My nephew is doing the UC thing this year; the four essays sounds so daunting! I, mean, I guess it evens out since they're for all the schools, but having them all on one app seems overwhelming. But yay for loving UC Irvine and for progress!

I counted up and realized that DS is actually all the way finished with 8 applications already (all of his early action/early decision + 4 RD ones, I think). And I think it's a good mix of reaches and matches...there's nothing in this batch that I'd really call a safety, but there are a few that he really should get into if nothing wacky is going on. As an aside, I'm surprised by how much difference there is in acceptance rates between regular decision and early action. Like, I knew it was like that for early decision, but there's often a huge difference for early action, too. St. Olaf (one of those "he really should get in" schools), for example, is 67% for EA, but only 40% for regular decision...which is why I pushed hard for him to get it done in time for the EA deadline. Macalester (which I don't think even had EA until a couple of years ago) is 43% EA vs 28% overall. Timeline now is: *hear back re: Vanderbilt prescreen by mid-November *UGA early action decisions (for in-state students) on November 17 *Vanderbilt audition December 2 if he passes prescreen (which would mean missing a dress rehearsal for youth wind symphony and possibly not being able to play in the Dec 3 concert) *a million other things in December that I can't remember all of: Oberlin prescreen results, Vanderbilt results (if he passes the prescreen; I have to put that in every time so as not to jinx it), all-state auditions, Macalester and St. Olaf decisions I think? his 18th birthday which we have nothing planned for....ETC. *oh, and I have to do the FAFSA x 2 whenever that opens! ...and if he doesn't get into Vanderbilt, things get even more fun in January/Feb with RD applications, and, if I'm remembering right, potentially 3 audition weekends in a row, all of them in the midwest. Something will probably have to be virtual if it comes to that. This is all ridiculous, and I'm going to make sure to enjoy my 7 year break after this and to stop nagging the 10 year old to practice trumpet lest I create another music major (but the trumpet was expensive! and he SAID he wanted it!)

Oh, gluten. We've been back and forth on it for years. We originally did gluten free trials mostly because of my husband's psoriasis, with a side dose of one kid's asthma. We're kind of an auto-immune mess around here (asthma kid outgrew his asthma but now has psoriasis). Didn't seem to help significantly with either of THOSE things, but it sure seemed to help with a different kid's rage/emotional regulation issues. Huh. We thought. THAT kid now (as an adult) eats gluten with no apparent problems, but now we have another kid who seems a lot more in control of his temper when he's off gluten. We're experimenting with adding it back in right now, because it sure is a pain to avoid it. I alternate between being sure I must be imagining it and being positive I'm not and that life is an awful lot easier when we keep him off it. So I have no idea. Basically. I'm pretty skeptical in general, and I also like feeding kids to be easy, so I don't think I'm really the sort of person who would imagine it. I don't notice any difference myself eating/not eating gluten. The pesticide thing is very interesting...although only doing organic wheat wouldn't help much with my main problems with avoiding gluten, which is dealing with eating out without it being a big PITA.

Blair has rolling results for prescreens, I think, so...we don't know! the audition is the first weekend of December if he does pass, so it should be in the next couple of weeks I'd think.

ahh--that sounds wonderful! No back burnering here...I'm giving him a few days and then nagging him about RD supplementals! And he needs to start requesting interviews.

Yeah. I doubt the College Board is going after homeschoolers, either, but I also assume they have better lawyers than I do if they do decide to. And, at any rate, it's easy to do the course audit and worth it to get access to the AP Classroom material.

Yay for progress everyone! DS has all the EA/ED apps submitted: Vanderbilt/Blair, UGA, Macalester, St. Olaf....but he still needs to finish and submit the music app for St. Olaf, and he needs to finish and submit recordings for the Blair prescreen, the St. Olaf music scholarship/BM application video, and arts supplement for Macalester (oh--and prescreen for Oberlin). I mean, these are pretty much all the same videos (or at least overlapping videos). His mood lately depends entirely on how well things went the last time he recorded something, so I'm excited about that part being finished. So that's all the Nov 1 stuff, and then I think I'll encourage him to take a week off and then dive in to all the supplementals for January applications (while hoping there AREN'T any January applications). Also I got BOTH CSS profiles finished! (for this kid and my college sophomore). Very proud of myself and also annoyed that the FAFSA is going to hang over my head until December this year.

