I agree, May/June seems late. May 1 is the National Candidate Reply Date. It's difficult for me to believe that a college wouldn't give you all the information you need to make a decision prior to the date that they require one. I would contact them and ask for clarification. This is especially true since FAFSA started allowing you to file in October instead of January. My University was able to send awards out in January this year; in previous years it was always March. If you file the FAFSA October 1, there's just no excuse for them not to be able to package you before May. But if it turns out correct that you genuinely won't hear from them before May/June, you might try their net price calculator to get a ballpark figure.

It's funny how some concepts get so ingrained in you that you feel guilty going against the established ideas of what "good" families do. Even though you are already a "good" family spending plenty of time together. I relate to how you feel because sometimes I would really rather take my plate into another room by myself but I feel compelled to sit with the kids anyway because I'm "supposed" to. For dinner we end up all eating together by default because I'm cooking dinner and it is ready for everyone at the same time. That would be weird to me for everyone to take their plate into a separate corner. But I am definitely a big believer in the "cook once, eat twice" philosophy. I make double so that the next night we have leftovers. On that night, each individual has the luxury of eating when he or she is hungry. Usually we still eat together, but now that dd has ballet twice a week during dinnertime, she and I eat later while dh and ds eat at the normal time. It's all a carefully orchestrated act to ensure that leftover nights always fall on ballet days. If you feel like you are already getting enough family time, then I don't think you should feel like you have to eat together every night. The only concern I would have, which was brought up already, is making sure that you still eat together often enough that you can teach/enforce table manners. Otherwise you (and later they) will be embarrassed when you are or have guests.

An official transcript is one that was sent to the college directly from the school. So a student copy of a transcript, even if issued from the school originally, is not considered official by the college. So if you have transcripts from outsourced courses your student took, whether you need to send them in addition to your own transcript kind of depends on what kind of documentation the college wants from homeschoolers. Personally, I would have them sent to add validity to your record. As far as college transcripts, I would send now for admissions evaluation and then send an updated transcript at the end of spring semester for awarding of transfer credit.

This isn't a coloring book, but it does require coloring in addition to cut and paste: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/books/easy-make-learn-projects-human-body-9780545406437.html Both of my kids had a lot of fun with it. The Apologia junior notebooking journals include two coloring pages per chapter (at least the zoology I book does. I didn't buy the journal for anatomy).

As a college admissions counselor, I have read both student essays and counselor letters that include this type of information. Sometimes it is to explain poor academic performance, but sometimes it is simply to highlight the kind of challenges that the student has had the strength to face and overcome. I have always found it insightful, and sometimes it helps that particular student to stand out in my mind. I certainly see no reason not to include this in your letter from the colleges' point of view. And I see no reason why it needs to come from one or the other of you. If your son is uncomfortable sharing but is okay if you do, then you should include it.

I use booklists, such as http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html. For littles, the FIAR lists are also good. Also in this forum, people (including me) frequently post asking for book suggestions, and I usually read those carefully. Once we hit a winner, I might see what else is by that author, or use the "customers who bought this also bought" feature in Amazon. Also, I will request more than I think I need, knowing that once I have them in hand, some may turn out to be duds. Fon non-fiction, I might browse the catalog by subject matter if kids want a book on a particular topic, and consult Amazon if I want a preview inside. My library isn't really browse-able, in my opinion. They are grouped by fiction picture books, fiction easy readers, fiction chapter books, etc. But not by genre. So you would really need to spend so much more time browsing than having a guided booklist. Whenever I take my kids upstairs to the kids' section, they always end up walking out with the same things. They don't find new things. Or, my daughter might randomly grab something colorful off the shelf without really looking through choices and making a selection.

My daughter's birthday is also in May, and I started her on OPGTR around August the year she turned 4. We went super slow. Instead of the "two review one new", we did one review and one new, then the next day just review the same two pages, then the next day one review and one new, and so on, so that each page got read three times. I know there were times when that was not enough, and I don't really remember how I handled it. I think I may have just backed up and started whole sections over again. I know she was five before I could really say she was reading. I have a friend who didn't get through OPGTR until her child was 7, so my experience obviously is not going to work for everyone. In her case, she would stop for a week or two and when she picked it up again, suddenly everything had clicked. Like his brain just needed some down time to process it all. I recommend the Leap Frog Talking Words Factory video. It's not quite as good as Talking Letter Factory, but it could still be helpful in mastering concepts. There's a whole song about blends. Just be forewarned that if you later do All About Spelling, your child will not be able to answer the "what are the long vowel sounds?" key card without breaking out into the song "We're A-E-I-O-U, we're the vowels, we're the glue, to stick the words together..." Every.single.time.

