<p>My son just scrapped his intended essay and is now starting over -- but for some reason the world won't stop spinning so Nov. 1st keeps getting closer. He's applying to Yale SCEA (assuming the CA essay and the supplemental essay are done by then). The rest of his list is: Harvard, Princeton, U of Chi, Columbia, Penn, Tufts, Georgetown and St. John's. I'm of course having Andison's fears -- but I'm not sure the answer is to add a bunch of schools he doesn't want to go to. He doesn't like LACs, period. He won't go to school in the West or the South. Michigan's too big. Brown's too liberal. Dartmouth and Cornell too cold, remote. His counselor said he'll get into one of the nine (which probably means St. John's -- for which his 2310 SAT is a complete waste!) and he swears he'll be happy at any of the nine and does not want to add safety schools he doesn't love. I try to remind myself that a gap year isn't the worst thing ever and that there can't be that many Latin scholars graduating this year who plan to major in Classics. Everyone wants business or engineering, right?</p>
<p>So nice to read everyone's updates, this is getting exciting, eh? Some great news already in this thread, and I'm also glad to see the attention to early apps. Well done, students (and parents! :) )!</p>
<p>patsmom, LOL on the essay fairy! We seem to be waiting for her to stop by at our house, too, she only makes the occasional pass down our street. Our kid submitted an app (rolling) to Purdue the first week of Sept. and was accepted there on his birthday the 21st, so he's got a great choice already (and crossed several schools off his list after getting that acceptance). He's deciding now whether to apply EA to Northeastern, which I hear is partial to the interest shown by an EA application, and also received the priority RPI app in the mail this week (his first choice school), so he'll have to get cracking. Current list:</p>
<p>RPI (EA?)
Northeastern (EA?)
UC Santa Cruz
Purdue (accepted)</p>
<p>RIT
U Rochester
Fairleigh Dickinson
Champlain
Clarkson</p>
<p>I can't believe we're in the home stretch already! Keep providing those updates, folks, it's great to peer up out of the trenches and see everyone else waving. :) (See? Not everyone on CC aspires to the Ivys and top 20 LACs. ;) )</p>
<p>Last time I heard, my niece is planning on the following schools - Dartmouth, Duke, Amherst, Williams, BC, Georgetown, Villanova, and BC. She is top five (out of 200 or so) at a Catholic HS. Guidance counselor told her she should get in everywhere. This is my sister's first and am not sure what to tell her. I think she could use a few more safety schools, particularly ones with merit aid, but I have another sister who dispenses advice freely, most of which isn't appreciated. She is a great kid, I hope everything works out for her. All of the Catholic schools are EA, others will be regular admission.</p>
<p>"(which probably means St. John's -- for which his 2310 SAT is a complete waste!)"</p>
<p>Which campus? My nephew is very interested but wants the New Mexico not the Annapolis campus. He's got very high SAT scores too, but his grades are a mixed bag.</p>
<p>Congrats on Purdue, Mootmom! Isn't it nice to know they can go to college next year somewhere? We just found out DD is guaranteed $6,000 from the one she's been admitted to so far.</p>
<p>Yesterday was standardized testing day for the underclassmen, and DD was sick, so I stayed home with her and she completed one application, and another is now completed all except for the essay which has to be sent via email)! Then I helped her start on the common app for the other 5 schools on her list and we have that 90% completed (up to the essay page). Paid for 3 app fees, have 3 more transcripts to request. We're feeling a great sense of accomplishment. We might meet our Nov. 1st self-imposed deadline yet!</p>
<p>Anybody else have the CSS/Profile to complete for any of their schools? I'm not sure what to expect; I've heard it's more difficult to complete than FAFSA.</p>
<p>Update on mine: She's sent her Priority App to UVM, and I've just requested the college transcript for a summer course she took. We should hear within the next few weeks.</p>
<p>She's also decided, now that push has come to shove, that she isn't sure enough of her schools to apply anywhere ED. As she put it, it's easy to say "I want to apply to Vassar ED" when it's still not real, but harder when you really have to make the commitment. So she'll lose whatever advantage ED would give her, but with any luck she'll still have some choices come April.</p>
