@ilikesporks DD has yet to receive the ‘official acceptance package’. She only received the post card for the weekend invitation.
Hey, I finally caught up! I was 40+ pages behind. Thanks for slowing down!
Congrats to all of you who’ve reported acceptances and scholarships in the past couple weeks!!! Lots of great news! <:-P <:-P
Not January yet, please, DS is still finishing essays for applications! :!!
What’s done? 8 college applications turned in so far, but 5 of those were all on the same UC application.
2 scholarship applications, if you count the National Merit application.
What’s left?
11 more college application submissions planned between now and 1/15.
5 of these applications are done except for copy+paste into the Common App and a final check.
10 more essays to write for the remaining 6 college applications to finish.
Then a sort-of honors application for the College of Creative Studies at UCSB due by 1/31.
Then a February update for the EA school that deferred him.
We won’t hear anything until March, except possibly USC(al) sometime in January and some UCs that contact about Regents around February.
# of essays? Ouch. In the Giant Google Doc of Essays, I count:
16 long essays
35 in the 100-300 word range
15 micro essays of 140-200 characters or sets of short answers.
Only a few essays could be reused verbatim.
Who’s next? DS21 is a totally different kid. He currently has a GPA below 3.0 in 8th grade, so I don’t know if even a 3.0 to 3.4 thread will work. He is transgender and thinks that once we get him on hormones (February, we think), his grades will go up. We have to figure out which high school for him also. Complicated kid, but he’s a nice kid a lot of the time.
DS is trying to put the near finishing touches on the several supps needed for last app - due in a few days. Of course he is always busy with other things – rewiring our internet, reconfiguring a friend’s computer (long distance), going out with family – after all WE are on vacation, and catching up on sleep. Midterms are looming next along with a big reading/writing assignment so I am really hoping he finishes the last app tomorrow - work (and procrastination) expands to fill available time! He should here in mid-Jan about 1 more school and possibly another by the end of January. We are all ready for 2016 to end. Hoping for great things in 2017.
Huge congrats to those of you who are done! Must feel amazing.
DS18 - totally different kid - liberal arts and/or business – need to go look at a few colleges with him over the upcoming breaks - will need to divide & conquer bc DS17 will go back and revisit the schools he is most interested in that he gets accepted into.
Just received the Merit award for S17 acceptance at Miami of Ohio. $16,500 per year which puts Miami 2nd to Colorado State on the affordability scale. Still waiting on Merit from tOSU and Minnesota. An actual letter came, nothing on the portal. Pretty happy with the award!
@STEM2017 - did your receive his?
Besides the “to do” stats, here’s an update on our news since I was so far behind:
DS turned 18 on Boxing Day. Any other kids turning 18 lately?
So far, the only form he’s filled out as an 18-year-old was not having to have a parent sign for him to go kayaking with us and the visiting cousins. He’s still bummed he wasn’t able to vote, though in CA it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Nice result from a recent interview – he got a $3K scholarship from a local organization recently. It’s somewhat renewable, though he will need to reapply yearly.
His high school semester doesn’t end until late January, but the UC quarter is over and he got an A in both his UC classes, including an A+ in the really tough class. He’s happy about that, because the grading system was odd and he didn’t really know. The mean score on the final was about 50%, and he got 85+%.
Well, we have applied to 12 schools and so far have 5 acceptances, no rejects - batting 1000! The schools he wants however, we are still waiting on. The kid is an athlete and has in fact rejected 3 D1 offers. Those schools just do not have what he needs and us folks are super happy about his decisions (he has better options). He is a B student and we are resigned to the fact that his education is going to be expensive. We are cool with that.
He wants to pursue his sport and I go back and forth with it. He loves it, it fills his time with value and keeps him in shape. He would be at a total loose end without it. He has finally found his stride senior year, straight A’s for the first time ever. I worry about the time commitment. I am rooting for a D3 school which wants him and for which he will be full pay, nothing to loose if he walks away from the sport. Please send some good vibes my way!
@Ynotgo – Happy Birthday to your DS - mine too turned 18 in December a couple of weeks ago. Used his ID at the TSA checkpoint in the airport.
@oldbrookie – Sending good vibes for your son! Great on the acceptances so far! Regarding his sport - it sounds like an important positive for him.
