<p>kumitedad, Why bother with the app at all now? It’s February. When it comes time for your child to fill it out, in August or September, they will do it on-line. This is a great time of year to just read some books about colleges like, The Gatekeepers, or Letting Go or Admissions Matters and find some interesting colleges for THE LIST.</p>
<p>I pretty much stay on the parents forums myself. I find the other forums too populated with lying kids and rude people in general.</p>
<p>kathiep,</p>
<p>We have a division of labor over here. I take care of the factual portions, the kids take care of the creative (ie essays). So I am getting a head start on my portion. Worked out ok for my S, so will continue with my D. All the college trips are over anyway, and the list more or less solidified. And I remember the craziness last time, and my D will need to file earlier than normal for a shot at the merit money. (very important factor around here)</p>
<p>Whatever happens, should be fun :)</p>
<p>Can the
Common App
FAFSA
etc
all be done in partial–ahead of time and then saved?
Or do each of them change substantially every summer?</p>
<p>It’s not that they necessarily change, but both sites put up new forms/applications each year and you have to fill out the form that is relevant to your application year. For instance, the 2010 FAFSA was only released on January 1. If you filled out the previous form for anything but practice, you had to do it again if you are in the high school Class of 2010. Same thing for the Common App. At some point the 2009-2010 Common App is deactivated and you have to wait for (and complete) the 2010-2011 version.</p>
<p>ok got it
I was wondering if like the other parent if there is any benefit to filling in the blanks on a rainy day…</p>
<p>I think there is a FAFSA4Caster that you can fill in ahead of time and as of Jan 1 you can transfer the info to the updated FAFSA form. Anyone out there use this yet?</p>
<p>kumitedad, My point was that there was no reason to fill out a paper form since your student would be doing an on-line one and as runnersmom pointed out, the 2009 one is different then what our kids will be using.</p>
<p>NHS induction this month.
I realize that not all schools keep the same traditions and even selection methods vary…</p>
<p>At our students school it is considered the highest honor and is not easy
its tough and the selection is done based on looking at significant accomplishement in all 4 areas…</p>
<p>We are pleased for our student. ;o)</p>
<p>Quote of the week… after finally spending significant time online researching a particular school we will visit next month,</p>
<p>“Hey, that was more fun than I thought it would be”…</p>
<p>uh yeah, you think?!<br>
sigh
it’s a start.</p>
<p>
Yikes! This is the kind of post that really feeds my neurotic tendencies. My 11th grader has done no college trips and has not started to think about a college list. How can you and your D be so organized?!</p>
<p>NYNY</p>
<p>we are nowhere near done yet either–will see 4 schools this spring and
still will not see all schools we need to in order to do apps–unless our student has amazing SATs in June…</p>
<p>Our list has like 39 schools right ow–some are schools our student wants to corss out–and some are nice LACs our student hasn’t seen and thinks are too small/too rural…</p>
<p>however until the jr yr transcripts and naviance matchup with scores etc…best to keep a long list…the SAT ranges are as muich as 200pts per section…</p>
<p>We will need a financial safety or two as well…
We don’t have our matches for our student yet–the process with the GC at school hasn’t reallly started–the kids just got their packets to write info for the GCs etc…and just presented a wishlist of schools in the last week…</p>
<p>I think schools do it so differently from place to place …many roads to Rome</p>
<p>nynyparent, No worries, just start reading and then hit the road when you can. </p>
<p>I’ve found that the problem lies with logistics. I only work part time and son and I could easily visit colleges in the summer at a comfortable pace. However, all of the colleges except for the big ones don’t have students on campus during the summer. I’ve had really bad experiences with all three kids visiting empty colleges. Unless the tour guide is outstanding, they just don’t get the feel for the college. Also, the colleges don’t especially take into account that many people, and students, need to plan visits several months in advance. </p>
<p>My son has about 20 schools on his list. I figure whatever he doesn’t see by October, he can visit after acceptance.</p>
<p>I’m hoping we can find some colleges that are still in session when our school lets out for the summer and before we start again in fall. Agree that visiting an empty campus really wouldn’t give us a good feel for the school, especially since in all likelihood we will be focusing on smaller LAC’s in small towns/rural areas which could really look deserted if there are no school activities happening.</p>
<p>I too used to find the chance threads moderately entertaining (“Do you think I could get into HYP with all 800 SAT’s and straight A’s if I’m also class president, first chair violinist and national science award winner?”) but they just got too wacky for me. So I avoid them like the plague. So far, I’m the one doing the legwork on the college search - hope this can become a shared experience as the semester progresses!</p>
<p>We haven’t started college visits yet, will do a Cali trip over spring break, figure can fit New England ones in next fall. My son is taking no interest so far. Honestly I sometimes think we shd just apply first and visit after we know where he is accepted!</p>
<p>New here, though I’ve been reading the thread since the beginning as well as reading the '09 and '10 threads. It’s been very good knowing what questions to ask LuckyBoy because he doesn’t always start a conversation…</p>
<p>I signed LuckyBoy’s course selection form last night after he agonized over it for two weeks. He’s currently taking 4 APs as a junior (CalcAB, English Language, USH and Physics C Mech)—only one other boy is taking 4—in addition to the required jr religion course, Latin 3, Wind Ensemble, and TAing the highest phase freshman geometry class with his favorite math teacher. </p>
