I went back and looked at The List too. To me, it reads like something an intense high school senior would put together 🙂 It’s probably useful for parents to understand that the “Who’s Who” type awards that involve paying for a listing are a bit of a scam.

And, just to clarify, great scholarships at SOME public universities. The financial picture will be different for different people. For my daughter, coming from a solidly middle class family, Princeton was the second most attractive financial option. She applied to a large number of places, all sorts of institutions. The true full ride options are not common, even for a NM Finalist. Even if tuition is covered, housing can be quite high. One institution offered a decent scholarship, but it was clear that the various hidden costs were going to be high...for example, a charge of $250 to attend a mandatory orientation (that would require a plane ticket to get there.) I thought of another common Ivy advantage that is not well known and useful for lower income students: the housing does not close for breaks until summer. So conceivably, a student would not have to pay to travel back home.

Excellent summary. Generally, students from an area with many resources and other high achieving students will be expected to have higher level accomplishments. And students will be expected to demonstrate that they made the most of opportunities available to them.

Yes, I will agree. I also think there can be a big letdown if the goal has been a particular college. Once that is achieved, the reality of life there can be a letdown. And there’s some loose ends as the student tries to figure out what is next.

You are much more creative than me (and it shows in your current exceptional life choices too!) I was probably doodling bubble letters in the margins of the notes 😂

I will say that I think it can be somewhat difficult to gauge whether one would be at the top or bottom of a class. My Princeton daughter really did not have the transcript/resume of a lot of her classmates. She spent a lot of time on sports (but not enough time to be a college athlete). I have mentioned before that her physics and chemistry was Apologia and math through Alg 2 was Teaching Textbooks. No research experiences, no math comps. But she did end up among the top group of engineering students (and top quintile of the class of 2020 for GPA, which is as narrowly as they ranked.) She received several awards at graduation, including cash awards. My point is not to brag, but to say that I am not sure any of us anticipated how well she would do. It probably is important to consider personality though, and how difficult it might be to not be the big fish.

I’m smiling because I would have hated “finding my passion” too in my “gifted student” days 😂 One of my early academic memories is how much I loved this color coding reading level system our school had. I relished rushing through the levels. Not a darn thing creative abt it! Loved checking boxes. Still do 😂

My daughter had quite a few APs because they made sense for what she needed academically. I get the impression that many think an AP course is incredibly life consuming? I suppose it could be, depending on the teacher. Some do like a lot of busywork. It was just another course here for that particular student. 🤷‍♀️ And this daughter was a good test taker, and liked that, so AP exams were not overwhelming. She will tell you even now that she very much enjoyed those courses.

Completely agree. There may be the rare exception but there is typically going to be some sort of validation of the homeschool transcript among those who qualify for selective schools/scholarships. It may not be AP/DE though. Competitions or research participation is another means to that end.

Neither of my olders attended football games and that disappointed me greatly 😂 I suspect my youngest will participate in that culture though

I agree with let the chips fall where they may. My daughter did not “chase Ivies” and that is not the culture where we live, so I cannot really relate to the sentiment. 🙂 We did chase money, and she applied where good money seemed to be possible. For the record, she was not at all spiky. She was well rounded and that worked quite well for admissions for her (just saying that for the people reading along that think you need a spike to get opportunities.) She was not well rounded for the purpose of college admissions though. She had a packed resume because that’s the kind of person she was (and still is). Intensely curious about experiencing new things. And not necessarily being the best at any of the things. 🙂

None of the Ivies give sports scholarships. It is all need based.

I’m late to this and have not read all the comments yet. One of my daughters graduated from Princeton last year. I’ve got an extended family member at Yale now. For both students, it was hard to beat the financial package at the Ivy. My daughter did have a full ride merit offer from Ga Tech, which was slightly better upfront than the need based Princeton option. I think Princeton turned out to be the better financial pick long term though. They covered summer internship costs. No deposits. So much free stuff...food, clothing items, laundry. Deeply discounted ($25) Broadway tickets that included transportation. There were other positives, of course. Really appreciated the history at that school and in that area. One of her classes involved excavations at an adjacent Revolutionary War battlefield. The access to NYC was cool. One of her classes took a field trip to see Hamilton. Such an interesting mix of students from all over the world. Oh, and her engineering classes prepared her well for that career too. 🙂 My older daughter went to UW Seattle. I really liked that school as well. We could only afford that one though because of the GI Bill. It was not an option for our second college student. They offer such limited aid and we are not in state. My older daughter was not really a Princeton candidate, though I do think she could have benefited from certain elements of that experience. I think UW was the best option for her in that time of her life, and I’m glad we had a way to make it possible. We are still paying off loans though from that more expensive education. 🙂 We do not have a strong in-state flagship where we are. So there are a number of factors that we weigh as our children start looking at schools. My youngest is about to start the search, and her journey will likely look quite different from her older sisters.

Yes. My oldest struggled throughout high school and had a suicide attempt during her second year of college that put her on a ventilator. Several years of hard work later and she is doing wonderfully at age 26. It’s a chronic illness, but it can be managed. It’s not easy though. Resources are so hard to come by.

I’ve used Dogtra for a few years now with my Dane, and find it reliable. It was a game changer in allowing for off leash walks on forest trails where I need to be able to get his attention quickly for recall and prevent him from harassing wildlife. Gets almost daily use here. It’s extremely rare for us to use anything other than the vibrate setting.

United Methodist. We have not met in person for a year because of a regional mandate. Our specific congregation seems unlikely to last through this, as it was already struggling.

Agnes Scott is financially healthy according to this particular article (which “grades” schools, and gave them a B+) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2021/02/22/college-financial-grades-2021-will-your-alma-mater-survive-covid/amp/

Wonderful review

Not sure if you are mocking my post? It was meant to be factual, as you stated this hiring practice does not occur. It’s legally mandated within that system. It’s less about providing employment, and more about Native Americans ultimately directing their health care. Editing to clarify that many IHS employees are not working for the tribes directly. They are typically federal civil service or US Public Health Service officers assigned to individual hospitals or clinics.

The Indian Health Service still employs Native preference in hiring as a matter of law

I am going to chime in as the mom of one of those advanced STEM students. Mine has now graduated with an electrical engineering degree from Princeton and is deciding between three top grad programs in her area of interest. Her current job is in coding for a company developing some kind of fancy microscope (it all goes over my head at this point). Since you don’t have early graduation as the goal, I would be very reluctant to have him do all the AP classes in 7th and 8th grade. It seems to me that there would be value in figuring out a way he could broaden his experiences rather than the hard focus on advancing through high school courses. Sports, the arts, volunteering; down time to just read for pleasure or cook or...whatever. I do realize Covid makes everything harder. Good luck to you as you figure it all out. 🙂

That's wonderful! She has been very thoughtful during her application process.

Congratulations to her! Going to be a tough choice between those two. My oldest's final two were also a women's college (Bryn Mawr) and a large public university (Univ of Washington). Two very different types of schools!

One of my daughters took AP Bio without having taken a previous hs biology course. She did have physics and chemistry first though.