@jpc763 – Nice on the scholarships!! Sounds like you have good options with the merit aid.
What’s done - last 3 apps went out last night. Total of 11 apps submitted, 9 CA, 2 non-CA. Lots of supplemental essays. No more apps planned, but having serious jitters that we should have pursued more options. Feel like he applied to too many competitive private schools. He has two acceptances, but only one so far is a financial safety, and that is the state flagship.
Still pending - scholarship apps for 2 or 3 schools and one honors program app.
Who’s next - We are done with college admissions after S17.
Not a wonderful holiday for us, unfortunately. I was besieged by a sinus/laryngitis/sickness monster last Thursday and ended up at urgent care on Christmas. As a bonus, DD got the stomach flu on Christmas morning. Fortunately, she didn’t share that “gift” with the rest of us. We didn’t have our family Christmas dinner until Tuesday, and I realized today that I took 1 picture the entire week and that was of the tree. No people pics. Have begun talking about celebrating the holidays in Florida next year - I need a change from the northeast!!
Count S as another senior who turned 18 w/in the past couple of weeks. And for his bday he got his selective service card! We still need to go to the doctors to get the forms signed giving us permission to see get his medical information. And I need to look into the medical POA for when he goes to college. Also need to transfer his bank acct to an adult acct, but that can wait.
Having just submitted the CSS PROFILE thing (yeah, yeah, I know, waiting til the last minute and so on), I just want to say that after going through that bit of user interface unfriendliness I most certainly loathe—nay, not merely loathe, but hate—the College Board.
I mean, I already did, but this just cements it, you know?
@dfbdfb With the d’s and b’s in your username and the avatar, does anyone else think D.B. Cooper?
@youcee, I quite literally =)) 'd! 
@dfbdfb My favorite part of the CSS Profile: when you think you may have to enter a number on one of the more unusual lines, and you search on the help key and the search results come up empty. Yeah, that’s helpful.
DD and I curse the College Board every time we have to touch one of their sites. And yes, the Profile was particularly painful. I hope you get to avoid the IDOC site, it’s a fun diversion as well.
Speaking of IDOC, ironically DD decided today not to apply to the only school on her list that required IDOC submission – Lafayette. I really liked Lafayette when she visited, but it was a good choice for her to drop… it didn’t have the exact program she’s looking for, the top merit is a lottery, and the fencing wasn’t what she was looking for. But still, it means I suffered through the IDOC site for nothing
We are dropping the one school that asked for PROFILE. After all that they didn’t give him squat! I did have to suffer through IDOC for a different school… that I also suspect will get dropped. Oh well.
Count me among the CB haters! X( IDOC too. We have the added pleasure of having to fill out the Business & Farm supplement as well. Joy, joy!
D is finishing up final essay for final app on the sofa behind me as I type this [-O<
Heh to those of you with kids turning 18 already - D just turned 17 in November, she’s always been either the youngest or next-youngest in her grade. I think her age may be one of the factors in her college ambivalence, tbh.
We had to fill out the Business & Farm supplement as well.
Sent out the Profile to the last few colleges on the list tonight and had a couple of colleges ask what kind of cars we drive! Good grief! What will be next - asking how many purses and pairs of shoes I have? Can’t wait for this to be over.
Woohoo! Also a member of the Business and Farm supplement club. What a joy that was to fill out…
D is still finishing up her last few applications and actually wants to add one or two schools to the list. I told her that if she finishes the essays, she can apply, but she has to focus on the current schools first. So close to being done with applications, but the waiting game afterwards won’t be any fun either.
Over the break D received acceptances to both the USCar Honors College as well as the College of Charleston Honors College. CofC acceptance included an invite to a scholarship interview weekend.
@MACncheez Congrats! Very exciting news about CofC!
@MACncheez – That’s great news! will she have many interviews to do in the coming weeks?
QOTD- - are you planning visits to schools where your DCs are accepted for the upcoming breaks? We have a Feb break & one in April. I had been thinking we’d take DS in Feb to see the EA schools he got in and then over the April break go to any RD schools he is strongly interested in. Will not be possible to zig zag across the country most likely though. For those of you with several high contender schools or your list - what are your plans for visits, decision-making etc.?