt/Blair now. I suspect that most of his schools would shoot to the top of the list if they put together the same kinds of days for him, though (he had a lesson that both of the horn professors were at, sat in on and played with the horn choir, had a tour and lunch with a bunch of horn students, then sat in on the horn studio class. His brother had the same kind of thing at a few schools, but not until he'd already been accepted, so I'm impressed at how much time they gave August yesterday. On my end, I'd be thrilled to have him so close to home. Now fingers crossed he gets in! He'll hear about early action in a few weeks, and he really should get in, barring some weirdness about homeschooling (he's in their top 25% for grades and test scores, number of AP/DE classes, etc)...but then music auditions are a whole other thing, and he wouldn't know about that until February, I think. But anyway, it would be nice if he could hear he's an academic admit while we wait on Vanderbilt ED. 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:23 PM, JennyD said:

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.

 

 

How many schools is he applying to? I'm assuming that many of these are selective? Please know that this is NOT a judgmental comment. If my daughter was trying to balance her academic load, social life, and 35 essays, I think we would both be hosed. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by MagistraKennedy

[MagistraKennedy]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:23 PM, JennyD said:

Surviving, but not enjoying this process AT ALL.

I'm telling every underclassmen parent I know --- HEED MY WORDS. 🤣 I'm like the ghost of Christmas Future. 

Save every syllabus (most friends in my local circles attend a classical cottage school program)
Write down every award, activity, service hour, etc. Don't trust your memory 

Honestly, I've already started the transcript template for my freshmen sons, and as soon as I get these course descriptions written for my senior, I'm going to go ahead and plug the boys' information into this template as well.

One of the things I've learned thus far --- I grossly underestimated the amount of time and stress this process would take for us. 

So, I'm definitely not enjoying this process either, but I've already learned the hard way how to make it a little easier next time. 

 

[Acorn]

1 minute ago, MagistraKennedy said:

I'm telling every underclassmen parent I know --- HEED MY WORDS. 🤣 I'm like the ghost of Christmas Future. 

Save every syllabus (most friends in my local circles attend a classical cottage school program)
Write down every award, activity, service hour, etc. Don't trust your memory

Honestly, I've already started the transcript template for my freshmen sons, and as soon as I get these course descriptions written for my senior, I'm going to go ahead and plug the boys' information into this template as well.

One of the things I've learned thus far --- I grossly underestimated the amount of time and stress this process would take for us. 

So, I'm definitely not enjoying this process either, but I've already learned the hard way how to make it a little easier next time. 

 

Why did you not tell me this 2-3 years ago? My son needs to apply to most of his list by Nov 1 because of his major. I have crossed from nervous to scared. He is graduating from a public school, but we have no idea on amount of activity hours or names of some awards. He hasn’t completed an essay for common app. I don’t know how many additional ones will be required. I was hoping to get main one done before adding additional ones, but the clock keeps ticking.

[MagistraKennedy]

1 minute ago, Acorn said:

Why did you not tell me this 2-3 years ago? My son needs to apply to most of his list by Nov 1 because of his major. I have crossed from nervous to scared. He is graduating from a public school, but we have no idea on amount of activity hours or names of some awards. He hasn’t completed an essay for common app. I don’t know how many additional ones will be required. I was hoping to get main one done before adding additional ones, but the clock keeps ticking.

Maybe because I just learned it a few months ago? 🤣

LUCKILY -- we are not doing any EA/ED or whatever those things are called. My daughter's deadline for herself is Thanksgiving. Personally, I'd like to have at least most of them turned in the next few weeks, but we've only got this week to work on them, as she has tech week for theatre the following week. (so much fun, but ZERO breathing room)

Her CA essay is done --- but I haven't looked it over or looked for her teacher's feedback on how to improve it. It's a good start, but very bland and vanilla. Bless her, she's an excellent writer when she's analyzing literature, but has no clue how to write about herself. 

My thoughts --- tiny bit each day. I have humbled myself SO much the past few months --- reaching out to people and asking what awards were won, and when; searching my online calendar to build a timeline of volunteer hours, etc. It's hard to keep your students motivated without nagging -- like walking a tightrope. While I worked on course descriptions on Friday, guess what my daughter was doing? Creating custom app shortcuts and wallpapers for her phone. 🤷‍♂️ I wanted to fuss at her, but knowing her, she needed some down time. 

For him, his focus needs to be the essay, I'd assume. You might be able to help with piecing together the other aspects. ❤️ 

I think I'm going to buy myself a present when all of this is done, and add 'college counselor' to my list of titles going forward. 

[JennyD]

6 hours ago, MagistraKennedy said:

How many schools is he applying to? I'm assuming that many of these are selective? Please know that this is NOT a judgmental comment. If my daughter was trying to balance her academic load, social life, and 35 essays, I think we would both be hosed. 

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.

