Stupid Admissions Mistakes

Parents Forum
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<p>I have been reading on this forum for <em>3 years</em>. I know the drill. What I don't know is how everything turned into such chaos at the last minute. I thought I'd share the dumbest thing I did and invite you to share yours. :-)</p>

<p>My S is homeschooled, so I pretty much function as the GC as well as the mom. He gets lots of individual attention from his GC. :-) He completed the apps and wrote the essays, but I did all of the administrative part of the process. So, I was mailing off applications, essays, transcripts and resumes to his various schools. I did most of it early.....I think. About 2 days before each deadline hit, I started racking my brain about whether I had sent in everything. Sometimes I had been waiting for S to complete an essay or something like that, but I couldn't remember if I had gone ahead and sent the other stuff or held it back til the essay was done. Status checks didn't help much. So, I just resent it (generally express mail) to be sure. My mistake was NOT KEEPING A RECORD OF WHAT WE HAD SUBMITTED TO EACH COLLEGE.</p>

<p>Anyone else?</p>

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<p>perhaps doing it for your son was also a mistake? I am serious about this..I think an error was not having HIM track it</p>

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<p>cgm, you really ought to give this one a rest. It's been hashed and re-hashed to death on multiple threads. For some families, the right decision is to have the kid do everything from soup to nuts. For others, having a parent do the strictly administrative/ministerial tasks works best.</p>

<p>And now, back to the subect of the OP.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the implicit tip about having someone in the family keep a master checklist of what has been sent and what has not. Good luck to your son.</p>

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<p>timely, that was a common fear for all of the families struggling with multiple apps with multiple admissions and scholarship deadlines. Better safe than sorry. ;)</p>

<p>I guess for other families it wasn't a concern (??????), but for ours - we just decided never to send anything until it was all done. And then went around and around the kitchen table -double, and triple checking each piece of paper before it was placed in the envelope and then looking at each envelope again. And maybe again. As a family of Luddites, there was only one online app and that was because it was required. We wouldn't have made it without the paper apps.</p>

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<p>We used an excel spreadsheet [ got the idea from CC], as S was applying to numerous colleges, many of which had their own applications and boy did it save us from a lot of the nagging "did you remember to ...", etc</p>

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<p>We also used a spreadsheet last year when S was applying to 10 colleges. It was a huge help for aps and also to track financial aid info, which for 10 schools and combined with divorced parent situation, was as much, or more than, a nightmare than the application aps were.</p>

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<p>We had a general college file for each of the 14 schools. Then an app file. Then a financial aid file. Each app and financial aid file had their own checklist stapled to the inside of the folder. As time grew close we discarded the big general files and worked solely off the FA and app folders. Worked for us.</p>

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<p>timely - that's quite a job to be doing all the parent stuff plus all the GC stuff! Fortunately, my son's GC is very organized and on top of things. </p>

<p>One thing I wish we had done earlier is compile a master list of all essay prompts, so that my son could work toward some economies of scale by crafting essays that could do double duty. We did it late, and it helped. Of course the ever-evolving list can make that a challenge! We did the chart approach too, to keep track of what went in when. Couldn't have lived without it.</p>

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<p>Curm,
We did something similar to your system. Also had a big wipe-off calendar for the "big picture" which integrated all the other deadlines Ds has (scholarships, competitions, exams, etc.). I'm the visual person -- I needed to see how it would all fit. </p>

<p>About two weeks before each deadline, we made a checklist of all the components of each app on a sheet of paper and taped it onto a cabinet in the kitchen. That became our final checklist. We wound up submitting online and submitting something on paper for every app.</p>

<p>Lessons learned:<br>
1) Not every school asked for AP scores, awards, etc. In some cases, DS created an additional page that gave this info (sometimes he could upload it, other times not).<br>
2) The time DS spent on his activity resume (three pages -- I know -- a big no-no) was worth every minute.<br>
3) Do not type in garbage on an app to see if the spacing works. This is how we got DH's job as "faceless bureaucrat" memorialized on one of his apps.
4) We set up Excel spreadsheets over the summer and haven't touched them since.</p>

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<p>Low-tech approach here:</p>

<p>A file folder for each application. Noted directly on the outside of each folder: components and their due dates. Also noted on the folder: what was sent when, results of follow up (with GC or faculty), and, finally, when the component was shown "received" on line, where appropriate.</p>

<p>Separate master list of all due dates.</p>

<p>Still, I worried (because I am good at it!) that pieces were falling through the cracks....</p>

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<p>I can't imagine the stress OP being through as a homeschooler mom. Guess some of posters here missed the fact that her kid is home schooled.</p>

<p>I had original developed a spreadsheet check-list for my kid's EA schools. Then he did what similar to mafool did, a little high-tech, by keeping all on his computer. However, we have to keep neggering him to backup to an attached harddisk each time he made big changes in case the computer hard disk crashes.</p>

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<p>Our mistake? Early on, S blew off a couple of scholarship and award deadlines because, as I recall, he didn't think they were important (little or no money, but big prestige) and he was swamped with school work. Had I realized what was going on, I would have stepped in with administrative, perspective, and scheduling help much earlier.</p>