Physics Prep is a provider that offers self paced AP physics courses (and also offers the same material as a course with instructor through Pennsylvania Homeschoolers). My son did the self-paced material and then took the AP exam at a local school. If you want to designate a course as AP on a transcript, you need to get it approved through the college board, but that's a pretty easy process--I believe the first time you do it they want to see whatever homeschool documentation your state requires, but then it's a very quick process--you can adopt the sample syllabus, pick out a textbook, and then your course is approved and you have access to all the AP classroom material and can use the AP designation on your transcript. But you can also sign up to take AP exams without that step. https://www.physics-prep.com

You could also do the AP course audit and call it AP with option one. One of my kids did physics prep on his own and did fine with it--took the AP exam and got a 4. It wasn't his favorite (he would have preferred a live class, but it was 2020 and we had to pivot at the last second), but it was fine. I didn't do the course audit with that kid and I labeled it "...with AP exam" on his transcript, IIRC, which I think works just as well as calling it AP the vast majority of the time--I mean, assuming it is with an AP exam/score

It looks like there are Walgreens relatively near me that have them...just not the one I usually take him to. ETA: yep--just booked him at a Walgreens about 20 minutes away

Novavax (and flu) on board for 4 of us as of yesterday evening. So far my flu arm is very slightly sore, but I can barely feel anything in the covid arm. I've never had particularly bad reactions to covid shots (I think I was all Moderna until now), but I've always had a pretty sore arm for a couple of days and usually some mild fatigue. Now I need to find an under 12 shot for my 10 year old and figure out where my college kid in Nashville can go, since I'm sure he won't do it himself anytime soon.

I think either government or world history would be good. I'd say that government is probably the easier one, but world history is a good intro to all the AP history courses: the essay format is the same for all of them, whereas government has its own format. I think both are pretty commonly taught as 9th grade classes, though. No experience with providers as we did both at home, but my kids had good experiences with both.

Thanks! I just booked us appointments for Thursday. I'd been waffling on the timing this time around, so I'm hoping my dilly dallying until novavax was available will turn out to be a good thing.

UGA was a hit! I'm kind of surprised; this is the kid who toured it a couple of years ago and told his tour guide, "I'll probably mostly apply to small liberal arts colleges." But I had encouraged him to keep an open mind and consider the music school as sort of a small college inside a big college, and that's what he did. He says it's probably his favorite after Vanderbilt/Blair now. I suspect that most of his schools would shoot to the top of the list if they put together the same kinds of days for him, though (he had a lesson that both of the horn professors were at, sat in on and played with the horn choir, had a tour and lunch with a bunch of horn students, then sat in on the horn studio class. His brother had the same kind of thing at a few schools, but not until he'd already been accepted, so I'm impressed at how much time they gave August yesterday. On my end, I'd be thrilled to have him so close to home. Now fingers crossed he gets in! He'll hear about early action in a few weeks, and he really should get in, barring some weirdness about homeschooling (he's in their top 25% for grades and test scores, number of AP/DE classes, etc)...but then music auditions are a whole other thing, and he wouldn't know about that until February, I think. But anyway, it would be nice if he could hear he's an academic admit while we wait on Vanderbilt ED.

At the moment I feel like DS is making good progress. He submitted a couple of apps without supplementals (we have a common app fee waiver, so no reason not to). Oh! And I finished the CSS for him! I still need to do it for his brother, which makes me want to cry). One more EA to go--he needs to finish supplementals for it. And then he needs to finish recording audition/arts supplement videos for two of the early action schools plus his prescreens. But he seems to be making progress there. We're actually in a hotel in Athens right now so he can tour the music school at UGA tomorrow, get a sample lesson, all that.

That's amazing! Maybe I need to convince my DS to find a long distance girlfriend for motivation (come to think of it, his older brother DOES have a long distance girlfriend, and he's making incredibly quick progress on grad school personal statement writing. hmm....)