I work in a college admissions office. I know all colleges are different, but for us, August is very early. I would wait until September and the course is finished. Application fee waivers are a marketing tool to drive applications. Call the admissions office and talk to a counselor and ask for an extension or another code or however they handle it. I bet they will give it to you. And finally, we don't usually receive documents all at the same time, especially since the application comes from the student and the transcript comes from the school. And the test scores come from the test agency. Etc. So you could also submit the application at the end of August, and then send the transcript in September when you have completed it.

I would also be cautious about the therapist and would definitely recommend pastoral counseling instead. Not just about the homeschooling thing, but for better marriage advice in general.

Good luck! I actually turned in my application at that stage too... and here I am! Let us know how it turns out!

Okay, since no one else has posted here I'll take a shot... I don't have any books to recommend, as I've really only read WTM. But my husband has never and will never read a book on homeschooling. And regarding any given topic on which we might disagree, reading a book on the topic would never change his mind. There is absolutely nothing I can say, no argument I could make, that could convince him of anything other than what he's already made up his mind to. I know that is not very encouraging, but it's true nonetheless. I think it may help the strife between the two of you, though, if you maybe give up on taking that job of convincing him and leave it in God's hands. Because seriously, that is the only time my husband ever changes his mind towards my way of thinking, ever!!! He's just got to go through the experiences and make the observations for himself.

Admissions usually has a pretty high turnover. So if you have a bachelor's plus experience working in Admissions, I think they will be interested in you despite the gap in your employment history. Admissions isn't rocket science, so they pretty much want to know that you have a functioning brain, a work ethic, and that you will get along with the rest of the staff. And depending on the position, public speaking skills. The fact that both your work and home experience is in education is a plus. If you've organized co ops, you should play up that you have experience dealing with parents.

I work in a college admissions office. We meet with prospective students at a wide range of grade levels. I'd say this summer is really when we started to see more fall 2018 students than fall 2017 students. This fall wouldn't be too soon if you are looking at fall 2019, but neither would next summer or even later be too late. As Julie said, you can still apply for admission early and make your visit later. Many families do this, because let's face it, college visits are expensive, so they want to wait until they've narrowed it down to their top choices before making visits. 99% of the time, families accompany their student on the visit. You probably have a better grip on what to ask... and the assertiveness to ask. Not to mention you would make observations that your daughter might not, or have a different perspective. But it also depends on how much say you want to have in the final decision on where she goes. Also, it depends on how easy it is for your daughter to travel by herself. At my university, we're two hours from the nearest major airport and don't really have public transportation. So traveling here alone is a bit of an ordeal. But if that's not the case at the school your daughter will be visiting near, and you feel comfortable letting her, then why not? Contact the admissions office and ask if they will let her stay overnight in the dorms. Also, many universities host information meetings in metropolitan areas where they tend to draw students from. I recommend making sure your daughter is on the mailing list for all the schools that she is interested in, and then she will be notified if any of them are going to be in your area. That might be a way to get information, meet with someone, and possibly rule some places out without the time and expense of a campus visit.

At the university I work for, cyber security basically IS a computer science major, but the students are learning direct applications to security.

I would think that it depends on whether or not you are currently Pell-eligible. But even if you are, and working takes you out of Pell range, then you lose maximum $5920 for the year - and that's if your current EFC is zero. So unless the college your oldest is planning to attend offers upwards of $30k per year in institutional need-based scholarships, then working even with childcare costs sounds like more money towards college costs to me. And you are looking at a college admissions job, right? Are there employee dependent tuition benefits? Because that is definitely the best way to pay for college!!

