My 9 year old has an appointment Thursday to get his. It's Pfizer, mostly just because that's what they have.

What daijobu said; you know MUCH more about what his high school experience has been about than the average high school counselor would!

I think it's fine to just say "it's available right now, but I've had a lot of interest, and I'm not able to hold it for anyone; I'll let you know if it's still available Monday." Not holding things is pretty standard practice on marketplace IME...and with good reason; SO many people don't show when they say they will. I've had several people offer to pay in advance for me to hold something, and I'll do that sometimes if they seem non-scammy.

It's tough when it's their first choice! I've told this story before, but our school that wanted more than we had from homeschoolers was Emory; they required 3 subject tests, and my kid had 2, so they got 2 (and I asked to confirm that they wouldn't take AP scores instead). Obviously, they're not requiring this anymore. Anyway, he was initially waitlisted and then eventually offered admission off the waitlist at the Oxford campus, so it clearly wasn't really a requirement requirement, even though they insisted it was in advance. But it wasn't his first choice, so he was fine just submitting what he had and seeing what happened. I don't have a big problem with schools that require more than is typical from homeschoolers (I consider course descriptions pretty standard, and wanting to see examples of papers and other work a pain but a reasonable thing to ask for); but I get really annoyed with dumb extra requirements, like subject tests specifically from a kid with 5 AP scores and 11 DE classes/grades. Or a syllabus for a class you're doing at your dining room table with one student. Although I'll say just based on their description of what they want, they might just be asking for a course description when they say syllabus?

heh. maybe that's why they didn't admit my kid. Did you ask for clarification, and they said, "yes, a full syllabus"? I had all the things they specified in my course descriptions ("name of class and instructor; goal of class; list of books read and indication of other experiences used to cover the curriculum; method of assessment"), so just submitted those. I can't imagine there are very many homeschoolers who actually write up a full syllabus for each course done at home, so submitting them on college applications would involve making them up after the fact.

Oh, one thing that my son's college does that I think is interesting/helpful--his first semester junior year he lived in a specialty house that was just for study abroad students; so it was one group that would be studying away in the spring fall semester and then they switched out with a group that had studied away fall semester who moved in in spring. The idea was both that it got rid of some logistical issues (a lot of kids at his school live off campus junior year, but he opted not to largely because it would have meant dealing with finding subletters for the spring) and that you have a group with a common interest/experience living together. There were supposed to be monthly programs promoting internationalism and supporting each other and all that, but I don't know how much of that actually happened. But it was still a good experience for him.

I would have loved to see more transparency/detail about how financial aid works for study abroad. All we could find in advance were fairly vague assurances that "your FA travels with you." In fact, it turned out his financial aid was adjusted so that we paid pretty much exactly what we would have paid had he stayed at his home school (which in this case meant that his college saved money that semester, since the tuition for his study away program was so much less than theirs)....I wish they'd stated how that works in a more straightforward way somewhere. Maybe also a clearer breakdown of different kinds of programs (i.e. which ones are run by the college itself if any, which ones will be in a program with other US students vs. with students from the country where they're studying, etc) and what those differences mean to the student.

My math major kid took linear algebra and "intro to logic, set theory, and proofs" DE after BC calc. He did get credit for linear algebra, but then he ended up as a teaching assistant in a linear algebra class and felt like taking it again at his college would have been a good idea. He could have made an argument that he should get discrete math credit for the proofs class, but he wanted to take it at his college, so he didn't. This was at a liberal arts college, not an engineering school.

I wouldn't go out of my way to come up with a higher value than what Zillow lists, unless the Zillow numbers are just completely ridiculous. If anyone asks where you came up with it, you have something to back it up (maybe even take a screen shot of Zillow if you want to really cover your bases). I've also seen people say that you should name a price that's what you could get if you had to sell your house right away--not what you'd get after prepping a house for sale. But basically I think it's one of those "don't overthink it" things...particularly since it's very unlikely to even matter in your case.

I think that's very common, but it's also very common for kids to put a lot of pressure on themselves to accelerate because they know college admissions can be so rough these days...particularly for kids who are looking to get into selective STEM schools. I know that here tons of those kids want to get into Georgia Tech, because it's a great engineering school and it's very affordable if you're in-state, and it's increasingly hard to get into (close to impossible if you don't take calculus in high school).

It seems like there are more negatives than positives to trying to fit in geometry over the summer: rushing through geometry, the shortage of post calc options at his high school, the reality that a lot of kids who've always been good math students hit a wall when they get to calculus (my husband's a calc teacher and sees this over and over again). If he's going into engineering, it could be helpful to get some of the intro math classes out of the way in high school, but it doesn't sound like he has any good ways to do that past calc anyway (taking a non DE multivariable calc would probably be good in that it would make repeating it in college easier and less stressful, but it sounds like he'll be able to do that anyway, as he's on track to finish calc before 11th grade no matter what). Tangentially, I'm interested in seeing where this trend of offering non-college credit higher math classes in high school goes. My husband teaches at a STEM magnet school, and he's hoping to teach linear algebra next year...I'm curious how many kids actually sign up for it when they're not getting DE or AP credit for it (there are state-funded DE options nearby, but the scheduling gets tricky I guess).

ah, I guess I do have an idea after all (I think I was reading the question wrong)...yes, my kids all have savings accounts that we have access to but the money is just theirs--we report those as their money.

I have no idea, but are you on the "understanding college aid" board on Facebook? it's great for very specific FAFSA questions like that.

