<p>Can you submit it online or do you have to download it? Thanks!</p>
<p>Last year, if I recall, it had to be downloaded. I'm not sure if that's changed. That information should be available on the Common App website.</p>
<p>Last year, it was a download, and was sent in along with he transcript, counselors letter and the secondary school report. I got a shareware product called PDFill PDFill</a> PDF Editor with FREE PDF Writer, FREE Image Writer and FREE PDF Tools - <a href="http://www.PDFill.com%5B/url%5D">www.PDFill.com</a> to help me fill out all those PDF files. It was the best $20 bucks I spent.</p>
<p>Butternut, I believe that says it can be submitted online. However, I haven't tried. </p>
<p>anotherparent, thanks for the tip on the PDFill PDF editor. Does it let you save your work? We have a copy of Adobe Acrobat in the office that will enable one to fill PDF's in and save your work, but we don't have any at home and it is above $100, I'm pretty sure.</p>
<p>I have a question I posted in the section on the Common Application but maybe I should post it in the homeschool thread instead. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>My answer to why we homeschool and our philosphy would not fit within the box. So, we'd have to add a sheet. Can we do this online or do we have to use hard copy?</p></li>
<li><p>If it can only be sent in via hard copy, do we have to send in everything hard copy?</p></li>
<li><p>If a kid does an art portfolio that requires a recommendation and a CD to be sent in via hard copy, can the rest of the application be sent in online? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>On the common app site, it says, "However, if you prefer to print a hardcopy, complete it by hand, then mail it in, you can find copies of all our forms in PDF format below. Note: Please do not mix-and-match your application, supplement, and payment between online and paper submission. Either submit the application, supplement and payment (or fee waiver) online, or submit them all by mail."</p>
<p>What have people done in the past?</p>
<p>Last year, we submitted online the primary Common App application itself (with essay, short answer, and "additional info" comments uploaded), the college-specific supplement, and the fee. </p>
<p>In hard-copy, through the USPS, we submitted the Secondary School Report, the Homeschool Supplement, the Athletic Supplement, plus a homeschool transcript, course descriptions, and activities resume.</p>
<p>The Teacher Evaluation form and letters were also sent in hard-copy by the teachers.</p>
<p>Ds's school also said not to "mix-and-match your application, supplement, and payment between online and paper submission" -- and we didn't. Those three things listed did all go in together as an online submission. (I interpreted "supplement" to mean the college-specific supplement, not the Secondary School Report, or the homeschool or athletic supplement.) </p>
<p>It all seemed to work just fine, doing it that way. But, yeah, it's a little unclear.</p>
<p>There are a lot of PDF editors out there, and all are cheaper than buying the full version of Adobe. They all seem to have free trials, so you can check them out. They all allow to save, but none of the allow you to print out the document without a big FREE TRIAL type banner on the page. For a clean copy you have to pay the fee. Last year, I tried a bunch of different ones. The cheapest and easiest was PDFILL, which was, I think, $20. Most are in the $50 - $70 range. </p>
<p>I would have gone nuts hand writing all those forms.</p>
<p>You can submit the Homeschool Supplement online this year.</p>
<p>Nice! You parents of the class of 2009/2013 don't know how easy your life is!!</p>
<p>anotherparent, I've gotten pdfill. Thanks. We filled out the Dartmouth pre-application (pdfill works on my pc but not on my son's mac), which appears to get sent in by snail mail. But, I do have the next logistical question. This may be obvious when you get there, but it isn't to me at the moment.</p>
<p>When he fills in the application and stores all of the data and creates a finished pdf that is on my hard drive, how do we then submit that file online?</p>
<p>Shawbridge - I am not sure how Dartmouth works... but generally if you fill out a PDF, you submit it by snail mail. If you want to submit online, you fill out the online forms.</p>
<p>We did the same as 'rentof2. We did the app, college supp, and fees online, then mailed in the school report, homeschool supp, transcript and resume. We had no problem with this. I wanted to mail in the hs supp because I wanted to answer things in my own way and own space.</p>
<p>I'm planning to submit everything online, but ignore the transcript part of the Homeschool Supplement. Fang Jr's courses don't fit there, so I'll make my own transcript and upload it in the School Report part of the application.</p>
<p>For his transcript, I made a one-page Excel file with course names, schedule and grades, plus SAT and AP scores. That's a one-page summary the adcoms can look at. I also made a several-page Course Descriptions file with a small description of each course, including the texts and the method of evaluation. I'll bundle those together and upload them as his transcript.</p>
<p>His first deadline is the day after tomorrow. Yikes.</p>
<p>Cardinal, have you/will you fill in your answers to the questions about homeschooling philosophy and grading philosophy on common app forms or will you do that separately? Do you have recommendations from various community college professors, etc.? If so, will you submit them by snail mail or online? Have the recommenders submit them by snail mail or online?</p>
<p>I spoke to someone in the admissions office at a small LAC on my son's list today and they suggested that we submit all kinds of stuff. Writing samples from various courses, recommendations from everybody my son has worked with in an academic or pseudo-academic context, and even a recommendation from me as home-school supervisor. That clearly has to go in snail-mail.</p>
<p>Not C.Fang, here, but when my son applied to his current LAC this time last year, they also wanted a writing sample of a sourced research paper. He had several from college classes he'd taken prior, and we just sent in one of those that had teacher comments and a grade on it. We sent 3 recommendations --two from teachers, and one from a tutor he'd worked with, but they only required two letters. We just thought the third added something to the application.</p>
<p>We mailed in a packet of info similar to Fang's, but the transcript wasn't on EXCEL.</p>
<p>I took a decidedly low-tech approach to the homeschool philosophy/grading questions on the Homeschool Supplement, which at that time had to be downloaded and sent in by mail. I thought about getting one of those PDF infill programs, but it didn't seem worth it because I have exactly zero other uses for one. So I just typed the answers out in Word on a regular piece of paper, and then futzed with fonts and font sizes and edits until I could make it fit the size of that blank area and still be legible. I cut it out, tacked down on the form, did the same with each question, and ran it through a photocopier. It ended up looking so good that it got passed around among my homeschool-parent friends and they all did the same thing. :)</p>
<p>From that group, this year there are kids at Amherst, Northwestern, Carleton, and Whitman.</p>
<p>I did the same thing with the flip-side. My son had too many courses to fit in their grid, so I typed up a list of his classes following their model of being arranged by subject, with grades and level-of-study, etc. I formatted it to fit on the back side of the form and photocopied it in place, then I could sign the bottom half of that page, and fill in the various homeschool supervisor questions.</p>
<p>I was trying my level best to give them what they asked for, in the form they asked it to be submitted, while still getting the details right. It involved adapting the forms somewhat, but still being able to use them. The thing that added the most bulk to his application was the research paper and the multi-page course descriptions, but they specifically requested that so I sent them what they asked for.</p>
<p>I'm filling in the Homeschool Philosophy part on the Homeschooling Supplement. I'll write something about grading there too. It's just the transcript part of the form that's completely inadequate.</p>
<p>He has two recommendations from community college professors and a third from a family friend who has taught him; all are online or soon will be. One of those will have to go snail mail, since the colleges only ask for two and as far as I know, there's no way to tell the online Common App to ship three. For the first couple of colleges he's applying to, which are less selective, I think he'll just send two online.</p>