So tomorrow is the senior parent meeting the counceling dept is putting on. I had been planning to go since I always go to these things. But I’m not sure I can fit it in, I have to go somewhere for work. I will know over 90% of the information presented and maybe more. I just somehow feel that if I don’t go I’m going to miss something important.
S17 did go to the student meeting today & I asked him a few questions. I talked with staff last week @ BTSN and had a few other questions answered. S told me how the counselor letter will be handled for CA, how letters of rec would be handled, they gave dates & how to instructions for UC, Cal State and Common App should be handled by students. How to send transcripts. I know how to use Naviance. What else would I need to know? I am considering just dropping by to pick up the packet of instructions they often hand out. (I do have time for that.)
I know these things are usually only attended by a fraction of the parents, but I still somehow feel I SHOULD be there and feel guilty even thinking of not going.
OK after whining here, it seems I can make the meeting tomorrow. At 8pm I just got off a work meeting. Still means I need to start putting together everything I need tonight, so I can be packed and up & out of the house early in the AM. And I hopefully get to meet the new counselor.
@curiositycat333 - After reading your post, I just realized our parent meeting is tomorrow morning also. Now instead of conveniently missing it, I am considering whether to go. I went a few years ago for my other son, and I wonder if time spent on CC gets me off the hook.
@jmek15, Suffolk is expensive and they’ve been having a lot of leadership issues (5 deans in 5 years), so I worry about its stability/viability–also, it’s right in our backyard, and D wants a little distance between home and school. The location would be good, though, for public policy/government opportunities, being in the state capital.
@curiositycat333, we had ours earlier this week–I was glad I went because I got info on Naviance would be updated, how to link Common App and Naviance, and info on deadlines for transcript requests and LORs. I believe most of that was presented to the kids at Senior Assembly as well, but it didn’t make its way back to me. If my kid was more communicative, it probably would have been a waste of time. So depending on how well you understand how your school will work with the app process, it may or may not be necessary.
Thanks, @techmom99! Can you tell me anything about SUNY Geneseo? That may be more of a reach academically for my D, but it would be a financial safety.
@klinska Don’t know where you are regarding PNW schools but a few years ago, kids from my daughter’s school with GPA between 3-3.3 and ACT from 25-29 were getting up to 14K annually from Willamette in merit-based aid. I know one young man who is now a junior who has really thrived there.
@coloradomom2015 I read further back in the thread your daughter was interested in Creighton, Drake, and at some point, Iowa State. Did you visit Iowa State? How did it compare to Drake and what made her choose one school over another? Thank you!
@uwalummom No, sorry we didn’t make it out to visit Iowa State…yet. We may once we get a better idea of acceptances and (hopefully) scholarships. She did hear back from ISU already, and she has been accepted but they gave zero indication of merit aid at this point. She’s hoping for Drake or Creighton to pull through on scholarships as she likes the campuses and staff, but our counselor is dragging her heels on sending transcripts out, and without the official transcript, neither school will officially approve her admission.
ISU on the other hand looks at self reporting for admission but not scholarships…still waiting on counselor for them, too (as is U of Nebraska, Arizona State and U of Arizona…)
What I will tell you, however, is the Drake admissions rep is AMAZING and has gone the extra mile with providing D17 with information. We also felt really welcome on campus; they go the extra mile to make you feel at home. We applied to ISU because D17 really likes that area of Iowa, and we wanted to give her a public school choice which may be more affordable in the same area.
Once we get official acceptances and a rough idea for merit aid, we’ll determine if a visit to ISU is in the cards. To be fair, they’re pretty low on her list - not a bad school at all, but she’s more interested in others.
Sidebar question: are we the only parents dealing with paperwork nightmares with guidance counselors? I feel like getting them to get around to sending transcripts and letters is like pulling teeth. D17 went in to visit the counselor after getting ‘acceptances pending transcripts’ over the weekend, and at first got shrugged off and told “You can wait until January like the rest.” She went in the next day with her college binder, including letters from the schools and a personal voicemail from her rep at U of Arizona asking to please get the transcript ASAP so they can finish her acceptance; that seemed to spark the counselor and ‘she’d do her best to finish the work in October.’ Very frustrated.
“with D’s stats, why would some place like Lawrence or Beloit or Wooster be willing to throw $10-15K/year her way? Or is just assumed that no one (hardly) pays sticker price at schools like this and I’m worrying needlessly?”
FWIW, my son attends Beloit. His GPA was 3.3 and ACT 26. He was offered a 20k/year academic scholarship. We also received a bit of of need-based aid, though our EFC didn’t indicate any further need (not that we agreed with that assessment!)
@rienrah, oh no! You’re getting my hopes up again!
@mamaedefamilia, I’m having D do “this one or that one” for the PNW and the Midwest schools. GC says we need to start narrowing things down–and I need to understand better what her thinking is with regard to Lewis & Clark over any of the other schools that were on the list that she’s moved off. I looked again at Willamette and on paper it seems like a better match for her, but she may have specific reasons for having taken it off that I’m just not remembering.
