How much work are your kids putting into their own applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is working with a paid consultant. The consultant guides her on priorities of things to work on. Her common app is already pretty much complete with the exception of essays. She already has a strong first draft of the common app essay. She has deadlines to meet with essay drafts where they review them together. It has been very smooth and we are way ahead of schedule compared with my older child. The stress level is almost non-existent, which is worth every single penny.

This. My DS has been working with a paid consultant for a year now. He has been doing all the work himself with guidance from parents and the consultant team. He is a great writer. He is not using AI at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was being honest, too, when I said I did not fill out any part of the college app or have a hand in their essay.

I did prod, cajole, push, and make them make a spreadsheet with due dates, cost, etc.

Some dont need any of that either

And so what?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If even a lowly SAHM can do it, why not the WOHM and the dads?

We ALL do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No nagging.

My kids produced the results through out their K-12 journey - 4.0/4.8, 1590, NMS, 14 APs with all 5's and one 4. ECs, research work, volunteer work etc.

I was the free college counselor and I project managed everything. We were looking for the maximum merit and college is virtually free for my kids. We are UMC, Asian family. We can afford to be full pay anywhere. But, we do not want to spend money on education, if we can get quality, employable education at the cheapest cost to us.

Are you our resident UMD booster who vitriolically criticizes those of us who spend lavishly on private universities?
Hi, there. No hard feelings.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lately, I’m getting the sense that a combo of parents, AI, and paid consultants are doing all the work completing the applications. Are your kids doing anything?

Why do you care? You post here so much its nauseating.

I don’t really that much here at all, but if you feel nauseated, so be it.

I guess I’m just trying to gauge my/our naïveté as we embark upon this process. Both my kid and I avoid using AI. We won’t pay consultants, not because we can’t afford it but because it feels like a scam. The expectation is that the package she submits will authentically her work. There seems to be an increase in posts here from people looking to hire not just one, but multiple consultants. And/or posters recommending AI for everything. It all feels wrong in my gut.

Ok then don't do it if you don't see the value in it, but you sound bitter that others do.

Agree. I never understand people like the OP. They are just grievance posters.
This place was so much more helpful with my first kid, without all of these pity party people.

They don't want to put in the work, so they rationalize to themselves that everyone else is cheating, helicoptering, etc, and that one day it's going to bite them in the rear because their kids will fail. And then the few times it does happen that some kid fails, they cherry-pick that to reinforce their narrative. The "kids without tutors" thread has a lot of posts in that vein. Maybe it's all OP

How is hiring someone or using AI “putting in the work”?

We're not using AI. My kid IS putting in the work, the consultants just guide the process and keep him on track timewise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, mine wrote the essays and I reviewed. My kid was struggling with depression at the time so I also did the common app

NP. I see no problem with that, as long as the review was within reason and not like re-writing their essay

[Anonymous]

My then 7th grade ds completely revised and rewrote my then senior's main essay and he did an amazing job. I was sort of astounded. Senior ended up getting into his ED.

That 7th grader is now a hs junior and could not care less about school and will probably be going to 2nd tier state U even if he can write a great essay.

[Anonymous]

Here is where we are for my rising senior

EC's: At the beginning of the summer before freshman year, I made a spreadsheet with columns to keep track of what he does. At that point, I didn't really want him thinking/worrying about college, so for the first couple years, I just updated it weekly with whatever he did. This year, I had him start updating it.

For my particular kid, this turned out to be a really good thing, because he is a kid who likes to try things, and his schedule varies week to week, so this will help us keep track of how many weeks he did each thing, and the hours so we can turn in honest information, and not just guesses.

I imagine that he and I will need to sit and figure out how to organize the EC's together. Because he likes to jump around, he's got way more than 10, and we will end up combining them. That kind of executive functioning is hard for him, and so I imagine that will be a joint venture.

We have also been involved in paying for the EC's that aren't free or at school (e.g. music lessons), driving him to EC's, etc . . . He selected the EC's himself, and did the work, although he's had coaches, and private music lessons.

Essay. He's working at a sleepaway camp with no wifi, other than on his phone which he has very limited access to. He's supposed to be working on his essay on paper, and has sent me some photos of what he's written so far. He asked my advice on topics, and I imagine I will proofread it.

[Anonymous]

Ooops I hit reply too soon.

He's planning to audition at several schools that give extra merit aid for auditions, and I am paying for a music teacher to work on those with him.

As far as list making, he contributed ideas, I contributed ideas, his counselor at school contributed ideas but not very good ones. ChatGPT has actually been great for ideas, except when it's totally wrong. So, I'd say "here's the very specific list of what he wants" and Chat would give me a list of 6 schools, 2 of which we'd already found. We'd then look up the other 4, and 2 would seem like great fits, and the other 2 would actually not have the things Chat claimed they had. A parent went on most of the visits, but he's also gone by himself on some.

