@nextstepcollege , that sounds like a great plan. Review the applications, send them in, and see what happens (and when he is actually doing them, he will see, and so will the GC eventually, that the teachers receive a request to write a LOR and once they complete it, they just click on which schools to send it to. The Common App manages this process) There is plenty of time until they are due. You can look up/ask each college for actual due dates for ‘supplemental materials’ (that includes the LORs, and again for most, these are due after the application due date), and then just check in as needed if they are not done. The Common App will show you what items are still outstanding for each app, which is nice.
Getting this process done early is in your son’s favor…his teachers will get their requests for the LORs before they get slammed later in the fall.
I wouldn’t be fearful about calling the GC to learn more. As much as we want our kids to run with these tasks, some of it is outside their repertory. At that age, I could spend more time justifying and explaining approach to my kids than what it would take to just pick up the phone and make nice.
So he should just send the separate email invites. Not worth arguing over, IMO. My kid’s HS required a paper form for each one in addition to the CA. It is just their process.
My son did follow up with his recommenders. One received the email and two others didn’t. I suggested he follow up with the two that didn’t to see if it went to their “junk” folder, especially since we know one teacher received the email. One of the recommendations is even already done and has giving my son a copy to have. We are still asking them to upload the recommendation with the FERPA release.
I absolutely will make sure his applications are thoroughly reviewed before they are submitted.
I would say show me where it says (school rules, code, contract, etc.) that there’s a limit on how many college apps can be submitted. And even if they could produce something, and your kid really wanted to send that 7th, 9th, 12th or 15th app out and they tried to stop your kid, assuming they weren’t willing to listen to you and your kid, then I’d call an attorney. In our area, there are lots of educational-type lawyers employed for various school issues/problems or whatever. And have the lawyer send a letter about the limitation being “arbitrary and capricious” and yada, yada, yada.
But those extra apps must cost a few sheckels more.
If the students will be working on their essays in class, does it make sense for him to wait? If he has already finalized and uploaded his essay to the common ap it may be too late. Except for schools that have early action or rolling admissions, there may not be a benefit to actually submitting early.
The GC did not say he would be limited to 5. Given that almost everything is now electronic (no more supplying stamped envelops to the school for the letters), seems like limiting the number of common ap applications is meaningless. Your son needs to clarify how the LORs are done at the school. Perhaps the teachers want to know which schools he is applying to.
Update—I finally went to the school and met with DS’s Guidance Counselor. It was a simple misunderstanding. She only meant that it would be very difficult for DS to apply to more than five schools, but she really didn’t care how many applications he used or how many schools he applied to. She did stress to him to start identifying his top choices now and not wait until April, which I think was sound advice. She certainly never gave me the impression that the work on her part was an issue or a concern at all. I was pleasantly surprised, and so glad I didn’t email my questions and instead sat down with her face-to-face. Thanks to everyone for the feedback and support.
We homeschool, so I’m the guidance counselor of record for my daughters. For both of them, I uploaded their docs and info one time. Their recommenders did the same. Then they went ahead and sent that stuff to anyone they wanted- I couldn’t control it if I wanted to. It went along automatically each time they submitted a new app.
Both my kids waited until April 30th to make their final decisions about what their first choice was. It’s a big decision and I wanted them to own it. My younger son in particular really didn’t want to fall in love with his reachiest schools. He got into one of them, but in the end decided another school was a slightly better fit, but only after attending accepted student events and finding out about some things the “lesser” school.
This is helpful to hear. I have been asking my son where he wants to visit and he said he doesn’t want to visit a school that he might not get into and be disappointed because he really liked it. The hard part is knowing which ones we really need to visit because it may impact his acceptance. I looked at the Common Data Sets for the schools, but the confusing part is when a school says they don’t measure interest, but then indicate the interview is important. Anyway, we are still trying to identify which schools we really need to make a visit to and which ones can wait.
