<p>Haha! OK!!</p>
<p>“Well, I tend to answer the questions that I know you’ve answered, because you tend to respond in a somewhat immature way (no offense)”</p>
<p>Ouch. Adrivit, I think your answers are quite helpful 
Thanks!</p>
<p>“Why would you have one teacher fill out two forms? They’re going to be exactly the same. In the counselor rec, your English teacher won’t say anything different from the teacher rec, so it really doesn’t make sense to me at all.”</p>
<p>Well, in the counselor rec, I’ll just tell her to write about me academically and with more as a formal acquaintance, but in the teacher eval she’s going to put personal anecdotes and overall review of me in all aspects…
What else can I do in such a situation? :|</p>
<p>She can write your counselor rec and mention that she’s your teacher… then you could take the opportunity to send in an extra rec without seeming extravagant. There’s bound to be another teacher who’s willing to write you a good rec, right?</p>
<p>they’re all willing, but thing is I"m an international student, and teachers here don’t write many rec. letters, for example my physics or maths teacher, will make the letter soooo formal - good child, attentive in class, good scope in physics, interest in the subject, well mannered polite blah blah… 
OR maybe i should go with that? Help me guys, I’m confused.</p>
<p>laststopforme : Thanks!! But dchow is my HERO!! (pretty batman like coz he always seems to be so serious!!) … thanks again!!</p>
<p>This may be a really specific question but if I handwrite the common app, can I just download the pdf file from the site, print it out on my computer, and then send it off to X college or do I have to get the common app form that comes in a booklet and then send it off to X college?</p>
<p>Yes, you can just download the PDF and send that out.</p>
<p>There’s been a bunch of questions about having teachers fill out your recs on the computer rather than by hand so here’s the directions from the Common App website about your school forms.</p>
<p>Prior to submission of your Common Application, you must enter information about your school officials so that they can complete the necessary forms on your behalf as required by the institutions to which you are applying.</p>
<p>STEP 1: Click the ‘Invite Official’ button to add your school officials. You must enter a Counselor (who will complete a number of school forms for you) and at least one Teacher (who will provide a reference for you.) Most institutions require more than one Teacher reference. Note: if you are a home schooled student, please enter your home school supervisor as your counselor.</p>
<p>Once your school officials have been added, they will receive an email inviting them to a secure, online system for completing the necessary forms. Please inform your school officials of this prior to them receiving the email invitation. You will be able to track the status of your school forms submissions below.</p>
<p>You may delete an official using the ‘Delete’ link, so long as the official has not submitted their respective form. You may also re-send the email invitation to a school official by using the ‘Resend’ link.</p>
<p>STEP 2: Assign Teachers to each institution, based on the number of required references. This can be done by selecting a Teacher name from the drop down box next to each institution.</p>
<p>Where is the ‘invite official’ button in the commonapp website? :|</p>
<p>Okay, so I’m going to take a long break from CollegeConfidential (as in a few months) because it’s really not such a good use of my time, especially since I’ve got some other things to take care of and I want to relax before heading off to college in a few weeks. Some last words of advice: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Figure out the financial aid stuff as soon as you can.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember that the SAT is a test of basic, high-school level skills that every high school graduate going to college should have (It should trouble you if you’re going to Harvard and you can’t understand a newspaper article, do a bit of math, and don’t know basic English grammar.). Also remember that improving is just not making the same mistakes over and over again. So if you constantly think about how to stop making the same mistakes over and over, and put your methods to work, you’ll probably improve.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure you enjoy your own essay and that you love it, before you ask anyone to read your essay.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure you have thought about what you want to get out of college before you apply. Is there anything new you want to learn, or try? I, for example, would like to get back to playing the clarinet in college.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid thinking of colleges in generalizations. Examples: Williams is preppy, Harvard isn’t that good, University of Chicago is super-intellectual, everyone drinks at Dartmouth, people smoke too much at Reed, Princeton is conservative. Most of these generalizations are just not true and shouldn’t be applied to the entire student body as a whole. It’s not like everyone at UChicago is intellectual or that everyone smokes at Reed. Definitely don’t let this discourage you from applying. I decided not to apply to Columbia because I read that you had to be ‘fiercely independent’ to survive at Columbia. I doubt it. If I could do it over, I would have applied there.</p></li>
<li><p>Use common sense. This is probably the most important tip. It goes a long way. A lot of people here worry about every itty-bitty thing related to college, but if they use common sense, many of their worries would just disappear. Example: “OMG! Something’s wrong with the online application! Today I tried the print preview and it wasn’t working!” Now, rather than ask on CC what’s going on, think about it first. Maybe the Common App website is going through technical difficulties. Why don’t you try it again, and if it doesn’t work, wait a few days and then try it again. It might work that time. There’s no rush–the application isn’t due until the winter, and it’s currently still summer. If it doesn’t work, then you might contact the CommonApp people or post your concern on CC and see if someone else has that problem. Or you might try using another computer. It doesn’t take an expert to come to that conclusion. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s not that hard. Really. The actual application (besides the essay) should take at most an hour. You don’t have much control at all over what you say. </p></li>
