<p>For those of you who have completed/just completed/are still in the middle of this process - how did you and/or your child keep track of all the application deadlines, campus visits, test score requirements/submissions, recommendation requirements/acquisitions, financial aid offers, etc. for all the different schools considered? For parents of athletes, how did you organize contacts with coaches, alums/boosters etc.?</p>
<p>So far I have seen big binders, an almost-full two drawer file folder, a large dry-erase board in a basement filled with notes, and a den with a wall full of multi-colored post-it notes. Which system worked best for your child?</p>
<p>Congrats to those for whom this is finally over and of course their children!!!</p>
<p>A chair next to the computer, with manila folder for each school, plus separate folders for FAFSA and CSS and tax info. And a big calendar for writing important dates on.</p>
<p>(1) a 12 slot accordion folders for for college literature compartmentalized so that each college had its own slot. Believe me, this filled up fast!</p>
<p>(2) another 12 slot accordian folder 1 for all of the copies of applications, app receipt notifications, letters from Admissions offices showing what was outstanding, and eventually acceptances! Each college also had its own slot in this folder; the leftover slots were dedicated to SAT scores and FAFSA/Profile copies and extra copies of our tax returns. This one weighs about 15 pounds now.</p>
<p>The accordion folders came with us on our college tour. </p>
<p>(3) a large piece of postboard taped to the wall next to the computer with all of the deadlines indicated along with a 2006 calendar (and eventually a 2007 calendar) right next to it for writing other reminders (i.e. when we sent SAT scores, or when to request transcripts be sent for a certain college, etc--which reminds me, make sure you know your child's H.S. requirements to sending transcripts. Doesn't hurt to ask now!)</p>
<p>(3) I set up reminders on DD's aol account so she'd get an email approximately 2 weeks prior to a due date (but she never needed to be reminded; all of her apps were in early</p>
<p>I guess our system was similar. We had file folders for each college and a master spreadsheet to indicate the dates when each step was due or completed. We also used Microsoft Word to print a sheet of address labels for each school. It seems that there was always something to send. Music kids have an even more hectic schedule. My D had 9 auditions so we also had to include all the travel information.</p>
<p>One row for each school. In order by deadline.</p>
<p>Columns for application requirements ( Deadline Decision Date Date to Reply by Accepts Common App? Merit $? Essays Reqd #recs SATs reqd)</p>
<p>Column for progress/status(Transcripts sent Recs sentSAT scores sent Midterm rept sent Fee paid Essays done Suppl.complete Other)</p>
<p>Column for online ID/password</p>
<p>Once he'd sent everything in, we color coded the fields as school acknowledged receipt (green meant they had it; orange they said it was missing, etc).</p>
<p>Regular manila file folders for each application that was done in hard copy. But with the spreadsheet system, we rarely had to look at the hard files. We needed to do lots of follow-up, as this system was for DS' transfer from Tulane post-Katrina and there were mucho issues with mail service out of New Orleans; hence the color-coding of status for follow up. </p>
<p>DS did all the substantive app stuff. I did all the above clerical management tasks.</p>
<p>[2] One accordian folder for applications, including testing, admission and financial aid (eight schools plus two tests plus FAFSA plus CSS equals 12!).</p>
<p>[3] One accordian folder for responses, again including testing, admission and financial aid.</p>
<p>[4] One LARGE wall calendar dedicated to college dates/activities.</p>
<p>Organized this way we were dealing with just the calendar and one accordian file at any point. The calendar was the most important item of course.</p>
<p>1) Excel spreadsheet with rows organized by reach, match and saftey schools. Columns included all the important due dates, check points (like requestion interview, submit application, submit financial aid, etc.)</p>
<p>2) Banker's box (or whatever they are called) with file folder for each college. File folder included both literature and copies of documents submitted (and now acceptance packages!). Other file folders were for high school information (copies of transcript), financial aid info (copies of tax return, FAFSA, Profile, etc.), SAT and ACT reports.</p>
<p>3) Giant wall calendar posted on the refrigerator with important due dates, interview dates, target dates for completing essays, etc.</p>
<p>Despite all this we did miss one due date. I (Dad) missed that Pomona is now doing alumni interviews (I don't think they did them when DD was applying 4 years ago), and we missed the due date for requesting an alumni interview. We live 1000 miles from Pomona, so I'm hoping this will not be a deal breaker.</p>
<p>Lets see..... two drawers of a dresser in the guest room, 6 stackable plastic letter trays, the computer desk, an excell spreadsheet, and the dining room table. And at times, floor space of several rooms, and the bed in the guest room. :)</p>
<p>We were big fans of manilla folders......we had 2 of the rolling file boxes, 1 of the boxes was used to store info on any of the schools my S was interested in and then we moved the folder over into box 2 when the college/university made the short list for applications etc. </p>
<p>I took the extra step of writing the userid and password to get the admissions decision on the inside of the manilla folder for each of the schools so that it would be easier to log on in the final throes.... also made notes that thanks yous were written to teachers for recs or folks who did interviews etc.....</p>
<p>you might also want to copy out essays onto CD for saving for the future... </p>
<p>and create bookmarks for the schools your child is interested in..... read the links that interest you as parent.....perhaps add the links to the school's newspaper so you can start to get a sense of the campus.....print out the maps the campus has online....directions, campus layout etc.....</p>
This is an old thread, but it is still very helpful as I gear up to help DD (rising senior) with the administrative end of the application process.