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<p>Lots of WE here....not MY S or D did this, I see</p>

<p>Sure rag on me if you want, but this is the applicants process, and I would never say WE did this, my D did it, I provided office supples and space</p>

<p>What did my D do? She simply printed out the page of requirements for each school, put it on a bulletin board, checked off when completed, checked off when sent, checked of when noted recvd</p>

<p>As well, she set her OWN deadlines for everything, at least 2 weeks before actual deadline</p>

<p>This process is only as complicated as you choose to make it</p>

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<p>You have made this point on at least 2 other threads, CGM. That was your and your daughter's choice. Good for you. Glad it worked so well. Really.</p>

<p>Our family dynamics were, evidently, a little different. Not better, not worse, but different. Fortunately, our approach worked well, too.</p>

<p>I would like to add that the complexity of the "process" may vary from situation to situation. You really don't know how many separate, non-overlapping essays were required of my son, or of any one else's student. You really don't know whether our son applied for 3 scholarships or 30. And we don't know how "complicated" your daughter's situation was. </p>

<p>This is only one reason why I am reluctant to judge others.</p>

<p>Happy New Year.</p>

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<p>i personally used the captio AppliCase binder for all my paperwork that was separate from the actually applications (extra copies of resumes, essays, test scores, transcripts, anything from a school)</p>

<p>my high school gave each of us a binder of folders and a folder was used for each school we were applying to. it had a generic checklist, a big envelope, a small envelope, some teacher rec requests, some transcript requests, and a few other things. </p>

<p>seniors picked their advisory (essentially, homeroom) teacher and at the beginning of the year that teacher passed around worksheets for us to fill in final deadlines for each application. then, she made us finish our applications completely 2 weeks before the deadlines. we would go over all the materials together to make sure everything was complete before having the guidance counselor mail everything (only way for official transcripts and teacher recs to be included with application)</p>

<p>my problem occurred when i forgot to follow up with my advisory teacher and found out a day too late that she had forgotten to mail my application in time for the early action deadline. thankfully, i had made a great connection with the dean of admissions at elon and after a few phone calls and frantic faxes, he made sure everything was still processed as early action.</p>

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<p>Wow, kristin. My D's school did next to nothing for her. </p>

<p>We used the "dining room table method" with three different tracking methods. The main one was a typed list (excel sheet, printed out and taped together into one big, long paper) with each school, what they required for regular ap, music ap, optional items, and deadlines for each item. Whenever something was sent (whether electronically, from the school, or by D) the date was marked on this master list.</p>

<p>The second was a file marked "copies." Everything sent to each school was copied, dated, and filed by college. So when D couldn't remember which teacher's rec went to where (admissions office? music dept?) or which essay she used for which supplement, all she had to do was check the file. </p>

<p>The third was a word doc, that was handy for copy and pasting from websites. This doc started out as researching colleges, and gradually became a "process recording" of the application process.</p>

<p>My D ended up applying to only 5 schools (which included 4 additional music applications). I don't know how people manage who do more schools than this!</p>

<p>The "biggest mistake" (back to the OPs question) was with S1, who applied in the days before electronic aps. He forgot to sign his application. I noticed it when I was cleaning up after all the aps were in (and the due dates had passed). I called the school (Cornell), they laughed and said to fax signed copies to them. I ran to school, called him to the office, had him sign, then raced to Office Depot to fax. Electronic signatures have made it much easier.</p>

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<p>It is only as complicate as you want to make it</p>

<p>Most applications require 90% of the same information, often with very similar essays </p>

<p>Sometimes spread sheets only complicate and confuse matters, if you have the pages from the websites with all the dates, a calendar, it can be a very clear process</p>

<p>This is what my D herself decided to use:</p>

<p>BIG bullentin board
A file for each school with a copy of the schools requirements from their webste, if if using the common app- a printout listing whatever supplemental essays or paper work were do</p>

<p>She had a file with all her tests, transcripts, etc
She had a sheet of paper on her bulletin board with ALL important numbers- SocSec, a couple of credit cards, passwords, sign in codes, school codes</p>

<p>She had a copy of whatever info she needed regarding my H and myself</p>

<p>She had lots of office supplies, stamps, etc</p>

<p>She created her OWN deadlines, and had a master calendar with EVERYTHING on it- school events, social and application dates, so she would see when there might be a crunch time, when something was done, she checked it off</p>

<p>She also had files for her scholarships</p>

<p>As soon as the common application was available, she filled out all she could, made a hard copy, and had us do a proof read</p>

<p>She made hard copies periodically of ALL applications if she did any major work on them, she emailed herself copies of her essays </p>

<p>Most mistakes seem to occur because people get scattered, rushed, panicked</p>

<p>If I had stepped in and "done" for my kid, than too many cooks, etc</p>

<p>Yeah, it bugs me I guess when parents are saying We We We in this process, and yeah, some seem to be sensitive to that...</p>

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<p>I also agree that the student should do most the work when applying to schools, except for parts of the application that s/he cannot complete alone (e.g., financial aid, etc...). It's not going to be the last time he or she fills out an application and you are not always going to be there to do all the administrative work.</p>

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<p>Time to let this thread die.</p>