I know one of the schools my S21 is applying to required an additional essay if you went test optional. I can’t recall now if it was JMU or UDel. He has good SAT scores so I did not retain that info 
My S21 also is not playing the prestige game, mainly a financial decision since he wants to keep the cost down so he can keep some of his college fund for grad school! I do think he’s susceptible to some of the peer chatter and that’s why UVA ended up on his list. That’s the only reach he’s applying to but his GPA (4.1) is below the 25th percentile for admitted students from our school. So even though he has high test score, no way IMO that he gets in. He had never expressed any interest in it before it popped up on his list and we hadn’t visited so won’t be a big loss when he does not get in.
One nice thing I’ve found about this whole process as been getting to read his writing. S21 is not a very communicative kid and it’s hard to know these days what gets him excited, what he’s interested in (other than xbox). But through his supplements I’ve learned that the community most important to him is our church, he is inspired by the music of Kendrick Lamar, he loves building sets for the school musical and working to learn the guitar music he plays for the preschoolers at our church, and his dream job would be data analytics for ESPN and he spends free time playing around with soccer league stats analysis.
@JESmom Reading the supplemental essays has been great. S21 is one not to talk much also, so I have gotten to learn more about him during this process
Hail Mary score is back and it’s a 33! - good enough to create more reach essay writing. 
D21 got official letter from Bama with 28K per year scholarship. She could go to Bama tuition room and board for about 17K a year. I am getting lets of push back from wife and parents about her going that far away and the northern bias against Alabama…but to go to a big public university with great school spirit, a beautiful campus and great weather… for about 20K a year less than our PA state schools seems like a great deal. Especially for someone who wants to go to medical school or nurse practioner school.
@burghdad What did your family think of your older D going to Clemson? Same thing? Alabama is pretty popular here in Illinois. The kids we know there (all female) say that, for better or worse, they are hanging out mostly with kids from northern states. The ones in sororities say that they pledged houses that are majority northern kids. Sounds like there must be a decent number of kids from the NE and Midwest there!
Also, how does D21 feel about it? $20k/year is obviously a ton of money but you want her on board!
@NateandAllisMom
That’s a great ACT score! Congtrats on your S.
I, too, was surprised ago see the essays for UW. I remember the diversity one, also a hard topic for my S, but I don’t remember a second introspective one. Will have to go back and look and see whether there is time for my S to do that app by 11/15. He still needs to do Boulder and one U of A honors.
Hi Parents! Last question on the common app for me, I hope!!
My son is cutting and pasting what he wrote into the writing section. There’s no paraphrase indentation so he’s adding a line between paragraphs. When he does this, it looks like it’s double spaced. But if he takes out the extra line, the preview then looks like it’s only single space. Net, do you add the space between paragraph in the text box and have it look double spaced in the preview or do you take it out? Thanks!!
D21 took out the space so it looked normal in the preview.
I don’t know if that is what everyone is supposed to do, but that is what made sense to her, so if your son does that then know at least one other applicant out there did the same thing. 
School day SAT finally happening here. D21 not taking it as she’s using her ACT score for apps. But this is the only SAT for some kids. Also got email from the school registrar that all transcripts will be uploaded to Naviance and sent on Wednesday. Nothing can go wrong, right? ?. The school has also set an arbitrary November 1st deadline for “all college apps due” which is mildly insane and D21 will be later than that for a few. She has four more to work on this weekend, all with short answers and some of the more competitive schools. 12/1 is the hard deadline in this house due to earlier merit deadlines for USC and BU.
I can’t remember what D21 did with the spacing on the common app but it looked OK. Apply Texas had a similar issue and some of the submissions looked weird. I don’t think it will count against them.
@NateandAllisMom congrats on the ACT and @burghdad congrats on the Bama offer! We are in TX but northerners at heart… Bama scholarships are hard to pass up!
School day SAT is today for us as well. S21 is so relieved that this is the last time he will ever have to deal with this test lol.
Big ice storm, cancelling school/work is allowing D and I to stay home and binge Queen’s Gambit. Already have chili in crock pot. You can bet I am drinking every minute up of today.
@NateandAllisMom congrats on the great score!!!
@NateandAllisMom congrats on the Hail Mary score - glad it finally came and was worth the wait.
S21 made sure the spacing on the personal statement looked right in the pdf preview and didn’t worry about how it looked when pasting it in. The Common App definitely seems to add spacing between paragraphs all on its own. I’ve known some people who’ve struggled to get it to disappear.
@TVBingeWatcher2 you got my attention with ice storm and chili in Texas in October! Enjoy.
Haven’t been posting much, but D21 is just about done with apps. I’m proofing her Syracuse interest statement and I think that’s her last app. She does have more essays for honors colleges and scholarships.
So far she’s in at Susquehanna with $37k in merit, ECU and WVU (waiting on merit and honors college).
Good luck to everyone!
@homerdog. The family did not have a problem with Clemson. There is just a much more inherent bias against Alabama. With D21 is it a work in progress. I have a trip planned for November 10 when they have special nursing school program. Hopefully an in person trip will get her more interested. She just needs to see that in reality Bama is not really that much different than the other schools she is applying to like Clemson, UDel, UMD, VT, Wisconsin, Miama etc. All decent sized public universities.
We had the same dilemma and also went with removing the line so it looked correct in the preview. When did writing shift from indentation to line spacing to denote paragraphs??
@burghdad It’s hard. I get it. My H really wanted S19 to consider the schools more that gave him merit. March was a rough month in 2019 when the final decision had to be made.
It’s going to happen again here. I just know it. If D gets into some schools with decent merit, we will definitely consider them. That’s why I insisted all of her safeties offer merit. Until we see the acceptances in their entirety, it’s not possible to start comparing!
I hope your D likes Alabama to at least keep it in the running!
@TVBingeWatcher2 I’m glad that we don’t have to add snow days to the long list of things the pandemic has taken away! I was just thinking about this the other day as my kid has been wholly online since the beginning of the school year. No reason to have a snow day on Zoom (insert sad face here).
@mamaedefamilia , we have 3 school districts within the city limits. All 3 are in person with virtual option. 2 of them had snow days and the other required a virtual day. So not fair for those kids!