@TVBingeWatcher2 The EBRW is 720. We’d already decided -with help from this thread!- he’d report both the SAT and the ACT 35 composite.
He took the next ACT hoping for a 36 - we’d already signed up and they wouldn’t refund our $ - but ended up with a 33, though his math went up to 35. So, based on what you’re saying, follow my gut and throw that 33 away!
Thank you!!
@havenoidea so if I understand your situation you have a 1520 SAT with an 800 M for an engineering applicant and a 35 ACT composite with a 34M and a second composite ACT with 33 but a 35M on that composite.
If that is a correct understanding, you have good problems to have as those scores are outstanding. I guess I would agree with @TVBingeWatcher2 the 1520 SAT with an 800M is the only score I would submit.
@Rue4 He’s an Econ professor with the sweetest rescue dog. Professor-led mini-tours should be a thing. D is aiming to finish Richmond’s supplemental essay and apply EA.
Good morning! Less tan two weeks away form the November 1st deadlines and we are still working on getting essays done over here. After all of the talk about UNC D21 decided to drop it from her list at the last minute. She would have had to get all three essays done in one weekend so she knew they wouldn’t be great anyway. Then she found out which of her friends were also applying, these were tippy top kids including two National Merit Finalists so she decided it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t seem too sad about it so that’s good!
She was a bit sad that her SAT scores did not go up, she wasn’t surprised because she did not put much effort into them but it still stung. As of right now most of her schools are safety or matches though so there are only two schools she will go test optional.
Last night she had her three close friends over to work on homework and college stuff together. I have been trying to help the girls as their parents don’t have any experience with this yet and they all think I am an expert because of CC! 
D21 is done except for the writing, still only has a partial draft of the main essay and a few bits here and there for supplementals. It is making me very nervous but I know she will get it done.
Had a good weekend catching up on some essay editing other hanging application tasks. S has 2.5 supps to write for his EAs but two are due 11/1. He seems burnt out on college essays but the family plan is to spray, especially with early targets. Happily we discovered a rolling admissions college on the list had only a challenge essay he could recycle - finally!
So S has 2 EA apps in (one acceptance), 4 done and on hold for the ACT score, and 3 to complete by next weekend. 11/1 UC app is in pretty good shape but their activity descriptions are much longer than CA so will require some work and reflection. Cal Poly is almost done. UW Coalition app not started.
If he doesn’t do well on his hail Mary short-notice 10/6 ACT, will probably only do 2 high reaches for December RA. ACT has given conflicting answers about how the results will be delivered. Hopefully we should hear by the end of the month but maybe not in time to knock out a couple of safety honors essays unfortunately. If he does well on the ACT, we are more likely to stretch the reaches so he might be able to go to a heavy Covid testing private school in person next fall OOS.
Congrats to the kids who improved scores on recent testing or finished the bulk of their apps! This is a tough year but you just have to keep on plugging away.
Does anyone have a November 1 deadline (for EA or ED) coming up? Our DD’s current fave school has an EA deadline on that date, but she’s pretty much ready. Her essay needs a little tightening and her HS guidance counselor has been great in walking her through the Naviance/Common App issues.
One question, and sorry if this has been discussed already: Was anyone else recommended to waive the right to see their recommendations (FERPA waiver)? DD’s GC strongly recommended she waive that right, his reasoning being that admins would take her teachers’ & GC’s recommendations more seriously.
Any thoughts on this?
@Muad_dib Yes, waive FERPA. (I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone not waiving FERPA.)
With the deadlines coming up, the next few weeks should be… interesting, to put a positive spin on it.
I saw this re: UGA. I’m hoping that they are still able to get decisions out around Thanksgiving again this year. That’s a lot more to go through, especially with 50% not including scores. I’ll also be interested to see how this effects the Foundation Fellows apps since those seems historically tied (on of the factors) to high test scores.
Yes, to waiving FERPA.
EA deadlines are tough! My S had one 10/15 EA deadline and has SEVEN more on 11/1 ! He’s submitted two, is mostly done with supplementals for another three, and plans to submit two of those apps this Wednesday. Still needs to finish (ahem . . . start!) his supplementals for the final three!
Plus these past two weeks have been end of the quarter so some big tests/assignments. Phew. He’s hoping with a new quarter starting his course workload will be a little lighter and he can make the final push. I need more wine in the house. . .
Good luck to all over the next two weeks.
@AlmostThere2018 I think you are frontloaded as well. Wish we could meet up for a glass of wine! Hope both boys get those last three supps done EA in a comfortable period of time. S has tests coming up this week in his harder APs.
My S is going to be seriously burnt out on college stuff by December but it will be worth if he has a lot of great choices in the spring. If I trusted the UCs more, it would have been much easier - sigh.