Does anyone have any new and improved suggestions?
I am building a spreadsheet with the various deadlines (using Google docs so DD and I will both have access to it) but I do see the utility of having the banker’s box with catalogs from the colleges, as well as file folders for each of the colleges.
I created a spreadsheet in Google docs that held preliminary information for schools - the middle 50% stats, deadlines, costs, etc - and shared it with my daughter. I got a very big writable calendar from July to December on one aside and January through June on the other.Since D applied mainly Early Action, this worked very well for her. Then I told D, she was responsible.
Okay, I wasn’t quite that mean. She kept notes on a private Tumblr account. The phone came with her on college visits, so she took pictures and maybe videos and uploaded to tumblr. She wrote notes on tumblr.
She probably kept a Google calendar of deadlines with notifications a week three days and one day ahead.
We didn’t keep much paper copy of stuff around. D also had a separate email folder for college stuff. I think she had one for each college where she applied.
The key with essays is do them in advance, like over the summer, before senior year starts.
I had one deadline for five of seven schools (October 15). Then, she had another deadline, December 1, for the remaining two schools. Having one or two deadlines really simplified things for us.
I submitted transcripts requests, test scores all at once in early September. D asked for teacher LOR and the GC LOR the first week of school. Again, doing everything once was just easier on my brain.
We started with an excel sheet, but for the short list, we use the colored, two pocket report folders(one per school in that school’s color). Clipped to the outside is a sheet with three sections: School address/contact info, EA/ED/RD dates and what tests are required as well as info on what types of aid the school offers (need only? merit?). Section two: SAT/ACT info taken from both the common data set and Naviance. Section three: Coach names/contact info as well as a place to note when the recruiting form was filled out and the dates of e-mail contact/visits. Also space at the bottom for notes. On the inside, academic info, mailings, etc. are on the right and athletic on the left. These folders have a holder for three hole punched paper for written notes from visits, etc.
@SlackerMomMD, my DD uses gmail and I can’t figure out a way to create individual folders for all the schools’ email correspondence. I know Yahoo mail does it and I can foresee that there may be a lot of confusion and time spent searching for school-specific email.
Or did your D use gmail and I just haven’t figured it out yet?
@GnocchiB, I created Labels in Gmail, which seem to work like folders. On the left side, go all the way to the bottom. Click on “More”. Go all the way to the bottom again using the slider. Click on “Create New Label”. After you create a label, I believe you can forward or direct mail from specific email addresses to the “label” or “folder”.
To be honest, I don’t know what my daughter did. Much of the college application process was pretty hidden from me. I paid the bills (I wasn’t handing over my credit card), sent in the requests and signed (physically or electronically) forms, and I made sure she hit the submit button on the specified dates. I asked her main essay be read by an adult she trusted (she didn’t let me read it until after she hit the submit button).
Two of my kids applied to 2 and 4 colleges respectively. The third one applied to a few conservatories and two colleges. It didn’t take that much organization. They visited each school before applying so they were all schools they wanted to go to. The guidance counselors handled dates for testing. Essays were done kind of last-minute on the kids’ own timetables. It all worked out well, thank heavens.
S applied to 11 schools, ultimately. We had no system. It all got done.
It just wasn’t that complicated. All the schools received the same recs, scores, etc. There were only a few deadlines: one for EA, most on Jan 1, a few two weeks later. He had two main essays that worked for almost all the schools, with a little tweaking. Only the U of C’s Uncommon Application, required significant extra writing and a specific recommendation.
I’m always amazed when people get into making spreadsheets and all that, but I figure some people just like to organize that way. I don’t, and neither does my kid.
D is the most organized person on the planet. She just completed a huge project and literally said that one of the “best things” about it was getting to plan and organize a giant project. So from her, I expect spreadsheets, posters, calendars and folders, in color, and of course, the handy-dandy clipboard. Along with a cloud system that we can both access. Her older sister had no system and didn’t involve me much in her application process, but it worked fine-she got into all 5 (or was it 6) colleges where she applied. I’m somewhere in the middle-my system would be more like a stack of folders on a chair, but my younger one would have a heart attack at that.
Manila folders and a spreadsheet for us, too. Gosh, I thought I’d invented something no one else thought of. I had a musician the first time around, which added the extra wrinkle of prescreen deadlines and auditions. I just got through the process with two pretty careless boys. We had a weekly check in session of 5-10 minutes every Saturday morning. They made to-do lists and I checked to make sure they were doing them. Everything went surprisingly smooth.
