<p>My daughter has submitted her applications and all the items have been received by the schools. Now, we wait. Sure seems weird not to have that application thing hanging over our heads... LOL</p>
<p>Good luck to all in CC-land.</p>
<p>Haha, are you kidding? I’m suffering from Post-Traumatic Application Syndrome. Too many applications that whizzed by in a blur; I would try to aim and shoot, but miss many of the targets. <em>sigh</em> So maybe not this year :P</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter as well! What schools is she applying to?</p>
<p>When my S came out of his room and said that he just pressed all of the submit buttons there was this momentary panic in his eyes about how he couldn’t do yet another proof read. I told him to file the file on the hard drive and don’t open it again-- that what is done, is done. But easier to say than to do!</p>
<p>…that sounded like me. Exactly. I saved all the files to a USB drive and then promptly left it somewhere. Can’t bear to look at it! <em>smiles sheepishly</em></p>
<p>I loved GoldenRatio’s comment: Post-Traumatic Application Syndrome! Oh! how I identify!
We still have one more non reach school due Feb 1st. We aren’t completely out of the woods.</p>
<p>I am glad it is done and no matter what the outcome, this has been a great wake up call for her about completing college applications on time or better yet, ahead of time!</p>
<p>^ I agree with you, Rose2014: looking in retrospective, it has been a great experience! I’ve learned a lot from it-have grown as a soldier. From day one, where I messed up filling out forms like a rookie fumbling with a weapon-to the last day, where weary grins are exchanged. A lot has happened in the (in my case) month and a half that I’ve been out on the warfront with y’all, and I wouldn’t change anything about it!</p>
<p>Such a relief that it is all done. My DD came home from school yesterday and promptly fell into a deep sleep for several hours. I think some of it had to do with a double swim practice day but mostly the relief of knowing all the applications had been sent in the day before and there was nothing left to do but wait.</p>
<p>I made it my goal to get all FA apps in by the Jan 15 deadline as well even though we technically have more time at most schools so that the entire family can have a break from all of it.</p>
<p>Best Wishes for Everyone!</p>
<p>Best wishes for all! </p>
<p>The mosr frustrating part for me was meeting the deadline for RECs. </p>
<p>No point worrying or thinking too much of chances. Nothing we can do now.</p>
<p>My pet peeve was the graded essay. My English teacher doesn’t believe in essays-only prose. Fat chance if I could get a decent piece from that class. Science was full of labs, Math filled with formulas…I had to turn to Social Studies. And boy did that teacher hate me! :’( And I don’t even know why!</p>
<p>@patronyork- I am with you! My DS asked all his teacher for RECs in early November and had all the materials to them by Thanksgiving. No one even STARTED completing them until the New Year!!! I had tried to stay back and let my DS handle all the details, but I was in a panic by the 2nd week in January- that was the most stressful part of all!</p>
<p>Most schools have two ways to submit RECs - online and paper. </p>
<p>I would say it would be safer to have it sent in paper. I found that more teachers than I imagined haven’t even read the email inquiry for online submission. I hooked them up with online links and the email notification was sent in early Nov. But they didn’t even remember they received it until I askled. Then they still haven’t opened it until 1st week of Jan. That was frustrating. Gateway systems then did not work at some point. God, it was so frustrating. </p>
<p>So, my suggestion is get the printout and give it to teachers. That is safer, because they would always see it sit on their desk and hardly forget. Also, put the yellow post-it on the paper with the date of deadline written in a red ink ^^</p>
<p>I am rather old-fashioned, and did it by paper. I thought that supplying the teachers with envelopes, etc. was much more personal than an e-mail from Gateway.</p>
<p>I didn’t go as far as putting on a Post-it with obnoxious red ink. Instead, I gave them an obnoxious red manila folder to glare at them as they procrastinated ;)</p>
<p>And remember that the onus is on YOU to make sure that they are completed and sent. You are the one applying to “go away” and so the schools will expect you to take charge of making sure that everything is in order. </p>
<p>Now be polite, absolutely, but make sure the teachers and personal recommenders (in my experience teachers are usually pretty good but the personal recommenders require a bit of a closer inspection) understand the deadlines and are able to comply. I always tell the kids to ask, again politely, to the recommender, if there might be a problem getting the recommendation done in the timeframe required–and if not, that you completely understand, and that you hope they will not be offended in any way if you ask someone else, and thank you for your consideration. Much better to do that before there is a problem than fretting when the recommendations are not produced when needed.</p>
<p>The only beef we, and the recommenders had, with the paper forms (PDF’s, usually), was that you couldn’t type into them. That seems a little old fashioned in this digital age. None of GG’s recommenders last year wanted to hand-write, with one exception (a music teacher, who is simply not a techie and doesn’t care to type). The math and English teachers said they preferred the online systems, and were used to them from college recommendations. </p>
<p>Our solution, PURELY because we had the technology, was to download each school’s PDF’s and make them fillable, using the forms feature in Acrobat. The recommenders were happy, and we were happy that they could send paper forms.</p>
<p>I am curious to know if anyone’s recommenders commented on the inability to fill out the paper PDFs. or if they simply attached a separate sheet for the narrative parts.</p>
<p>^ Now I’m curious about this as well! Mine didn’t-in fact, they seemed happy to fill out paper sheets. But who can tell what’s beneath a teacher’s facade?</p>