We do it by having grandparents who can help out with EC costs. My kids are Pell eligible, but I'm very aware that they're a special kind of pell-eligible in that they have college educated parents who can help them navigate the system and a strong safety net with extended family--they just happen to have a Dad who decided to teach math and a family with just one full time income thanks to homeschooling. I mean, we also prioritize and make sacrifices so the kids can have lessons and all that..but there are plenty of people for whom no amount of sacrifice would make private lessons and orchestra fees possible.

For sure...my kids would have been much more likely to go to less expensive in-state publics if we made twice as much money, ironically. Caveat--looking at your link--that I think people are often too quick to put Ivies and a tiny handful of other schools in a special category juxtaposed against pretty much all other colleges...when there's a big group of schools out there with excellent need based aid AND substantial merit aid that are selective but not Harvard level selective where I imagine the middle and upper middle class is better represented because the merit aid closes the gap for families that can make a substantial contribution but not pay full freight. I have such mixed feelings about our weird American college system with its endless diversity and also endless flaws.

I don't feel like my kids who, so far, are strong test-takers are at a disadvantage now that test optional policies are popular, though. In fact, the early numbers that I saw in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic policy changes showed that students submitting scores were admitted at significantly higher rates than students choosing test optional at most schools (or at most schools that released the information, at least). I know you've dealt with test blind rather than test optional policies, and that that's a different sort of game, though.

I kind of think the test optional debate is overblown. I just don't think it matters that much. Like...it matters to an individual kid when deciding where to apply, depending on whether they test very well and want the boost that the good score gives them at certain schools or they test poorly and don't want scores considered. But on a broader level, those very selective schools who get to pick the students they want have plenty of ways to...pick the students they want. When I look at schools that have been test optional for decades, they're not more diverse economically or racially than their peers who aren't test optional or weren't until the pandemic. (Look as somewhere like Williams vs. Bowdoin, for example). As has been pointed out, there are a whole bunch of ways in which the college admissions process at selective colleges favors the wealthy. I mean, there are other reasons why test optional might be a good thing, but increasing diversity just doesn't seem to be one of them: https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-test-optional-policies-didnt-do-much-to-diversify-college-student-populations/ ETA: Not to mention that the vast majority of schools with excellent need based aid aren't need blind. Wealthy kids get a big boost simply by literally being wealthy and not needing financial aid.

My kid had one school with no obvious place to decline. He e-mailed admissions to tell them he wasn't coming, but he still got e-mails and physical mail all spring/summer urging him to put a housing deposit down. It was annoying. So I'd second e-mailing the admissions officer, and at that point you've done your part!

Mine sent e-mails to schools where they'd had a lot of contact with their admissions officers or a particular professor (which was all of them for my music kid, but just a couple for my other kid), but otherwise just hit the decline button.

I love Nantucket (went there on my honeymoon), but haven't been back in forever despite many, many trips to Cape Cod because, yeah....so expensive. If you've never been to that part of the country, honestly, I'd just stay on the Cape. There's tons to do there and it's much easier logistically. The area farther out--Eastham, Wellfleet, etc--near the National Seashore--is probably my favorite and at least a little less crowded. It's already pretty late to be booking anywhere on the Cape or Islands for this July, though. But if you're set on Nantucket, I'd just stay on Nantucket--the regular ferry is so slow and the high speed ferry so expensive that a day trip doesn't make sense most of the time. Martha's Vineyard is a good bit easier to get to (and very practical for a day trip).

Looks like no one's mentioned Hatch Show Print yet in Nashville...it shares a building with the Country Music Hall of Fame; we did and enjoyed both on our last trip (and you can buy a ticket that includes both), but like the Hatch Show Print tour more, I think.

Thank you--that's helpful! I just asked my husband a few minutes ago if he was interested in doing the class together with DS so he'd be able to help with it (he's a math teacher, so better suited for it than I am). He was...not excited about the idea 😂

My physics plan for next year is falling apart, because that's what always happens to me, so now I'm leaning toward AP Physics 1 at Physics Prep for my 12th grader. I have trouble seeing the advantage of paying way more for the same material through PA Homeschoolers since it's not a synchronous class, but if someone wants to try to talk me into that instead, please do! Anyway, my last kid did the same thing, but we didn't pay extra for access to the discussion forum, where, apparently, they'll answer questions if you have them. He will probably have questions and there's no one here with any recent physics experience to answer them for him. so...anyone used the course with the discussion forum? helpful? worth it? anyone done it?

I had a phlebotomist suggest using my hand one time after having trouble with my arm, and I gave her a hard no. It just sounded terrible to me! She went and found the person in the office who can always get me on the first try instead. Incidentally, perhaps because my veins are so tough to find, they always give me a stress ball and have me squeeze it first....after a couple of high potassium readings, I googled and realized that squeezing and pumping your fist is notorious for giving false high potassium readings, so the next time (a recheck of my potassium!) I sort of...pretended to squeeze to avoid having to tell the phlebotomist how to do her job, and...normal potassium!

ha! the human DNA results are hilarious! We've done all three of our dogs with Embark now, and we have a running joke about how my mother scoffs every time we call and tell her the results. We have a dog we thought was a Scottie mix who turned out to be half Westie and another who we thought was maybe wire-haired Jack Russell but was actually mostly chihuahua. To me they both made sense once we saw them, but not my mother. Then we did the dog we assumed was all beagle who came back 95% beagle and 5% basset hound. My mother actually believed that one 🙂 We've made sure not to upload pictures of the dogs on the site until we get the results, in an attempt to keep them honest! Anyway, they are all excellent little woofs!

