Parents of the HS Class of 2020 (Part 1)

D20 was also accepted to UofM in LSA. She has opted for RC which has a large arts component and guaranteed on campus housing for first two years. RC may be something your D would be interested in.

I wish I had found this tread ages ago, so much good information.

D20 applied EA or rolling at 4 schools. Deferred UChicago, Admit UofM, Michigan State, and Wayne State. No Financial Aid (loans only), 5k/yr at Wayne so far
 She was invited to honors college at MSU and for the Scholars weekend, hopefully get some merit awards from that. UM she was invited to honors and to apply for the LEAN Alumni Scholarships
she just sent that in last night, should know mid Feb.

She has 3 left for RD, all use the common app so that helps. All three are reach schools and only give financial based awards. Although, we will get partial grants so total cost will be closer than we originally thought if she doesn’t end up getting merit or alumni in state.

We spent last Spring Break driving out east and hit 10 schools on a loop
we went from Buffalo around through Boston, New York, Phili. She was able to eliminate several schools from her list, so it was worth it. She was dead set on going OOS for school, until she saw the price tag. After visiting Ann Arbor, she realized she can go to a top 20ish university an hour from home for a quarter of the price. She also took summer classes at Brown and was there long enough for the “shine” to wear off (8 weeks.) After visiting UofM, she commented on how trashy the dorms at Brown were
especially for how much it cost.

Yes, correct. In our case it was $2600/yr.

Not necessarily. It depends on the school. Many schools do not charge a second global fee for student health center. For example, the fees I listed in post #8842 is for someone who does not pay anything to the university for either health insurance or for the global fee for the student health center. We 100% opt out of any health coverage through the university yet my student can still walk into student health services on campus and pay those fees to be seen.

Re: College medical fees. I called the health services at the college my kids decided to go to before I decided what to do about insurance. The person in charge explained everything to me in detail (including fees and what I would be responsible for) and really helped me make my decision regarding keeping them on my insurance and not taking the school insurance. I suggest calling the school once they commit. There are so many things I didn’t know to consider. It was a 20 minute conversation that was well worth it. Just my 2 cents.

Regarding health insurance, we kept our S18 on our insurance and therefore did not have to pay the $2K+ school coverage costs. He has long term mental health needs, so this means he needs to come home to see his psychiatrist (rather than setting up a new psychiatrist), which I was initially unhappy about, but it has turned out to be good because the psychiatrist knows him well and works closely with me if needed, as well. I would recommend anyone whose kids have mental health issues put some extra thought into how to handle unplanned incidents and medication refills.

Our numbers look like those of @beebee3 
 super high premiums, super high deductibles, etc. Health care cost are at least 25% of gross income (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on health of the family). I have been looking forward to getting my kids on college insurance to probably save money. BUT 
 this conversation led me to read about it on my D’s top choice school 
 they don’t even offer it. They refer you to the Marketplace if you need insurance. Rats!

@onemoremom12 wow, that’s one I haven’t seen before!

How would that work for international students since they can’t get insurance off the marketplace?

Stupid question time from a Common App newbie:

Guidance Counselor uploaded D20’s midyear report (1st semester senior year grades) on Common App and Coalition today. Since the apps were already submitted and downloaded by the schools back in December, will the schools automatically receive the new transcript, or does she need to contact each school to let them know they’re there?

@AlwaysLearn The schools will know the updates are there. Our high school does the same thing. I imagine most schools do the same thing.

What is generally the best way to submit an additional recommendation letter after a deferral? Can a school guidance counselor send it by email on the student’s behalf?

Submit via the portal or link, based on what the school specifies.
I don’t think GC needs to send anything unless it is their rec.

Generally through the application portal - assuming that college allow submitting additional recommendation. Many schools specifically say that they don’t need additional recommendation, then its advisable not to send one (was told by our GC that not following instructions can only irritate them).

I think schools must get notified when new info is uploaded to commonapp. A similar thing happened to my daughter with teacher recommendations as well as quarter grades @AlwaysLearn The apps were downloaded and then the teacher recommendation wasn’t done for a week or two later, but they colleges all downloaded within a day or two after it was finally complete.

@hs2020dad I am confused. I thought students were not supposed to see their own letters of rec per FERPA. Do students really take an additional letters of rec from a teacher and submit it through their own portal?

@Octagon - sorry, I wasn’t clear. One of the school that deferred son has a link on the portal with a mechanism to send that info to recommender so they can upload directly (student still don’t have access to the letter). I was just affirming that we should follow instructions on the portal or the deferral letter.

The other school that deferred him said explicitly that additional recommendations are not needed or will not be looked into (don’t remember the exact language).

Okay thanks @hs2020 dad. I didn’t know that was possible but that makes sense.

One of our schools specifically states to only submit additional items via the portal. Sending an email delays it reaching the student’s file, as the AOs are busy reading files and it takes time to download the item from each email and match it to a student to upload the items for them.

With three days to spare, daughter submitted her presidential scholarship application for one of the smaller schools that she has been accepted to. Spent many many hours creating a website to showcase various achievements from her junior and senior year. She did a little happy dance after hitting submit. Felt so good to have that done with! Very long shot to get it, but had to at least try.

Now onto applications for Girl Scout scholarships and a Women in Leadership application for the same school that she finished the presidential for. But she can take a couple days off before tacking them :-). Though not much more than that as the Girl Scout applications are due by the end of the month. I think I’m as ready to be done with this application stuff as she is!

A question about deferral and letter of continued interest: DS20 was about to send the LOCI to a college that he deferred from - he just received an email informing that he is a candidate for presidential scholar. Is it worth mentioning this in the letter - he has nothing much to update in terms of awards/prizes - nothing new from the time he spent the original app in Nov. Wondering if this is considered as a worthy achievement to write it in a LOCI? I think the nomination is based on his test score which is already there with college.

I am encouraging him to add that info but he is reluctant. For now, managed to convince him to postpone sending it for a day and decide tomorrow. Any advice will be helpful. tia.