Test: He took the PSAT twice with no prep, the ACT once with a little prep on Khan, and at that point it was clear that his whole list allows Test Optional, and that that was the right choice for him so we stopped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is where we are for my rising senior

EC's: At the beginning of the summer before freshman year, I made a spreadsheet with columns to keep track of what he does. At that point, I didn't really want him thinking/worrying about college, so for the first couple years, I just updated it weekly with whatever he did. This year, I had him start updating it.

For my particular kid, this turned out to be a really good thing, because he is a kid who likes to try things, and his schedule varies week to week, so this will help us keep track of how many weeks he did each thing, and the hours so we can turn in honest information, and not just guesses.

I imagine that he and I will need to sit and figure out how to organize the EC's together. Because he likes to jump around, he's got way more than 10, and we will end up combining them. That kind of executive functioning is hard for him, and so I imagine that will be a joint venture.

We have also been involved in paying for the EC's that aren't free or at school (e.g. music lessons), driving him to EC's, etc . . . He selected the EC's himself, and did the work, although he's had coaches, and private music lessons.

Essay. He's working at a sleepaway camp with no wifi, other than on his phone which he has very limited access to. He's supposed to be working on his essay on paper, and has sent me some photos of what he's written so far. He asked my advice on topics, and I imagine I will proofread it.

You updated his activities weekly? Wow. That is jumping around. Mine just created a cv and updated it as needed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is where we are for my rising senior

EC's: At the beginning of the summer before freshman year, I made a spreadsheet with columns to keep track of what he does. At that point, I didn't really want him thinking/worrying about college, so for the first couple years, I just updated it weekly with whatever he did. This year, I had him start updating it.

For my particular kid, this turned out to be a really good thing, because he is a kid who likes to try things, and his schedule varies week to week, so this will help us keep track of how many weeks he did each thing, and the hours so we can turn in honest information, and not just guesses.

I imagine that he and I will need to sit and figure out how to organize the EC's together. Because he likes to jump around, he's got way more than 10, and we will end up combining them. That kind of executive functioning is hard for him, and so I imagine that will be a joint venture.

We have also been involved in paying for the EC's that aren't free or at school (e.g. music lessons), driving him to EC's, etc . . . He selected the EC's himself, and did the work, although he's had coaches, and private music lessons.

Essay. He's working at a sleepaway camp with no wifi, other than on his phone which he has very limited access to. He's supposed to be working on his essay on paper, and has sent me some photos of what he's written so far. He asked my advice on topics, and I imagine I will proofread it.

You updated his activities weekly? Wow. That is jumping around. Mine just created a cv and updated it as needed

I updated the hours. So, for example, he is involved in a sport. He plays varsity, he gives private lessons, he coaches a team for pay, he coaches 2 different teams as a volunteer, he has worked at a sports camp, and he has attended sports camp. So, figuring out how many weeks and hours per week it averages out to, is challenging. So, each week, I just put a number in the spreadsheet for how many hours, and what kind of hours (paid, volunteer, school team). So, when he gets to making the form, and he figures out how he's going to divide it up, he can have the spreadsheet add up the hours and figure out how many weeks total he spent on that sport, and the average amount of hours.

[Anonymous]

Third lawyer here.

Here's what we did: I researched the process for him, making sure my understood the ED and EA process. He didn't have a counselor at his large urban public school to do that for him

He completed each application, the common ap for privates and publics outside of CA, the one for the UCs and one for CUNY. I reviewed them for errors because he's not a good proofreader. Very little editing of ECs, he summarized them well.

My son drafted his responses to the essays and picked his 4 UC ones. Fortunately, he's thoughtful and writes well. I edited them to make them more concise given word count limitations, but, except for a few minor suggestions, it was all his content. Prior to working on the applications, we talked a lot about how to use the essays to make a personal connection with the readers based upon his experiences.

The critical thing is that he spoke with his voice. I call it the naive approach, just be who you are, and he ended up with good choices, and got accepted at one of his 3 favorite schools, which he will attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was being honest, too, when I said I did not fill out any part of the college app or have a hand in their essay.

I did prod, cajole, push, and make them make a spreadsheet with due dates, cost, etc.

Some dont need any of that either

And that's awesome, but most teens are not that driven. Even my super high stats kid from a magnet program needed prodding.

[Anonymous]

I did nothing. I did hand him my credit card to pay application fees and that was it.

(I did drive to many campus visits and I may have been more persistent in helping get those planned but it was his ballgame after that.)

[Anonymous]

Im the project manager and financier. DC doing everything else. Review essays at request.

DC is applying to a major that requires a portfolio and (at most schools) audition/presentation. Portfolio is 95% done (mostly in update-with-new-items stage), working on their own essays and Common App this summer.