I agree with Lori that you should first identify what colleges your student wants to attend and then figure out how to pay for it from there. Otherwise you are really searching for a needle in a haystack. Some colleges may offer larger scholarships, but if their COA (cost of attendance) is higher, then that information really doesn't help you. There are so many variables to consider even at one college, that one person's experience may not reflect what yours might be. Schools use their scholarships as a recruitment tool, so the amount is going to vary based on 1) how little they think they have to give you in order for you to still enroll and 2) how your demographics contribute to how they are trying to shape their demographics. So a white male living in an affluent community applying for the school's flagship major isn't necessarily going to qualify for the same amount as a minority female in a blue collar community applying for a major that the school is trying to grow, even if both students have the same GPA and test scores. At some institutions, awards are negotiable and those assertive enough to call and ask might end up with a few extra thousand dollars. The other reason to identify the schools your student is interested in first is so that you can then find out what their individual policies are on things like outside scholarships. Then you'll know whether or not it is worth your time to look. At my institution where I work, we allow students to bring in outside scholarships and it won't affect their institutional aid UNLESS it was already sitting in their account before we processed their award. This rarely happens, though. However, we don't usually stack our own scholarships. I think it is really worth calling and talking to someone in the admissions office at each school you're considering because it's all very complex and they usually won't put every intricate detail out on their websites. The person may also be willing to give you some inside tips, such as you might qualify for a little more if you change to a related major or include an essay that says this or that. Also, the admissions counselor becomes your advocate and if they get to know your student, might be able to "beg" on your behalf (if their award system works that way at all). Also agree you should file the FAFSA. As others have stated, institutional aid is often based on the FAFSA. In addition, even if your student is not Pell Grant eligible, if you'll be utilizing student loans at all, the federal loans usually have slightly better terms (interest rates, fees, etc.) than private lenders. It's interesting to me to read what others' experiences are at other institutions than my own.

the director of admissions or an admissions counselor should be able to address the majority of the questions you have on your list. In addition, you should ask about the admissions process - what to submit and when. If you aren't offered an application fee waiver, be sure to ask for one. You didn't mention financial aid - I work in an admissions office and almost everyone I meet with wants to go over cost and the financial aid process. At some institutions, someone in the financial aid office has to answer those questions for you. My school is small and everyone in Admissions can answer basic financial aid questions. A professor should be able to give you the highlights of his/her academic program and describe how it is different/better from other institutions. They can describe what the course of study a student in this or that major looks like. They should be able to tell you what types of careers their program prepares students for. They can talk about research opportunities and should have examples of what their students have done after graduation - either career or grad school.

At the institution I work for, 1300 is the benchmark for top tier scholarships and if you've already gotten over 1300, there would be no point in trying to score higher. But it would be a good idea to check with the other institutions your daughter is looking at and ask. But unless they're highly competitive/ivy league level, then I would imagine that her score is plenty high enough already. Also, you should ask if the institutions superscore or look at multiple scores. Some don't, so again it might be pointless to take the exam again.

I work in a college admissions office. Yes, colleges will make admissions decision on 11th grade GPA. Yes, they want to know what classes he is enrolled in senior year. We will only request mid year if there is anything questionable, like if a student got a D in their last math course, we might want to see if they are doing better in senior year before admitting them. Colleges also need a final high school transcript affirming graduation.

Yes I think so, although I'm no expert on what topics are considered specifically "pre-algebra". I just know that when we were watching some of the sample Math Without Borders videos to see if it was a good fit, I thought more of the Algebra I material would be review but we had to go back to close to the beginning to find one that covered familiar material. Certainly ds is prepared for it, though.

OP's 12-yr-old son sounds like mine with regard to Legos. He buys a set, builds it, and then leaves it set up. He does play with them but it does seem to be more of a collection. He also plays with his Marvel action figures. Occasionally he pulls out his marble roller coaster set. Other than that, he spends his time reading, drawing his own comic books, learning code on Khan Academy, and playing Minecraft on his Kindle. There are a few items that only come out of the closet when friends come over - the nerf guns, light sabers, and hot wheels racetracks. 8yo daughter plays with Calico Critters, stuffed animals, play dough, and has developed a recent obsession with Squinkies. She also reads, sews, writes her own stories, makes up dances, and paints/draws. She also likes Minecraft. Judging by the huge toy hurricane that blows through our house every day, I know she plays with a whole lot more than that. But those are what I see her doing most.

