I called American and they confirmed that the application was not complete and would look into why D is getting that message. The bad news is, the only thing they have in her file right now is test scores–GC materials were submitted 10/21 and teacher rec was submitted 10/28 but they aren’t showing up. Don’t know if they just haven’t matched things up yet or what. So I also have a call in to the GC. Ugh.
On the plus side, Lawrence University sent an acknowledgement that D’s application is complete. “You should hear something by April 1…” lol.
UVM has been pretty good to us so far, everything got uploaded fast. My son sent an email last week when he got accepted to National Biz Honor Society and the admissions person responded right away and added it to his file. I checked the portal yesterday and everything he needs is there.
Some schools wait a bit to send you an email to view their portal. I think the longest we waited was about a week. Some are a pain in the butt. UNH has the worst one I’ve seen, Very clunky. Northeastern’s was confusing too. UVM’s seemed pretty easy to set up and to check, I like that. I didn’t send any fafsa stuff in so I’m not sure how any of that works or any details, sorry.
Good luck to your kids, great to see they were productive! They’ll all do fine, you have some smart and interesting kids and they applied to some really good schools.
April 1st from Lawrence? Is that EA? UGH. They’ve been a stalker school, although to be fair I think he may have signed up for mailings at one point when running the NPC.
First application in last night! S17 is another one who was dragging his feet. Hit “send” at 11:00 pm. He finally had a reviewable draft he was able to show is college counselor, and had it reviewed yesterday with the supplementals. The counselor liked the CA essay–as did I–but told him to do more with one of the supplements. S17 already had written something that could be used for the “any additional information” portion of the CA, which addresses the big disparity in his overall GPA and test scores. This is a rolling admissions school, but merit $ consideration required applying by 11/1. I think the next ones won’t be so hard–okay, I’m hoping!
This morning S17 needs to find time during a break to call the school that offered him a fly-in, and get that scheduled. HE needs to do it because of scheduling issues–crossing fingers he gets it done. =D>
@eandesmom, no, it’s RD–but it was a free app, so she just submitted it to get it out of the way.
@Hankster1361, congrats to your S on getting the first app in! It’s REALLY hard to leave it to them to get it all done!
Ha, D just got an email from UVM saying that today is the deadline for EA, yadda yadda–she forwarded it to me, saying are you sure you submitted it right? Ah, welcome to the land where the admissions office doesn’t compare notes with the marketing department!
@klinska my son submitted most of his apps weeks ago and still gets note from the schools he has applied to saying “Apply Now! Sorry if you already did”
I imagine we’ll keep getting notes until January.
One hand doesn’t talk to the other. They invite you to visit, tour and interview after you already have. I bet we will get emails till May!
I will say I am encouraged by how fast UVM showed everything, it really seems to imply the CA file was in fact complete and then they synced up the test scores uber fast. Hopefully all the rest will be as painless.
I did make S his music resume draft yesterday. I am sure it will take him 2 weeks to review. LOL!
@Hankster1361 congrats on the app being in. YAY!!
Same here re: UVM. I sent email saying that S17 hadn’t received the link email - she responded today, and resent his email, we now have the link. So best email them.
Back this year with my 3rd and last student - D was here last year - wound up at UMass Amherst and very happy - did all RD. S got his first 3 EA submitted last night - this is my first time with EA’s. He has about 5 more to go. Let the waiting begin!
Both D and I just got the confirmation from UVM. Yay!
GC confirmed that everything was submitted to American–their system is showing “submitted” which will change to “delivered” once American downloads it, so it looks like that’s what the hang up is. Will be calling American again on Friday to follow up.
@curiositycat333, I agree with you on encouraging social development. I’m really glad finished her apps and got to attend a Halloween party on Saturday.
@eandesmom, @tacocat333, and @smakl70, try to spend no more time worrying about not having reaches. My experience with oldest D: we visited three of her reach schools and four targets/safeties. Her top two favorite schools with no regard to “how likely” were two of the target schools. Tacking on reaches is just tacking on more stress!
