<p>What happens if the counselor is out of school and doesn't turn in the transcript/recommendations by Nov 1? S has submitted his online application. The counselor can submit their recommendation electronically, but hasn't done so yet. Also, there is one form (ED agreement) that has to be signed and is a paper form. What happens if the counselor doesn't send in the ED agreement in ?</p>
<p>There should be an electronic link for the counselor’s ED signature. Go to Common App and look specifically at the parts for his school. What his counselor needs to submit is in the recommenders section. Your S’s counselor should be able to submit everything online so even if out of school/town he/she should be able to do it if you alert him/her as to what still needs to be submitted.</p>
<p>Short of camping in front of the GC office, there is not much you can do. The good news is that the colleges understand that all GC are not highly dependable in getting the docs out … and that the students tend to deluge them with late requests. As a rule of thunb, it is a good idea to get all such documents out weeks before the deadline. This said, most people I know have been known to be procrastinators. </p>
<p>If you are worried about the deadline and cannot find the GC tomorrow, you might use the USPS site and print a label that will have a postdate of October 31 or November 1st, and make sure to drop in the mail on Monday. </p>
<p>I feel for you.</p>
<p>Back when my oldest applied, It was my impression that the student’s portion of the application needed to be submitted by the due date, but that there was wiggle room for items that were not under his control. The letters of rec., transcripts and guidance counselor report/rec. were all done via snail mail, and needed to be postmarked by the due date, but that if the recs were a bit late that wasn’t a killer, since the student couldn’t control those things.</p>
<p>But this year, our high school has gone full-on Naviance, and our state Flagship’s application now states that the enitire application must be complete by the due date. And the lead time for guidance and teachers to get things done and uploaded is almost a month.</p>
<p>Even though my daughter completed everything with weeks to spare, the application on the flagship’s site shows it is incomplete because the teacher rec. wasn’t uploaded until earlier this week, and it still doesn’t show up on the application document check site.</p>
<p>We called admissions today, and while they can see the teacher rec., it hasn’t yet been uploaded and recognized by their system, and appears not to have been done. Admissions promised it would be taken care of todsy. We’ll check again tomorrow, the last day before the application is due.</p>
<p>I suggest you call your guidance office and speak to someone who can take care of the counselor report immediately… And then call admissions at your college and explain the issue. I really don’t think the college will hold the student responsible for a report she has no control over… As long as you make them aware of the problem and the solution your guidance office is offering.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow to contact the counselor. As far as the reply from xiggi, I never thought of that. So you can print out a stamp with the date of Nov 1 and then drop it in the mail on Monday? I guess since the due date (technically) is online by 11:59PM Nov 1 (Saturday), it would be reasonable that they might accept snail mail that was posted on Monday since the post offices close around 2PM in many locations on Saturday. The downloadable ED form that has to be mailed (only one sheet with signatures) was at the end of the application so S only saw it as he was submitting the rest of the application online… Otherwise we would have made sure to get the counselor to mail this out earlier. </p>
<p>Oh boy. This has been my day. We received an email from an EA school that daughter is relying heavily upon for her safety (with hopes of alot of merit aid if not a full scholarship) that her SAT scores had not been received and that her application would not be reviewed as EA unless everything was received by November 1st. After much going back and forth about what is acceptable, we’re told to fax the “student score report” with the GC signature. I’m relaying this info to my daughter who is in classes, who goes to GC at end of school day and gets a “we don’t get your scores for four weeks”. So daughter dropped the ball because I told her to just show the GC the forwarded email and by the time I got this info GC had left for the day. I did email her and hope that she takes care of it tomorrow. Daughter also went to see the teacher for recommendation that was requested for this particular school mid-August (I posted about this a few days ago and had decided to sit back because posts were saying the schools would give the teachers extra time, etc. as said above). Teacher told her she’d try to get it done by Saturday. Apparently all schools are not so forgiving. I did look up the other 5 EA schools, only one due November 1st so I called them and they said no problem. UMass Amherst on the other hand states on their website that all credentials (I assume this is everything but the app) are due no later than November 20th. </p>
<p>WTH. We had our ducks in a row mid-August and let these teachers know that they were the chosen, lol, for EA applications due November 1st. But, did we drop the ball by assuming that October SAT tests would be acceptable for the EA deadlines (at least for this one school?) And just how long does it take CC to get the tests out to the schools? Is the student score report what we can see on the CC site?</p>
