<p>Sounds like all our students are busy!</p>
<p>Son is very happy - he was accepted to his love-thy-safety today! He really likes this college because, in addition to learning computer science, he can learn to make things go boom (explosives engineering).</p>
<p>S decided on only applying to three schools. He finished aps for two of them including scholarship section. Now we just have to send in transcripts that we already had the school office do and send in letters of rec and possibly now I will have him include a resume. One more application to do and it's on the common ap. It's mostly done, just have to do the short essays and essays on the supplemental portions.
Last week he came home with the graduation packet (you know the one were school/company has their hand out asking for a large chunk of money for graduation stuff?) This applying for college is getting expensive...not only is there the application fees, there is pay $9.50 for each SAT score to be sent. If you went to any other schools pay for more transcripts.... Don't these people know there is a resession going on here? And if you took the SAT's as a junior, how the heck did you know which schools you'd like to go to? What a racket!
JMHO</p>
<p>familyoutdoors--Ok, S did transfer his junior year of HS. Are you saying he needs an official HS transcript sent from both schools? I did go to his current school and all of his grades, new school and former, are listed. I don't think we need to contact the old school to send and official transcript but if that is what you are saying I will listen!</p>
<p>oregon,
no if your son's credits from both hs are listed on one transcript you should be good. S did a summer program (from a community college) and will have to send to them to get the transcript. Five more dollars, LOL!
Sorry to get you worried! :)</p>
<p>hey-thanks familyoutdoors-that is a "relief" to not have to put one more thing on the list. The latest "worry" today is if the schools accept the SAT and ACT that the GC sends in order to save the students money. I did just check and we did sent S's first choice the SAT and ACT independently. Had not planned on sending anymore but to let the HS's listing stand. S did not list any schools at all when he took the tests as he had no list at all then. Good luck to all of our D's and S's.</p>
<p>pancakes served by Anna Quinlen. My goodness you nor' easterners live erudite lives! As recently as a month ago I honestly did wish the girls would break their silly geographical barriers and look at some schools in your neck o the woods but now that I have achieved list Nirvana I have to say "OHHHMMMMM" really emphaticly and with a slight whine and hope that I can visit myth's D at midnight breakfast during finals week. :)</p>
<p>Anna Quinlen is chair of the Board of Trustees at Barnard. They have other cool alumnae at their "breakfasts" too. </p>
<p>Cynthia Nixon, Twyla Tharp, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lauren Graham are all alums. I don't think any of them served breakfast. The president of the college does, though.</p>
<p>The girls go in pj's I believe.</p>
<p>Okay, now I'm rethinking sending just the ACT scores as I read that you and yours are sending both ACT and SAT. DS did better on the ACT, although SAT was fine, but one of his SATII's was low so I wasn't planning on sending those scores. Should I? Our school district doesn't include test scores on the transcripts.</p>
<p>On second thought, never mind! I've already spent $$$ on sending the ACT scores to 7 schools, plus $25 to send his community college scores, and we haven't hit send and the corresponding PAY to any colleges yet - enough is enough!</p>
<p>I read your chatter so envious... D still having a hard time getting over that big hump of writing the essay. But I've developed a new ploy. Every request (such as last night's "Mom, can we paint my room?") now receives an answer with the suffix "...after your applications are in".</p>
<p>cpeltz, I feel your pain. I complained yesterday at the price to apply. I used the free score reports but D's June ACT scores were the best. As such, I spent $45 yesterday sending THOSE scores to an additional 5 schools. I spent $18 last week sending it to to other schools. Back in June, she had different schools in mind for the free report. I'm just submitting her BEST score and that score is the best out of the ACT and SAT. I calculated the 9 applications that she sent already and I paid over $250 to send those, and 2 of them waived the fee charge. $60 just to send ONE transcript online - these schools have no clue we are in a recession!</p>
<p>Son has finished applications to 8 schools...now we're waiting. He was accepted to his safety and that happens to be the only school we haven't visited. Hard to get in those visits once school has started (esp with two other kids with events to attend.) Son will have to do scholarship applications for a couple of schools, but I'll give him a break from my nagging for a while.</p>
<p>On Monday we observed a "last." We go to the state fair every year on Columbus Day...Son's last time to go with us. He ate enough deep fried stuff (bacon, truffles, green tomatoes, pbj, grilled cheese, cheese cake, etc etc) to last him for four years, however.</p>
<p>fireflyscout </p>
<p>Sounds like all our students are busy!</p>
<p>Son is very happy - he was accepted to his love-thy-safety today! He really likes this college because, in addition to learning computer science, he can learn to make things go boom (explosives engineering).</p>
