<p>I'm sure I will be cured of this delusion quickly. But just in case, how soon do the applications generally become available from colleges? What can she realistically expect to accomplish?</p>
<p>In my opinion, the most useful thing she could accomplish needs to be done before this summer. That's asking the teachers whom she would like to write recommendations for her whether they would be willing to do it. She doesn't actually have to have the recommendation forms; this is just a preliminary inquiry.</p>
<p>Before asking, she may want to look at the admissions requirements of the colleges she plans to apply to and see how many recommendations they require and whether they place any restrictions on who the recommenders can be. (For example, they may not want teachers of non-academic subjects, such as journalism or orchestra.) This will help her decide which teachers to ask.</p>
<p>Asking about recommendations during the spring of junior year is smart because some teachers place limits on the number of recommendations that they will write. Your daughter could get in before the teacher's quota is full.</p>
<p>A second thing that your daughter could accomplish -- again, before this summer, is to double-check the testing requirements of each of the colleges she plans to apply to, to make sure that she has met them or has planned her testing schedule in such a way that she will meet them in time. There is still time to sign up for May or June standardized tests if necessary.</p>
<p>It's definitely do-able. I know 5 people who had everything done by September 1. I was able to get organized and have all my prompts printed, ideas, etc, ready by August 20ish</p>
<p>My daughter's high school encouraged kids to ask for the teacher recs in June; her teachers did them over the summer so that was great. She also gave her GC a resume in June so the GC could write that rec early. </p>
<p>I think D and all her friends told their parents they would work on the adaptable personal essay over the summer, none of them actually did.</p>
<p>Above suggestions are good. There are a couple other things she SHOULD do also, the most important of these being a finished draft of her application essay. If your D is like both of mine, she'll say "Oh I can always do that later, it won't take that much." Yeah, right.</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind is lead times. My D's parochial school required that the college list not be turned in piecemeal. Since D's EA application was due November 15th, that meant the ENTIRE list was due September 15th. Ah, memories ....</p>
<p>One of my daughter's particularly well-organized friends finished her Common App essay over the summer between junior and senior year and was envied by all. A great idea.</p>
<p>Get all the current year applications and have her write all the essays.</p>
<p>Then, when the new applications come out, she should only need minor cutting and pasting to finalize her essays. The trick is figuring out what story she wants to tell, and how it should be told. Once she has written it 10 different ways, it doesn't take much to fine tune it for the next college.</p>
<p>My kids both started word documents in the summer and did "skeletons" of essays which the amended all summer long. They used ideas from essays in previous years. Once it was time to finalize their essays, they had an excellent head start, and both were able to take what they had written and morph it into essays for all the schools.</p>
<p>Mine also requested their recommendations IN WRITING about a month before the end of 11th grade. They didn't want to do it too close to the end of school. Both had their recommendations either during the summer or the first week of school in the fall.</p>
<p>Both submitted most of the applications (each did one later one) by October 1. And both loved that they didn't have this hanging over their heads for most of their senior year like many of their friends. Both also had two acceptances at least before Christmas (EA and rolling).</p>
<p>My D told me she would have all her applications done over the summer. I just forgot to ask her which summer! :)</p>
<p>OP- having gone through this now many times (my own, nephews, nieces, etc.) my personal suggestion is that having a 90% completed list of colleges and a comprehensive list of what is required to apply to every single one of them, is more valuable than a completed essay... which will probably get tweaked and edited and revised up to the minute your D pushes the send button.</p>
<p>Most of the agony I have seen and experienced comes from a kid discovering that she/she has misread the application instructions or requirements and it's 48 hours before the EA apps are due. Or that since kids best friend is applying to desired U and only needed one recommendation, your kid assumes that's the case- except your kid is applying for a Chancellor's scholarship, or the school of engineering, or to the honors program, each of which require an extra recommendation and/or special essay. Yikes. </p>
<p>So I think it's fine to add or subtract a school or 2 in October as college starts to loom are a real next step vs. a theoretical construct.... but you will relieve the pressure substantially if your kid has made a big old chart that lists what's required for each of the schools.... so there are no nasty surprises.</p>
<p>The other category of agony is financial. Make sure that you have run the fin aid calculators and have a good understanding of your income, obligations, investments, etc. so you can realistically assess what you can pay out of pocket and what your capacity for debt might be. If there's a non-custodial parent in the picture, make sure you understand what the implications will be. Don't be one of those parents who assume that your ex-spouse will "do right by your kid". Maybe-- or maybe not. Take the time now to start shifting your assets out of risky/high reward instruments into low risk instruments- every May us old-timers read the heart-breaking stories from parents who could afford to pay for Dream School back in September of senior year, but now that acceptances are in, can only pay for 50% of a dream school.... and all the aid is gone.</p>
<p>The essay? A trivial pain compared with the real stressors of senior year!</p>
<p>To answer at least part of your original question, most applications become available sometime between June and August. The Common Application is usually available on/about July 1.</p>
