Jump to content

Menu

kirag714

Members
  • Posts

    145
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by kirag714

  1. Hi! Do you know what the enrollment is currently in Meredith Noah's class? We are strongly considering it for my daughter bet for next year and was wondering if it was definitely moving forward. Thanks!
  2. It probably doesn't :). I'm pretty new to this and not aware of all of the options, so I will definitely check some of those out! BTW, we are also looking for classes that are basically secular - i.e. it's perfectly OK if God gets mentioned, but not going to work for us if faith is really a central focus of the mission of the teachers or the class. So any suggestions that fit all of those criteria will be welcomed. In addition, as GoodGrief1 mentioned above, one of my main concerns is balancing thing for my daughter's mental health. She's in the process of recovering from a pretty severe depression, and while she's doing better month to month, it's all still pretty fragile. This is super hard for her because she's very smart and ambitious - but she also gets easily overwhelmed, and is REALLY hard on herself when she thinks she's not measuring up. Unfortunately when she gets overwhelmed or thinks she's failing she just freezes up (and yes she is working on all of this in therapy and also in a DBT group!). So I have the challenge of finding classes that thread the needle between stimulating and demanding! I think for English (given her strengths, but also taking into account her anxieties) that weekly classes & assignments might be too much. If there's a good class that has classes every other week that would probably be perfect, but so far I haven't found one. My gut is telling me that Center for Lit with the writing option will be the best combination of structure and accountability for HER that I've found so far. It might be a bit less stimulating than other options, but she's strong enough in the subject that I think this approach will carry her through - she finds reading inherently satisfying. And her real love is history (particularly ancient history) so I'm also on the hunt for a really good history class - thinking maybe Lukeion Classical History? other ideas in that area would be great as well. Thanks again. This thread has really made me think.
  3. Thanks for your feedback - it's good to hear the negative along with the positive. For my daughter I think reading an assigned book and then having a monthly discussion about it will be the perfect amount of accountability, but I know this approach wouldn't have worked with my son! She would do the reading even without a discussion (that's what she did this past year), so I'm really just looking for a structured discussion opportunity. I've listened to some of the sample discussions on the Center for Lit page and I think she'll find them useful. I might hesitate to do multiple courses with them since there seems to be a sameness in the structure of the discussions, but I think one year with this approach will be a good fit for her. I'm still hoping to hear from someone who did the accompanying writing class! That seems to have lots of structure and accountability (although thankfully not weekly responses, which is what I am trying to avoid). I may reach out to Center for Lit myself to get some of my questions answered, and if I do I'll post their responses here.
  4. Thanks for all the thoughts! Yes, part of what is concerning me is that I have been fairly unhappy with what my older kids encountered in their AP humanities courses at B&M schools, which were both a small private Quaker prep school and the large urban magnet school. It was particularly bad with my middle daughter's APUSH class, but also came up in AP Language - lots of teaching to the test, and the kind of busy work that makes me crazy in history & lit classes. And in my past experience, online courses can be even more prone to busy work than B&M ones, although I'm happy to be wrong about that. I'm not concerned about this kid's ability to read and write (she just picked up War & Peace for pleasure reading, and is an excellent, if sometimes reluctant, writer). This year I just made my own American Lit course - we started midyear so that seemed the best option, and she did just fine with it. However, I do think she will really benefit from a real discussion about the book she's read, and that is very difficult for me to reproduce between the two of us. She will be relieved to know that she is not required to speak up! I'm glad to see so much good feedback about Center for Lit, even though so far no one in this thread has done the writing part! I'm pretty sure that the read & discuss method will work well for her, and I think that the incremental way that they seem to structure the writing assignments will also be a good fit for her.
  5. Thank you so much! That's exactly what I needed to hear. Yes, my "gut" is telling me this is the right choice for her, but I wanted to see some feedback. She loves to read so I don't need to encourage her in that department, but it would be so useful for her to be exposed to some good discussions, even if she just listened.
