<p>....because we've all encountered some disaster while applying.</p>
<p>For me, one of my teachers never sent his recommendations, but lied about it and vehemently insisted he did even after I produced proof that the forms were still in his office. >.> So I got rejected from 9 schools. Thankfully, I got really lucky and got accepted to my dream college (Plan II at UT) because it required a separate recommendation that I literally had to watch him submit in case he'd backtrack again.</p>
<p>But there's this girl I know whose counselor simply didn't send anything to ALL her schools, and she got rejected :( this girl was top of her class, did tons of impressive community projects, and was sweet and genuine and not a resume padder at all. Somehow she's still smiling and says she's just going to take a gap year to help children in Guatemala...I admire her strength. XD</p>
<p>Oh, wow. Props to you for following through, though. And that girls is incredible for being so strong and going with the flow (wow, I’m going overboard with the cliches haha).
Mine wasn’t nearly as bad, but my teacher didn’t give me my rec letter until a few hours before it was due, even though I kept reminding her. Luckily she finally put it on the common app at the last minute, but still; it was stressful.</p>
<p>future applicants: DONT PROCRASTINATE!!! I spent Jan. 1 writing essays and filling out apps. I sent in my last application exactly 2 minutes before midnight. I almost didn’t send it through since the common app is so incredibly slow the days before all the deadlines</p>
<p>I started my UC personal statements at the beginning of November(for UCs, the application deadline was the end of Nov) and then decided to trash them right before Thanksgiving. This was because I never showed people my personal statements before, and when they read it, they thought both were pretty awful.</p>
<p>So I spent the last 3 days drafting both UC prompts…which was horrible for me since that’s when Thanksgiving took place and the family was over. I went along with my dad and cousins to couple of places during the process, and actually gained an idea for one of my personal statements doing this.</p>
<p>I ended up having my 15 year old brother and 12 year old baby cousin proofread it. Once they started laughing while reading my statements, I knew it was good enough, lol</p>
<p>But yeah, the experience was pretty bad. I ended up submitting my application on 11-30, and the lagfest that took place due to server overload scared me a lot. Luckily, I made it into the UCs I wanted though.</p>
<p>Moral of the story- Start on your personal statements early, and be sure to share them with others right away!</p>
<p>@MonochromeAddict: No, it’s more like the teacher I asked was a JROTC teacher so he’s used to doing single or double recommendations to tiny local schools, or writing recs to the academies. I absolutely hate sounding pretentious, but I’ve been his first non-military-geared but high-achieving student since he’s been there, so he wasn’t sure what to do but basically pretended that he did without asking me. >.> and then he lied about it when i asked him later, lol.</p>
<p>@hmom5: Well I’m pretty sure some schools merely reject you on the premise your app was incomplete. Swarthmore and Carnegie Mellon were really kind and actually waitlisted me, even though I don’t plan to go even if I were to be accepted. It just kind of sucked knowing that my app wasn’t complete :/</p>
<p>I didn’t print preview my applications before I submitted them, and some weird glitch made my essays disappear even though the common app said they had been uploaded successfully. December 30th was a nightmare.</p>
<p>My dream school was notre dame… When I was doing my app I asked one of my teachers for a reccomendation I gave him he paper way early since he already wrote me I thought he could just reprint It and stuff… Well we got a huge snow storm as everyone knows and we had like… 62 inches at my house… Well I emailed him to ask about my rec and be never answered and then we came back to school the day I needed the rec and I asked him for it, and his response was " oh I didn’t think you were applying anymore because of the snow…" whattttt the **** ?!?</p>
<p>Ask teachers if they are willing to write your rec at the beginning of the summer after Junior year. If they agree, give them everything that they need. They can work on it ove the summer. At the end of the summer, beginning of the fall, ask if they need any additional information (if the rec letter is not done yet.) Kepp them informed of the deadlines and when you intend to submit application. During that same summer, you should work on your essays. That will give you plenty of time to revise and edit.</p>
<p>Remember, it’s only your application that has to be submitted by the deadline. Unless otherwise stated, most schools don’t hold it against you if letters of rec are submitted late by teachers and counselors. They know you can’t help that. Of course, if your application is incomplete for weeks after the deadline, they are going to have to either make a decision on the information they have, or reject you.</p>
<p>Gildo: “If they agree, give them everything that they need. They can work on it ove the summer.”</p>
<p>Actually, my s teachers refused to take the information at the end of his Jr. year. They told him to bring it back two weeks into his Senior year. He has everything ready and gave it to them and then followed up to make sure they were done. He provided the forms and address labels for each college so they only had to stick the label on the envelope.</p>
<p>my counselor didn’t send my transcripts to my top school, but i got rejected 3 days after she sent everything =/ i guess everything happens for a reason with me, since i love the school i’m attending this fall</p>
<p>my friend’s counselor didn’t send ANY of her stuff to her school and she only got into 2 schools out of 11…the guidance department at my school clearly needs a makeover</p>
<p>No horror stories from my school. There’s one teacher who has a reputation of sending in stuff really late and makes a bunch of people worry. But that guy, at least, calls the school and faxes his stuff (even if it’s late or last-minute) and does every damn thing to make sure the stuff gets in the right hands. Which is funny because, if he’s willing to do all that for a student, why not just send the damn stuff EARLIER!!??</p>
<p>haha…I had the same problem with one of my teachers. The deadline was like Jan 15th and I gave him the forms about a month and a half before then. All the other teachers I asked kept in touch with me during xmas and informed me when they sent theirs off. This one teacher, however, never answered my emails and about a week before the deadline I was freaking out. I asked a billion people and found his cell phone number. When I called him he said he was really busy but that he would totally do it soon. The problem was I had told the college and they were expecting his letter. Even after calling him he still couldn’t seem to send it. The thing was he would always tell me he really wanted to help me and would totally do it. The whole week went by and he just kept on procrastinating. It got to the point where it was too late to even mail the thing. Two days before the deadline I had to contact the admissions office and explain the situation and ask for an alternate method of sending the letter. They said it could be faxed. I then called my teacher (for like the third time that day) and he once again said he’d do it that night. I WAS LOOSING IT! The night before it was due after harassing him over the phone about 5 times that day he finally sent me a copy asking me if I liked it. Thing was he didn’t have a fax machine and couldn’t possibly go to office max to get it done. I had to call the college AGAIN and ask them for a solution. The head of admissions was nice enough to allow the teacher to email him the letter. He did it the next day, when it was due. </p>
<p>Worst part was, that same day when it was supposedly due, the department decided to extend the deadline a month longer!</p>
good thing you got it through!</p>