@eandesmom, if it was that lame post about the perfect stat/multiple legacy get not getting into his state u (which was probably fake) – I wouldn’t compare that in the least to your S having some political flavor. I looked at the fb page for the group of which he was “chief executive vice president” or something. It wasn’t just a politically conservative page, it was full of anti-semitic and bigoted crap, with the rest being simply stupid and immature. Any decent school of any political persuasion would reject that kid in a heartbeat. (Oh, and thanks for the portal info – we did find it!)
@klinska, hugs to you and your D both. My oldest D didn’t get in a single early app. I’ve probably mentioned here before that her old LoR I found was dated Dec 15, and several apps were submitted withing hours of deadline. She went to college! (Okay, now I’m more caught up on the thread and glad things are going well!)
@MomStudent2017, sounds like all your schools are EA, so everything figured out by January – nice! I can see what you mean about VA – it’s like an embarrassment of riches (including W&M) that could be really good or really scary due to the popularity.
@Hankster1361, congrats on the first “submit!”
As Captain Barbossa said, “the code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” Welcome aboard the 2017 3.0 - to 3.4 thread, @julesegr. “Smart skateboarder” reminds me of one of my S18’s best friends. I’m in Boulder and my oldest D is a CU-Boulder student, so let me know if you have any questions. I’m not much a of a musical person, but Boulder is definitely know for its music scene and Nederland (which is to Boulder what Boulder is to Denver) has a well-know music festival every year.
Not a parent here, I’m a current senior with a 3.2 GPA 1170 New Sat with a few EC’s and I need help/ suggestions. I have noticed that this page sometimes can turn into a lot of people posting with 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, gpas and stellar test scores and its a little discouraging to some of us who are actually in the 3.0-3.4 range haha. I was wondering if parents or students who have actually been accepted or know information about schools around the country that accept kids with lower gpas like myself. I have a lot of contributing factors of course going into my application that I can expand on but I don’t want to bore you all. My list so far is
U of Oregon (Top school, would love to go here)
CU Boulder (Love it but probably want afford it)
U Denver
Hofstra University
Ithaca College
U of San Francisco
CSU Long Beach
U of Redlands
Umass Amherst
I’m from MA and I am very open to suggestions of schools all across the country! Please help me find schools that accept not so perfect gpa students!!
Thanks, @snoozn, I will! Red Rocks is there, too, correct?
S17 managed to get three of his five EA apps in today. Two were due and one (due 11/15) didn’t require any extra supplements, so it was submitted as well. I’m satisfied with his main essay. I’m sure it could have been improved with a couple more edits, but he wasn’t interested, it’s adequate, and it sounds like him, which is the important thing. I also saw the two supplements he submitted to Lewis & Clark. One was fine but the other was pretty weak IMO (he wrote it during class, anxious to submit). He sent it before I could comment, but I’m not going to stress over it as we all agree it’s the school he’s least likely to attend.
True confession time: Over the weekend I got him to log into the Common App on from my computer, ostensibly so I could to enter his activities as a way of helping him. The password is now saved on my laptop, so I can log on whenever I want in order to see if things are moving along and proofread, if necessary (nothing more substantial than spelling or punctuation). I know it’s a little helicopter-y, but It gives me peace of mind and keeps me from having to bug him all the time, which would drive him crazy. Am I alone in this? 
As to reaches. S17 has them but only they aren’t his top pick school’s oddly. His match schools are our top choices. I wonder why we bother with the reaches.
Two of them are UC’s. and he will already do the app. I figure if your doing the app you should apply to more than one school. (It’s just some extra $$) Both these schools are cheeper than any of the OOS school and are top ranked schools. The UC’s are a bit unpredictable as to which one will accept you. He would probably only look at these if the UC he wants doesn’t accept him & one of these does. (You never know… they are more than just stats schools.)
I consider Cal Poly in CS a reach for him. I do think if he gets in he will give this school serious consideration.
@rolani88, my older daughter went to the University of Redlands. She LOVED it. Her high school GPA was approximately 3.4 (and on a downward trend). She did have a high ACT score but I don’t think that was the decisive factor for getting into Redlands. I’m pretty sure her grades and test scores were both on the high side for the university. The school is not cheap but she received pretty good financial aid (a combo of merit and need).
