Counselors do not send final transcripts at our school, the student request for it to be sent to the university via the online tool once they are loaded.
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Two different schools for my kids (smaller LACs) - both have transcripts due July 15th. Housing, medical, misc forms all have due dates ranging from June 20th to end of July. Both kids in ED - appears same process as RD deadlines except paid deposits in December.
Plenty of time for kids that could have double deposited to wait it out. No roommate matching or anything that calls for immediate action.
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Yes, @Creaky, same here. Most students with a double deposit would not inform the counselor voluntarily.
Right but double depositing is not allowed. They signed the common app. Itâs not just about the transcript
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Agree - but just making a point that families could do it and not notify their counselor with transcripts due later - at least in the case of my kids schools with no early deadlines.
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Iâm with you on this one. I have not heard of a single kid double depositing, and for what reason anyway? So someone can go visit a school? By now they have had that opportunity and schools are well underway with orientation and registration activities. Furthermore, every college counselor and expert out there has been wrong for the last year, including Selingo. You honestly canât trust what any of them are saying if you ask me.
Cornell just closed their waitlist for CAS students and gave only a few the guaranteed transfer options for sophomore yar. COE there hasnât let anyone in off their waitlist. SHA we know of 1, maybe some others. They did botch their rollout of financial aid, but I donât see people double depositing at this point as they get their housing assignments soon and are well underway with the process. No one on any board Iâm in outside of CC has mentioned double deposits, whether itâs a specific college or a general board. Also, very few if any are mentioning waitlists or having gotten off. Lastly, why would college counselors knowingly condone kids depositing at two schools? That is so wrong. Itâs only a matter of time before that process goes through common app, coalition or all synched together when colleges have that info available to them. Itâs too bad itâs not already happening because honestly, I donât care if youâre high income, low income, foreign, purple, etc. but no one has the right to hold two spots. This is the process we all go through and we all expect it to be fair for the students. I am so glad this is my last kid and we donât have to endure some of the things that kids out there are dealing with.
@havenoidea You did the right thing by not allowing your daughter to double deposit. She knew it wasnât the school for her. Simple as that. Your daughter is the one going to school, not the Lyft driver, not her friends, not you. Thatâs one thing a lot of people donât seem to understand. My husband and I loved Wash U when we visited, my son hated it. It wouldâve been a great fit for him, but he just didnât see himself there, so Xâd off that school. We canât live vicariously through our kids as much as weâd like to. We had our chance, now itâs theirs. Iâm sure your daughter will do fantastic at Barnard.
@STEM2017 My understanding is most schools where there were appeals didnât change the original FA package so donât lose sleep over that decision.
@homerdog Wholeheartedly agree with you. He doesnât know. As I said above, he too has been wrong this entire cycle. All of them have. I feel bad for the rising seniors because it might be a bigger sh*t show for them. My best advice to them is to apply to more schools, more targets, more safeties (schools people think were safeties this year were not) and apply early. get the virtual tours or in person, etc. Donât be stuck in December rushing to do it.
@momartist14 You and I are on the same page. âexpertsâ what a joke, right? I wonder how much money they made from people with all their promises. I even heard that big boarding schools like Choate where people pay thousands in hopes to get their kids into Ivies did crap this year relative to prior years. Imagine if that was you?
@Aguadecoco This is how it is done here as well. The kid requests the transcript to be sent on parchment, but it still is sent by the school. It canât be sent until the transcripts are finalized sometime in June. Not sure if they really keep track of more than one being sent or not. I know my daughter forgot to send hers and Cornell had emailed her about it and she had to track down her counselor to get it taken care of in August. He was out of the country and fortunately responded to her on his vacation. 
I donât think school did a great job back then in informing them what needed to be done. Now theyâre much better.
As far as AP Exams, I heard that UCB sent emails to students that if they reported on their applications that they were taking an AP Exam and then didnât take it, their offers either would or might be rescinded. I canât remember if it was a definite.
