You’re right. I don’t understand your question then. We don’t have any school that says your application is submitted until all parts are accounted for whether it is an essay he wrote or a recommendation letter, or a transcript. You’ll have to ask your schools about your questions. No one here can see your screens nor know what has been submitted for your application or not.
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So far, only one of my daughter’s schools has a portal. The other five do not. She has completed all of her applications and only two schools have sent an email confirmation that she has applied. And, as we found out, the SAO will say that your application is complete, but if a school requires something special that isn’t strictly a supplemental writing piece, it won’t be listed (like that attendance record thing my daughter had - SAO said she was 100% complete and nothing missing, congrats, etc, but there was actually something missing).
It can be very confusing, particularly for a student doing this mostly on their own.
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Then how do you know you are missing something? Are you not being notified by something/somewhere that you have to more to do? Somewhere there is a list of what you need to get submitted, it isn’t a guessing game. I guess I am not understanding how people can’t figure out if their applications are complete or not other than either keeping track themselves or contacting their school to verify all parts are in which is what I said.
No one here will be able to tell/see if someone else’s application is complete so if they have not, themselves, kept track of documents or do not know if a teacher sent in a rec, then they need to contact the school. We had to contact one of the day schools my son applied to because despite listing the school to receive his SSAT score, their portal showed it missing long after release date. We called and they double checked that they did in fact get it. If SAO says the app is complete but the applicant knows that some other supplement still needs to be submitted and the student does not do that, then that is on that applicant.
It stinks, but BS expect these students to be independent and responsible. Figuring out how to get all required parts of an application submitted on time is in fact part of the application process itself. If there is some extenuating circumstance as to why something couldn’t be submitted in the 6 months that the application process is typically open for, then it needs to be communicated to the school, remembering they have probably heard every excuse in the book. After all the hard work, it would really suck to get a letter from your first choice school stating they could not process your application because your application was missing pieces or had late pieces. It is totally understandable to wonder if a transcript etc, made it in, but as I said, no one here can answer that. We can’t see their screens, we have no idea what they or anyone else submitted on their behalf. If there is no portal or it is something not listed in SAO/Gateway/the portal, or something doesn’t make sense because you know something is missing but it says your application is submitted, then the person needs to call the school to ask them, not us.
We haven’t submitted yet (still waiting on the elusive return of the graded essay…and his schools have a later deadline), so I can’t speak to the portal issue or confirmation emails, but I can confirm that on the SAO it’s important to check under the heading of each school for school specific items. The “shared” requirements appear on the right side of the page, but if you select each school and open the full requirements, it will say something like “6 shared forms and 1 school specific form”. We caught one form asking about counseling services this way.
Hoping that by the end of next week, DS will have submitted to 3 schools not including a semi-local, semi-private school (the one that asked about counseling services):
Dublin
Holderness
Proctor
One of his original schools has at the moment dropped off the list post-tour/interview. If he in fact opts not to apply, do you think it warrants an email to admissions to let them know he is not applying?
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We realized belatedly that you can submit without everything in the SAO. That way, you have most of the things in and they can at least see that you have submitted an application and paid the fee. That graded paper was a nail biter for my daughter as well, but she got hers back on Tuesday. Crossing fingers your son gets his back on time. Although, my daughter emailed the schools that needed it and informed them of the situation and each one basically said, “no problem - get it to us when you can”.
Also, on the SAO, there is not just that school-specific form thing, but we found an extra requirement in the “Special Instructions” part, near the top of the school information. Not every school has a “special instructions” area, but if you see those words, click on them and it opens a large text box with more information. For one of my daughter’s schools, it was actually a very nice FAQ and how to do everything. For another, it had yet one more required piece that wasn’t listed anywhere else, including their own website and the SAO had the 100% complete marked for that school because it’s not something you can submit via the SAO.
Make sure you’re checking for those “special instructions” just in case!
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I’m sympathetic with the SAO being confusing. I assume each school configures it’s own application differently. It’s a lot of boxes to check. And sometimes the SAO disagrees with the schools own admissions website.
Good luck everyone!
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Daughter sent emails to all the schools she submitted applications to in December and hadn’t heard from.
Turns out, one has a portal, but for some reason, she didn’t get the automated email to access it. They’re trying to figure out why (but they did confirm they can see on their end that it wasn’t ever sent to her). Two don’t have portals and one of those doesn’t send an email either. The other one is looking to find out why she didn’t get their automated email either!
So strange! But, at least they all confirmed her apps are complete and she doesn’t need to do anything except wait for March 10.
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Whoa! Just found that tiny special instructions tab! Thank you for the heads up! I had a small panic, but it looks like he’ll be all set.
I don’t remember this process feeling this complicated some 30+ years ago when I applied to schools…but maybe it was and I’ve just stuck with the positive outcomes for a memory. It makes me quite nervous for when DS25 begins his college app process. Yikes.
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If it’s any comfort, applying to college is much easier!
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As someone currently applying to college…no. Sorry guys 
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There’s definitely the possibility that I’m misremembering! But college has no graded papers to be submitted, there’s the common app with the same essays used for multiple schools etc. Versus the boarding school applications, each with multiple unique essays.
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Unless you apply to Princeton or a couple of others. 
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Depends on the schools you choose to apply to. Just like BS they can choose to have supplemental materials and many do.
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My kid wrote SO many supplemental essays for college. And every one of his schools used the Common App.
At most colleges, the back and forth with the admissions office that is normal in the BS process is not terribly welcomed.
But there is a very big difference to understanding who the 14 year old you’re agreeing to look after is and who the 18 year old you expect to be a mostly functioning adult is, so the BS are generally fine with it.
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Three of my colleges would like to dispute that.
I had to write 47 supplemental essays (applied to 16 schools, 14 had supplements; the only ones that didn’t were state school safeties).
The boarding school application process is certainly difficult and stressful, but the college application is equally—and honestly much more—so.
Let’s also remember that the students who go to boarding schools are far more likely than the general population to apply to schools like Princeton (7 supplements) or UChicago (2 supplements with a recommended total length of 1150 words). If you only apply to fairly high-AR colleges (and only a few of them), you can get out fairly easily, but the culture at such schools + the individual goals of most students at them makes such a situation exceedingly rare.
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Yes, I guess I’m colored by my sons’ experiences. One applied to 6 schools, one to 10, and the 3rd to just one school. None required graded papers. Yes, there were some supplemental essays, but I don’t remember them being onerous. Of course, I am a parent, and I managed the boarding school application process. I did not manage the college application process.
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@cinnamon1212 , BS may have insulated/distanced us from some student pain on college apps. 
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I was trying to double check my application info in Gateway, but the system seems to have crashed. Is anyone else having this issue?
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Laughing at “ Bad Gateway” because it essentially IS!
But it looks like you are on a desktop/laptop. I’m on my phone. It doesn’t look like your page but mine looks like
I cannot type though it looks like I should be able. I try to refresh is is SLOOOOOWWWW.
This is a lesson learned for many not to wait until the last minute (there are a few more days until the 15th) but still a risk you take not giving yourself time for these sorts of issues!
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they say its increased traffic.
but i really dont think this issue will last three days (but yes it is better to finish everything eg 5 days or a week ahead though idk why Im saying that I myself submitted Milton’s essays this morning)
its more like something that’ll fix itself in 5 minutes
like now for me the site loads a bit slower but its fine