<p>Her list now: Vassar, Wesleyan, University of Richmond, University of Rochester, Muhlenberg, Union, Amherst, UVM and possibly NYU (Gallatin).</p>
<p>She's using the Common App for everything, and wants to submit it electronically. (Interesting to note that at some schools, electronic apps are free (Union) or with a lower fee (Rochester - $20 on line, $50 on paper).) The main portion of the Common App is done, except for the essays, which she's still working on. Supplements haven't been started yet. But at least her earliest deadline is Dec. 1.</p>
<p>Such fun!</p>
<p>Springfieldmom,
Yes, I have to do the Profile for several of my D's schools. I need to take a look at it soon, I think one early school might have a due date of Nov 1. I'm assuming that all I can do is to make best guess estimates based on last year's tax returns and factoring in any obvious changes for this year??</p>
<p>I couldn't believe the cost, $18 per school! This is being discussed on another thread, the CB strikes again. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be back with some questions, I hope the veterans can help out us newbies :).</p>
<p>weenie has requested that the mods give us a thread for acceptances and scholarships. WHOOT!!!</p>
<p>Your kids must be AMAZINGLY proactive! The essay fairy is going to have to knock my son over the head with a baseball bat to get those essays to appear. (JK) Congratulations, AG54! My DS may very well be at UT with your son - and 48,000 other students. November is the magic month for us - he swears he will buckle down and write those essays/ request those recs/ order those transcripts /etc after the SAT retake is over (October 14th). We are off to visit Rice this weekend, and Trinity U, the weekend of the 21st. I know that puts all application work into November, practically speaking. I'm not stressed like I was with DD, though - since he is interested in 2 schools where he is automatically accepted. It really takes the stress out of things. And UT is NOT known for instate merit-aid - so I don't think that it matters a whit what he puts on his application to them; he's in, probably without aid, whatever he does! And he is guaranteed automatic merit aid at Tech, no matter what he does.<br>
So it is going to all work out just fine. (I do hope he pays attention to those local scholarships, though. I can see those scholarship opportunities flying off to other people, if he doesn't pay attention to the applications or due dates...)</p>
<p>anxiousmom - Iwould you post a trip report on Trinity when you get back? That's the one school on S's list that he won't get to visit before applying. I've heard only good things about it so far but I'd like to hear your impressions.</p>
<p>All righty. Here is what I know so far about my son's so-called list.</p>
<p>Applied to (used Comm App - I can't remember which were EA/RD):
Rensselaer Polytech
Worcester Polytech
Rochester Institute Tech
Case Western
Northeastern</p>
<p>Apparently is going to apply to:
U Pitt
Purdue
Cal Tech
Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Might apply to:
SUNY Buffalo
Georgia Tech
U Rochester
???????</p>
<p>That's all I know so far. I will probably try to bug him to get U Pitt and Purdue done this weekend...We'll see!</p>
<p>I am in awe of your kids who have sent in applications. My daughter is on the ball, but nowhere close to sending in an application. In fact, even if she wanted to her high school isn't ready for her. They have to revise the transcript (it doesn't reflect a change in the school's grading policy). Plus, I discovered just yesterday an error in her transcript (it listed A- in a class she got an A), and the school just discovered it had calculated the GPAs incorrectly for the entire class, meaning a shuffling of rank. Which she benefited from, so we were all happy here. </p>
<p>The essay fairy definitely needs to pay our house a visit. We had a teary Sunday as she struggled to write something. She has about 10 starts, but she's not happy with any of them. </p>
<p>The list right now is Barnard, Brown, Northwestern, Tufts, Brandeis, Fordham, Wisconsin, American and UVM. Her goal is to get Wisconsin, UVM and Fordham aps done by Nov. 1. Still on the fence about ED. </p>
<p>It's nice reading updates. Stress level is pretty high here. She and her friends made "college stress level" charts that they taped onto their GC wall and update periodically, so at least they are trying to add some humor to the tension.</p>
<p>mathmom,</p>
<p>My understanding is that St. John's doesn't accept SATs (meaning I wasted the $9). But, of course, check their website, I could be wrong. My sense is that it's such a unique school/program that stats don't matter as much as desire and ability to follow the program.</p>
