How far along is your HS rising senior on college apps?

[Anonymous]

I’m curious where other kids are. My procrastinator still doesn’t know exactly where she is applying and has made zero progress on any essays.

[Anonymous]

you are complaining about procrastination in July?

[Anonymous]

He has taken the ACT.

He has told me he wants big, south, fun.

I have created a list of schools... reach, likely, safety.

He crossed some out, his brother added 1 or 2.

That's it.

[Anonymous]

He knows where he wants to apply-8 schools including UMD That’s all he has done.

[Anonymous]

Taken the SAT
Toured two schools
Identified 5

I thought we don't apply until after Oct 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you are complaining about procrastination in July?

Not complaining about procrastination with respect to college apps— that’s how she is on everything. That’s why I was curious what the norm is.

[Anonymous]

At that age, the planners aren't really much different than the procrastinators.

My planner and her planner friends have rough lists of schools and long lists of topics they will not be writing their essays about.

[Anonymous]

My DC is completely swamped trying to get results for their internship.

Schools and applications are way down on the list.

[Anonymous]

There's not a lot that can be done until the Common App opens in August. Students won't get real about essays until they are really in the thick of applying. Identify 1 or 2 good fits (including her best fit state school) and 1 or 2 safeties. As soon as Common & Coalition Apps open in August make her sit down and fill out all of the drudgery information - personal info, transcript, etc. She'll have a better sense of what else needs to happen after that. My suggestion is to apply EA (typically Nov 1 ish). My oldest had a couple of top schools he wanted to apply to EA, and we just sent everything (8 schools) at the same time even though due dates were a couple months later because he wanted to be done. (Bonus, one was rolling admission which he didn't realize. Nice to get an acceptance 3 weeks later in Nov!)

Other things:
- she needs to ask for letters of reference as soon as school starts if she hasn't yet (give the teacher a resume and some background info at least)
- if she hasn't taken SAT/ACT - take it! otherwise, send the scores to the 4 basic schools
- Fill out FAFSA in October when it opens

Beyond making sure she applies to a couple of state schools which are both a good academic and financial fit, I wouldn't worry about the rest of it. She will either get motivated to do more, or she won't. Let her make that choice.

[Anonymous]

May: School required her to write short responses to questions and get recommendation writers.
June: visited a few schools, finalized list of schools where she wanted to apply
July: activities summary completed, first draft of common app essay, draft of short responses to several state/safety questions
Planned for August: final draft for common app, supplemental essays for first choice school and all safety/early action/rolling admissions schools.
She has a really, really busy fall with sports and lots of AP classes, so we're trying to have her on strong footing for the fall. She's motivated, and saw her brother do this schedule last year.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of time. Don't sweat it until school is back in session. They'll start holding student and parent seminars, meeting with counselors, holding writing workshops, etc. That's when to start really ramping up.

[Anonymous]

Better question is have you made a donation to the ideal choices?

[Anonymous]

Had to do a draft essay in English in the Spring...taking SATII's in August.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the feedback, especially 10:08! Really helps me get a sense of what is appropriate. 10:30 seems
really on top of it and kind of what I hoped mine would do because things are so busy once school starts. But it won’t happen, I know.

[Anonymous]

How do we find out what the common app essay question is?