After Singapore 5B, we did 6A & B. That was mainly because I hadn't figured out that it is largely review and a lot of people skip it. I am glad we didn't, though. In the end, I think the extra practice was good for ds and there are a few new topics there too. Sometimes I think we can make the mistake of trying to advance our kids through the levels too quickly and then end up hitting a wall because they aren't ready. We did accelerate through 6A and 6B in about a semester and then we did DM 7A in the second half of 6th grade. This also worked out well because it is a huge step up in challenge level - another reason I'm glad we didn't rush into it and skip level 6. We slowed down so ds wouldn't get too overwhelmed and it took him until close to the end of 7th grade to finish up 7B. He started right in on 8A but got hung up on the first chapter. I had him go back and redo it and he was still stuck. I had him do the corresponding lessons in Khan Academy, which he understood just fine, but then when he went back to Singapore he still didn't know how to solve the problems. So I've decided not to finish the sequence to 8B after all. It might have worked out if I had the time to sit with him and go through the lessons alongside him, but I don't. He's self-teaching. So next year we're doing Foerster's Algebra I with Math Without Borders video. So I guess I'd recommend 7A & B for pre-algebra, for the reasons that I chose it in the first place: we were doing well with Singapore and I wanted to stick with it for as long as possible. It had instructions written out for the student so that it would be possible to self-teach, and the target audience appeared to be younger students. Most algebra textbooks are written to a high school audience. I've never used AoPS so I couldn't tell you whether it's better to use their pre-algebra program. I do highly recommend doing SM 6A & 6B first either way.

I work 20 hours a week outside the home. I agree it would be very hard to work from home, so I think to make it work you'd need to set a schedule and pretend like you aren't home during those hours. I work from noon to five Monday through Thursday. School gets done in the morning, then dh meets me and the kids at work and takes them home. To make it work, I have to set a strict schedule and stick to it. We don't have the luxury of sleeping in every day like some homeschoolers do. We're at the breakfast table by 7:30 every morning and have our Bible study while we eat. We don't participate in any co-ops, partly because they always seem to meet during my work hours and partly because spending 20 minutes on a subject independently is more efficient than the hour or so that a co-op might spend. We also don't do a lot of the "fun" arts and crafts type activities. I had to let my extreme frugal side go, and spend the extra money buying new workbooks for the second kid because photocopying takes too much time. I also just had to break down and buy video lectures for ds's math, because I just don't have time to work through each day's lesson with him. Curriculum needs to be as independent as possible. Work that they need my help with must get done in the morning while I'm home. The subjects they can handle solo can be done while I'm at work. My oldest has to be trusted to check his own answers in the teacher's guide. Actually he has to be trusted to do his work period because sometimes I let a ridiculously long amount of time go by in between cracking open his notebooks to make sure there's something in them. I check his writing and grade his tests. Also, sometimes I end up needing to put in more than 20 hours a week at work if necessary. I start my school year early with this in mind, because sometimes the kids have to take a day off from school so I can work. It's also hard not to get envious or feel bad when I start comparing myself to what all my SAH friends do with their kids. I just don't have time for activities. I've moved heaven and earth to make ballet once a week happen for dd. Not sure how I'll manage when she's ready for twice a week or if ds gets interested in joining something. Of course, I also have little patience with same SAH friends when they start complaining about having too much to do!!

I remember I tried to make my ds start copying out his history narrations in grade 3. That was a big mistake. They are still not ready for that much writing at that age. Lots of tears and anguish over that. I don't know what ELTL is, but if there's writing, then between that and AAS you probably are still doing enough. We bought the junior notebooking journal for Apologia Science that year, and he did write out his narrations there. There isn't space for anything long, and he loves science so he was more motivated there than in history. So between that and AAS, that was his writing. I think I had even dropped WWE that year. Oh yes, that was also the year I introduced cursive. So he did have his handwriting workbook too.

My kids are Ds-12 and Dd-8. Started Ds in grade 3, which is what I think EG recommends. There are three levels, but we took almost four years to work through it (we stopped for several months when I thought I was going to have to enroll him in a private school, and we only did 4 days a week and the book is written for 5). Started Dd this last year when she was 7. It took her about half the year to get through Code Cracker (unlike Ds who did it on his own over the summer). And we're only part of the way through SSG, so she'll be starting EG later. That's okay, because now I realize that the only options after EG are college level textbooks, so no point in being in a rush. I don't know how old your kids are, but personally I would recommend EG even if they are older. I had no exposure to Greek whatsoever until I started it with Ds, and so I've been learning it right along with him. And even as an adult, I think I would have been overwhelmed with anything more advanced than EG. A more mature student could probably move through it quicker. I agree that you should do what you love. Besides, you have experience with Greek and your kids will get a lot out of your own store of knowledge that they would miss out on with another language. It has taken me a very long time (and I'm still learning) to fully realize that homeschooling means you can do whatever you want, not what someone else thinks you should do!

