No, I did not use the honors designation on my transcript. I also didn't weight grades, because all the universities that my girls applied to would have done their own calculations. My girls both graduated with 2 years of full-time dual enrollment course work in 11th and 12th grade. On their high school transcripts, I listed those courses and indicated they were taken via dual enrollment, but I didn't call them "honors" or weight their grades. They took other courses that could have been labeled "honors" but I choose not to do that. They sent both their homeschool high school transcripts and DE college transcripts when they applied to universities. They were both accepted to all the universities to which they applied, and they both received substantial scholarship awards from all, so not listing honors didn't hurt their scholarship or admissions.

My older ds didn't start reading until he was 10. At 8, I had him tested for an LD at the local California State University education department, and the results were, "He may have a language based learning disability, but because we can't verify the hours of instruction due to him being homeschooled, we're unable to make a conclusive diagnosis." Why, thank you for that useless information! He just ended up being a delayed reader. Now he's my most avid reader! He had to find his spark. He started out reading Rick Riordan books (slowly and painfully working his way through), but he really took off a few years ago, when he read the Dragonlance books. Those are what took him from a slow reader to a fluent, adult level reader. He always has his Kindle in his pocket, and he reads everywhere and anywhere. We enjoy a lot of the same stuff so it's super fun to talk about books with him, though he really likes modern political history and thought, which isn't my thing. He's young for his grade (August birthday) so red-shirting him for a year before high school was always a possibility in our heads. He ended up not needing it though, because his skills took off so much during his 8th grade year. He just took the ACT as a 10th grader for admission to dual enrollment, and scored in the 98th percentile on the reading section. He's talking about pursuing law school. As a delayed reader, his vocabulary was pretty limited for a while, but that's no longer an issue. He's still a terrible speller, though that's improved a bit over the last couple of years, probably due to his constant reading. He doesn't see the words in his head the way most people do. I decided a few years ago to buy him a little electronic spelling dictionary and stop fighting the battle. He went through Logic of English at 12 years old and that was the end of our spelling instruction. He actually did better with spelling once I decided it wasn't a hill worth dying on anymore. His writing skills have lagged also, but they're rapidly catching up. He's taking classes through Bravewriter, and that's working well.

When I started homeschooling, there were very limited curriculum choices and no homeschool sites on the internet. One year, SL language arts was so bad that they gave a credit to those of us who bought it, so we could spend that money on something else. I used Basic K, 1 and 2 (whatever they were called back then), and Core 100. I bought other IGs over the years, intending to use them, and then either gave them away or sold them. I always wanted to love SL, but it never went over well here and required too much editing. I remember that the K books were all over the place. Some books were too babyish, while others (like Twenty and Ten) were more mature. I have a dear friend who's homeschooled for 20+ years with SL and loves it, but it's just not for me.

I used BYL 7 as the basis for my son's 8th grade world geography year. I added in a bunch of Anthony Bourdain videos and additional reading, and it was awesome. I also have some of the lower grade plans, and love those. With that said, I don't like the 9th grade year at all. I totally agree with Farrar about the book selections. I'm curious to see what BYL 10 looks like, but unless the book selections ramp up significantly in quality from BYL 9, I'll give it a pass.

My oldest used Houghton Mifflin's Math Steps until 5th grade, I think. She also used Math Relief for Algebra II. Neither of those are programs that get mentioned very often. She's a global thinker (whole to parts), and needed to see the big picture first before things make sense to her, so incremental math programs weren't really a good fit. I'm thinking about using Excel Math for my youngest. He uses Aleks, but really needs a written component.

My oldest started attending the community college full-time at 14, and she used a rolling backpack. My husband would drop her off on his way to work, so she took everything she could possibly need during the day, including her laptop, books and binders. It got easier once she could drive, since she'd keep her books in her car and just go back and forth to the parking lot during the day as needed. #2 could drive by the time she started full-time college classes at 16, so she used the trunk of her car as a locker to store stuff during the day.

I've homeschooled for something like 17+ years. It's just too early for me. My kids have nearly half the school year left to grow and change, and that might alter any plan I make now. My 10th grader just took the ACT and once those grades come in, he'll apply for dual enrollment in the fall. So I don't even know what courses he'll need from me and what he might take at the community college. I'm savoring what we're doing right now. Each year brings me closer to having fewer kids at home now, so I'm in no hurry to focus on the future!