Mine have both let their colleges match them, and it's been fine. No super close friendships have developed, but they've all gotten along fine (and then met friends to live with in later years).

A few years ago at least people were hyping it up as somehow way healthier than table sugar. Same with agave nectar. But really they're all just sugar.

I was talking to a friend about this, and and she reported a frustrating experience trying to find a banana bread recipe without added sugar and how many recipes proudly announced that they were using honey not sugar. Remember when agave nectar was all the rage? And then coconut sugar....I looked up coconut sugar the other day, and I seriously can't figure out why people were so excited about it. The glycemic index is maybe a little lower than table sugar, depending on whose numbers you believe. It's almost like there's not ANY magical way to eat a bunch of sugar without the downsides of eating sugar 😂

the sweetleaf drops are what I tried...with unpleasant results 🙂 I think it is just an individual palates thing....I've never been able to stand the taste of Diet Coke or anything either. xylitol/erythritol are the first fake sugars I've ever liked fine.

I wasn't saying I would use honey as a primary sweetener, but speculating that a tiny amount of it blended with stevia might make stevia as a primary sweetener more palatable. Like, say, a half teaspoon of honey would have 2 1/2 grams of sugar, compared to 27 grams of carbs (3 of which are fiber) in a banana.

My son did the intermediate music theory at Well Trained Mind Academy and liked it a lot, and I believe there's also a beginner's class

I appreciate all the suggestions! I should say that I've been very aware of watching my blood sugar for most of my adult life, since I had gestational diabetes when I was 26 (right around the same time my mother was diagnosed with diabetes...when she was younger than I am now). I managed to not get GD with 3 subsequent pregnancies, and I've kept my A1C in range pretty well ever since (though last spring it ventured over into pre-diabetic for the first time in several years), through, frankly, a good bit of obsessing about my blood sugar. So I know what spikes it and what doesn't. I know that fiber is good and I know when it's not good enough. I DO eat fruit, but I'm careful about amounts and types. So it's not a tragedy on a massive scale or anything, but if I need to sweeten my smoothies with something that has real sugar in it, that's sugar I can't eat somewhere else, if that makes sense (and I wouldn't eat something like a banana, with 20+ grams of carbs most of the time, because I just don't eat that much at once on a regular basis. I wish it were fine as long as there's a bit of fiber, but no such luck, at least not at this stage of my life). It would be really nice if I could put a little erythritol in them without worrying about it. Incidentally, the fiber thing is why dark chocolate is my go to. A pretty generous serving of 78% dark chocolate has 11 grams of carbs, but 5 of those are fiber and 6 sugar. And I put a tablespoon of psyllium husk powder in my smoothies. I'm all about fiber!

I haven't--I bought monkfruit once, but, yeah--it's an erythritol blend, so I haven't tried pure monkfruit yet. I'll have to try it.

yes, but my personal concern is staving off diabetes for as long as possible, and for those purposes sugar is sugar (and erythritol is not sugar). Like, I wouldn't just eat a whole banana or anything else with that much sugar in it in one sitting...at least not on a regular basis. ETA: I also don't particularly care for bananas, so I don't have much motivation to experiment with them as sweeteners anyway 🙂

I thought about trying that...stevia plus a tiny bit of sugar or honey. I'll have to try it.

There are a whole lot of people trying to get me to eat dates and prunes in this thread 😂 I guess I'd better give it a try. Dates are high in sugar, though--I'm seeing values from 6 to 18 grams of sugar listed for a single date when I try to look it up...like at the midpoint of that range it's not any different from putting in a tablespoon of actual sugar...sugar-wise (in the old days before this week, about a tablespoon was swerve was what I did). Obviously it has nutritional benefits sugar doesn't have, but when one is trying to avoid sugar, it's still sugar.

I mostly just go with a couple squares of very dark chocolate lately, but sometimes I just want to have a slice of cake or something, and I felt like baking with xylitol or erythritol was a pretty decent way to do that without spiking my sugar. I've seen a couple of people cautioning about balancing the risk of erythritol vs. sugar....i.e. if people lay off artificial sweeteners in favor of equal amounts of real sugar, that's not any better (the article quoted one of the people who ran the study as saying it increases the risk of heart disease as much as type 2 diabetes does, which, of course....sugar). Obviously, it's a false dichotomy in that you don't HAVE to eat sweet stuff at all. But I think it's definitely true that a lot of people WILL be drinking sugary drinks and eating candy one way or the other, and it's not at all clear to me that sugar alcohols are WORSE than real sugar.

I sweetened my smoothie/protein shake thing with stevia just now. It tastes terrible. to be fair, I think I used too much stevia. Also it expired in 2020. It maybe wasn't a fair trial for the stevia.