[Clemsondana]

We just sent our last application today.  Kid was very specific - engineering, no city environments (kid likes quiet), preferably in the south.  Kid is fine with being farther away but said that without a reason there was no sense in making it more complicated than it needed to be.  Kid applied to Clemson (both parents went there), Auburn, and VA Tech (we haven't visited the last 2, but they are similar, big school-small town environments), Rose-Hulman (the longest distance, but we visited and kid said that if it were close it would be a no-brainer), UA-Huntsville, and TN Tech (the in-state option).  We told kid to apply to UT-Knoxville, too - kid really doesn't like the city-ness of it, but we have a friend whose kid developed a health problem and was able to live at home and go to college while it was resolved so...this is a safety, but not in the usual sense.  All applications were submitted over a 10 day period - there were some EA deadlines of Oct. 15 and we figured we might as well get it all done.  

The major stressor was that I had planned for our umbrella to handle some of the stuff, like the counselor letter, assuming they had something sort of generic that they modified, they said that they would do whatever we needed but it would be better from me.  I was fine with doing it, but would have spent the summer on it and instead had to crank it out in under a week.  I was frantically writing while spouse edited.  All that the umbrella ended up doing was the official transcript.  I've learned that there is no fear that quite equates to 'click finalize and submit' fear.  

For those who have had issues with UA-Huntsville, we use an umbrella but, as I said, I did the school profile and letter in the common app.  Apparently the transcript coming from an umbrella made them happy, because I didn't have to jump through any extra hoops.  My school profile did say that we had to meet graduation requirements for their school (not that we wouldn't anyway - the only different thing is Bible, which we were fine with doing).  We've already gotten an acceptance from UAH.  Even though kid has great stats, it's a relief to have an acceptance to somewhere where I know kid could be happy.  If you are considering applying to a rolling acceptance place, do it early and relieve a bit of stress.  

We now have a bit of a lull, with several places using the regular or honors applications that are already done as their financial aid applications.  Others say that there is nothing else to do until they've made admissions decisions, so we should have several weeks/months of not needing to worry about any of this.  

[JennyD]

1 hour ago, Clemsondana said:

We just sent our last application today. 

Hooray!  Congratulations!

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

[cintinative]

So yesterday I spent some time putting together a spreadsheet that compares the overall financial picture for the schools he applied to including fees, commuting costs (for two schools), etc.  It's so interesting because a school that I thought would be out of the running due to room and board might be okay depending on if we get their highest merit award.  That's even when I consider that if he went to one of the commuter schools, he would have five semesters of a paid co-op versus three summers of paid work.  So I was surprised to have any school come close to the commuter +co-op school. Gas expenses plus wear and tear on a vehicle definitely add up. Also, the parking pass cost was all over the place. For most of them--it was in the $150-$200 range. 

For the one commuter school, it ranges from $200-$1050 for an annual parking pass. 😮

Edited October 23, 2023 by cintinative

[blue plaid]

Still working on applications for the Nov. 1 deadline here.  I think son is finally making a real effort to get it done.  Main common app essay is essentially ready, just working on school specific ones.  Hoping to get 4+ schools applied to.  I modified my counselor rec letter to add some major-specific anecdotes.  It is essentially ready to submit but I have held off in case I need to round-out things.  Oh and one of his teacher recs has still not been completed!  After submitting her name in August he finally made contact in mid-September -- not sure if the common app email to her went to spam or into the netherworld. He is supposed to email again tonight to politely remind her about the deadline.  (Common app says the rec has been started.) Looking forward to November 2nd!  Though there are more schools to apply to, so he won't be finished, but it will be nice to have the first round done.

[JennyD]

11 hours ago, blue plaid said:

Still working on applications for the Nov. 1 deadline here.  I think son is finally making a real effort to get it done.  Main common app essay is essentially ready, just working on school specific ones.  Hoping to get 4+ schools applied to.  I modified my counselor rec letter to add some major-specific anecdotes.  It is essentially ready to submit but I have held off in case I need to round-out things.  Oh and one of his teacher recs has still not been completed!  After submitting her name in August he finally made contact in mid-September -- not sure if the common app email to her went to spam or into the netherworld. He is supposed to email again tonight to politely remind her about the deadline.  (Common app says the rec has been started.) Looking forward to November 2nd!  Though there are more schools to apply to, so he won't be finished, but it will be nice to have the first round done.

Sounds like great progress!

DS is also applying to 4 schools in this first round -- we got two of them submitted yesterday and will finish the other two tonight.  And one of his teacher recommenders is also MIA ....

Depending on how things turn out, he may have a bunch more applications to complete in December, but he has nearly everything already written for those and should be able to knock them out relatively quickly.  It will be very good for DS to take a break from this college stuff and just focus on school etc. for two months.  

DH and I, however, still need to book some time to sit down and do the CSS profile before November 15.