  6. My daughter is currently finishing up 11th grade as a homeschooler. We are new to homeschooling, and she actually started homeschooling midyear for medical/mental health reasons. Things are going well overall, and she will be finishing up all her work by mid-June. So her 12th grade year will our first time planning her homeschooling in advance. Talk about a steep learning curve! She is interested in competitive colleges (not Ivies or super-competive LACs, but next tier down), and should have very good SAT scores - we don't have them yet because she just took the test last Saturday, but her practice tests have been around 1400. She's also going to do the US History & Literature SAT subject tests in June, and probably a Math subject test next fall. FYI her HS grades from her B&M school were excellent, and her unweighted GPA from 9th & 10th grades is 3.98. Another piece of info is that she will be fulfilling the requirements for a diploma from Erie County Homeschoolers for an academic diploma with honors in both English and Social Science for 11th & 12th grades. For next year I have already signed her up for AP Environmental Science at PAH, and we also have a plan for both math and foreign language, so I'm looking at her English and History options. My question today is about her English class - I am waffling between a PAH AP Literature class (probably the one with Kay Ben-Avraham because I liked the reading list the best), and one of the Center for Lit classes combined with their writing option (probably World Lit, but possible British Lit - she did American Lit this past year). I LOVE the format of the Center for Lit classes - that's exactly what I think an English class should be: read the book, and then have a good discussion about it, without all the "busy work" that seems to be a part of many HS English classes, particularly online ones. I also really love the way they structure the writing portion of the class. However, I don't know much about it, and don't see a lot of reviews of their classes here or elsewhere. Has anyone had experience with them? Are they able to cause some lively discussions (and include everyone, even a smart but shy teen like mine :) ) in a once a month online class? And I worry that we are giving up something by not doing as many AP classes as we can. So many of the kids on this Forum seem to do SO MANY AP classes! Does that matter as much in 12th grade as it would have earlier in her HS career? Any thoughts, and any feedback about the Center for Lit classes? I am going to let her have a say in this as well but I would love to be able to give her the benefit of the thoughts of the experienced parents here. Thanks so much!
  7. We live in PA and my daughter is getting her diploma through Erie County Homeschoolers association. They have very clear criteria for courses that they will label as "Honors" which then can lead to granting a diploma "with honors" in those subjects (maximum of 2, my daughter will be getting honors in English and Social Science). While their criteria are geared towards the specific requirements in the state of PA, and obviously granting a diploma with honors is a bit different than designating a specific course as "honors," you might find their criteria to be useful: http://www.echsdiploma.org/diploma.html
  8. Oh man, the hoops I had to jump through to get my middle daughter accommodations on the ACT (the College Board process for the SAT was somewhat easier!) - she has intractable epilepsy and is on multiple epilepsy meds that slow her processing speed. She was denied the first time, even with her neurologist's letter, the support of her school counselor and documented accommodations at her school. I actually sent them the entire 15 page neuropsych report that she did as part of her epilepsy surgery workup. And as others have said, once you have the accommodations the test is now 6-7 HOURS long. It's a marathon! Thank god she did well enough that she only needed to do the ACT once. I truly can't imagine going through all that if it wasn't needed, and in my experience for the ACT it would be very difficult to be successful. And yes, she had ignorant people telling her she was "lucky" to be able to get those accommodations. Ugh, she gets to live with epilepsy for her entire life. Most people have no idea what that is really like, but if they did I feel quite sure that they would not trade their situation for hers.
  9. It's definitely on our short list because she is so highly recommended! We have to balance all the different AP classes my daughter is thinking about, and she's also very interested in the Greek/Roman history classes at Lukeion (her real love is ancient history). I wouldn't worry too much about the enrollment numbers at this point - there's lots of time for people to jump in!
  10. Yes - that will be a project for the next month or so. I will try very hard to keep that attitude! And I love what you said about the Barnard requirements! At the very least needing to jump through those hoops will have her application stand out! And thanks again to you GoodGrief for your reassurance. I need to hear that from parents here because my daughter needs constant reassurance that everything will be OK. This is a kid who would say that she'd ruined her future when she did badly on a quiz, so to have to follow such a non-traditional path is challenging her on every level (in a good way!). I have signed her up for the College Essay workshop with Maya at PA Homeschoolers, and I'm glad that's available. I will love having another person working with her on that, and it's a great opportunity for her to get the kind of outside feedback she needs. Thanks everyone!