Yes. In a nutshell. Now, to be fair, none of S17’s apps are actually submitted yet. However we started requesting transcripts in august and not a single one has gone out. The HS just started having meeting with seniors on the process of everything on Monday. They have assured me they will go out on time but what concerns me is that 3 of his schools have EA this year for the first time and NONE of those dates show in Naviance. In fact, no due date shows at all because he selected EA and there is nothing to populate. The CC tells me that the info comes from the schools so she can’t “override” it but we are going to have to be on them to send stuff if I don’t see movement once apps are in. I am making sure S submits apps 3 weeks before the due dates so that we have that time to nag on LOR’s and Transcripts!
Which hopefully means that 4 apps are going in the weekend of October 1st.
@klinska stats wise Willamette will have much better odds for admission and merit. As a local I can tell you that with my S17’s stats he’s a better chance of getting into Reed than he does L&C and the merit is not great at L&C. It’s fabulous for need based aid but not so much for merit, especially in our stats range. I can definitely see the need to narrow it down, L&C has Portland going for it, versus Salem and that is a big difference. If that’s the rationale, I’d pick University of Portland over L&C for our stat range and merit chances but given that my S would only consider L&C as well…none made the cut. LOL!
If you want a PNW safety for admission and merit you can look at Linfield. Personally I find it overpriced for what it is (as in it should offer more merit for this stat group for it to make sense) but it is a valid safety, as would be Seattle Pacific University.
Ugh. First bad grade of the semester. It’s funny, everyone on CC talks about APES as being an AP “light” class but at our school the APES teacher is known for being very very hard. Outstanding but very hard. And the first test seems to support that. C+ on the test, looks like the mean was a B-.
UGH. Calc looks great but…they haven’t had a test in there yet!
We have this new system Canvas this year and it’s driving me nuts. Has some great features but some not so great and missing as well.
If your D’s stats are in the range of this thread, Geneseo is not a reach, it’s a virtual impossibility. All of the 4 year SUNY’s charge the same tuition; they had been floating the idea of allowing Stony Brook and U Buffalo and perhaps, Bing, to charge a little more but I don’t think it went anywhere. If you are thinking of Geneseo’s tuition as being a financial safety, you can accomplish the same thing with any SUNY and some actually give money. Geneseo gives about 5 scholarships a year from what I hear.
What is your D interested in studying? Does she play a sport? What does she like? Give me some info and I’ll try to help you.
S17 received his 1st college acceptance
He submitted 10 days ago (rolling admission) thru The Common Application & wasn’t required to submit a LOR or Essay. It’s an out of state academic safety, but not a financial safety. Scholarships won’t be awarded until Nov 1st, so now we wait --again–to hear if we can afford to send him
@MomStudent2017 congrats! Rolling admissions, affordable or not, tit’s still exciting!
@coloradomom2015 I just heard back from the main CC on this issue. For our school, they require all requests through Naviance. Apparently they will not send transcripts until the school profile is updated so they can send both together. Timeline for that is 1st week of october. Allegedly as long as the profile is ready, once you note “application submitted” in Naviance, it goes out within a day, and sometimes within hours, of that being marked as submitted.
Which just goes to support my plan of making the kid submit everything at least 3 weeks early to be safe so the other materials can be there on time.
Well I did go to the meeting. Glad I did since the work thing turned out to be an unnecessary trip. (Wasn’t too bad I just got to work in a quite office vs… staying home for a change.) Would have been more annoyed if I missed the school meeting over nothing. I didn’t get a huge amount of facts out of the meeting. A portion of it was trying to get parents to. “step back and let your kids take charge”… there is no “we” in college applications type of thing. That sort-of stuff… And going over timeline and when things would get done. Tried to answer how they were going to write letters when half the counseling staff are new. SIGH… (There are a few reason’s why I can’t say here. I’m kind of glad my kids almost out of there.)
Timeline for counselor letters is the students need to fill out a the forms including a parent part, they return forms to get an appointment with counselor. (Which could take a few weeks depending on how quickly you return it…) Counselor will then promise to get it out within two weeks. Except very emphatically stating that the counselors won’t working over the holiday (Dec) break. So this could be a month or more… good thing DS doesn’t need one till January. Still means he should get this in by the latest early Nov. His only EA doesn’t need letters, nor do the state schools. At this point he only needs this of UC Boulder.
@coloradomom2015 While it’s not as bad as you describe. (Partly because CA public schools admissions end Nov. 30th so saying wait till January wouldn’t apply.) The admin in charge of the College Center is new at the job & only found out at the start of the school year… so everything is running a bit behind. Because she’s new everything is taking a bit of time. College visits are only starting to fill in. Half the counseling staff are brand new this year. They announced today that they were surprised they already had kids wanting letters already. (I DON"T KNOW WHY since this school has a reputations for sending a huge number to top schools & many of them these students apply ED.) I don’t think our school profile as been updated yet either.
So while things are as slow as you describe. January for transcripts really?? Things aren’t running as smoothly as past years. I’m surprised the counselors are the ones that send out transcripts. Our H.S. uses parchment & while there is a fee, advantage is no school admin is involved at all.
Glad you have shaken them up a bit. Hope they get out what you need soon.
@endesmom I thought schools usually gave one date for the application to be in & a slightly later one for all the accompanying stuff like transcripts. Or is that only for regular admissions dates and doesn’t apply to EA?
OH… the once piece of new information I got today that I didn’t know. Cal Poly superstores between ACT & SAT… Although I’m not sure how it does this. Never heard of a school that does that. Doesn’t apply to DS, since he only took the SAT once and was happy with his score.