@3SailAway Ok- that’s totally my friend’s husband! Her daughter that just graduated from UR and my D danced together. Now she’s at Harvard for her masters. Small world! They are an awesome family! My D will also apply EA to UR. She knows the campus well, but may we should ask for a private tour too 
I am also the local “expert.” I guess that’s a positive for D, because she probably isn’t competing against anyone from her school that has a clue what they are doing. She is getting advice from a classmate who has a brother at Yale. It is not good advice, and fortunately she is still listening to me and not him.
D has a few very rough drafts of her CA essay. I say a few because none of them are fleshed out enough to be considered a real draft so they are all still in the running. She has 3 schools with 11/1 deadlines. She really is great at working under pressure. However, now is the time for that, not mid next week please!
Really her essays are all kind of telling the same underlying story about herself and her personality, but with a different chassis. The one she likes is pretty quirky, if it works it will be memorable but I have my doubts. I guess I will know more in a week. Thus far she has not found a way to tie it all together.
I need to go grab some Tums. You might want to buy stock in them, I will probably consume enough over the next 30 days to drive the price up.
@Muad_dib and @AlmostThere2018 Yes, we have a few 11/1 and 11/15 EA deadlines looming. Common App is done and school counselor has reviewed it and given the two thumbs up. Now there are just those supplementals. Inside I’m thinking “please… work… faster. Submit something… Anything…” While projecting serenity outward to the world, I hope!
@mamaedefamilia – Seriously! For a couple colleges not so high on his list, I think my S could easily re-purpose some essays. They may not be exactly aligned to prompt but they are well written and, most importantly, they are DONE! So far he’s not taking this advice, lol! Granted, I’m not sure it’s the best advice, but it’d alleviate some stress all around for sure!
@AlmostThere2018 My S must be the complete opposite of your S. For a college high on his list, he just pasted the same supplement he used for another app in. Only problem was it didn’t ask exactly the same question! Luckily, he hadn’t sent it. I told the kids since we’re paying for the apps, let me know before you hit send!
@mamaedefamilia @AlmostThere2018 I will tell you what I want to tell D right now. I can’t tell her again, or I’m pretty sure I will wake up in the middle of the night flailing with her holding a pillow over my face.
Just.
Get.
It.
Done.
Already!
I may have already told her this once or twice. Or once or twice a day for the last 6 months.
With these EA deadlines coming up, it sounds as if everyone is making some progress. I don’t think my kid works as well/quickly under pressure as some others’ kids on this thread (could be a bad sign for college ?), so I’m glad that he was able to do a lot of work this summer (and he’s not applying to the most selective schools, so I think his number of supplemental essays was likely on the somewhat low end…he had a total of 8 supplementals to write, and 3, I think, were pretty similar - expanding on an extracurricular - though the word counts on those 3 were different, so he still had to do some tweaking.
I think I’ve definitely been the one more stressed than he has been of late because, as a homeschooling parent, I had extra tasks to complete and was waiting on info I needed from one of his teachers and was therefore unable to get my paperwork done. That finally all came together midweek last week, so he was able to hit submit on the bulk of his applications. Then, after he hit submit, I had a panic moment thinking we may have missed something - went back to see if he had pasted a “Why Wooster” essay into “Why Kalamazoo” by mistake (thankfully, no) or if he had forgotten to assign his two teacher recommendation letters to all of his schools (thankfully, no).
He’ll be down to the wire on his final EA submission because he’s waiting on a webinar for some more info to add to his Why Us essay for that one (campus visit cancelled back in March so he’s trying to get enough detail from the various webinars). And then 2 RD applications that are both reaches for him.
Meanwhile, I’m still struggling with CB over CSS/IDOC (I got FAFSA, CSS, and IDOC done late last week, but we had a glitch with IDOC - they claimed they would email two documents to us that needed e-signatures, but they only ever emailed one of them). I tried to contact them today but gave up after waiting a while and will have to get back to that at some point.
S21’s first response is expected, I think, by the end of this month (the school said they were going to give answers within 2 weeks if an application was submitted by Nov 1st…this is different than in years past). Fingers crossed that one is an acceptance so that he can breathe a sigh of relief as he then hurries up to wait for more responses anywhere from late November onward. The first one he’s going to hear from (Knox) isn’t a top choice for him as of right now, but he does think he could be very happy there (he prefers other locations…beyond that issue, there’s a lot he likes about Knox). That visit was also cancelled, of course (May), so he hasn’t actually experienced the location (and seems fine with other middle-of-nowhere-ish locations).
Good luck to all getting through the stress of this press towards EA and ED deadlines!
This thread should be renamed “2021 parenting group therapy” :
I love and am struck by how our collective anxiety is being reflected on these boards in greater frequency the last couple weeks. Our anxiety likely parallels that of our kids but we just don’t “see” it but no doubt, they feel it.
I’m glad we are here and can commiserate!!
I am somewhat ashamed to admit I just went online to check out which of D21 schools have honors college applications that are separate from the regular applications and the due dates for those applications. So now that she had completed 8 of 11 applications I now have to go back and make sure she gets the honors college applications in as well.
@burghdad - No shame in that. It’s all good!! We want our darlings to have successful nest departures!