<li><p>You’ll figure it all out eventually. I didn’t have someone online tell me how to get teacher recommendations, or whether putting down an unusual major helped my chances, or the different ways to schedule an interview. I asked my friends who knew, I talked to my counselor, I browsed around the Internet, I read books (and there are tons of books about college admissions).</p></li>
<li><p>Stop worrying so much about everything. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s what I see all the time: Should I put down an unusual major? Should I do more volunteer work? Will getting an A-, or even more dreadful, a B+ ruin my chances of getting into Harvard? It’s like, oh brother. Give me a break. Honestly, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who just fill out the application the best they can and get into the schools of their dreams. Instead of worrying so much about the B you got in freshman year, which you can’t change, think about what you can do now. And don’t worry so much about trying to look perfect. You’re a 17-18 year old, for crying out loud! I think most colleges want to accept kids who it would be fun to go to school with.</p>
<ol>
<li>Think for yourself. Honestly, there comes a point in life when you have to use your own judgment and make your own decision and try to avoid being so insecure about everything. And that applies to college admissions. Do you really need an unknown person to tell you whether you should take AP Biology, or whether you should visit a college that you have little interest in, or whether you should tell colleges the schools you’re applying to? The people here on CC do what they can to give you advice, but you should think for yourself. I’ve said that before. A lot of people here wonder what they should do when they want to list an EC that changes the number of hours/week depending on various factors. Well, the first thing to ask is, “What should I do if there were nobody to help me at all?” That’s the attitude toward thinking for yourself. You’ll figure it out. You don’t need someone to tell you to give the best estimate you can, or to average it out. You can figure that one out, or at least you should when you go off to college and you’ve got to start making decisions for yourself rather than depend on someone for everything.</li>
</ol>
<p>Example: </p>
<p>I’ve broken my own rule myself, when I stressed out over whether to retake the SAT because I got a 680 on Critical Reading when I did 100 points better on math and writing and I was applying to liberal arts schools. But rather than ask people what to do, I said to myself, “Okay, I’m sick of the SAT, my reading score probably won’t go up much anyway, a 680 is pretty good even though it’s below average for Swarthmore, so I’ll keep my 680.” And I felt relieved and now that I look back, I see that it was all rather silly to fret so much about a 680.</p>
<hr>
<p>I never thought that there’d be 53 pages of questions and answers about a simple application that shouldn’t take over an hour to complete. Of course, some people will need more time than others depending on various factors, but still, I think the sheer size (53 pages) devoted to the Common App suggests that people aren’t thinking for themselves. I’m sure that at least half of the questions are very obvious once you think about it for a minute or two.</p>
<p>I recommend that everyone here read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to College Planning. That book is excellent. </p>
<p>Not that many 17-year-olds are very logical, but if you are that age, you should at least try to use your common sense to make decisions. I think a lot of people here are really scared about getting rejected and want to make their applications perfect. But it really seems like college is what you make of it. But what do I know, I haven’t even been to college yet. </p>
<p>Don’t forget to enjoy high school. It shouldn’t take anyone to tell a pack of high schoolers that, but unfortunately it might.</p>
<p>Just do your best and see what happens. There’s not much more to it than that. That itself is common sense.</p>
<p>With that, I think I’ve pretty much covered it all and I can’t think of much more advice to give. I hope you find some of what I said useful. I’ll come back here in a few months and see how CC’s doing. Until then.</p>
<p>spideyunlimited: The invite officials button is on the school forms page of the common app.</p>
<p>I don’t have it. Maybe this button comes only if you’re from a school that has this facility of filling the form electronically.</p>
<p>A standin ovation to dchow08!! All the best man for your Swarthmore life ahead!! Cheers!!</p>
<p>I’m a tad stuck:</p>
<p>I planned on having my Latin Teacher and Chemistry Teacher do my recommendations. However, U Chicago requires an English or Social Studies teacher, aka NOT my Latin teacher. Is there a way to set it up so an English Teacher only does ONE recommendation, while the Latin Teacher picks up the rest?</p>
<p>I have a question about sports. I have played high school sports (baseball, soccer, and track and field) now for four years. Each year i have played on my school’s varsity team; however, i have never fared well enough during a season to meet my school’s requirements for a varsity letter (i.e. i lose against other schools more than i win). How can i make this distinction that i play varsity sports but “have not lettered”?</p>
<p>toastmaster: yes it is. If your teachers are doing the recs by hand, its obvious since the you can just tell the teacher where to sent it. If you do it on the common app website, invite all 3 of your teachers (latin, chemistry, and english) and you can pick which recs are sent to which schools.</p>
<p>Thanks !</p>
<p>dchow: great advice but you have 2150 posts! Sounds like you obsessed more than most and now from your lofty perch, you can see more clearly. Maybe this is just a rite of passage. CC lets people be OCD and let off steam while, hopefully, keep living their lives off the board.</p>
<p>Okay, this is my official last post for a while: Most of those 2150 posts were responses to everyone’s questions.</p>