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The point is to consider Selingoâs source (high school counselors). Counselors wouldnât know whether a student is double depositing or not. And considering the perception that itâs verboten, a student or parents wouldnât likely inform the high school counselor.
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The Twitter counselors were like âI wouldnât be surprised ifâ or âI know some others areâ. IMHO they know itâs going on.
@srparent15 I agree with you and not some experts Iâve been hearing that the juniors should apply early round (ED if possible) and very broadly otherwise. Even though they are able to travel more freely there is still a ton of uncertainty involved with their cycle. Easily could be again that students canât reliably count on likely and match labels / 2019 stats.
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Lesson learned from this admissions round: there are no experts (other than a few of you parents on this thread who have lived through it!).
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So glad we did not pay a professional counselor for a ride on the â21 rollercoaster. We have friends who paid $5k. I made a few mistakes probably serving as Sâ counselor but since he applied so broadly and worked the Essay Guy workshop (free) it turned out ok.
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Wow, 5k is a lot of money. What kind of services did they provide for that fee?
I think they mainly sat on the kid to do the app work. Essay review. Not really sure.
5k? Where we live some suckers pay 20k and these are not kids even trying to go to Ivies.
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In our area, $5,000 is certainly not unheard of, sometimes more, sometimes less. Often these private college counselors will only take students as freshman and walk them course selections during HS, EC selection, scholarship applications, essay review, college selection based upon interests and family budget, college app process, of course, even offering potentially inside(r) knowledge of one or more institutions, career guidance, etc. Test prep would likely add more. Also, help/guidance with the athletic recruiting process/offers.
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Oh yes, I forgot how many people sign up for these counselors as freshman or even during 8th grade. Itâs crazy. The only thing we ever paid for is someone to review their essays and ACT prep - my son went maybe 5x for that. My girls went together for ACT prep and my oldest didnât even go. Never used a college counselor otherwise, did the research ourselves. Also, never used a tutor for anything in high school for any subject. I think I said this yesterday, but my daughter just told me how many kids are paying people to take their tests. She knows someone who made $200 taking a math test! And it wasnât even as high as Calculus. Ridiculous. A sorority sister of hers who is a freshman has had people pay her to write their essays for grad school and two have gotten into Columbia.
Until recently, I had no idea that so many people used tutors in high school academic subjects. I always felt if you needed a tutor in AP or Honors classes then you didnât belong in them. If you needed a tutor in a standard class then itâs because you really didnât understand that material but had to stick it out. I never wouldâve even considering using a tutor, so I guess it worked out ok for my kids, lol. Theyâre self sufficient and can do work on their own and for the most part feel secure about it. Wow, what a novel idea.
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Kids are tutored up here in all subjects. Our kids had none. Not bragging but just saying that itâs very uncommon to be in the top ten percent having never used a tutor. D is friends with half of the top 2 percent and all of them had math and science tutors all four years. Some had tutors for other subjects too
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That seems like a lot of pressure on the kid.
We have a few test prep and academic tutoring businesses located nearby. They do a great business until late in the evening.
While there are kids who are struggling in subjects and there are some who have advanced into DE courses at our local community colleges.
Other reasons vary for academic tutors, including learning disabilities, bad teachers, and more recently with Zoom learning, some students struggled with remote learning.
Not every student is a 4.0 student. HS students with Câs can maybe improve to an B, or Bâs to Aâs, etc.
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Thatâs wild to me. D21 is in the top 5% of her class of 533 (very good suburban school) and also never had a tutor, nor did her friends, two of whom are the valedictorian and salutatorian and going to MIT and Barnard. They did, however, all tutor others to meet community service and NHS requirements.
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Just a different world maybe? I donât know any family that paid for college counseling of any kind, nor outside tutors for any high school classes. Some kids got extra help from teachers if needed, for free. My daughter tutored other students at the community college where she did DE for awhile, but that was also free and set up by the professor. My younger daughter could have absolutely used math tutoring, but when I looked into it the prices were so high that we tabled it.
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