All of my applications are complete. When I write for official purposes I tend to be extremely critical of my own writing.. so it took me quite awhile to actually get them in a form I felt was acceptable.

In some cases it was hard for me to write such personal stories when I knew there would be groups of people sitting around and discussing the merits of... well, me.

On another note, I really wish every school would use the Common Application (http://www.commonapp.org), it made things so much easier for me to be able to write all of my basic information down once, select a list of schools, and then submit the applications once I'd done any school specific supplements and additional essays.

And additionally, the College Board / CSS Profile fee is quite excessive, and seems completely unnecessary given all of the financial information given to schools on the FAFSA. I can understand schools wanting you to submit tax documents and the like, but I shouldn't have to pay more than the cost of a fax to do it..

Since I'm applying broadly in order to have the best chance of success, I wound up spending nearly $100 to submit everything.. when it could have been done directly and sent to every school for less than $10.. and it was $100 I had to dig deep to find, since I don't make much money right now.

It's incredibly silly that the fee reduction is ONLY for dependent students who meet certain criteria. Students like me who are considered independent have to pay the fee, regardless, even if getting an application fee waiver for the application to the schools.

I would hope they would take the financial status of ALL students, not just dependent ones into account in the future.. but I guess it wont matter as long as one of the schools I applied to wants me!