A lot of schools require FAFSA in order to qualify for any aid at all, need based or otherwise, so that's why you fill it out (I guess you could forego it if you're positive they're not applying to any schools where that's the case and you're similarly positive you don't qualify for any need based aid). And yes to 2021 taxes/current assets. I don't know if there's any benefit to clicking "no" about seeking financial aid or not. Have fun!

The Henry Ford outside of Detroit is great. VERY east coast, but all the historic sites and museums we saw in Nova Scotia were really well done, particularly the Fortress of Louisbourg. A little under the radar for living history sites--we were pleasantly surprised by how extensive and enjoyable Old Salem in Winston-Salem, NC was. I really enjoyed Ellis Island and the audio tour there.

We're not there yet, but I'm guessing the answers for music specifically are going to be a lot different from other fields. You might want to post on the music major board on college confidential (which is a much more supportive and helpful sub-forum than CC as a whole). Generally speaking, you don't want to pay for a ph.D.; there's usually a tuition waiver and a stipend (in exchange for doing things like teaching or TAing undergrad classes, assisting with research, etc). I've read that looking at phD programs is one way music students make grad school more affordable, too, (my personal experience is an English phd program many years ago and doing some research with my current college senior in math) (going out of the US is another I've heard mentioned), but my music kid is in his first year of college, so it's not something we've done much research on yet. Do they have an advisor at school that could help navigate?

My oldest has said from time to time that he wishes he'd gone to high school. He's also said that he wishes he'd picked a different college, different major, different restaurant for dinner that night, etc. etc. I.e. he's very much a grass is always greener person. I just texted my other graduate to ask him, but I'll be surprised if he doesn't say he's glad he was homeschooled. He's a much more generally content sort of person. And, as others have said, mine could have chosen to go to school if they'd wanted to. I read an interview with Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven writer) where she said, basically, "yeah, I'm not really sure why we were homeschooled" and seemed to generally not have particularly strong feelings about it. I think my kids will likely end up there; we're not very dogmatic homeschoolers--it's just sort of what we've done, and it's kept working fine, so we've kept doing it. ETA: and he just texted me back "yeah" So there you have it

I don't. I don't know how transparent a lot of schools would be about it. Most schools that offer a BM are going to have audition-based acceptance into the music school, though, including state schools and other big universities...at least that's been my observation/experience.

Peabody's sort of a special case because it's so separate from JHU. It's very hard to do a dual degree there, as I understand it, and it's fairly rare for Peabody students to take many classes at JHU. My son ended up withdrawing his application there, but he got far enough that I know that Peabody is pretty transparent about having relatively low academic standards for admission. But at somewhere like Oberlin or Vanderbilt there are lots of kids getting dual degrees and, even if they're not, pretty much all music students have to take some classes outside of the music school (though at Vanderbilt I've actually been surprised at how few this is; my son has enough AP and DE credits that he could get by only taking classes at Blair if he wanted), so they don't want students who won't succeed in those classes. And at Vanderbilt at least, it's very easy to change majors and no longer be in the music school at all. And a HUGE percentage of Blair students are doing another non-music major (my kid is one of the few he knows who isn't). But how high the wall of separation is between music school and the rest of the college varies a lot by school in all kinds of ways, including in how tied together academic admissions and music admissions are....unless you KNOW you're only applying to stand alone conservatories, it's hard to know how much your academics are going to matter. And, of course, high school kids change their minds all the time; it's very tricky to decide in 9th grade that a kid is going to a stand alone conservatory and doesn't need to worry about academics.

Fingers crossed! FWIW, my husband has been one of the few people at his school masking for many months now, has had many, many close contact notifications, and has yet to get covid. good masks work!

That's exactly what we have most Mondays, when we have a really short window between DH getting home and he and DS needing to leave for wind symphony rehearsal.

What I've seen about to what extent vaccination reduces long covid isn't terribly reassuring. It's certainly better than not being vaccinated, but some of the big recent studies only peg the reduction at 15%. Others at more like 50. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01453-0 Of course, the vaccinated still get covid at a lower rate than the unvaccinated, so it helps reduce it that way, too. And, also of course, long covid itself is so tricky to define and is defined in such a wide variety of ways that studying it is also tricky.

There are some people I'm surprised haven't gotten it, but when I think a bit more it's not really that weird. I have 2 aunts that aren't vaccinated, are anti-mask, and generally haven't taken any precautions...but they also are retired and just don't have all that much exposure. They go to stores, they get together with their own close family and friends sometimes, but they both live alone and don't spend time in crowded indoor spaces, don't travel, etc. Same for my mother and stepfather, although they are vaccinated and will wear masks indoors when rates are particularly high still. Of course, it's not impossible to get covid under those circumstances, but it's not terribly surprising that they haven't, either. I think there are a lot of people like that whose daily life just doesn't involve a lot of close, sustained indoor contact with other people.

I think a lot of people are really invested in the "there's nothing you can do about it anyway!" narrative; if you decide not to take any precautions, it's convenient to believe that none of the precautions would have kept you from getting sick or getting other people sick anyway. On the other hand, it's true that there are a lot of asymptomatic and very mildly symptomatic infections. We're pretty careful about testing when we have symptoms, but we also have a lot of allergies in our midst, so...who knows? I'd be surprised if covid had managed to get through our whole family without any of us noticing, but I definitely can't be certain.

I noticed the same thing summer 2021 as we traveled up the east coast. In my state (at least in my suburban area), where we'd NEVER had a mask mandate, there were way more people still masking than in states in the northeast that had just recently lifted them.