<p>The October SAT score is available to send, and if she requested that it should be sent when she took it, it has already been sent. You can send it yourself from the College Board site. You can do that tonight. It is an electronic submission, so it should hook up to her application by Monday. You can print a reciept that proves you sent it tonight.</p>
<p>The November 1 deadline is th student’s deadline to make sure that all work is submitted. It is not the school’s/counselor’s deadline. If the GC submits the paperwork week when s/he returns to school it will be fine.</p>
<p>My son had a few people who seemed enthusiastic about writing his letters of recommendations, yet hadn’t done so as the date quickly approached. He decided to send all of the people he had asked to write letters an update as to how he was doing in the college application process. In his note to them, he had stated something to the effect that some of the people who were writing letters found that the common app hadn’t indicated that they actually sent them and that if they were having a problem getting the common app to actually indicate “submitted” to let him know and he would see if he could find the problem. This note prompted the people to check their status on the common app. Two of his people found that there was a signature page where they didn’t see one before. My son isn’t sure if they just didn’t notice it, or if this was indeed a problem with the common app. Regardless, because of his e-mail to the recommenders, the final people were able to follow up and click “submit” when they had thought they had already completed it. </p>
<p>@eastcoascrazy: I submitted them electronically within minutes of getting them the morning of the 28th and they have not been received.</p>
<p>@sybbie719: That is not the case at all schools, at least one of the five daughter applied to. It will not be “fine”. According to the woman in admissions, if all necessary components are not received by November 1st the application is not complete.</p>
<p>@davenmae: Nice approach. Too bad the students (and in turn usually the parents) have to do this though. Not a great role modeling experience for my daughter IMHO. She is in a top MA high school with only 400 students and they expect students who are responsible and have time management skills. Shouldn’t we be able to expect the same things from their administration?</p>
<p>@NEPatsGirl: I completely agree with you that guidance counselors and administration should be more helpful. Last year when I called the local public school regarding a separate issue regarding another son who attends that school, we got to talking. I had mentioned about my son who is homeschooled needing to take some subject tests. She replied, “Oh, too bad we don’t offer those.” Ummm,… they did! She had no idea and she was head of guidance dept. That being said, I also realize in today’s society, guidance counselors are dealing with many kids who are experiencing a variety of serious issues (suicide, divorce, abuse, etc). I know for my own kids, I put in a tremendous amount of time searching for information regarding scholarships, SATs, SAT Subject Tests, Letters of Rec. and so on. I honestly don’t think it’s possible for guidance counselors to do everything they are asked and expected to do. Ideally, if I were in charge of a school haha!!! I would have a team of counselors to deal with the emotional stuff kids are confronted with and a separate team to handle college stuff. </p>
<p>Sure, I get that the job is time-consuming and most schools are understaffed, yadda yadda yadda, but not knowing basisc things the school offers is not acceptable in my eyes. FWIW, I am a social worker and I’m quite experienced with huge caseloads and prioritizing serious issues, but in the end, I work for a corporation and if my work is not completed satisfactorily I might not have a job tomorrow. The public school systems are not corporation and thus don’thold their employees to the same standards. And yes I am jealous of those families whose children are in private schools…we know a few and their schools have college counselors specifically dealing with seniors in this process. It is their only job. </p>
<p>@NEPatsGirl, I don’t think it’s fair to tar all public school employees with the same brush in that regard. I teach in a public high school, and I make it my priority to have everything in on time. Sometimes a kid doesn’t get papers in, sometimes Naviance is down (it took me 20 hours of trying on and off to get it to receive one girl’s letter), and sometimes there are other weird glitches. I don’t know about GC, but in public schools, teachers are all doing recommendation letters on their <em>own</em> time, and are not compensated for it. So it’s not a matter of not doing one’s job “satisfactorily”. Nonetheless, my colleagues (that I know) and I are taking this process very seriously, and do every year.</p>
<p>My approach was always to have my kids tell school personnel that the deadlines were 2 weeks before when they REALLY were. How were they going to know the difference? </p>
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<p>Sybbie, that is probably true for most of the cases, but there are specific applications that have a “received by” deadline. For instance, the finalists of Questbridge have to submit applications to certain ranked schools that might decline to review the applications if all material was not received by tomorrow. While it is doubtful that November 3d is fine, there is a chance that a school will not spend much time analyzing an incomplete application when there are 10 times more students with full applications dying to earn a spot. </p>
<p>I am afraid that the applications sent to schools that have very tight deadlines (like QB College Match) are less inclined to show “mercy” when they have to make decisions in a few days. In a way, the degree of attention to the process in respecting the deadlines must have an influence on the readers’ impression. Perhaps on the level of typos and omissions in the essay, or even in the LOR sent by teachers. </p>
