This whole thing where they're a month later has its pros and cons for sure--mine definitely have made use of the extra time to prepare, but we normally would have been all done with school weeks ago (and we start back up beginning of August); it's rough having the school year drag on so long!

My two high schoolers did APUSH online last week and both seem to think it went well (it was my 11th grader's 3rd AP history, but my 9th grader's first AP, so he was very nervous). 11th grader has Calc AB and Physics 1 back to back tomorrow--so 7 hours of math, basically. We need to get him some very good snacks.

Incidentally, I asked DH, who teaches at a highly ranked, well-funded public high school, how it works at his school. They have 7 periods, one of them for lunch--no 8th period or anything like some schools do--so most kid there graduate with 24 credits. Some do DE, but it's not particularly common (a lot of strong math students do multi-variable calc and linear algebra senior year through Ga Tech, but it's online at their home schools--I guess that would get them to 25). They offer some special programs like a veterinary science track and an agriculture program, but those happen as regular electives. So just for anyone who's feeling like their kids should have 30+ credits for selective colleges, know that there are plenty of well-prepared public school kids who don't have a super high number.

Our church has gone to masks optional for outside services but still mandatory for everyone for inside. They have one of each kind of service Sunday mornings. I'm happy with this; it's cautious, respectful of people who are immuno-compromised or have kids who can't be vaccinated yet or whatever, but still provides an option for people who don't want to wear a mask.

Yep--DH brought home our first cold in a year and a half after a week of end of the year socializing with teacher friends. All six of us got it in short order. I'd totally forgotten how miserable a bad cold can be. We usually pass around one cold a winter, so I'm a little annoyed that apparently we didn't miss out on it after all by wearing masks and staying outside; we just delayed it. Not fair!

"with lots and lots of labs" 😂

I always put "with lab" on the transcript for lab science classes so people can tell at a glance. We never have a ton of labs, though! You could give a half credit separately for the lab, like a college course might do.

Yes--lots. More teens/young adults than anything else but also a number of older friends and relatives.

I spent all year reminding myself to hold on to the good parts of pandemic life when it was over, but now that I'm staring down next year I just don't see any way to actually make it happen. I've got a college application year coming up for my music kid, plus another high schooler, and an 8 year old who plays baseball. We'll be traveling all summer in our RV, and that part's fine....busy but also a kind of weird, out-of-time reset button. And then a crazy fall. I will be a lot more selective about what we take on and not jump on everything that sounds appealing, but it's just going to be a very different year from this past one in so many good and not as good ways.

DS15 got his second yesterday morning. Nothing but a slightly sore arm. And that's everyone but the 8 year old all finished!

Ugh. I don't want that! The original plan was that he'd take the subject test at the end of the class, in which case I'd feel totally fine assigning a grade. But then covid. Okay, I'm mostly convinced. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the class and felt like it wasn't as rigorous/complete as advertised. But that wasn't his fault, and I'm pretty confident he did everything that was asked of him as well as he could in the class.

I don't hesitate to give grades for classes we do at home even though I don't give tests or other traditional assessments....but for this class I wasn't involved at all other than to ask him if he had homework and check in to make sure he was getting it done. It really would be completely made up.

Is this going to be an issue? DS took a chemistry class at a local co-op in 10th grade that didn't issue a grade. The teacher actually asked him if he needed a grade for it at the very end, but he didn't ask for one (I wasn't especially comfortable with her giving him a grade, because there hadn't been any graded work throughout the class). It was also last year, so the year when school was weird for most everyone at the end, no matter what the setting. I know that he completed all the work and put in a good effort, so I was thinking I'd just put it as a "pass" on his transcript instead of a letter grade. I don't know that I actually have much choice about it at this point anyway (other than just making up a grade myself), so I guess I'm just asking if anyone's had this kind of situation before and whether it raised any eyebrows with colleges? Should I explain it somewhere when he applies or just put it out there and they can ask if they want?

Their letter to the CDC is weird. It basically says, "we know that you still say masks should be required in schools, but we're thinking you don't actually mean that--right? Let us know! thanks!"

Stories like that are not at all hard to find. Voter ID laws disproportionately affect the elderly, the poor, people of color, and women (since most women change their names when they get married). And, yeah, as mentioned, in the absence of any evidence that vote fraud is common, voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem.

cool! (I don't think I had heard of Macalester before we started looking at colleges for my oldest, either--although my college-knowledgeable friends from the midwest knew about it. Like someone else mentioned here, I mostly only knew about the SLAC that I remembered getting mail from when I was in high school. Hello, Carleton!)

