I think it was a hard decision to take a gap year for this last fall but less so now. I don’t see a big downside unless your student has merit aid that won’t allow for a break. It’s easier now because kids know friends who took a break and it’s not like their worlds fell apart. Gap years were a thing even before Covid and they serve a lot of kids well.
That is super fantastic news!! Congratulations to her!
When Amherst didn’t bring back the Juniors & Seniors this past Fall to campus, they specifically asked them to please not rent homes in the area since campus would be closed to them anyway. They asked them to wait for their turn to return in the Spring. D21 and friends rented in another state and had a wonderful experience. The kids were safe and had each other, which helped soothe the sting of not being on campus. My hope is that this won’t happen again next Fall, but now you have me thinking as Amherst could decide to do it the same way again, leaving my then Senior home for half the year 
As for D21, she will go to Williams come heck or high water. I encouraged gap years for both D18 and D21 at various times and they looked at me like I had lost my mind 
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Yes, Rice campus is open to the public. I live a 5 min walk and there is open access everyday. Please let me know if you have any questions about Houston or Rice campus.
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Texas Tech will always be defined for me by that giant lazy river. It’s great for social distancing, too - every kid floating in their individual tube - so let’s hope that one is happening!
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Do you all think that AOs work this week? D sent a couple of us emails and received auto messages saying they were out of the office but I find it hard to believe they aren’t reading for two whole weeks. Maybe just not replying to email?
Sent you a message. 
I think they are not replying to email till Jan 4.
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S21 going to add a couple of new school apps this weekend. If school documents have already been submitted to CA via Naviance or whatever, will these automatically be also submitted to these newly added schools as they were to the others?
I think the procedure is a little different for every high school, with variations on what the high school prefers. At our school, in the past, the high school counseling office had to do something electronically to submit the school documents to a new school, and students are still supposed to email the counselor when they apply to new schools. However, I’m not sure that’s still the actual procedure - my kid added schools to the Common App over break, the schools showed up in Naviance maybe a day later (via matching, I assume) and some time after that, the school documents were submitted. In the Naviance list, the school documents say “pending” at first, and then later “initial documents submitted” after the documents show in the Common App. Maybe Naviance notifies the counselor when schools are added, who knows, or maybe they have something automatic set up.
I would go ahead and add the schools in the Common App and then see what happens within a couple of days, maybe giving additional leeway for the holiday weekend.
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Thanks. He did add to CA and on the dashboard can see the recs and etc as submitted back in mid Nov. even for the new schools. After he submits his app, I’ll have him update counselor. A few days isn’t going to matter. Counselor needs to know anyway. Not sure how the college counseling office reacts to these renegade last minute apps 
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Not at our school. One has to request each college receive the documents. And I believe that ship has sailed for most kids since GCs are off for break and a lot of deadlines are before we go back to school.
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Most colleges allow a few days lag for HS docs. Our HS admins are back at work this week anyway so shouldn’t be an issue.
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that’s good. I think our GC would be so annoyed with us if we added more now. They really try to get that list solid by Oct at the latest. D added a few schools late November and the GC added her docs right away but we got the impression she wanted that to be our last pass. Lol.
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Some schools they must be because UT-Austin had a wave yesterday. Go figure.
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At our schools, we order transcripts online from a third party vendor, the recs are uploaded to common app by the teachers and GC the first time and then you just send them out to all the schools on your list. Our guidance counselors do not meet with kids to discuss college and I have to assume they just send some template letter of rec since they don’t know the kids.
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At our school the transcript is uploaded at the same time the counselor rec is and school report so if it was all done in October it’s the same now no matter how many schools you apply to. Then for schools that need mid year reports kids have to go to parchment and mark it and then those get sent once the grades are in at the end of January. It’s really not a lot of extra work, especially since it’s all electronic and unlikely it’s done by the counselors anyway but someone in the school registrar office.
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I’m sure they prefer not to have last minute additions, but I suspect it’s fairly common. I think if this were a massive public school with overworked GCs, then I’d ask first.
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It’s also their job. This year especially, they have no business complaining.
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My D submitted a last minute app & emailed her GC. We didn’t expect an answer til next week but she sent it right away.
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