I don't bother long term planning, because so many things can change. I don't use a single, comprehensive curriculum or program though. I prefer to use the right tool at the right time for that specific kid. This is what I've done to this point. Graduate #1: 9th - World History (K12) 10th - US History (using America: A Narrative History by Tindall) 11th - full time dual enrollment: Human Geography / Microeconomics 12th - full time dual enrollment: US Politics / World Civ I Graduate #2: 9th - World Geography (K12) 10th - US History (using America: A Narrative History by Tindall) 11th - full time dual enrollment: Physical Anthropology / World History 12th - full time dual enrollment: Arab Cultures / American Government & Politics Interested-in-law-school Kid #3: 9th - Big History Project World History 10th - US Government (my own syllabus, lots of primary sources, select videos and podcasts) / Economics (using Lessons for the Young Economist, supplemental readings, videos and podcasts) 11th - planning on full-time dual enrollment 12th - planning on full-time dual enrollment I'm going to require #3 to get a modern world history credit, a US history credit and a geography credit. If I end up doing them on my own, he'll use the Tindall book for US history. I haven't thought about what I'd use for modern world history yet. All I know about kid #4, going into 6th next year, is that for high school, I'll require the same things from him: US history, world history, US government/economics and human geography.

I could have sworn my older kids remembered very little from our 1st-4th grade history cycle with SOTW and K12, but twice this year, my oldest has called to thank me, because she ended up needing that knowledge in one of her classes! Okay, so one of those times was to tell me that she managed to BS her way through an assignment because she knew the history, but still... that counts right? :D "I swear that I learned more in first grade with you than I am in this class this year. This teacher doesn't know much about ancient history, and she's very western-centric!" So you never really know what sinks down there! Some of those stories REALLY stuck with my kids, even though they didn't really seem to be able to recall a ton at the time. My older kids used K12 and SOTW in 1st-4th, then US History in 5th and 6th. Then topical history and geography based on interests and travel in 7th/8th. We didn't cycle back through formal world history until high school. I did picture narrations too. So after each reading, I'd have the kids draw a picture of something from the lesson. Then they'd tell me about it, and I'd write their descriptions down on the page and put it in a binder. I have history notebooks for each kid from 1st-4th grade. Otherwise, they didn't do a lot of written work in history. I think that probably helped a lot with long term recall.

My parents thought homeschooling was a phase, and I'd get bored with it after a year or two. My in-laws were flat out opposed to it. My mother-in-law is an educator and very pro-Waldorf, so she was opposed to homeschooling and to my pursuit of academics "before the change of teeth." Now to hear them all tell it, you'd think homeschooling was their idea in the first place. ;) They're all the staunchest homeschooling advocates I know. It's pretty awesome.

My oldest daughter lives an hour away and comes back here to see her doctor. She has her own apartment, and probably should get a doctor up there now, but she likes the one she has here. For acute things, she just uses student health services on campus. Younger dd is out of state, 4 hours away, but doesn't have a doctor there. She uses student health services.

Michigan Tech on the upper peninsula. My oldest daughter very nearly ended up there as a chemical engineering major.

My second dd did high school geometry over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, using K12 International Academy's summer school geometry course. It was pretty intensive... something like 3+ hours a day for a 4 week semester, as I recall. She completed both semesters, for a full credit. I think the course was 8 weeks total. It was very expensive, but totally worth it for her. She was able to accelerate her math sequence just a bit, allowing her to take college level math via dual enrollment during her last two years of high school.

My oldest daughter is introverted, has bipolar 2 and is very serious about her academics. She struggled with similar issues when she first went off to college. To compound things, her freshman year roommate made some bad choices and withdrew from the university a couple of months into the first semester, so she didn't even have that socialization. The next two years, she lived on her own without a roommate. Fortunately, now in her fourth year, she's made a nice little group of like-minded, equally quirky friends, has gotten involved in a couple of clubs and volunteers with a local art gallery. She moved into an off campus apartment with a friend, and she's had successful summer internships for the last two years, and already has two offers for this summer. It took time. It was probably a couple of years before she really started to find her tribe. I thought I was probably one of the few parents who'd talk to their college kid on the phone and encourage them to quit studying and go hang out more. She's such a contrast to my younger daughter, who is a total extrovert who plays sports and joined a sorority. It really sounds like your daughter is doing the right things, so hopefully she'll find her people soon. I completely understand your anxiety though. I felt it myself for a very long time!