<hr>
<p>Name of college, please. My d wants to make things go boom, also. (Good grief. :0)</p>
<p>Cpeltz, if you don't want the SAT IIs to show up. don't send the SAT score--I believe all SAT scores are sent when you make the request (please someone correct me if I'm wrong about that). The ACT should be fine - it's only one factor.</p>
<p>Regarding the resume/expanded description of activities, I'm a big proponent of this, if the tiny application/common app space doesn't fully convey the activity. For example, S1 went on a three week service trip to India where they taught rural Indians how to build stoves to speed up the rice cooking process, and a strategy for keeping the rice warm - vs. having the fire going all day long inside (high incidence of respiratory illness) It was a year long project, and he was selected out of a larger pool to do it. Rather than it looking like a vacation to India, he elaborated on a resume, along with a couple more activities. You can use the one space to more fully describe an activity if there's only one you need to expand on, but if there are more, go for it. There are a couple of colleges that specifically ask for no extra material, but usually its fine. </p>
<p>And finally, though we are tightening our belts, I did have the ever-expanding grey covered yesterday....</p>
<p>I refuse to be gray as long as I have a child in school.</p>
<p>fireflyscout---wondered if I could ask the name of your son's safety school, too? He also wants to study computer science and would seriously love the 'boom thing' also! </p>
<p>I'm having some after-the-applications panic attacks that son has not applied to any safety schools (maybe 'match' -- e.g., Rutgers, StonyBrook, but no real safeties). </p>
<p>I asked his GC about this (after seeing a CC thread on that) and she gave a very vague response--"it's a very competitive environment; the rumor is that even the state-flagship requires a certain GPA" (note: that GPA is .1 higher than son's unweighted). No: "your son will most likely get into XYZ school." It could be that she's covering herself (in case he were not accepted) but it's making me nervous that son might not have the one or two safeties he needs. He's refused to consider Rowan (in NJ) that would be an instate safety & other in-state schools don't have great CS depts.</p>
<p>Thanks for any thoughts...!!</p>
<p>Once again - I am so grateful for this thread! It truly does make my marriage, my parenting and my friendships easier, since get information here and can type out all my internal processing rather than incessantly talking about this process. Thanks to all.</p>
<p>Joylnne, I don't know about your S's GC, but, nice as she is, my S's really is only familiar with our UC and CSU schools. She wasn't familiar with most of the schools on our list, and told us that 9 schools was too many and would be too expensive. When I told her that a number of them would be free to apply to, she was only familiar with need-based fee waivers. If your gut says he needs a true safety, go for it.</p>
<p>Jersey, thanks for the input. We'll stick with the ACT only, and even though it is only one factor, it will be the biggest one for S as he did well on it!</p>
<p>Thanks, cpeltz. I wasn't really expecting much from GC anyway (she's very nice & has been helpful but, for instance, was surprised we were getting docs ready to ship to colleges in August. I do appreciate her doing the recs early, though, even though she hadn't done that before, I think). Funny about yours saying 9 was too many. Good to have the info to disregard that advice.</p>
<p>I'm in the same boat re: CC. I feel I can talk to other intelligent parents here who are on the same page; it's very helpful. Even if it does fuel my anxiety a bit, the info is worth it! :-)</p>
<p>Btw, son only sent in an ACT score (did better than the SAT) & all schools have taken it.</p>
<p>Of the eight schools to which son applied, only two had application fees. So you're right, if a GC sees just the number of schools and says it's too many because of the fees, check out the fees (or lack thereof) yourself.</p>
<p>I hear you Jolynne. D's friend received her first application response yesterday and she was denied, we thought if anything, she would be deferred and asked to bring her test scores up. That sent shockwaves! D is super nervous now that she won't get in anywhere.</p>
<p>And D, too, does not have an in-state safety. Stockton has her major, but Stockton can get competitive. Rutgers Camden has her major, but the town of Camden is AWFUL, I refuse to send her there. Montclair has her major but when we visited she was in fear for her life in the dorms. We are still at a lost as to where to apply in-state, I'm sure it will be Stockton, but she may need a safety on top of that!</p>
<p>JerseyShoreMom--my son went to Rutgers Camden this summer to make up a pre-calc class. I have a few friends who attended law school at Rutgers (in Camden). Obviously the town is bad (terrible & sad) but -- could she commute? Or, maybe get an apt w/friends in Southern NJ & commute from there? Not a perfect scenario, but maybe a possibility? We got used to driving in & out of Camden & it wasn't that bad a trip.</p>
<p>I did grad school at Temple (North Philly--bullet casings on the sidewalks, shootings at nearby ATM). However, I commuted from the Philly suburbs & had no problem--the security was really comprehensive. I could see that a bad neighborhood would be a disincentive for an undergrad who would want the total college experience, though.</p>