<p>He wanted to “have an easier senior year, Mom” but came around to the idea of 4 APs once I explained that having an easier senior schedule is NOT the best idea when you need merit money. So back and forth with the online catalog and the friends at school and on facebook… Net result is 6 APs on the schedule! Oy! Dh wants to know what happened to 4 LOL We spent two hours last night talking over choices since I would prefer 5 APs max but LuckyBoy disagreed with all my suggestions. I had to have a glass of wine with that conversation!</p>
<p>So he’ll be taking Stats, English Lit (at one of the local girls’ high schools because the teacher is better than at his all boys’ school), US Govt (seniors are required to take a one-semester govt course anyway, so he’ll just take this instead of trying to choose a second one-semester elective), Psychology (reputation for a fun class and lots of friends will be taking it), Environmental Sci, and Physics C E&M. Plus the required senior religion class. At least he’ll get an open time in his schedule. He’s dropping Latin because it is NOT enjoyable anymore------our state flagship only requires 3 years of the same language for auto-admittance. And I’m sad that he has to drop Wind Ensemble to take the exchange English Lit section as all exchange courses are held first period. Wind Ensemble has proven to be a nice transition from sleep to school LOL</p>
<p>LuckyBoy has a non-existent college list so far. I’ve taken to referring to State Flagship in every college-related conversation we’ve had since he hasn’t given any other suggestions. I figure if he gets annoyed enough with the idea of attending a school literally within walking distance (!) he’ll come up with a working list.</p>
<p>I’d love to be able to visit a school or two during his longish Easter break. He’s considering some form of engineering related to “being green” or a future in govt service/public policy. Every once in a while teaching math is discussed. He likes math and physics and DOES NOT like writing papers. He plays trumpet (the aforementioned Wind Ensemble plus marching band and jazz band) and is working on his Eagle project.</p>
<p>Actually I only am writing out on a printout of the CommonApp form, and only for the factual part, especially want to get the bookkeeping part out of the way. That probably wont change much. We wont go near the essays until August when the forms are ready. And I will have a worksheet to input the information when that happens. Mostly though its so I can do something in this interim period.</p>
<p>A comment amount getting kids to visit colleges. My suggestion is to just do it! I think it’s more common for the kids (especially boys) to not understand the importance of the visits and to think that there’s going to be some magic window of time that will open up. </p>
<p>What I’ve done (and this is my third child) is to get out the calendar and find open days on your family schedule and then look through the list for colleges that have open houses or events. If there are no events, then a tour or admissions presentation and a tour is okay too. But if you want to do something before this school year is done, PLAN it now! My college son will be graduating May 1 and after that kids will be sparse on his campus.</p>
<p>I pushed the first visit with all three of my kids, and you know what? All three enjoyed the visits and were much more interested to visit more and really started to think about colleges and what else they wanted to see after that.</p>
<p>I know this is in response to an older post, however, for those that are interested…My son bought a class ring through Walmart. It was only $100… It is actually very nice and one of the least expensive ones they offered. Had the ingraving, school mascot, year, and a football… He got it last summer and has had alot of kids like it enough that they chose to get theirs there too… With all the expenses starting to add up this year and next, we are cutting corners any way we can.</p>
<p>I have a couple of questions that you all might be able to help me with. First let me say that my son is not an “over achiever” and is doing well in school with mostly basic classes and a couple of honors classes thrown in… He gets honor roll, but barely… He has 1 college that he really wants to go to and I am not too sure he will get in… But he just won’t believe me when I try to tell him he needs to take better classes or he needs to study for the ACT/SAT which he will take this spring.</p>
<p>My questions are this: I’ve just begun gathering info on the SAT/ACT and the info I’ve gathered states that you can submit the test scores to up to 4 colleges included in the price of the test. My question is do you have to decide this when you register or can you delay picking those schools until you get the scores and/or choose the schools.</p>
<p>Also regarding next years schedule… We just got the information about the classes that will be offered and they are pretty slim pickings…and actually, my son will have 4-5 electives to choose from and other than 2, they are really not interesting to him… It seems like the school is pushing DCT which is where the kids leave school in the middle of the day to go to work… I can’t image that any college would like this, though the school is saying they will. My son already has an afterschool job, so does not need another one but I am afraid if he doesn’t he will end up in a bunch of classes that he either hates or does not do well in.</p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Kathiep, I think this is good advice - just do it. Immediate focus in terms of college planning is SATs. He’s taking them for the first time on March 13. But after that, I think I’ll at least try to get his feet wet by taking him to an info session and tour at one of the schools in the city like NYU or Columbia. If he likes it, may make planning future visits easier. </p>
<p>Sherry, I think you can choose colleges for score reports up to 10 days after taking the SAT. Doesn’t do us much good as son will have no idea where he’s applying by March 22. But I think if he takes another subject test later, he can sign up for free score reports then and they’ll report all his scores, including the March SAT. (I’m sure others will chime in if I’ve got this wrong.)</p>
<p>Sherry, my D1 hasn’t sent score reports anywhere, including to her high school. She may be done with testing by the end of the school year…or not. So it’s most likely that she will wait to send reports until the fall. Not the cheapest option, since she (whoops, WE, meaning the wage earners) will need to pay separately. If your son is taking the SAT or ACT during senior year and only plans on taking one once, you can just have the scores sent then.</p>
<p>As for his school schedule, what are the different electives he can choose from?</p>