I would go ahead and take them unless he KNOWS he's not applying to any schools that require them. We realized too late that Emory wants to see three subject tests from homeschoolers; by then it was the end of his junior year, so he'd already taken a lot of classes where the material wasn't fresh in his mind anymore AND he was overwhelmed by all the other college application stuff and couldn't handle cramming for subject tests just for one or two applications. He ended up applying to Emory and just submitting 2 scores, and we'll see what happens. For my current 9th grader, I'm going to make sure he takes the tests as he completes classes, so he'l have them if he needs them. (Our state flagship also requires some kind of outside evidence of completion of core classes, and subject tests work for that as well).

This isn't something I would pay for because 1. I don't have the money for it and 2. I think I'm at the point now where there's not much they could tell me that I don't already know. But it's taken me a LOT of time researching (not to mention making transcripts, writing course descriptions, etc) to get to this point. And I've watched friends go through the same process and feel much more overwhelmed by it than I have for whatever reason (lack of time because of work or other obligations, distaste for spending massive amounts of time googling and reading stuff online), and I think for some people the peace of mind of having someone else handle some of this stuff would be worth it. Everyone has a different point where time is worth more than money. I enjoy doing all the research AND I'm kind of a control freak about such things, so it wouldn't have been a good fit for us.

To be clear, it's not likely to come down to a choice between a big university and a small school. He does have one (or a couple, depending on acceptances next month) big university he could go to, but he's definitely leaning toward choosing a smaller LAC--but some of them on his list are ones that are known for being strong in math and having a lot of math majors and relatively big math departments and at others math is one of the smaller departments at an already small school.

Back from DS's scholarship weekend at Hendrix. He had a presentation and interview on Saturday morning, and he thinks it went well. I had joked to my mom the night before that I'd let her know how it went but that Ari would say it was either, "good," "bad," or "fine." And his initial one word answer was "good," so that's the best of the three 🙂 . He also auditioned (piano) for a music scholarship (as a non music major) and had a kind of informal interview with a bio professor about a STEM scholarship program for pell-eligible students that they reached out to him about awhile back. He's supposed to hear back about the main scholarship in a couple of weeks (it's a full ride, with room and board; there were 79 kids there, and they give out something like 4 of them. There are some others with half room and board, too, and some just tuition, which I think his (already very generous) financial aid package pretty much covers already). The STEM scholarship says it would cover "all out of pocket costs" which I assume means it's essentially the same thing except they'd fill in the gap left after his existing package instead of replacing it?)

How awesome to hear that feedback! Definitely a win for both of you and for homeschooling in general 🙂

yep--Williams is probably in his top 2 or 3 right now....it's not one where we're worried about the department being too small, though (although even with Williams, which is known for math, the first thing the math professor we met with last summer said was, "if you know you want to do math and nothing but math, don't come to Williams." But he wants to do math AND other stuff!) If he gets in, I will definitely PM you!

Thanks everyone! Lots to think about and some things I hadn't really considered much before. Like I'd thought a lot about how many different courses are offered but not as much about potential scheduling problems with how often certain courses are offered. And areas of research....not going to be a whole lot of variety there with only 4 professors (although, to be fair, I rechecked the website of the college I was referencing, and there are actually FIVE whole math professors....plus one instructor 🙂 ). Of course, tricky thing is he has no idea what area of math he's going to end up most interested in--he could make some guesses based on what he's liked so far (although I remember when I got to grad school (English; very much not math), one of the profs talking about how they make admissions decisions and saying they don't pay much attention to what potential students say they're most interested in because they assume it's likely just whatever field their most charismatic undergraduate professor taught and very likely to change). If he could see into the future and know exactly what he's doing and wants to be doing 4 years from now, this would be much easier!

Looking ahead to the next couple of months when DS hears back from all the places he applied....he mostly applied to small (or smallish) liberal arts colleges, and is most likely to major in math or possibly physics (I'd be somewhat surprised if math isn't in the mix somewhere). He'll probably be deciding between some schools with fairly big and well reputed math departments and some with tiny departments (one has only 4 math professors) and few people who major in math every year. How much should he take this into account when he makes a decision? He'll be coming in with two college classes beyond calculus 2 already (linear algebra and intro to logic, set theory, and proofs); is running out of math classes to take a legitimate concern at schools with very small departments? On one hand, it seems foolish to put TOO much emphasis on math departments, given that he's not even sure he'll major in math....on the other hand I don't want him to get to school and realize he definitely wants to major in math (and possibly to go to grad school after) and find his options limited. I can see pros of a small department, too, of course. If those 4 professors are great, then he's REALLY going to get to know them well so that could be a good thing. His best option financially is also looking like it will probably be at a school with a very small math department.

Congratulations! DS's cousin heard from them yesterday, too 🙂 . I love those kind of surprises.

How's the long winter treating everyone who's waiting for March decisions? We know from College Confidential and Reddit (DS follows college threads on Reddit) that Grinnell sent out a round of early acceptances yesterday; DS didn't get one, and he's pretty bummed about it. I know it doesn't mean much--most of the acceptances will come out next month (and--College Confidential again--plenty of the kids who don't hear until March still get nice merit aid)--but it's one of his top picks, and it would have been really nice to go into March knowing he was in at at least one of the most selective schools he applied to. On the other hand, he has his scholarship weekend at Hendrix in a week, so maybe it's just as well--fewer choices in the bag might motivate him to work harder on his presentation 😉 . Also, I'm pretty sure this whole process would be better if College Confidential and Reddit didn't exist--we don't need to know that a bunch of kids got in yesterday!

