Parents of the Class of 2019

[tink1970]

Hi all! I've been lurking for a short while on this thread and really appreciate everyone's information. I'd like to hear your opinions about this:
DS is applying Early Decision. His guidance counselor says that he should wait until he hears from the school (mid December) before applying to Regular Decision schools. She says its to save us the application fee in case he gets in to his ED school, although I think its to save them the work since DS is in such a large class (500+). I'm nervous about the timing since the RD schools' deadline is Jan 15, and the guidance counselor needs 15 school days to send transcripts and recommendations. What are your kids doing if applying ED

DD isn't apply ED but if she were...I'd agree with the plan laid out by @Colleen27 and apply to the ED school as well as 2 or 3 without application fees and/or low fees.

I agree that 15 working days, when holidays are taken into consideration, doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room...hypothetically, if my DD found out Dec 15th her counselor wouldn't have 15 working days before Jan 15 so it would definitely give me pause. Okay, who am I kidding, I'd have her apply and not trust the school. Ok, there, I said it!

Happy FAFSA Day

UGH! My good friend, who is a CPA texted me this am (of course she knocked it out already) and said it was painful. Joy. This is a task I'm delegating to DH for sure.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Happy FAFSA Day

Crap, I forgot! Thanks for the reminder!

 

[design_mom]

Our district is doing a FAFSA workshop next week where they said they'd walk you through it. I was planning on waiting. It just has to be done by February, right?

 

[PollyannaMom]

Our district is doing a FAFSA workshop next week where they said they'd walk you through it. I was planning on waiting. It just has to be done by February, right?

I'm not sure of the exact deadline, but you do have time. Our guidance department said it was best to get it over with fairly soon, but it definitely didn't have to be today. (In fact, I tend to purposely avoid the first day anything is available, in case there are so many people on the site that it crashes.)

 

[Colleen27]

Our district is doing a FAFSA workshop next week where they said they'd walk you through it. I was planning on waiting. It just has to be done by February, right?

Check with the schools your senior is applying to, because some want it done sooner to get a timely financial aid evaluation. Most of DD's applications really want it done at the time of application, and since financial aid offers will be part of our decisionmaking process, I don't see any sense in waiting anyway.

 

[design_mom]

Check with the schools your senior is applying to, because some want it done sooner to get a timely financial aid evaluation. Most of DD's applications really want it done at the time of application, and since financial aid offers will be part of our decisionmaking process, I don't see any sense in waiting anyway.

Thanks for this tip. I had not heard that before. I wasn't planning to wait TOO long, just till after the meeting. But two of the schools my son is applying to recommend you get your FAFSA in by 12/1 for "priority consideration." (I really don't expect that we'll qualify for much need-based aid, but our school is recommending that EVERYONE file at least the first year.) So I guess I'll make 12/1 my drop-dead date.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

DD is going for early action at her top reach school, but they don't have an early decision, so she's still going to apply at other schools as well. Our college search people didn't recommend that we only apply to the one ED school, as a matter of fact, unless there's restrictions about applying ED (for example Harvard has an early action with restrictions that say the student can't apply to any other privte university until they hear from Harvard) or you can't afford the application fees, I'd apply sooner.

 

[Colleen27]

DD is going for early action at her top reach school, but they don't have an early decision, so she's still going to apply at other schools as well. Our college search people didn't recommend that we only apply to the one ED school, as a matter of fact, unless there's restrictions about applying ED (for example Harvard has an early action with restrictions that say the student can't apply to any other privte university until they hear from Harvard) or you can't afford the application fees, I'd apply sooner.

That's the advice we've gotten too... that there's no *disadvantage* to non-binding ED programs, so there's no reason to limit them unless you're concerned about application fees or improving test scores between now and the regular decision deadline.

 

[mjkacmom]

Dd has been getting letters from D3 colleges through her xc/track coach. I think she wants to just run intramural or club though.

 

[design_mom]

Dd has been getting letters from D3 colleges through her xc/track coach. I think she wants to just run intramural or club though.

My son has been getting the same. None of the colleges are ones that would be on his radar other than the fact they might be interested in him for XC. (And so far, it's just been "interest," no scholarships mentioned.) DS says he doen't think he wants to compete in college, but he is interested in joining a running club or something.