My youngest will be in 6th grade, but since I'm in denial, I'm just going to read what everyone else has read and pretend it doesn't apply to me for a while yet. :D

No. I never awarded more than a full credit for any course, including college courses taken in high school. Both of my girls graduated with about 60 semester units of college coursework. Just because a course is rigorous doesn't make it worth more credits than a comparable course. AP Comp and Lit is traditionally awarded 1 credit, and personally I think that anything more would look like transcript padding. The added reward will occur if your student does well on the AP exam and is awarded credit for the course by her university.

#1 - Decided on chemical engineering during her senior year of high school, went off to university as ChemE, switched to computer science during her second year. #2 - Planned on majoring in business all through high school. Took physics her senior year, loved it and decided on mechanical engineering that spring.

On Saturday, my husband drove about 8 hours to pick up our younger dd and her boyfriend at Iowa State. A winter storm had just rolled through the upper Midwest, making the trip a bit longer than usual. They came home on the bus over Thanksgiving, but the buses were packed for the holiday break, and they both had computers to bring home, so it made more sense to get them. My oldest is done for the semester also, but she's quite content in her little apartment and enjoying hanging out with her friends, so I don't expect to see her home until probably Friday at the earliest. She lives an hour away. Thanksgiving was so awesome because everyone was under the same roof for 3 days. I forgot how much I missed the noise of having a big family at home!

My #2 did the same thing at that age. As others have said, I started requiring that she do some things when I was around to check, and I stopped putting her in positions where she could lie. She was also my child who always preferred to play rather than do schoolwork. It took her a lot longer to reach true independence, but she got there!

Some universities have very early application periods! My oldest daughter applied to a couple of schools with scholarship deadlines in mid October. My younger dd was accepted to Iowa State in August, right before the fall of her senior year!

As others have said, it varies from university to university. My girls both graduated with about 60 semester units, and had all of their credits transfer to their universities. Some of the schools they were admitted to would not have allowed them to transfer everything. RPI wouldn't accept any transfer credit that had been used to meet a high school requirement, as I recall. Some of the schools limited the amount of incoming credit. But, they were still considered for freshman scholarships at all the universities, so that wasn't an issue at all. The only problem we ran across was that some universities would have considered them transfer students if they'd earned an associates' degree, so they both avoided pursuing that option.

I'd contact your bank first and see if they offer a youth account. Personally, I think it's easiest to stick with the same bank. My kids all have youth accounts with USAA that are linked to mine. They all have debit cards, and I can easily transfer money into their accounts, including my youngest son's allowance. When my older kids hit 18, their accounts transitioned to adult accounts but I'm still on them, and I can deposit money if they need it while they're away from home.

It's important not to give puppies too much freedom too soon. It's really important to control their environment so they can be successful and learn what they should be doing rather than punish them for what they shouldn't be doing. Positive behavior gets rewarded and eventually the negative behavior stops. With puppies, I keep a short soft leash on them in the house for about the first four months. I gate them into the family room and gradually increase the amount of space they have access to as they get older. 6 months is still really young. If the dog is peeing in the house, then it's not fully house trained and shouldn't have access to your room or your bed. (I don't let my dogs on the bed or the couches.) I agree with the previous poster who said to keep the door shut. Controlling the environment is the easiest way to fix that problem. Also, every time the dog goes outside, someone should be with her. As soon as she goes to the bathroom say, "Go potty!" in a happy voice (or whatever phrase you want to use). Then give the dog a small training treat. Eventually, the dog will associate "Go potty!" with peeing, and you'll be able to say "Go potty!" when you need her to go and she will. Basically, you teach her what she *should* do and reward her for it. Like with kids, it's easier to encourage and reward positive behavior. Right now, when the dog digs or pees on the bed, it gets attention. It gets to go outside. There's some inherent reward in there that's encouraging the behavior. Also, dogs tend to pee again where ever they smell pee. Make sure you're cleaning the sheets and the mattress cover with a pet urine neutralizer. Even if you wash them with laundry detergent, the dog may still smell trace amounts of urine. As far as the digging goes, some dogs just like to dig. Maybe giving the dog a blanket in her bed so she can dig there to her heart's content would work.

Neither of my kids have experienced this in their engineering programs. On the other hand, my husband was in the conservatory program at Carnegie Mellon, and there was considerable nasty competition because they did cuts. Fortunately, he switched to computer science after his first year. Musical theater was pretty cutthroat.

My youngest son was using Reflex Math, and it was working well, but he developed a strong dislike for some aspects of it. I've had him using the free "Learn Times Tables with Audio" course at Memrise, and he seems to enjoy that.