<p>My eldest son made it really easy on us--he applied ED to a schoool that was somewhat of a match and known to strongly favor ED applications and has a strong history of taking students from our high school, both ED and RD.</p>
<p>My middle son devised his own way of dealing with a lot of the pressure of applying. He knew that when summer ended, he would have very little time for applications because his primary extra -curricular activity required him to travel out of town virtually every weekend. </p>
<p>My S#2 is not a stellar student-- a B+ student with a 650 CR, 550 M,750 Wr, who wants to major in public policy. He's very bright and intellectual in his own way, quirky, independent, and generally never does busy work--he is the child who voluntarily studies two nights a week at the intellectually rigorous orthodox Jewish Kollel (we are reform Jewish) but got a B+ in a World Religions elective class at school because he thought doing a poster along with the required term paper was beneath him--he got a 98.5% on the paper and a 0 for the poster, which the teacher was crediting for 30% of the grade.</p>
<p>He spent a rainy summer day at the beginning of August downloading and printing out the apps from all of the schools he was thinking of applying to so he could look them over and compare them to one another.(He had visited 14 schools and had cut his will-apply pile to 9--one reach, the rest matches and safeties; he got into all but one match at which he was wait-listed).</p>
<p>Then he divided them into piles depending on what was required for each. As he was applying to a good number of flagship state schools (although none in-state) that required only basic applications--some did not even require a personal statement or any sort of essay) he decided to do those first to just get them out of the way. He did the ones he could do on line, online, (and printed out hard copies of everything as well as saving them to the hard drive and to a flash drive) and did paper copies of all the others. At the same time, he organized the paper work for the high school counselor and put it in a file to turn in. </p>
<p>His next pile consisted of schools taking the common application without requiring a supplement. He spent a lot of time honing the personal statement and essay. I think his real personallity came through despite the brevity of the pieces.</p>
<p>Only then did he get started on the more complex applications and essays. He knocked these out one at a time, spending extra time on the "Why X?" essays, stressing why he brought something special to the school</p>
<p>I think his strategy served him well because doing the easy ones first got him into the "doing it" mode and because he was more able to focus on the few complex ones without feeling the weight of all those applications around his neck.</p>
<p>The other bonus: when school opened the week before classes, he was able to walk in, and , before she got swamped, meet with the gc, have a long and leisurely talk, and arrange for his recommendations (he asked teachers in spring of junior year--something the school encourages) and transcripts to go out. He was accepted to Indiana SPEAS (one of his favorites) right after Labor Day, which made the rest of senior year very nice. He was accepted at George Mason, Arizona and Arizona State before Thanksgiving, and at Pitt and the University of Denver right after the first of the year. He was also accepted at Syracuse and Colorado/Boulder.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, he has decided on the University of Denver, one of his safeties.--he loved the school. He loved the size, the small classes, the people he met, both faculty and students, the fact that it is a real campus but with all a great city has to offer, and he loves snowboarding. The public policy offerings are strong, with two previous governors on the faculty. He got some (tho not a lot) merit money. The "fit" seems perfect for him.</p>