<p>My DS would have put this process off for ever, knowing he would be student directing two plays in the fall, the two of us laid out a long term plan. College visits January - August and all applications, scholarships etc possible done by Oct. 1. It required some bribery but when he filled out his first application was completed as a VIP app. in July and he got an acceptance in September. When the acceptances and scholarships started come in and his friends were struggling, he was grateful. Now he is still waiting for two schools, he has gotten 4 merit scholarships. This waiting part is the hardest for him, he wants to make a decision because the process has been so long, but I am glad we started when we did. I also agree with post #10, essays for most students are a pain but not the crisis unless you are looking at some major league ivy. Good luck.</p>
<p>And the common app has an option of writing about whatever you wish. She could start on that today. </p>
<p>With my kids, while they started early, each never finished editing until the day before the postmark was necessary;)</p>
<p>Thank you all for taking the time to write such helpful responses. The best part is that each of you came at the question from a little different angle. I hope this information will be helpful to others who come across this thread. And I'll keep reading-- more advice is welcome!</p>
<p>One little trick I used was on a 7 hour drive home from a visit to her absolute FAVORITE school. She was in such a good mood that I reached in the back seat, handed her a tablet, and said "why don't you use this time and your enthusiasm to start your essay for their application." She wrote it on the way home, and it is the best essay she has ever written (per her AP Eng Teacher, not me!). It worked, and she thanked me much later. It ended up being her common app essay! Not much tweaking after that, but she had months to do so. I stayed on top of her all summer to fill out apps. She did it, and boy we enjoyed the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (while all her friends were pulling all nighters writing!) Good luck. Make it happen!</p>
<p>One little trick I used was on a 7 hour drive home from a visit to her absolute FAVORITE school. She was in such a good mood that I reached in the back seat, handed her a tablet, and said "why don't you use this time and your enthusiasm to start your essay for their application." She wrote it on the way home, and it is the best essay she has ever written (per her AP Eng Teacher, not me!). It worked, and she thanked me much later. It ended up being her common app essay! Not much tweaking after that, but she had months to do so. I stayed on top of her all summer to fill out apps. She did it, and boy we enjoyed the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays (while all her friends were pulling all nighters writing!) Good luck. Make it happen!</p>
<p>Original question: when do apps become available over the summer? Depends on schools. My S did all his apps/essay over summer and had everything ready to submit before end of August. That said, level of schools he applied not top tier. Lower level LAC's had apps available in July. He wrote one essay that was adapted for all. </p>
<p>Most important to know before summer is the list of schools applying to. I gave S deadline of July 1 to determine list of school. (That is not to say the list could change, but it did not.) Having list then allows you to check each schools website and watch for date app to be posted. Not a fan of common app, so S used each schools app. </p>
<p>If your student is now a jr, now is the time to research schools and start the list, then make sure counselor and teachers know she wants to do apps over the summer. If you ask them before end of jr year, you will likely get their support and help, AND beat the apps rush by making appts w/counselor as soon as school starts.</p>
<p>It can be done. S is quite the procrastinator, so we agreed jr year if he did apps early, he would enjoy sr year so much more. Even he acknowledges that "The Mom" was right for once. He had all his acceptances in hand by mid Dec, is planning spring overnights at preferred schools to help finalize the decision.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The other thing to keep in mind is lead times. My D's parochial school required that the college list not be turned in piecemeal. Since D's EA application was due November 15th, that meant the ENTIRE list was due September 15th. Ah, memories ....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My daughter's school didn't require this, but the teachers who wrote her recommendations did. They wanted all the paperwork for all the schools she intended to apply to given to them at once. Since she was applying to one of the schools ED, this meant that they had to have the paperwork by early September, which involved finalizing the rest of her college list over a September weekend. It was fortunate that she was actually admitted to the ED school because she was not able to give the rest of the list as much thought as she would have liked.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should have been prepared for this, but we weren't because her older brother did not apply ED.</p>
<p>Common App and a number of other schools try to have essay prompts out by July 1st.</p>
<p>What was REALLY helpful for S when he did his applications -- he did his activities/awards resume <em>before</em> the essays. It can be hard to hunt down dates, certificates, remembering awards, etc. He went through numerous iterations of the resume and continued to do so as senior year progresesed. (We kept a running file throughout HS, saved programs, documented stuff, took pictures, etc.)</p>
<p>The advantage: There were activities (official and on his own) that he had done over the years that formed a pattern and when it was on a resume, those things stood out very clearly. A common thread among community service, ECs and sports endeavors may help a young person realize "Hey! This (thread that runs through every single thing I do) really IS my passion!" Assembling the resume first gave him a lot of material and focus for his essays. </p>
<p>The other suggestion I have: if the GC wants your student to fill out a questionnaire so that he/she can write an effective rec letter, do that after the resume and before writing college essays. It's a kind of "practice run" for short answers on the actual applications and can also get the student thinking about what's important, how the/she might want to present their accomplishments, etc. We saw some that were slapped together at the last minute, but S spent some time on this exercise and found it very useful. (He also saved a copy so he could give it to the teachers who were writing recs.)</p>
<p>If you haven't been keeping a running list, start NOW to write down all those activities, honors, & awards. Amazing how quickly you forget what you did in past years.</p>
<p>My S the absentminded one kept forgetting to put down that he was NMSF on his apps. And it was on his list! Guess it wasn't on his mental list of important stuff.</p>