  11. Definitely another part of what I was asking - thanks! And I so appreciate the reassurance and the perspective :) Perhaps part of our struggle is that while her transcript should definitely be competitive, I think that both of us are mentally comparing it to what would have been if she had been able to stay in school - then she would have had an IB diploma from one of the top public schools in the state. So think that there's more "letting go" that needs to happen for us to fully own how well she is doing. We're working on it - after all, we've been homeschoolers for less than 6 months! In addition, Barnard is one of those schools that wants homeschoolers to literally list out everything they've done (book list, curriculum, grading approach etc.), which has me wonder exactly how they will feel about the choices we made this year. As was said above, I know that getting too stuck on one particular school is a very bad idea, but I'd like to feel that she could still be a good candidate there (I personally think she would do very well as a student at that school). Of course if they're that nosy about our approach, maybe ultimately we will feel that it's not a good fit anyway! All part of the process I guess! I think that what's behind these concerns is just feeling a bit uncomfortable and shaky with needing to fulfill the roles of teacher, parent AND guidance counselor, both emotionally and practically. It was so nice to go through the last round of college applications with the help of a full-time guidance counselor at her small private school - this was with my middle daughter who had her own challenges to deal with (anxiety, intractable epilepsy - the past 4-5 years have been a doozy for our family!), but ultimately got into her highly selective first choice school (Colorado College). The thought of being responsible for the school part of the Common App is giving me heeby-jeebies at the moment, although I'm usually pretty good at those types of things once I get into them. I may just need you experienced folks to hold my hand a bit as we navigate things!
  12. That's an interesting idea - thanks! We have just begun to explore the DE options for next year, which includes a local CC, but also includes two other interesting options that I only discovered yesterday: a nearby small university that is well-known for specific programs (Arcadia Univ), and the nearby Penn State branch (Penn State Abington). All options are within a twenty minute drive of our house. If she decides to try one or two classes there and likes them, then she might be open to spending an additional year doing classes there. We'll see! I'm in the process of reaching out to them to see what they make available for High School DE students. However, I would say that she's pretty focused on leaving home in 18 months, either for regular college, a CC elsewhere, or a good gap year program. In my experience, letting go of the "dream school" is part of the whole college admissions process as she begins to widen her point of view on what would be a good fit for her. She knows Barnard (or other top tier schools) are a crap shoot, and I am pretty sure that she will be able to ultimately be open to all the different possibilities. She's had to let go of many things during her high school journey, since things have definitely not gone according to her mental plan! I think that this is just the next step for her, and she'll figure out what's best on her own timeline as we go through the process of looking at different schools. Thanks also to RootAnn and Sebastian for your suggestions! I am looking at that PA Homeschoolers class to help her with her essay, but we have to see if the timing will fit into our schedule. And I have a very large and comprehensive excel spreadsheet I've created with all the schools we are currently thinking about, along with their requirements. I'm basically trying to recreate my experience with using Naviance with my middle daughter, who applied to colleges from a prep school - so I have requirements, dates, check boxes etc. It's been very helpful!
  13. GoodGrief1 - thank you so much for your detailed response! I so appreciate your perspective. One real advantage I do have because of my experience with college admissions, is I do understand and trust the process of it. I know that her goals and objectives will likely change numerous times during the process, and I am just hoping to keep enough options in play that we can adjust as things change. What I am most thankful for in our decision to homeschool, is that she has been able to give her mental health the focus that it has needed. She has a wonderful therapist who she sees weekly, and also (somewhat reluctantly at first - she is such an introvert!) has been taking part in a DBT group. In addition she sees a psychiatrist about once/month as we try to find the right medication for her. Finally, being able to get 8-9 hours of sleep a night has been priceless! While she still has quite a few anxiety/depression symptoms, her coping skills have improved so much - and that is what I am happiest about. She can now continue to do some work even on her "bad days," and is really starting to push beyond her comfort zone with her activities and goals. I'm super proud of her! I've done a lot of research on schools already, and compiled a spreadsheet with dates, requirements, etc. Up to this point Ally has been too resigned about her future to think about this too much, but that has shifted in the past few weeks and I think we'll be doing some college visits in the next few months. She definitely wants to leave our state for college, which seems random to me (PA has so many good colleges!) but I'm letting her set her own criteria. However, I think focusing on schools within a 4 hour drive will be wise. My older kids all went much further away (including my middle daughter who also had major anxiety in HS as well as epilepsy - and is in Colorado at Colorado College!), but I think closer will be better for this one! I do not think she will want to touch her mental health in her essay with a ten foot pole! The essay will be a project for this summer, and I am going to try to find her an online or in person workshop that will help her with that process. We do need to start work on her "resume" which will be better than she thinks it is! While this year has been a bust for ECs, she participated in quite a few in 9th & 10th grade, and this internship would be a coup as well - it's with a well-known forensic anthropologist who is a professor at Penn and has a lab at the Penn Museum. Ally could have started it last fall but she was just too overwhelmed emotionally; she really wants to try it again and if the professor is willing this will make a big difference for her in many different ways! I do need to watch my tendency to want her to jump into everything now that she is feeling better. We are discussing next year now, and it's going to take some work to find the right balance, particularly with the stress of the college admission process. Fingers crossed that she does well enough on the upcoming SAT that she can be "one and done!" Thanks for your tips about college! I'm so glad your daughter is doing well now - this is such a challenging burden for our children, and sometimes they need to be heroic just to get through the day. I love hearing the stories with good outcomes!