Yes! I work part time in a private university admissions office. I've been here 18 years, working part time for the last 8 years (since I started homeschooling). I really can't speak to how my job might differ from a CC. But here it is. Ever since becoming part time, my primary job responsibility is to coordinate our two big campus visit days in the fall and spring. I also was made coordinator of new student orientation which I absolutely hated. Thankfully, a few years ago that role went back over to Student Life (where it belongs!!!). I also help put together several publications that our office sends out. When I lost orientation, they gave me a small territory to manage with the promise that I wouldn't have to do the travel (which was to Hawaii, so no problem finding somebody else who wanted that trip. You might be asking why I wouldn't want the Hawaii travel?!! That was my territory for the first ten years, so been there, done that. I'm over Hawaii. Much to dh's disappointment). For the upcoming cycle, they finally gave Hawaii away to someone else (nice young single guy who will be happy to travel) and I am just going to help support management of our two largest regions, because those counselors can't handle all the management along with their extensive travel. My role and responsibilities have shifted a lot over the years, one of the things I like about working here. But the basic admissions counselor/territory manager job involves answering email and phone call inquiries, meeting with campus visitors, reviewing admissions application files, keeping track of all the applicants in your territory and contacting them to make sure they are on top of submitting whatever they still need, analyzing data to determine the locations you need to hit in high school visits and college fairs, as well as making regional admissions presentations. Also, staying on top of everything going on and understanding all of your college's majors so that you can talk about them to prospective students. By the time I was in my third year of counseling, I was totally bored. After a while, repeating your same "here's why we're the best" speech over and over again and answering the SAME questions over and over again gets really old. I started to look around for other jobs but somehow never did leave. I stuck it out, and after becoming more seasoned I was able to acquire new responsibilities, and that helped a lot. For several years, I had a very small territory so that I could focus on marketing. That was really fun. I worked with designers and printers to create our publications, coordinated photo shoots, researched the best periodicals to place advertisements in, and worked with marketing firms on name-buys to send out our search pieces. Eventually, the university grew to the point of creating a separate marketing department, which I probably would have transitioned into except that was the time I was pregnant with dd and looking to go part time. Right now I'm happy just because they were willing to accommodate me with the part time thing, which our university isn't normally flexible with. So I'm making a lot more money than I would have trying to find something else part time out there, which makes it possible for us to afford part time. AND, employee dependents get full tuition waivers!!! At $35k/year x 2 kids, I am looking at a $280k bonus!! The other thing I like about admissions is that it supports higher education. Admissions is very similar to a sales job, and it's nice to be able to "sell" a product that I really truly value. I've been here long enough to recognize how much better the education here is than our state universities... if only I had known all that 25 years ago, maybe I would have looked beyond... I'm really excited about what my kids have to look forward to.

Yes, good advice!! I work in a university admissions office, and I have seen it happen many times. Students make assumptions and get their advice from the counselor at CC, and then they are in for big disappointment when they get here, because it didn't work out how they thought. It is the 4-year institution that decides what credits they will accept for transfer and what they won't. So THEY need to be the ones that tell you what to do. Contact them upfront before ever starting classes at the CC. Depending on how they work, you might be better off as a non-degree student taking only classes that meet your 4-year's requirements, than trying to make an associate's degree fit. Because unless the 4-year has a formal articulation agreement with the CC, then probably an associate's isn't going to transfer straight across. Also see if the 4-year has a transfer agreement they will make with you. My university does, and students get to stay under the same catalog year so that their classes are guaranteed to transfer.

I think it depends on the student. My ds seemed to be a natural and the AAS we were using seemed like overkill. For grade 4 we switched to R & S. But even though it took less time, he didn't struggle to learn at all so it seemed unnecessary too. So finally for 5th I let go and we did not use a curriculum. I just checked all of his writing for spelling errors, and if I found any he had to find the correct spelling in the dictionary and then write it correctly ten times. We only had to do that for 5th. By 6th, he rarely ever made spelling errors. I even turned off auto correct in Microsoft Word.

Ooh, you sound like me. Last year I decided I really should read ds's assigned literature along with him so that we could have meaningful discussions. I think I got through the first three or four... and discussions? Uh.... Yeah, he pretty much just got to write me a narration proving he actually read it and that was that! We haven't started our new school year, but I'm already doing much better! I decided to use summer break to do his reading, instead of along with him. The key to my success this time was that I cut myself off from my own leisure reading. Nothing to tempt and lure me away from school books so I stayed focused!! I bought three Progeny Press literature guides as a stepping stone to doing a little more than what we've done in the past. Since we haven't actually started yet, I can't tell you how that is going. It does look like a whole lot more than I think is really necessary, so I'm thinking that I might just use the guides for oral discussion. For the remaining books, I made up a book report form that includes fields to fill in along the lines of what we've done in WWS. He won't have to write a paper or anything, just think about things like protagonist, antagonist, conflict, etc. This alone should be a challenge for him. He's my STEM kid. We also do a read aloud. And since I am actually reading those books, we have done a little bit of discussion on those. Nothing formal or planned, just ideas that jump into my mind as we go along. But it's something.

