I have a friend who posted on FB every school that her kid got accepted to - which seemed a bit much to me. I did post that my kid had submitted his first app - but I didn’t say where. It’s likely I’m only going to post his final school when this is over in December or April/May.
I have read that it’s not a great idea to post acceptances like that. Most of my friends with older kids just seem to post once when they have committed somewhere.
@BmacNJ Having a parent who is USHispanic would qualify your daughter as USH. This is how many organizations qualify demographics. It would not be contested. Your wife’s and yours cultural sides make up who your daughter is 
Well, we put D21’s list of colleges on the Common App and took a look through the supplements. Only surprise is that there is no Why Wake Forest question. I could have sworn I saw it on this year’s app that they posted a few weeks ago but nope.
I look at her list now that it’s all in one spot and I still feel nauseous about safeties. Her safer choices are either in CA (Santa Clara, LMU) or Denison (a school she has not visited and does lack some stuff she wanted). I’m really jealous of those of you who have kids who are cool with (or love!) big schools. I don’t think I can get her to seriously consider Miami. Some of the kids who are going there from our school this year are seriously bad students. They just are. Honors Program not swaying her as I know kids in there too who are honestly pretty average from our high school. Using a big school for a safety is perfect because there would obviously be bright kids at any big school but she just does not seem interested. Plus, I think any big university is going to be a hard sell to H anyway if it’s not UIUC where she refuses to apply.
S19 had a hard time with this too. I need to go back to the drawing board again.
@homerdog This won’t help you, but one of mine might start with LUC rolling as a safety. I’m with you on safer is not quite safety and in spite of the acceptance rate, the SCU scattergram includes some heartburn. Cross your fingers for EA and have those hopefully locked up before RD, I guess.
If a more-safe mid-size Jesuit might be of interest, there’s also Gonzaga, though with weird deadlines, RD Dec 1 and “late” deadline Feb 1. The nice thing about the late deadline option is that it can stay in the back pocket unless needed, though it wouldn’t be surprising if that impacted merit opportunities. I keep bumping into schools with earlier deadlines for merit, always before mid-Dec EA/ED results.
Not sure if this is what you were thinking about, but in the “Questions - Contacts” section on the Wake Common App it does have the question:
“How did you become interested in Wake Forest University? Feel free to tell us about any contact that you had with Wake Forest that was important to you. (150 words)”
One of my S21’s schools does not require an essay, but says if you want to submit an essay, you can. The school uses the Common App. I was thinking he would feel good to get one application submitted now, but do you think he should submit the Common App essay for this school even though it’s essay optional? The essay is going to take awhile, so he won’t be able to complete most of his essays right away.
I don’t want to rehash
I don’t want to rehash schools that have been talked about and fell off the list, but because you are back to the drawing board for highly likely/safeties (if UIUC doesn’t suffice and MOhio is off the list), how about Pitt (rolling), Dickinson, or Franklin and Marshall?
Gonzaga was suggested by a friend on mine who lives in CA. I"ll take a peek. I like that late deadline too. I don’t know about Loyola. She knows some pretty impressive kids there for sure - all premed. I’ll take a closer look. 
Thanks! I thought we checked every single section but missed that!
@Mwfan1921 Thanks. I’ll look at all three!
@homerdog Can you approach it sideways? Look beyond ACT/SAT & gpa for something else that would make her happy for the next four years and then attach a school to it? Is there a city she would love to live in? A unique major somewhere that isn’t available at her current list? Some kind of element of campus life (activity or study abroad opportunity or internship requirement or something) that would be right up her alley?
Kind of a “well, worst case scenario, you’ll be in Honolulu, right?” Not that that’s a practical choice, but the same idea
That’s an interesting approach I haven’t thought of. D21 has a safety she doesn’t really like. Maybe we can slide into a better one this way.
Walked the dog with my S today. His school is switching to block schedule for first time b/c of being remote, and some of his friends and toying with the idea of graduating in Jan. and immediately somehow starting college next semester. So they’d somehow apply this Fall for Spring 2021?!
Is that a thing one can do? His buddies seem to think b/c of the COVID mess there will be slots and colleges may take them.
Like my S, these kids only have 1 or 2 required classes to graduate and are mostly taking APs to fill out their schedules. The principal mentioned seniors could graduate early in a communication – could it be they are trying to de-densify the school for next semester by encouraging some kids to finish early?
Is this a thing? The timing is a little dicey to me – first semester HS ends around Jan. 15 which is when most colleges start up again, right? They wouldn’t have even taken their AP tests yet so how would that work in terms of getting course credit?
Of course, things will still be crazy in Jan at colleges so I don’t know why this is attractive to kids. Maybe just b/c they’re tired of being stuck at home? And b/c they know the whole semester is remote this feels like an escape plan – after feeling stuck all year they could move on in Jan. I get the appeal of that.
Anyone heard of anything like this?? Is it even a realistic option? Maybe just for big publics? Curious if you have any insights!
@AlmostThere2018 That’s a big topic circulating on the '21 FB group in my town. Nobody has an answer, but I don’t see that working for any selective schools who would want to see a full transcript of senior year courses still showing rigor, and not graduating with the minimum. No clue, really though. Kids here aren’t interested in college in the Spring- just being done with HS early since we are all virtual through January.
@Rue4 – it seems like graduating in Jan and taking a gap semester is more feasible – but I agree that colleges may not view that favorably from an admissions standpoint b/c they’d inevitably lose rigor on their transcript.
These are very good students talking about it, mostly pre-engineering like my S. But it might just be fantasy. . .
Very interesting to me that it’s being discussed in other places. These poor kids are just done with HS it appears.
@AlmostThere2018 Could they apply for dual enrollment in your state or could he take all APs-a lot cheaper than starting college in most cases.
@1Lotus - We have dual enrollment but it only works if you haven’t graduated HS yet. These kids would be taking all APs in the Spring; I think they’d just rather be in college (but not a community college) in the Spring.
My son is one those that theoretically could graduate in December when our semester ends. We are also on accelerated block schedule…only 4 classes a semester and he literally only needs four more credits to fulfill graduation. He thought about it for a split second but decided that he wants to finish out his senior year as normal as possible, including marching band. He will have a Senior Off period and an elective each semester so his schedule will most likely look like this (schedules will be released next week)
Fall:
Eng 4 Dual Credit
PreAp Physics
Band
Debate 2
Spring:
AP Calc AB
Dual Credit Gov’t/Dual Credit Econ (each class is only 9 weeks)
Band
Senior Off (no 4th period, he’ll leave school and be done around 2:00 each day)
I know kids who have graduated early in December but no one that went into college directly for Spring semester…most took a gap and worked.
Has
absolutely. Why do you think Loyola Marymount is on the list? Lol. You guys need to do a quick search and see it is on a bluff overlooking the beach! But this is a good point and I should use this strategy to find others. Great idea!