 

[tink1970]

In fact, I tend to purposely avoid the first day anything is available, in case there are so many people on the site that it crashes

Smart! My friend the CPA who has already knocked out the FAFSA/CSS said it did crash Monday. She said the CSS was worse than the FAFSA and laughed when I offered to pay her to do my DD's. It should be a fun weekend

DD finished 3 more college applications as well as the SSAR (student self something) for Florida schools. She was tutoring someone and while quizzing him he was entering her grades for the SSAR. I'm in shock she was multitasking...and she trusted him ("don't worry mom I double checked"). That kid...

She's flying to Boston Saturday to tour BU and Tufts and wander around Clark's campus. I had to remind her it won't be 90 degrees there and she might want to pack accordingly.

 

[Eureka]

DH is working on the FAFSA/CSS. DS showed me all his portals last night and all transcripts and counselor reccs are in. A couple teacher reccs are in but he has to politely ask the others when they think they'll do them....bc Nov. 1 is not too far away! He has shown us one essay and is working on others. Turns out he's not going to need to write too many different ones. He emailed one of his first choices to see how/when he can go sit in on a class in what he wants to major in. Real progress here, which is a relief. Hope everyone else is on track too....

 

[Eureka]

She's flying to Boston Saturday to tour BU and Tufts and wander around Clark's campus. I had to remind her it won't be 90 degrees there and she might want to pack accordingly.

LOL! This time of year, anything goes for Boston area. I lived near Tufts when I was a grad student (didn't go there, but took my GRE there). It's a really pretty campus, suburban, which is very different from BU which is all city.

That reminds me, we watched Brad's Status the other night, DS, DH and me. It's a Ben Stiller movie in which he is pondering his own life but the setting is he and his son are on a college visit trip (and they visit Harvard and Tufts is what made me think of it). Good movie and so timely for us to watch it. Some of the dialogue about how quickly the time has gone, I could have written myself.

 

[mjkacmom]

Dd just texted asking for her S.S. number, she created her fasfa account.

 

[yeahdisney]

Today I prepped to do the dreaded FAFSA, I gathered current numbers in the AM but before I started it online I saw I needed driver's licenses so I waited for DS to get home from school; I started his and finished it in less than a hour.
Then I used the transfer info to start DD's and I had correctly written down the passwords from last year for her and I used the IRS retrieval info and was done with her's in less than an hour. She was in classes and could not get me her license # until after 5. For her I used returning student option, so it pulled in most of her info.
I did not curse this year. I was frustrated when I had to repeat one part 3 times; it was a section where all the values were zeros; I finally went to the bottom of the zeros on the page and hit next and then it let me complete it. And I used a lap top to do the task. Last year I used an IPAD and it kept timing out and I would have to start over.

And most importantly in Sept I printed the form from last year and I had read it, filled the parts out with a pencil with info and I called my tax accounant in Sept with parts I was not clear with.
And I too would pay someone for this task.

 

[Colleen27]

I got the FAFSA done today too, but I wasn't too worried about it. Between finishing my degree in 2016 and DS starting college last year, it has become almost as routine as filing taxes. And our EFC was a happy little surprise; I expected to be higher even with having two kids in college at the same time. But I'm still dreading the CSS!

 

[bigbabyblues]

Our FAFSA is done. The boy has decided he wants some of his senior pictures from the first session (soccer ones) redone because his socks look stupid in a few and his other pair of cleats would look better in a couple of other shots. Good thing his dad has a photography business!

 

[soccerdad72]

The IRS retrieval tool isn't working for me on the FAFSA We always file an extension, so we officially just filed 2017 taxes a couple weeks ago, so I don't know if that's causing an issue, but I might have to go an manually enter the tax info.

 

[bigbabyblues]

It wouldn't work for me either.

 

[Eureka]

Our FAFSA is done. The boy has decided he wants some of his senior pictures from the first session (soccer ones) redone because his socks look stupid in a few and his other pair of cleats would look better in a couple of other shots. Good thing his dad has a photography business!

This made me laugh. How do socks look stupid?