I haven't included algebra taken in middle school on transcripts. I will include the Spanish my now 9th grader took in 7th and 8th because he took high school classes through our public virtual school those years. So I think of them more as actual high school classes instead of advanced middle school (they offer middle school Spanish, too, I believe, but he took the high school level along with his older brother). Also because he didn't really do enough Spanish in 9th grade to be credit worthy (he did enough not to lose ground, and he'll pick up with spanish 3 next year), so showing that he did high school work in middle school will make me feel better about that. Perhaps not airtight logic, but it's what I've got!

Well, this is a terrifying thread to wake up to! 😂 I've been doing course descriptions as we've gone along, so I'm in decent shape there. I just found my school profile from my oldest's applications, so that will just need some tweaking/personalizing. I have some ideas about the counselor letter. We have a working list of schools. It will be a lot fewer schools than my oldest since this kid is only applying to music programs and will have to audition everywhere. He has a list of audition requirements everywhere and a plan to go over that with his clarinet teacher at his next lesson. We have a plan to do some SAT prep over the summer and he'll take it again in the fall (we'd hoped to be done with it by now, but covid ruined those plans. He has a decent score from 10th grade, but it wouldn't hurt to bring it up if he can). His essay is the part I'm most worried about; he's a good writer but not at all confessional--I suspect it will be agonizing for both of us, and it might be time to think about outsourcing someone helping him with the brainstorming part of it. Or I might hand him a few example essays to look over, and he'll surprise me and come up with something great on his own. He's like that sometimes. Anyway, so maybe we're in okay shape after all, but I don't feel ready to do this again! He won't have anything due until December, I don't think--I think he's only looking at one school that does early decision for music, and it's not his top choice. ETA: and I need to remind him (again!) to e-mail two teachers from this past spring about LOR. And then he should be good there, assuming they say yes.

It's quite possible mine would have ended up at Grinnell, but it was one of his many waitlists. It remains the one outcome I'm a little surprised about; I know it's a crapshoot, but I felt like he and Grinnell were better matched than some of the equally selective schools he DID get into. I guess it wasn't meant to be after all, though. And Mac has been great, AND I've been grateful many times for that quick bus or Lyft ride to the airport!

Ah! For us, financial aid at colleges that meet need made it pretty much a wash. So yes. For the same money I think it was the best choice. If we’d been full pay or anything close (and not super wealthy) he’d be at UGA. (He actually didn’t apply to Tech, because we thought he wanted a broader liberal arts experience...but it turns out he mostly just wants to take all the math classes, so maybe it would have been great for him).

which decision?

No, Georgia. Although we both may be in states where strong students are more likely to go in state public for various reasons (lottery money here covers in state tuition, so the best students from middle and upper middle class families tend to focus on UGA and Ga Tech).

It's really remarkable how very few smaller colleges most people have heard of. I think generally speaking the average person has heard of colleges within a 50 mile radius of where they live, a handful of Ivy Leagues and other super prestigious schools, and then the ones with nationally televised football. Hardly anyone in my area has heard of Macalester, where my son goes. I think of places like Oberlin and Vassar as the sorts of small LACs most people have heard of, but I think "most" is an exaggeration even for those.

Reed is sort of a special case because, if I'm remembering things right, they sort of deliberately opted out of the rankings game a few years ago. They're still managing to pull a 63 in the US News rankings, but I think their "real" ranking would be a good bit higher. We looked at a lot of CTCL schools, and the ones my son considered tended to be clustered just outside of that top 50 list, but still in the top 100 or so (places like Earlham, Knox, Hendrix, St. Olaf)--I think those are all pretty secure, but they still tend to have more financial worries than those few top schools. And it's not just worries about schools actually going under; competition for students can lead to big changes to either appeal to more potential students, cut costs, or both. A lot of smaller colleges have been in the news for eliminating whole departments recently. I feel like there's a move toward more pre-professional type programs, which is maybe good, bad, or neutral, but it's a big change in how we think of a liberal arts education, at any rate.

It is sad, but it also feels sort of inevitable. I have such mixed feelings about small LACs. On one hand, I think going to one was absolutely the right choice for my academic and introverted oldest kid, and he seems to be thriving at his (as much as anyone's been able to thrive in these weird times). On the other hand, I do spend a lot of time wondering who/what exactly they're FOR. I think most of them have noble goals about diversity and opportunity, but they can't really afford those goals, so even schools with very generous financial aid are made up mostly of wealthy students. And, yeah, it's another reason why I'm much more comfortable sending my kids to those top 50 LACs--for better or for worse, those are generally the ones with big endowments and secure futures.