My son has done two overnight visits, and I think those are the only visits where he sat in on classes, too. I don't think they're essential, but my thinking is that if you're going to be there anyway, they might as well take advantage of as much as they can to get a feel for what a school is like. I think the overnight visits really helped make Going to College less of an abstract and more something he could see himself doing. The potential downside is that if they get a bad host/someone they just don't click with it can sour them on the school. But the same could be said for a bad tour guide or a lackluster information session, so I figure we might as well give the colleges as many chances to make a good impression as we can. ETA: it's also another way to demonstrate interest, which can be a big deal depending on the school.

Math: Foerster's Pre-calc Lit/Writing: we're still working our way slowly through Writing with Skill, so I'll probably have him finish that. For lit, I'm considering doing a year of Shakespeare somehow or other, but that might change into a more traditional world or British lit Chemistry: somewhere else! I'm terrible at doing science; I'm doing bio here this year and my only goal for chem is to have someone else teach it (although I also need it to be somewhere that either gets him ready for the AP or subject test or somewhere accredited, to make sure he's set for applying to our state flagship) Social Science: totally up in the air, but I'm thinking of doing AP government with him at home Spanish: probably Spanish 2 online through Georgia virtual school, if it goes okay this semester. Music: year of music! He'll keep taking clarinet and piano lessons and doing local homeschool band. Maybe marching band there, too, and maybe woodwind ensemble, and he's auditioning for a youth symphony. He's thinking of a music major, so next year will be the year when we test out whether he's really up for THAT much music in his life.

I think visiting colleges before senior year is a great idea, if only to get an idea of what kinds of colleges appeal to him most. And trying to fit all the visits in after acceptances come in can be really stressful, depending on how many schools he applies to. My son is considering Hendrix, and we found their financial aid very generous (and much better than the NPC showed)

Saint Olaf is so popular this year--congrats to your DD!

yay--congratulations! I'm secretly hoping Saint Olaf is high enough on the list to merit a visit come April because I want to check it out with my 9th grader who's possibly interested in a music major, too. Any multi-tasking I can do with college visits would be very helpful!

So much good news coming in for everyone! DS heard (unexpectedly early) from St. Olaf today: accepted with a Presidential Scholarship. He hasn't visited yet; it made the list because its math department has a good reputation. We'll likely be visiting in April, but it kind of depends on where else he's accepted before then.

I made him forward the e-mail to me and I've threatened to print it out and frame it 😂 . Most people online seem to say that Harvard tries to give interviews to everyone who applies, but who knows?

I'd echo a lot of the suggestions and add Knox College in Illinois to the list. DS got a very nice merit scholarship from them this year.

DS had his Harvard interview with an alum this morning. That's the only Ivy he applied to (I would say the only other SUPER reach-y one is Williams, and they don't do interviews). He said it went "fine," but it only lasted 20 or 25 minutes, which doesn't seem like a good sign. Interviewing isn't his strong suit. He would be completely shocked to get into Harvard, though, so he won't be devastated when he doesn't. Fangirl moment: he has to do a presentation for scholarship weekend at Hendrix, and he's doing his on the Odyssey (expanding on a paper he wrote about it earlier this year). He had some questions about the original Greek, so I suggested he e-mail a couple of classicists whose work he's familiar with. So he did, and Emily Wilson got back to him! She's the one who just published the first English translation by a woman. She complimented his close reading skills (good close reading skills is all I've ever wanted for my kids!) and told him she almost never answers student questions, but she would just this once. And offered some very helpful insight into the passage he's working on. yay!

DS has AP Econ and AP lit on his transcript this year (actually I put "Economics with AP exam" since I didn't get a syllabus approved). I felt like he should take the tests since they're on his transcript, even though he probably already has more DE and AP credits than he'll be able to use most places he's applied (and most of them are LAC with no/very loose core requirements, so placing out of non-major classes isn't really factor either). BUT the only place I've found so far that will let him sit for exams doesn't offer AP Econ (and he's not feeling super confident about it), so I agreed to not look much harder for somewhere else to take the exam as long as he keeps up with doing Econ as if he were still planning to take it. ETA: I'll take the "with AP exam" part off of his final transcript, too, but I would be shocked if any of his colleges cared much one way or the other)

My son didn't do ED anywhere largely because we wanted to be able to compare financial aid offers. If he had had a really clear favorite amongst needs-met schools we would have considered letting him, though.

My 9th grader is thinking of majoring in music, so I'd love to hear how auditions go....DS17 applied to St Olaf, so we may be checking it out over spring break; if we do we'll multi task and check out the music stuff with DS15, too.

Waiting for financial aid is so stressful! One of DS's EA schools sent it right after the acceptance; the other one took more than a month! I thought he'd have downtime right now--all the apps are in, all the interviews that he knows about are finished (there are a couple of schools that might contact him for an interview still)....but it seems like pretty much every day someone contacts him from some school or other wanting to know AGAIN if they can answer any questions for him. I don't think he would have applied to college at all if he'd known how many phone conversations would be involved 🙂 (or he only would have applied to big, impersonal universities instead of all these tiny liberal arts colleges). And he's going to a scholarship weekend at Hendrix next month, so he's working on his presentation for that. And he just got an e-mail from Grinnell today inviting him to upload a short "why Grinnell?" essay. He pretty much knew that was coming from reading past college confidential threads. Just 100 words, so not a big deal, but....it never ends!

Thanks! Bookmarked for our next American history go round in a year or two.

They also have the option to sit in on a class and/or rehearsals, so we'll likely just go for that for now. I'm a compulsive planner, and it's making me crazy that I can't even make travel plans until we find out if my oldest gets in to Oberlin or not. I suspect he'd rather not spend his spring break touring a college that just rejected him 🙂