Yes. I have a kid at Vanderbilt, and his financial aid is startlingly good. As in I was genuinely startled when I first saw it. Vanderbilt (and probably some others, like Harvard) calculate it based not just on direct costs but figuring in books, travel expenses, etc (and they don't include loans in the package. And they don't use home equity in the calculations)...so it came out far better than my kid who was at Macalester (which is also a needs met school). BUT no kid can count on getting in to Harvard or Vanderbilt, whereas there are schools like Macalester, St. Olaf, et. al where a kid who's excelled academically CAN look at stats and figure they have a very good shot at getting in. Macalester's FA wasn't as good as Vanderbilt's, but it was still doable for us and it was somewhere my high stats kid with solid but unremarkable ECs could get in. So absolutely kids should apply to those lottery schools with the very best FA (these also are usually need blind, which can help) and see what happens, but realize there are also schools with solid need-based FA that aren't as much of a crapshoot. And, of course, YMMV--there are a lot of financial situations where there will be a big gulf between what a school that meets need thinks you can pay and what you think you can pay--but there are also a lot of financial situations where it works out.

We've started saving for our youngest already--much earlier than for his brothers. I will, say, though, that I anticipate paying more OOP for him WILL be less painful than it would have been for his brothers, because we save a lot of money having fewer kids at home--fewer to feed, pay for assorted actives and classes for, etc. I'm always a bit taken aback when people on Facebook groups and the like don't seem to take this into account at all when they're thinking about college costs.

We found ourselves pleasantly surprised by a couple of FA packages that my clarinet kid was offered. I think music schools (at least music schools within bigger colleges or universities) tend to get more creative about stacking music and academic scholarships to attract the musicians they want...I gather that families are generally more reluctant to pay a lot/take on debt for music school, probably both because grad school is usually in the future and because, well...it's music school. But, yeah, I worried a lot about what that kid's options would be, but even the school that I thought there was no way we could afford based on the NPC came back with a very competitive offer. And more than one of his acceptances told us in so many words to ask for more money if that would be what would keep him from going there. And my kid was not a tippy top clarinet player who could get in anywhere he wanted...but he found a few very solid but also not tippy top music schools where he clicked with the clarinet prof and where he was good enough that they would have been thrilled to have him.

ugh! no passport, I assume?

I've always said if we made twice as much money my kids would absolutely be going to in state publics. Particularly with hope scholarships and with two excellent state flagships to pick from (assuming they get in), it's a very tough deal for most middle to upper class families in GA to pass up. Which does make me wonder about somewhere like Oberlin's strategy...they're still not discounting enough to attract kids away from public universities in most cases; it seems like the main effect of offering merit to is lure away kids who'd otherwise be full pay at coastal schools--but at the cost of less economic diversity and fewer low income kids. I think things might be different at less selective schools that genuinely are competing on price with public schools (at least for the kids they really want)...but how sustainable that is long term for those schools remains to be seen. I don't know. American colleges are a big ol' fascinating, sometimes lovable, mess.

