Thanks for explaining. That sounds like it must have been very frustrating, so I’m glad you were able to find a solution. That’s got to be a relief!

That does look interesting. We will try to take a look.

I will not buy a car with a black interior because it is too hot in the summer. I prefer warm colors, so a warm beige is my preference. Right now, I have a light grey interior because the car I wanted did not come with a beige interior.

I am interested to hear the answer to this since my understanding is that precalculus is basically college algebra with trig,

Those are all the schools my son applied to, lol — George Mason, Mary Washington, Liberty and CNU. He wound up at CNU and is happy, but, for him, Liberty would have also been a very good fit. I went to GMU myself many years ago. I’m glad to hear your dd is doing well there! Thank you. ETA: When we toured Mason, we definitely got the “agenda” vibe. It has changed so much since I was there. A good friend of my ds’s is there, though, and it is working out very well for him. My niece will likely be there in a couple of years as well, transferring from NOVA.

Honestly, I think she’s just looking for peers and wants to feel a part of a larger group. She is an introvert, but craves deep connections. I definitely think that is possible at a larger college, and maybe even more possible than some smaller schools. I did talk to her today some about this and I think she’s open to considering it, but we will see!

Thank you, Nicholas_Mom! I will take a look at it.

Chris, we haven’t really looked at JMU because she’s been pretty set on a smaller school. Things have been so busy the last few days, I haven’t had a chance to share 8filltheheart’s comments with her about larger schools, but I plan to talk with her about that tomorrow. My sister actually went to JMU many years ago. Thanks so much for your sweet offer to have her visit with your dd. If she becomes open to a larger school and wants to see JMU, I will definitely be in contact. Thank you!😊

What about taking some local coop classes? Both of my kids thrive with an outside teacher and for my son, especially, he would get the work done for a class with a *real* teacher in a way he never would have been motivated for me. I just had to tackle him once a day for math. 🙂

Yes, I’m thinking this would be one that she’d love minus the fact that they don’t offer an undergrad accounting degree. But I could even see her working around that. I just don’t know if we’d get enough aid to make it work. There is no way we can pay full freight for schools with this kind of tuition and we’ve got a weird financial situation that I don’t know whether schools will consider or not. But, yes, she’d love it if she could go there.

I will check it out. For some reason, I was thinking the focus at this school was more toward tech/engineering-type students. Thanks!

Yes, this one is on our radar. We just need to find time to visit. Thanks!

I will take a look at it. Thank you!

Thanks. I guess we’ll just need to keep slogging through the information we can find. Interesting about the Catholic colleges. I was thinking those might be more in the center politically. We are supposed to visit Villanova soon and we’ve been hopeful about it, but we will see. Cost may also be an issue for us at Villanova.

That is an interesting thought about smaller colleges vs larger ones. We have visited Liberty and VCU a couple of years ago and she’s participated in a summer enrichment camp at UVA for a number of years. VCU was out immediately for her because of location. She does not want to be at an evangelical college like Liberty because even though we share many values with people in that religion, we don’t share the religion and it leaves her feeling on the outside. Catholic would be fine and probably good, I think. She loved her time at camp at UVA, but has reservations about It because she thinks it will be quite liberal. How do you dig into the atmosphere beyond visiting campuses? One thing we’ve found somewhat helpful is reading the school newspaper. We’ve also read school reviews by students online and feel like we can get a “flavor” for the school that way. Is there anything else I’m missing in figuring out atmosphere?

I did read that book when my ds was applying to colleges and found it helpful. I will have to check it out again, but one of my concerns is that it is getting pretty dated. Still, it is a good resource. We did visit Hillsdale and dd liked it, but wasn’t super excited about it. She doesn’t have to be an ultra conservative college, but she wants to have the freedom to discuss different viewpoints and feel like she doesn’t have to hide her own. I will check out Hope College. Thank you!

My dd and I are trying to finalize a list of schools for her to apply to. Please help if you have any suggestions! Most important is she’d like to be with very dedicated, engaged students, but does not want a high pressure, cut-throat atmosphere. She’s interested in business and pre-med Other preferences - - smaller school with a tight knit community - not right in the middle of a big city - campus where conservatives are welcome - cooler climate (not Georgia! at least) Her SAT score is high and we can pay our EFC. We are in Virginia and she’d like to be somewhere on this side of the country.

So, would it make sense then to just give the student a ranking on the common app, even if it is 1/1, if there are certain scholarships and programs that require a ranking?

I don’t remember a barrage of exciting emails once my son accepted. He emailed the schools that he wasn’t going to attend. I was kind of surprised that there was no set way to turn down acceptances. Most schools seemed to just assume he would be attending. I would have thought they would have had a clear way to turn down acceptances so they could make decisions about waitlisted students ASAP, but that did not seem to be the case.

What process do you go through to find schools that are a good fit for your children? There are so many schools out there, it feels a bit daunting to figure out how to narrow things down.

If Lukeion’s AP Latin is full, you might be able to do CLRC’s with recordings. It is a 2-hour class, though. If you look into that, you might want to ask Anne VanFossen if you can see a recording of the class before enrolling.

Yes, I kind of remembered having to put that info on the common app for my ds’s applications. I guess we will not include any classes that she is not feeling 100% sure she is up to the workload for. I’m not concerned about her switching from one class for another, like Julie’s son, but more worried she’ll realize she’s too busy and need to cut classes entirely.

Yes, I’m starting to think that I am going to try to help her schedule things so that any less important classes are planned for the spring semester so I can just add those to her transcript if she is still up for it. In her case, I think if she drops a class, it won’t be to replace it with another, so it’s probably better not to have it on there in the first place.

Good to know, Julie. She has rather ambitious plans at the moment and I would like to leave the possibility open for making changes in the spring if it winds up being too much.

I’m trying to think this through for my dd. She will be sending out her applications in September. Should I include her senior year classes on the transcript? The main thing I am concerned about is that she will be taking some classes through dual enrollment in the spring and I’m worried things might change between September and the spring based on what the CC schedule looks like. How did you handle this?