CSS is painful.
At the risk of stating the obvious but for first-timers, do a spreadsheet with all your accounts and values so that in subsequent years you just have to update the numbers.
I’ll admit the first year I didn’t even have a handle on all the various accounts – some small 401-k never rolled over, etc. So just making sure we had everything captured was a big lift. Doing the CSS got us to consolidate some accounts and is now our big picture financial assessment.
CSS is the worst, but I agree a spreadsheet with all your financial info is helpful in any case! I’ve kept one for years just so I know our assets mainly because we’ve refinanced our property a few times and always need it but I update the spreadsheet weekly and found that for the Fafsa it then takes only a few mins to insert the values. Second go around for CSS we didn’t bother because I knew we wouldn’t qualify based on my ex husband and his wife but regardless the list of assets is helpful, also for retirement and estate planning in general. Being able to know someone will be able to know what assets there are will make things a lot easier when we kick the bucket since so many things/accounts now are basically only online! 
An SJSU admittance here today for D21. So, we’re 3-0 and feeling alright. None are the “majors”/UC’s, but all are solid schools.
I tell all of my friends not to visit CU Boulder unless they want their kids to go there. It’s so beautiful, and the town is so fun. The kids get sucked right in–and who can blame them?
S21 got his first in-state admission to UCSC today. We were not expecting a decision this soon but it is great to have an in-state option.
Congrats!
Me over here getting major CA parent FOMO vibes. LOL. My son didn’t apply to UCSC but some classmates got in for CS and robotics and English Lit?! And class valedictorian got into UCSB so happy for these boys. S21’s status is still pending. And then Cal Poly rolling out OOS admission. Ack. Our luck will be he will be waitlisted at all the schools.
Congratulations!
We’re still waiting for UCSC and SLO too.
Honestly, I’d consider a waitlist or two a win in this environment with the crazy amount of apps this year to the UC’s. I’m expecting waitlists and rejections. And hoping a couple acceptances are sprinkled in there too.
He just needs one on his list to hit :). We are lucky that all the CA schools are pretty solid. I’m grateful for that.
SLO OOS came out last night so in-state might come out today… a bit earlier than we thought.
Going to be a tense/exciting few weeks for those of us heavy on UC/CSUs
OOS have not all been released yet, though. (I vaguely recall it can take a few days.)
IIRC, two years ago it was an agonizing weeks long process. The acceptances came very slowly and then the waitlists and then finally those who were denied. We were lucky that time and heard early on that D19 was accepted. The wait for her friends was pretty awful as time went on.
Definitely frustrating when colleges release in unpredictable waves. It looks like SLO waitlists came out a week and a half or so after the first acceptances. That is an agonizingly long time to be checking email and the portal.
I agree, it’s been interesting to me how some colleges are very open and transparent about their decisions, release dates, procedures and others shroud it in mystery and cause a whole lot more stress than is really necessary.
Daughter got in SJSU for Software Engineering🎉
It was a good surprise after CPP redirection and CSULB rejection.
It’s going to be a roller coaster ride for next few weeks to hear back from other UCs/SLO.
Very stressful for her as she now refuses to check her portal and left it upon me to do so:(
if u dont mind me asking what was her gpa? I’m in the same boat as her, rejected from csulb and redirected from cpp, but just different in that I selected CS as my major.
I thought Michigan’s “waves” weren’t the best way to handle decisions, but SLO’s is worse, I think. A Michigan wave is one big dump. SLO does OOS acceptances, then instate acceptances, then waitlisted applicant’s and finally rejections at the end in that order. And there’s no big dump of the entirety of the wave either. The release of each batch takes place over hours, days and weeks. Excruciating!
I thought there was more “daylight” (time) between OOS acceptances and instate acceptances. Like weeks, not days. 
Her GPA was 3.92 if that helps…Good luck to you!
I’m glad I don’t have my D’s portal info. I’d be checking every 2 mins like one of these poor kids. And there’s a good chance, at some point in the process, I’d take a baseball bat to my computer(s).