I just attempted to deep dive this based on the schools my husband and I attended, which happen to be both examples of a private LAC and a public university AND schools my kids have applied and been accepted to, so that I'm familiar with current costs and aid packages. I didn't get far in my UGA deep dive, because I can't find the figures on room and board from the early 90s. I went to UGA during the golden age of the Hope Scholarship, when it was brand new and still covered tuition and fees and came with a book allowance for anyone with a B average (there was an income cap at that time and there isn't now, IIRC--it was, I believe, fairly high, though...ah! found it--it was 100,000, but only for a couple of years before it went away). I was only in the dorms for one year and after that my rent was never more than around $200/month. I worked part time from my second semester on. My Dad sent me $250/month, all direct college costs were covered by Hope, and I paid for the rest with what I made working mostly minimum wage jobs. Today it looks like UGA tuition + fees + room and board is $22,426. But Hope is still around and still covers full tuition for the vast majority of students who get into UGA (there are two levels now--to get the full tuition there are higher test score and GPA requirements...but most kids who don't meet them wouldn't be admitted to UGA these days). So room and board plus fees is $12,636. Let's say I could have lived on that $250/month from my dad and then another $100. So that comes out to $3150 for 9 months. Inflation calculator tells me that's $6615 in today's dollars. It's all very inexact, but suggests costs have indeed risen a lot faster than inflation. Public colleges are not the ones who are heavily discounting through merit aid, though. But when I look at my husband's private LAC (Oberlin) things look a lot different. I don't have the exact figure for Oberlin costs from the early 90s, either, but I know it was around $30,000 because that number stuck in my head as an outrageously large sum of money for college. Today Oberlin's direct costs are around $83,000. My inflation calculator tells me that $30,000 in 1994 would equal around $64,000 today. But! Oberlin hands out a lot of merit aid. The past couple of years they've been handing out renewable $10,000/year scholarships to everyone, so right off the bat you're down to $73,000. A quick look at last year's College Confidential Oberlin thread shows that merit scholarships in the $20,000-30,000 range are very, very common. So it seems that it is indeed very likely that one can get the OOP cost at Oberlin lower than it was in the early 90s when adjusted for inflation. But then! I came across this when looking into all of this...an article in the Washington Monthly from 2013: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/08/18/merit-aid-madness/ I haven't read the whole thing yet, because it's long, but it's relevant so probably I should go read it when I have time. Anyway, upshot is that back when my husband applied, this debate about merit aid was raging and he might have actually been in the last class to apply before they started offering it. Before that Oberlin didn't give out merit aid at all but met demonstrated need for all accepted students AND was need blind. As for becoming the "country club school we swore we'd never be"? Well, 8% of Oberlin students were pell-eligible in 2020....that number is about twice as high at a lot of peer need blind LACs that only do need based aid like Hamilton or Amherst. I will say that my pell-eligible kid who was accepted to Oberlin was offered a really excellent combo of need based and merit aid; it was actually his best FA offer. But overall it seems that Oberlin might be slightly more affordable to upper class/upper middle class families than it was in the early 90s...but it's also less accessible at all to many lower/working class families whose kids who would have been admitted and supported financially back then are now turned away for being too expensive.

Yes. I threw it out there mostly because the title of the thread was so general (i.e. people from the future might be here looking for more general advice than the OP) and because I felt like most of the personal experiences here were tilting in a different direction (private colleges were unaffordable for us)...I thought it might be helpful to say that I'm a real person whose kids did benefit from this particular aspect of our convoluted college system, even if it's not necessarily relevant for the OP. I.e...yes, it's a very individual thing! But this scenario does exist and not everyone who could benefit from it realizes it's out there.

I say this every time a thread like this comes up, but I do think a lot of lowish income parents with academically high-achieving students aren't aware that there so many schools out there that meet demonstrated need or come close (often through a combo of need-based and merit aid). Either they don't think their income is low enough for significant aid or they don't think their kids can get in because they assume every school that meets need is Harvard level or they just aren't aware of the vast landscape of colleges out there beyond public universities. It's certainly true that this won't be helpful for every situation, by a long shot, but it's definitely worth running some net price calculators at colleges that meet demonstrated need and seeing what things look like before you rule them out. AND looking at student profiles at some of these schools to see if your kid has a shot...they're not all Ivy League and equivalent schools. Just to throw one example out there, St. Olaf meets demonstrated need and has a 66% acceptance rate in the non-binding Early Action round. 1350 median SAT/30 ACT. So it's not easy to get into, exactly, but it's not Harvard, either. With the caveat, as pointed out by Farrar, that most of these schools are need aware, so borderline kids with greater financial need are going to lose out to borderline kids who can pay full price. I've sent two kids to private colleges that meet need now and in both cases it's been as cheap or cheaper than keeping them in-state (but living on campus) would have been, and that's even living in a state where tuition would have been free for them (i.e. we would have been responsible for room and board and fees). And we're not rich by any means, but we're not destitute, either.

They would if he had checked arts and sciences as a second choice, but he didn't want to commit to going if he didn't get in to Blair, so he didn't