<p>All in all, it all comes back to how to ensure a smooth application process. It might be harder at certain schools, but it is always important for the student to stay on top of the deadlines, and try to HELP as much as possible. It might be as simple as downloading forms, printing them, offering a USB with all the current information loaded, printing envelopes and cover letters. And the list goes on! We all know that the GC are having to go through the “sending” of stuff in addition to their usual workloads. In the end, it might be a matter of minutes in a day. Accordingly, every bit of help that reduces the time needed to fill a form and look up the information is beneficial. </p>
<p>Fwiw, my younger sister was assigned to her HS GC office and worked two years. She spent most of her time retrieving missing information from folders and helping the overworked GC find THAT folder! </p>
<p>Fair enough and thank you for what you do. It was not my intention to offend anyone, least of all the GC and teachers who are doing their jobs, it isn’t easy work I know. And I do appreciate that teachers are sometimes not compensated for the things they do, much the way social workers are not, this I know firsthand. That is one reason we gave such a head’s up, because I know the teachers and GCs get inundated with requests from students. In our case, in such a small school, I feel they are really dropping the ball for their top students. I should not have to sit back and wonder if all the paperwork will be submitted on time. This should not be my stress or daughter’s stress…hers is to make the appropriate choices, study and take the tests (over and over if necessary), do her essays and make sure the application is submitted by deadline, she shouldn’t be chasing down professionals to make sure their part is done on time.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>To be clear, my earlier post does not intimate that a parent or a student dropped the ball. I believe that almost everyone has dealt with situations that made no sense and heightened the blood pressure. After following that kind of stuff for more than a decade, I am afraid that it is not getting better. And there are times when you have to wonder WHO was behind the procedures as they exist currently. The transfer of information between schools and colleges or the students and the colleges is simply one of the dumbest and most backwards in existence. And almost everyone at school districts is adding to the problems by adding levels of “controls.”</p>
<p>The solution would be for every student to have a repository of his or her information. This is something that could be done at the College Board or at the FAFSA level. This repository will be open for the STUDENT to disclose parts of the documentation to the schools. Everything should be there … LORS, transcripts, test scores, name it! Schools should be forced to upload all transcripts within 15 days of the end of cycles. Even better, let Google or Amazon shows how one tracks down millions of “customers.” </p>
<p>Right now, the system is based on distrust. Afraid of the possible fraud by a few, the entire system is a PITA to 100 percent of the students. </p>
<p>Just like about everything in academic circles, the system simply “$uck$” as it was designed by clueless people. </p>
<p>We tried to get in touch with the counselor today, but GC is out and cannot be contacted. So, I think we just have to wait till Monday. I did notice that the applications stated that some GC may find it difficult to send everything electronically, so the college would accept the recommendation/transcript through the mail. This seems to indicate that if the student gets their application in by Nov 1, the college would wait to get the other input via mail if necessary. So, as one previous poster said, it seems as if the deadline is Nov 1 for the student, not necessarily all the supporting input. It just places a lot of stress on everyone. I know the counselor received the email from the school with a link where they can upload the information. It just seems that in our case, the GC didn’t understand what this email was, or overlooked it, even though we asked the GC to confirm that they in fact received this email (S didn’t do the common app for this school).</p>
<p>I went to the high school to stalk a teacher at 6:45 am this morning. He had done the recommendation ages ago, and reposted it again yesterday at my son’s request, but it still only showed as “started” on the common app. Turns out you don’t see the “SUBMIT” button until you’ve answered all the questions. He had missed one and only had the “SAVE” option and thought he had completed it.</p>
<p>So stressful. I hate bugging people. But by golly I was gonna have all the pieces in come hell or high water.</p>
<p>Our public HS published a booklet for seniors and their parents with a timetable for requests. It listed the various standard app due dates and advised the last date accepted by Guidance, for a request to submit supporting docs, that was guaranteed to meet each app deadline. For the more popular deadlines like 1/1, more lead time was necessary. The recommenders notified the GC when letters were submitted or the GCs followed up to ensure a student’s entire package was sent on time. The student filed a request form with Guidance and it was returned to the student signed and dated with a check mark next to each item (profile, transcript, rec ltr) when completed. No guessing when and if things were submitted. They would try to honor late requests but no guarantees. The system worked very well and I wish more schools would do something like this.</p>