  14. She was in 10th grade in 2016 and did take the PSAT then and did well. Unfortunately she missed out on taking it last fall because she was in transition with schools at that time. She is doing Khan Academy SAT prep and that's where my estimate of her score came from (first practice test she scored 1410). So I have my fingers crossed that she will do well next week - she's generally a good tester which is a blessing under the circumstances. Good luck to your DD as well!
  15. Hi! I’ve been lurking for a while but this is my first post! Please bear with me because it will be a bit long! I am currently homeschooling my 17 year-old daughter for 11th grade, and she’ll be completing 12th grade as a homeschooler as well. We kind of “backed into” homeschooling, and only started midway through this year (in December). She started High School at an excellent public magnet school in Philadelphia (Central HS), and was doing extremely well, but had an emotional crisis in the middle of 10th grade and was dealing with extreme anxiety and school avoidance. She finished 10th grade in a cyber school (also with excellent grades), with the plan of returning to Central for 11th grade in their IB program. Well, she wasn’t emotionally ready for that and ended up leaving shortly after the beginning of the year; cyber school also was not working and by November it became clear that she needed some space to figure things out and we decided to switch to homeschooling. It was definitely not her first choice, but she was depressed and drowning and needed to take a step back. Now she is doing MUCH better emotionally, and the space we gave her to sort things out made a huge difference. Because she started homeschooling midway in the year, we have ended up cobbling together her schedule for this year. Thanks to all the resources out there (and lots of reading on this forum and others!), and due to lots of hard work on her part she’s going to be able to complete US History, Chemistry, Spanish 3, English, and get ½ credits for PE, Music and Creative Writing (some of these were combined with the classes she had started online before switching). In addition, she will be completing the first ½ of Pre-Calculus with a plan to finish the class during the summer so that she can do Calculus next year. Finally, we are working with an evaluator who is accredited with Erie County Homeschoolers Diploma Program, and she will be fulfilling their requirements to earn an “honors” designation in both English and Social Studies. However, all of these classes are truly “cobbled together” – for example her English class is my design (she reads like crazy and writes well so not a problem), Math is a combination of Khan Academy and Math-U-See, Spanish is using a program I own called Fluenz, etc. With the late start (and the other issues she was dealing with), she was unable to register for DE classes, or the AP classes available online. Next year can obviously go differently, but I’m almost overwhelmed with the options out there and would love some help in navigating things. She will likely score VERY well on the SAT which she’ll be taking May 5th (probably between 1400-1500), and she’ll also be doing some SAT subject tests – planning to start with English and US History in June, and then do an additional 1 or 2 in the fall. She also is feeling well enough now to step back into an amazing opportunity she has for an internship with a professor at the UPenn Museum (fingers crossed – the professor was very patient and understanding with her and hopefully the opportunity is still available). Basically she is an extremely smart, motivated student who had a very badly timed emotional crisis! She’s my youngest of four, so I’ve been through the college admissions process several times, but never on my own. I honestly have no idea how a college admissions committee is going to look at a student like her! Her dream school is Barnard, and it’s very hard for me to judge if that’s completely off the table now. She’s OK with a year or two of CC before heading to a four-year school (although she does not want to do that locally which complicates things), but I think with excellent SATs and a good schedule next year she could actually have a lot of good options. (I do know enough to “downplay” the emotional crisis reasons for homeschooling – I’m pretty good at putting a positive spin on things!) Is there anyone else out there with a similar story who could give me a sense of how things are likely to play out? And would anyone be willing or able to help guide me through our best options for her for next year? I also feel a bit overwhelmed by needing to fulfill the guidance counselor role on the Common App and other places, but I have faith that I’ll be able to figure it out once I get into it. I realize that my questions are not really clear . . . I guess I just feel so grateful that she’s gotten to the point she’s gotten to, but I don’t want to “mess up” the next steps for her by not giving her the right kind of guidance as she goes forward. Maybe what I need the most is people who have walked this path before to tell me that everything is going to be all right :) – but any more substantive thoughts would also be appreciated! Thank you! I have learned so much from reading these forums and I'm grateful that this resource is available.
×
×
  • Create New...