The Common App Is Open. Here Is a Sane Senior Fall.
The Common App opened on August 1. With it comes the season when senior families either run a system or get run by one. We have walked our own students through this process to more than a million dollars in funded education, and calendar discipline made the difference every time.
August is for the unglamorous parts. Fill in the activity and information sections of the Common App. Request recommendation letters before teachers are buried. Finish a solid draft of the personal statement.
September and October belong to supplemental essays and early deadlines, which arrive faster than anyone expects. File the FAFSA and any CSS Profile as soon as they open.
November and December are for regular-decision applications. Scholarship applications run through the whole stretch, because many of the best ones have fall and winter deadlines too.
One habit carries the season. Every deadline gets an earlier twin. If an application is due November 1, the family deadline is October 20. If a scholarship needs a transcript, the counselor gets that request two weeks out, because your emergency is not the registrar’s emergency. A senior working to the published dates is already working late. A senior working to the earlier dates has room for the sick week, the server outage, and the teacher who forgets.
Parents, your role is logistics and meals. The writing belongs to your student. The applications have to sound like your student, and they will be compared side by side with thousands that do.
If your family is starting this month without a plan, that is fixable in one sitting. The $495 Scholarship Readiness & Strategy Review produces a written plan for the whole year, and the fee is credited in full toward Senior Sprint, Senior Capstone, or Foundation Family if you book within three months. Our free Senior Boot Camp on Zoom has been rescheduled to Thursday, October 8 at 6:00 PM, and it walks parents through this entire calendar.