The Common App can be unreliable as deadlines approach and traffic is heavy. I made my kids submit at least 48 hours before the deadlines.
We usually go skiing over winter break, but Michigan has had 50-60 deg temperatures and snow is just memory and we cancelled our reservations. DS will be completing the remainder of his essays over break - and so will most of his friends - rejected from their ED schools 
On the good side, 10 days is a lot of time to write essays!
@intparent … Exactly. Also, any moment there could be a major storm/power outage … or a case of the flu.
Tell her to skip the intro for now-- that urge to be creative can simply stop you in your tracks.
Have her start with bullet points of what she wants to say.
From there she can go on to sentences, and then paragraphs, then work in an intro.
How many essays does she have to complete? My son found it much easier to write the longer essays than a short one. His most difficult being a 140 character tweet. He just started to write , did not focus on the number of words until it was done, and then began to edit.
Is this type of anxiety typical for your daughter? If it is, you may want to consider getting it evaluated before she goes away to school away from her support system. Good luck to her.
I have the same issue. I’m just backing off. If he he ends up only getting in where he has so far, I’m thrilled anyway.
He’s had zero motivation since ED reject. I can’t blame him for wanting a week to just ignore it all. He did go in and send score reoorts though, so that is done.
I’m also finding that the school week has so much going on it’s hard to deal with apps at all. So weekends are prime time for that. Might as well be talking to a wall during the week.
Agree with that – weekends were a lot more productive.
Thank you all! I told DD I had picked up some ideas from here, and we will discuss them tonight. I am hoping something will resonate. She has never been one to let me see her writing, so for all I know what she has is great, and she is just beating herself up. It is also possible she has nothing at all.
More than anything else it helps to know I am not alone! So many people, both IRL and here in CC seem so prepared. The kids are all done, and they are either accepted to their ED school, or just waiting for acceptances. DS wasn’t ready any earlier, but he was a music major, and I was pretty sure the audition was the important part, and the essay wouldn’t keep him out of any school he really wanted. I just want her to have options that make her happy.
That’s what I keep emphasizing. This isn’t about “succeeding,” it’s about having options that make them happy, and approaching the logistics in a reasonably structured way so that things don’t reach a deeply unpleasant crisis point. There are many ways to get to that point, but that’s the goal. I think that perspective helps a little, though it’s certainly no magic wand. (Please, someone, get me the magic wand!)
I have told both of the kids this is not about what school you got into, and the bragging rights of going to a school everyone know. It is about having a happy, successful 4 years. I could use that magic wand, though!
Will probably be in the minority here, but I let my D skip a day of school last year to finish up applications. It was crunch time and the mindset (mine angry, hers regretful) of, “If only you’d started earlier/worked harder/would stop being a perfectionist, you’d be done now” wasn’t helping. She worked on the drafts she had and finished everything that night/day (maybe because she was so surprised that I went along with her idea?).
Last year, we did all the easy stuff first, sending in transcripts, score reports, asked for teacher recommendations just to have things on the list checked off. Even though those items didn’t take any time at all, just seeing them done created ‘space’ for bigger items like essays. I also never saw D’s essays before she submitted her applications. She did fine. Would I have edited them? Yep but that would have been a mistake.
I agree with @LuckyCharms913 - if your child needs to skip a day of school to finish up applications (even just to submit them), then have her skip a day.
I agree with the “skip a day” crowd, if that is necessary.
If I understand this correctly, this is either a writer’s block situation, or a confidence problem? Either one can be addressed. Even if she has an idea for a topic, maybe she thinks it is not good. So if she goes online and looks up ideas for college essay topics, she will probably find her subject listed somewhere as a good subject to write on.
My D2 had a kind of writer’s block. She was really focused on the word limit, and ended up not saying anything. So I told her to write everything she wanted to say on the topic. Then I read it aloud to her, and she found lots of ways to edit length to fit. I noticed with both my kids that reading the essays aloud to them helped them think about what was said, what they were trying to say, what was missing, and clarity.
If you are working over break, could she go to a coffee place nearby, work on her essay, then bring it to you periodically during the day to read over it with her?
Does her English teacher at school read over essays? If so, having something to turn in to have him or her read it for critique could be helpful. Maybe the essay as written so far is actually quite good.
I let D1 skip the day before her 2nd attempt at the SAT for some last-day math cramming effort. She doesn’t retain math well, so in spite of studying leading up to it, this seemed prudent. Her score was improved, so I have no bad feelings about it. I might let a kid struggling with apps do it, but would insist on actual progress. 
Some trusted adult should review her apps. Kids lack context and understanding of how things sound to others. Just a read for appropriateness and clarity is a very good idea.
The good news is DD shared her issues with someone else, who was able to work with her to discuss things, and set up a timetable. In addition, that person has a background as a writer and has helped a bunch of other kids in this situation. I never knew that, or I would have pushed this discussion earlier! I am hoping that having a resource that is not a parent, will help move this process along. Honestly, if I thought skipping a day would help, I would be all for it, but I think it would just put her behind on schoolwork, and no further ahead on the essays. I am grateful that winter break will give her some uninterrupted time to work on this, although it sounds like the timetable she has set is pretty aggressive, and might leave her some actual break time, if she can keep to the schedule.
I’m hoping winter break will let D focus on her essays. She’s applying to 13 schools, 12 of which require supplemental essays. The common app essay has been done for weeks, but the rest are going very slowly…
Write one to three essays for the common app in draft form.
Order the schools in priority and/or difficulty of app. High priority schools get next spot, write a draft of each major essay (esp if substantially different from others done before). Easy schools that are of serious interest can get next spot in the queue (and get sent out when complete). Low priority difficult schools should be left until 12/28 and your wallet will be 80 richer if you skip them completely.
I believe common app essays can be switched out, so if there are schools that are less competitive with easy application and good interest, you could use decent but not Ivy League essays and submit those … and keep working on the common app.
Drafts are great since some prompts and some ideas just lead nowhere good. She should find people, including yourself, teachers, friends to read drafts she likes and possibly a few she is on the fence about and provide comments. If an essay is just boring due to topic or approach, that is honest response … but hopefully there are one or two good ones in there.
I think you could go over some possibly topics vertically, but many ideas that sound good in a casual conversation don’t make compelling essays. Is that what she is stuck with now ? If the topic is not good ditch it, if the topic is good and essay is dull change the approach, and maybe do some free association or out of the box topics.
The other possibility is that the essays are good now … and she is just anxious and insecure and worried …
Get the things i have listed done before Christmas, which gives her 8 days. Getting decent grades on finals is important, eating and sleeping are important, seeing elderly relatives or attending big family or friend events is important, after that, I think the essays for high priority schools and enough schools to insure somewhere to go that is nice (enough) is the highest priority. So no movies, TV, household chores, long dinners with you, spending 4 hours over a friends house, etc.
Take Christmas off and spend time on the important activities above - family, friends, feeling good.
I see nothing wrong with dedicating the entire post Christmas week to bringing these essays up to final form and getting the essays out (don’t underestimate the sheer drudgery required to fill in any application, even on common app, reorganizing your list of ECs into some new format can take up a lot of time). Those are long days.
Common app and school websites will crash on last day and possibly before that, so get everything in when it is done and have all schools done by 12/30 … with possibly last minute one later. Assume submitting the apps will take time, and assume several hitches with minimum help from schools during the last week … so have some contingency planning done.
Submitting the applications takes time, so make time to submit the ones that are done and don’t wait until 12/31 or 1/1 unless absolutely necessary (that last minute Harvard app with the perfect essays).