My kids go to a tiny charter school so official transcripts thus far only took a day. My one twin is bright and not motivated. Looking forward to pinning her down on getting stuff down early. :-/
Asked D19 for an update on her essay last night and she told me she canāt do anything because her laptop is dead and needs a new one. I guess the concept of pen and paper never crossed her mind. Serenity now!
She did at least proactively take the laptop to Apple where thy confirmed the hard drive is shot, 6 years old. I was hoping to get one more year out of the laptop so she would have a new one for college but not worth the $400 to repair.
She has also become determined to get her drivers license by the start of school, which is good. I jokingly (not really) threatened her that she will not get access to either of our cars until she finishes everything on her college to do list.
@DCNatFan we started banning her from seeing her boyfriend until certain parts of application are written. It wasnāt going well. She is now wrapping up two week trip to Ireland with him and his family. They are very driven so Iām hopping it rubbed off. They toured UK colleges and that cracked me up. Even on vacation, she had to go on tours!
Once they get their license, life is so much easier for getting places, but less control over making them work.
D20 visiting Arcadia next summer! If anyone has any thoughts about your tours, do tell 
@carolinamom2boys how did you get all those fee waivers for DS16? Iām on my 3rd kid and just got the first one for URichmond for attending tour. Yey!!! Maybe my previous kiddos did not apply to schools that offer unless really high stats.
@cakeisgreat, I donāt know whether @carolinamom2boysās kid got fee waivers, or simply applied to schools without application fees.
(And hereās another one: Unless theyāve changed their fee policy during the past two years, Muhlenberg waives the app fee if the application is in by the first of November or December, I forget which. I think itās to encourage ED applications, but it applies to RD ones, too.)
We got fee waivers by visiting the colleges. They gave us a code to fill in on the application @cakeisgreat . DS16 also had provisonal acceptance to Clemson which came with a fee waiver code to use when he completed his official application. All of the schools do have a fee for applications.
Nice job on getting that many fee waivers. @carolinamom2boys! Weāve never had one give us for touring but have gotten them after interviews and some colleges did not have a fee.
Currently S19 has 2 waivers, one for a named award and the other as a legacy. Of his remaining schools perhaps 2 May offer but Iām not holding my breat. He dropped the one Early app waiver (apply before 11/1 and no fee).
Two is better than none!
Sometimes application fee waivers are in those piles of junk mail you receive from the schools. Sometimes the schools will give them just for asking.
We have been on a ton of tours this spring and summer and the only school who provided a fee waiver was High Point. The e-mail we received from PItt mentioned we will receive on for attending their Blue & Gold day next week.
Virginia has VA private college this week 7/23-7/28. Visit any 3 schools and receive 3 waivers for any participating schools.
http://www.cicv.org/our-colleges/virginia-private-college-week.aspx
S19 is actually filling out the tedious parts of the Common App while watching How I Met Your Mother (again). Heās occasionally shouting stuff at me, sighing and generally complaining as he navigates it but at least heās doing it. It was fun watching his eyes glaze over when he reached clicked on the essay prompts. I told him he gets to do it all over again with the Coalition app and solicited a loud groan.
Heās debating whether he should include classes like orchestra and jazz ensemble under activities - I really donāt know. Heās in no danger of running out of space, so it may be OK to list them there.
@eh1234 ā my D added a specific theatre course under Activities as she had a leadership role in the one act they performed, and their one act performance went through the state competition rounds where they ultimately won the state competition. If your DS has leadership roles related to the classes, I think it would be great to include under Activities.
Thanks @orangefish - thatās helpful. There are a few extras to add that go beyond the class so Iāll suggest that he look at it that way.
Am I missing something, or is there not a separate section for employment, service, etc.? I was worried he would have entire sections blank, but maybe it wonāt look as bad as I thought it would.
He doesnāt really have any individual honors so thatās already blank. He chose to put things like regional and district orchestra under activities. I guess he could include minor things like superior ratings at solo and ensemble festivals but that seems kind of petty. I think that our school probably has academic awards, but they donāt seem to give them to any kids in my particular family. 
@eh1234 ā employment and service all go under Activities. We had trouble figuring out how to order everything, so we went with a spreadsheet (with a big hat tip to @eandesmom !) so D19 could figure out how many characters she could fit in for the title as well as the description. Itās not so easy to figure out how to best use those precious 10 lines!
These are the ātypesā of activities that you can choose from. These fields are locked so everything has to fit into one of these buckets.
Academic
Art
Athletics: JV/Varsity
Athletics: Club
Career Oriented
Community Service (Volunteer)
Computer/Technology
Cultural
Dance
Debate/Speech
Environmental
Family Responsibilities
Foreign Exchange
Foreign Language
Internship
Journalism/Publication
Junior ROTC
LGBT
Music: Instrumental
Music: Vocal
Other
Religious
Research
Robotics
School Spirit
Science/Math
Social Justics
Student Govt/Politics
Theater/Drama
Work (Paid)
Other Club/Activity
D19 will receive a certificate of meritorious service for completing over 260 hours of SSL (Student Service Learning). Does this get included in activities section as one entry? There are numerous activities that contribute to the 260 hours. Just trying to figure out how to work everything in.
Yes, sometimes fee waivers are in the junk mail and junk email so definitely check all of those! And expect to get at least one for a school your child never expressed interest in and may never have even heard of!
@DCNatFan We listed it as one activity for my S17 (under the community service volunteer category), he received the presidential silver service medal for community service twice (250+ hours annually). The vast majority of the projects were related in type (theater tech and a/v stuff. However had the activities been really different or if we needed more activities weād likely have broken it out into more than one
Thanks @eandesmom. D16 didnāt use the Common App so Iām a newbie and I canāt really hover over S19 while he does it. He only put in a couple of placeholder activities for now. I like the idea of figuring out the order and wording in a separate document. If left to his own devices, heāll probably just write āplayed bassā all over the place without polishing it up a bit. Overall, itās not as bad as I thought it would be. Thereās some confusion over how to enter the two high school classes taken in middle school.
Just passing this on. Received brochure in the mail from Tulane today and there is no application fee if Tulane is on anyoneās radar.