<p>For anyone who's kid is applying to Wisconsin, I just checked their board and their first acceptance is in!!! The student had a complete packet at the end of September and heard back about 3 days later. </p>
<p>It's been a month and my D is still working with her brand new GC (who was formerly a PE teacher) to get her recommendation together. The negatives are that he's never done this before, is very tentative and not a particularly good a writer. However, the positives are that he's accomodating and willing to show her what he's written and modify it as necessary. She hopes to get a final copy on Monday. She has two rolling apps that are complete except for this part, so I'd love for him to wrap it all up next week!</p>
<p>My S is waiting for the GC to finish his recommendation, although he will not see it. Both teacher rec's are back, and everything else from the schools should be ready to go. He was a new college counselor last year, who mostly is an "adjustment" counselor. He only has 1 1/2 letters of the senior class, so he shouldn't have too many recs to write. </p>
<p>Wisconsin sent him an e-mail with his id info to check his application. Will probally check on the SAT and ACT score this weekend. I think they process apps quickly this early. We'll see. It is nice to be done.</p>
<p>sly_vt:
Don't let these posts on here make you feel frantic! This is my second time through - I already knew the horror of pulling essays out of these boys. I FORCED this child to write a preliminary essay in August. A little fine tuning in September, and he basically sent the same thing to all 5 schools on the common app. Fortunately, his guidance office was all ready to go too. We'll see how fast the teacher recs get out though.</p>
<p>Today he got done the U Pitt app (easy) and most of the Purdue app (we have to do a financial thing for them).</p>
<p>Really, once your daughter gets one out the rest will roll easily. </p>
<p>Fortunately (I guess) there's no stress here at all. I love boys. Everything is just FINE mom!</p>
<p>Weenie, glad to see you rolled through the Pitt app also; DD's is done except she needs to email her essay. Last night I peeked at the comments her teachers had put on it; they both liked it, just some minor grammatical and word choice corrections. She should get that off in this weekend. GC and teacher recs requests were submitted yesterday; hopefully I'm not forgetting anything! Good luck to your S, I'm sure he'll do fine.</p>
<p>Thanks springfieldmom!</p>
<p>This is my second time through as well. This time, however, I have an S who is not intimated by essay-writing. Oldest would need to be beaten to write anything. Youngest is much easier. Once the essay is written, the rest of the application process is easy. He had a few questions he needed me for, but once he figured out what my work telephone number was the first time, he was fine. Hopefully all will go well and he won't need to fill our any more applications.</p>
<p>Well, we are on round 3 and D and H are currently on the final tour in the midwest! D has completed and submitted rolling apps to Wisconsin (OOS legacy), Indiana and Colorado, is just about ready to submit the UVM VIP app and is working on her common app essays. Unfortunately, her EA (UChicago) and ED (NU) choices either have their own app (Chicago) or a slew of additional essays, so I expect the next 3 weeks to be very tense in our house. My D is an intuitve, needs inspiration type of writer, so if the lightening bolt doesn't hit she has a hard time making something she's happy with happen. Oh well, we got through it with her 2 brothers and I know she'll get there too. Now if one of the rollings comes in in the interim, that would lift the tension level a lot. This can be a really stressful time for everyone, especially since most if these kids have sports, ec's and some really tough courses to contend with at the same time. My feeling is that making it though the fall of senior year is like baptism by fire..if they survive this they are well prepared for other crunch times in their lives! Best of luck to all in this position.</p>
<p>"My understanding is that St. John's doesn't accept SATs (meaning I wasted the $9). But, of course, check their website, I could be wrong."</p>
<p>I don't know. I know I've seen SAT range for them, so I assumed they took them. It doesn't matter to me. It's the last thing my son wanted. My sister-in-law and I laugh about it. Our kids got along really well when they were little, but they are sooo different now.</p>