I think WWS is challenging and demanding. I think ds is quite stretched just doing the assignments. I have not yet required him to apply any of it to other subject areas. How you do your other subjects I think depends a lot on what curriculum you are using for history and science. We are using SOTW again. I am having him fill in the narration questions worksheet style instead of answering orally. For science, we are using Apologia. He's just doing the assignments in the book. So neither require a full length essay. For literature, he reads and then writes a narration summary. For this upcoming year, I bought several lit guides, and for everything else I created my own book report form that incorporates some of the questions that WWS asks (who is the protagonist/antagonist? What is the conflict? etc.). But I am not planning on making him work it into an essay. We'll apply it in high school.

I use R & S for grammar but we skip the writing sections and use WWS instead. My observation of the writing program in R & S is that it addresses the very basic mechanics, but is not nearly as thorough as WWS.

Yes, we had Parcheesi as a kid. I remember it being almost just like Sorry.

So glad all my years working in Admissions might be able to help out a fellow homeschooler! Bottom line is that in a college visit, the college should be trying just as hard, if not harder, to impress you as you are them. You are the consumer and they are the salespeople. They also have lots of experience working with families sending their first child off to college. They know what you need to know and they will tell you. Ask the questions that you are really needing answers to, but don't stress out trying to come up with questions just for the sake of asking. Probably questions will come to you on the spot in the course of conversation.

Well, your DH sounds a bit like mine. I work part time outside the home. We do need the money so it is not an option for us for me to stay home completely, much as I may wish it. However, even part time is a concession on his part. He supports homeschooling, but if he had it all his way, I would still be full time and the kids would go to the private Christian school. And yes, there has been friction over the years because of it. I know he feels like I don't contribute as much as he does (which is super frustrating - I work as many if not more hours as he does - I just don't get paid for the ones spent homeschooling). I don't really have any suggestions for you... how to make your husband change his mind... if you figure it out let me know!! All I can say is that in the last couple of years, we haven't been as conflicted as we started. I'm not sure if he's just on board more with it all or if it is me. Ever since I started part time, all I could do was wish and hope for the day I could quit all together. But my job is at a private university that offers free tuition to employee dependents. So the closer we get to the finish line for ds, the more motivated I am to stay put so that he can get a free private education. So maybe my contentment has somehow helped DH's. Also, deep down inside, even though I greatly envy my friends who get to devote their entire day to their kids and schooling, there is a part of me that likes being able to earn money. In the end, it isn't just dh. It's me too. I'll hazard a guess that you are that way too. Otherwise you wouldn't have successfully built a freelance business. It's just that like me, your motherly instincts are also pulling you, so you're torn. I think part time employment is a very nice balance to all of that.

Financial Aid: Are you a US citizen? Are you applying to US Universities? The answer varies depending on your citizenship status. If you are a US citizen, you file the FAFSA, which goes to the Department of Education, which goes to the colleges you've listed on the FAFSA. The college uses that information to determine your eligibility for federal aid as well as institutional need-based aid. If you are not a US citizen, then you aren't eligible to file the FAFSA. Then you are relying on institutional aid, and the college will have to tell you what they will do for international students. If you aren't even talking about schools in the US, then I'm outta my league here and you should disregard everything I say! If finances are an issue for you, then just ask, "what can you tell me about financial aid for international students?" and they can take it from there. Colleges are used to talking to people who are clueless of the process and don't even know where to start. In addition to aid the institution can offer, they should also be able to walk you through what other options you have - parent loans, private student loans, external scholarships, monthly payment plans. Admissions: My university does not require an interview for admissions, so when we meet with a campus visitor, the purpose isn't for us to asses the student, but for them to ask us their questions. We're still in recruitment mode, so we are using the interview to try to sell the school to the student. It sounds like the dynamic might be a little different at the schools you'll be visiting. It seems to me that if your student is actually going to be interviewed, that the school would let you know that. I suggest contacting the admissions office at each school and asking them what you should expect or how you should be prepared. Oh boy, every now and then we have students show up for their campus visit in a suit and tie because they think they are going to get interviewed. I feel so sorry for them!! Everyone else is in shorts and T-shirts!! Professors: Again, sounds like the dynamic at the schools you are looking at is different than in my university. We're in recruitment mode, so again, when professors agree to meet with visitors, they're helping us to recruit students into their programs. Plus, most of them are pretty enthusiastic about their programs and are happy to talk about it to interested prospectives. In addition, most of the time the admissions office sets up the appointments for them, and we know who the "good" professors are and who NOT to set up meetings with :). 99% of the time, parents are with their students for all of the meetings. Often, the parents are the ones with all the questions (especially the money questions). But if you find out that your student will be in more of an interview situation, then just ask if you should come or stay when the time comes.