I followed the link posted. Based on what will not rollover, I would not waste my time yet on filling anything out.
^ok thatās embarrassing. I missed that in skimming. I think weāll just work on the essays. But, apparently I better not be the one to review them for my D. 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek thatās great info, thanks for posting it. I am not going to bother having my D fill anything out. Thereās really no rush. I think the best part is just knowing the CA prompts. But sheāll wait till school is out and finals/APs are over before she attempts her first of many drafts
Hey everyone! Iāve been busy on the Parents of 2016 thread and just had few minutes to read a few posts on this thread, before getting down to my work! Reading about our discussion about LORās I remembered that there is a new application process, being added to the Common App, starting for our kidsā year. Isnāt the class of 2017 SOOO lucky!! - New PSAT, new SAT, new essay process on the ACT, schools increasingly looking at home equity as a source for families to pay for college (so if youāve been in your house a long timeā¦pay up!) And now a whole new application to learn about! Yea for us!! I searched the thread and hadnāt seen anything posted about it. Hereās a few links:
http://www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/education/edlife/can-a-new-coalition-of-elite-schools-reshape-college-admissions.html?_r=0
@2muchquan We had a similar campus visit schedule last summer. In addition to taking notes, take pictures, including of your tour guide. It will help to jog your memory later on.
Our GC is holding a āCommon App Bootcampā the week after school ends for all juniors (small school). I am not sure what it entails but S said they would be filling out sections of the CA under the GCs supervision. There is also a mandatory parent meeting that week, so I guess I will find out then whatās up. She also has a group of the juniors in a college planning elective and S is already working on his CA essay there (I love our GC). Ironically, S may have only a few schools that are on the CA because he is looking more towards state schools for their affordability, and many of those do not use the CA. D15, on the other hand, only applied to schools on the CA.
Just so @mtrosemomās post doesnāt cause panic, the CA is not that difficult to navigate. Seriously. I taught myself how to do everything (which means all the GC sections) and I am not tech savvy at all.
@mtrosemom ā you may want to have your S copy his CA entries over to Word files, just in case the work does not carry over. This will allow him to copy & paste the info back in after Aug 1st, in case anything goes awry.
I keep saying this, but I am so out of the loop with this child and need to get off CA and figure out what he should be doing about requesting LORs, etc.
Anyone applying for summer programs esp in STEM?
I didnāt mean to panic anyone!! I am just happy that I am not going to have to nag S to get the app done. His counselor will do the nagging. I am sure that the GC will have them copy everything over to files so they donāt lose their work. Then, in August when the app opens for real for the 2017ers, they will move all of the info in.
@dcplanner wrote
D17 has had a few invitations to these, but so far we havenāt gone to any because weāre not sure what they could show us that we canāt find on the internet?
@2muchquan that is going to be one epic trip! Thanks for the info on the Common App opening up, Iāll mention it to D17 so she can let the writing prompts start percolating in her head.
@morningside95 wrote
Oh no, really? Geez. 
Next thing you know theyāll be asking how many kidneys you have.
D17ās bf is a senior, and sheās been dating him since last, um, October? She gets really annoyed with me when I talk about college stuff, but I think sheās absorbing a lot of the process from him-heās applied EA to some places, chasing scholarships, looking at ROTC, still waiting to hear from some places-Iām glad sheās getting a first hand view of what sheāll be doing next year. He seems remarkably calm about the entire thing, which is good. Hopefully she will be, too. (Itās me thatās a wreck, as usual).
@motherofdragons That might make for an interesting application process. My dh and I are high school sweethearts. He is a yr older than I and I definitely applied to where he went to school. I look back and, golly, if my parents had at all been involved in the process (which they werenāt. We were on our own when we graduated from high school), my then future would have probably been very different. I turned down a full-ride to follow him. Andā¦I am sure glad I did b/c I wouldnāt change a thing!! 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek sheās already asked me about what other colleges are in the same city as the one his first choice is in. Luckily itās a city weāre very familiar with that has a plethora of colleges, so if she wants to go that route, more power to her. Iām also a romantic like you, (DH and I met in college, had a long distance relationship across continents, I came back on Valentineās day, that kind of thing), so Iām not averse to letting her go that route as long as itās not a ludicrous choice money-wise or fit-wise.