Good luck!
@rolani88 Welcome!!!
There is a mix of folks on here but most of the parents have kids right in your stats range, including me (I’m the OP). Some of the parents with higher stats kids either have kids that are very unbalanced (low gpa/high test score) or just really do not want uber competitive schools (or parents lol). It’s a great great group. Also remember that while their 2017 student might have higher numbers most of us have more than one child and the others might have lower or all over the board as at my house. My 2017 kid falls in the middle of our 3 so far to go through the application process.
My S does have a 3.45 UW but his best ACT is a 24, superscored to a 25 and his SAT projections were around your scores based on his PSAT. It is possible with studying he could have brought it up higher but we will never know. Point is, there are plenty of us here and is a nice safe place.
Input on your list.
Most of these are likely to be quite pricey, UMass likely the only affordable one since it’s your only instate option. U of O and CU Boulder will come in close to the same price, the rest are privates or also out of state and will be up there unless they award merit. The challenge at your stats (and my son’s) is that while admission might be possible, merit may be lower than needed or not offered at all which makes it unaffordable and thus not an option… I would definitely check with your parents and confirm your budget and run the net price calculator on them. Don’t pin your hopes on schools that you can get into but can’t afford. That’s just no fun for anyone and trust me, we all have those schools that we’d like to apply to (or have our kids apply to) and just can’t.
I think all of these are in your range, some may be more reachy than the others.Most of your list I have looked at for my S at one point or another, and while Ithaca is the only one that is still on his list, all had potential for admissions as matches. I don’t think though, that you have any safeties on your list and I’d be a bit concerned about that. Your naviance may indicate UMass is a safety I am not sure since it is in state but I thought the admission rate was a little lower. I’d look for at least 1-2 that are definite safeties both financially and admissions wise and that you’d love to attend.
U of Oregon (Top school, would love to go here)
CU Boulder (Love it but probably want afford it)
U Denver
Hofstra University
Ithaca College
U of San Francisco
CSU Long Beach
U of Redlands
Umass Amherst
You have a mix of schools listed, it would help to know what you like about them, as there is a huge difference between U of O and Redlands for example, Or Ithaca and CSLB. Night and day differences. Which makes it hard to make suggestions. I have a ton of schools that would fit your stats, at varying price points but we need to know a little more. I’ll take a closer look later at your list to see where those schools really fall stats wise but I do think you need safeties added at a minimum and you need to see what is really affordable.
Don’t worry about explaining your GPA or scores. CC is NOT the normal world. The “average” student here, is not the average student nationally. Or even at any one high school (at least most high schools). There are tons of great options for the B student and your stats are nothing to be ashamed of or feel bad about. Work with what you have, have a great first semester and give us a little more info and we can make some recommendations for you! This is a great safe place for help.
As an aside, our oldest graduated from a fabulous private school here, Seattle Pacific University and was a 3.01 UW HS student with less than stellar ACT scores. You will have plenty of options if you do your homework and apply wisely…
If you are in MA you could add Clark and maybe U Mass Lowell
Welcome, @rolani88! My D and I are also in MA. I echo what @eandesmom has told you–the challenge is to find a place that’s affordable and that you’ll be happy to attend.
Some additional schools to consider:
UMaine (just got a postcard today that says MA students with a 3.0 and 1120+ on the SAT will qualify for tuition and fees that match the instate flagship, and all OOS first year students will receive a minimum scholarship of $9000).
Check out Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL)–they are small, mostly LACs. We have several on our list, and many of the posters here have included some on theirs. I have the book, but the website provides some information that can get you started (ctcl.org).
If you like University of Colorado, you might want to consider Colorado State University (at one point, my D was looking at both CU Boulder and CSU)–I believe it’s a little cheaper than CU.
Good luck–I know it can feel daunting, especially when comparing oneself with the high achievers who seem to predominate on CC, but you have solid stats that should provide you with plenty of good options.