Sheās pretty pragmatic, though-she has no intention of going to school in the same area as his safety school, lol. Sheās like, nope, weāll just be long distance, Iām not living there. snort she cracks me up.
@dcplanner @srk2017 , DD is a foodie, so she signed up already before I found out what it is
I started looking into the home equity issue, when it was clear that S16 really wanted a small LAC, and weād be filling out the CSS Profile. FAFSA doesnāt ask about primary home equity. But we were close to paying off our house and felt we needed more info. I found a great website, called the College Solution. Lynn O. lots of great advice on her website for no charge, and even haslive webinars. She last wrote about home equity in 2014. I could not find anything as comprehensive that was more recent. There is link in the middle of the article that you can click on to download a Home Equity Spreadsheet PDF which will give you an idea how different schools treated home equity then:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/
As a parent of an S16, and having just gone through the entire college application process, I recommend using your 2015 tax forms to complete the Expected Family Contribution form on the College Board website. You can check the general Federal Methodology (used by most public schools and some privates - all who use FAFSA only) and the Institutional Methodology (CSS Profile schools) all at one time. I found it to be fairly accurate for assessing what colleges and universities expect you and your student to be able to afford to pay. Obviously, many schools who want to attract your student, will offer merit aid on top of need-bases aid. Hereās the link:
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/paying-your-share/expected-family-contribution-calculator
@SincererLove - S is also a foodie (big time), but he didnāt pay attention to this one. We went to MIT, Brown and Yale combined presentation few months back and didnāt find any useful information so he ignores the āinvitationsā
We completed our spring break college road trip. It was a long but very productive week. We confirmed that my daughter does not want to attend a small liberal arts school. We found 2 schools that she loves ā Oklahoma State and UA ā and also ruled out a couple of other schools that she either didnāt like or couldnāt see herself attending. She and I are completely on the same page regarding colleges. We had the same reaction and thoughts with respect to every school we visited. So Iāll be able to now whittle down the schools she should look closely at, which is great.
Non-colleges related, this trip was a great bonding experience. We had a lot of great conversations and laughs. And it really hit me on this trip that my baby is leaving the nest in less than a year and a half. 
@srk2017 DS applied to a couple STEM summer programs. He wonāt hear until next month, but either way, there was the benefit that he wrote about 9 essays between the two. He started out having a lot of writersā block in talking about himself, but gained confidence by the end. So, he has a starting place for some topics that come up in college apps, including āwhat world do you come fromā and ādescribe a challenge you facedā.
He has one more essay to write before spring break for a program for next fall.
He did the essays in Google Docs, which was handy when he wanted me to look over the grammar or suggest ways to cut them down to 200 words. BTW, 200 words is really short! Oddly, he got different character counts in Word and Google Docs. Googleās character counts agreed better with the application website that detected lengths in characters instead of words. Word has better grammar checking.
@itsgettingreal17 glad you had a good trip!
DS gets invitations to traveling information sessions, but I havenāt yet seen any that say they provide free food. DC said his school had a college fair on Thursday, but other than our local UC and CalPoly, he didnāt find any he wanted to consider.
@srk2017 My daughter is applying to non-stem summer programs. Sheās already been accepted to Notre Dame and will apply to 2 business programs. She did a STEM one last summer and decided she didnāt want a STEM career unless it was a career in math.
As to receptions, we went to one recently for Ohio State. It was at a restaurant (we love free food!) and was informative. The presentation definitely convincedy daughter to apply to Ohio State. We will consider similar receptions as those opportunities arise.
Re: Google docs, I have come to love it. Iāve shared folders with my D containing research info, and now essay prompts/Docs for the CA and some of the school supplements that are out, or likely wonāt change. We will use it to store spring break notes as well.