My oldest is only going to be in 8th this coming school year, but it suddenly hit me that I only have one year to plan for high school!!! I think I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing for most of the core subjects except for literature. I've perused what appears to be the more popular curriculum options on this board, but in the end I think I'd rather choose my own reading list. Which is a little scary to think of. My biggest question is-- how well does WWS prepare a student for high school writing and literary analysis? We're about a third of the way through v. 2 and I expect it to take us until the end of 9th to finish v. 3. I feel like the lit analysis exercises we've done so far were pretty good, but Ds could never take what we've done and apply it to a new story. Especially since he is very left brained. The lit analysis sections are always the most challenging for him -especially poetry. I'm wondering if by the time we're done with the whole series he'll have had enough practice to use it on his own. Or if at least, there's enough guidance for ME to walk him through a new book without other aids? I was looking at Excellence in Literature, which it seems like a lot of you are using. When I viewed the sample module, I was surprised out how little there was to it. So I'm guessing that its primary usefulness is in the general writing instruction and literary analysis guidelines in the front. That's what got me thinking about WWS, because that's all in there. I'm wondering if people who went through WWS have still found EIL or other high school writing/analysis programs useful? What, if anything, does WWS lack?

Yes, we do Greek. I tried to do both Greek and Latin, but it was just too much, and ds really disliked the Latin but was really enjoying Greek. When you read all of the reasons behind learning Latin, I feel that the same benefits exist in Greek, with the added benefit that the NT was written in Greek. I think that adds an extra level of internal motivation for both of us to keep studying it, that we wouldn't have with Latin. We started off with Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and then moved on to Elementary Greek. I'm not positive, but I think that MP took it over so theirs is the same one now, just a different publisher. We LOVED EG. With dd I decided to try Song School Greek after Code Cracker. I just assumed it was Koine but they do pronounce things differently than EG does, so I'm not absolutely positive. She really likes it. And she started off the year complaining about not wanting to do Greek. She loves the songs. And it includes things that EG doesn't cover. EG vocabulary is based on the frequency the words occur in the Bible. So we only learned a few numbers in random order. But in SSG, there's a whole song where you count up to ten (or is it twelve? I can't remember. We're on summer break and so is my brain). The only disadvantage to Greek is the limited choice in curriculum. Not a problem when we started because EG is just awesome, but when we finished it, finding something to move on to was a problem. I think most people around here do Athenaze next. Athenaze is Attic or Homeric (not sure). Since our primary goal is to be able to read the NT in the original language, I decided a textbook that focused on Biblical Greek made more sense. I ended up choosing Primer of Biblical Greek by Clayton Croy, and to be honest, I'm struggling with it.(Ds is doing well with it, actually. Young brain...). It lacks the structure, bite sized lessons, flashcards, and audio that EG had. (What else did I expect from a college textbook?) I'd buy a new book for next year if I had a clue of what might work better.

I agree you should talk to the church leadership, and as Sassenach said, NOT on a Sunday. On a Sunday everyone is too preoccupied with running the service to devote full attention to you. While it is important for them to be aware of your feedback, realize that they may not change anything. Worship is one of the largest areas of disagreement in a church. For every person who is unhappy, there's someone who loves it. And so not changing it doesn't necessarily mean that they are insensitive to your needs. They just probably won't change if for one person. I still think they need to know, especially since in your case there is a medical issue and it isn't just a complaint coming from your personal taste.The latter they probably already get a lot of and just disregard... but the former is legitimate. As others have said, I also think your dissatisfaction with the church altogether is the larger problem. That's why sitting in your car during worship time is not a good long term solution, because it will make you even more detached. I agree with the advice to revisit the other churches in your area just to see. Your perspective may have changed. Another option could be to drive to the nearest town - could there be a suitable church within an hour's drive? I've known people who drove 1.5 hours every week just to be where they were comfortable. (Not ideal for developing friendships outside of Sunday, though). Or start a group in your home. I do not believe not going at all is a good option. We need the fellowship.

I agree he should at least apply and see what financial aid he is offered before ruling it out. Just still submit applications to the ones you can afford too, so that he has a fallback. He can also search for external scholarships to help make up the difference. Also consider your return on investment. This website http://www.payscale.com/college-roi ranks colleges by comparing tuition cost with how much graduates are earning. See if the colleges your son wants to attend are on there. Also this site http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/affordable-colleges-with-high-returns/.

My son started with code.org and he loved it. Start with Hour of Code, then move on from there. Recently he enrolled in a Khan Academy course (javascript I think?) and it is perfect for him. He tried Code Academy after code.org, but it was a little too challenging.

Since there's no geology textbook, I bought a geology book from Master Books and just stuck in on the bookshelf, hoping they'd pick it up and read it on their own. I don't think that strategy had too much success. (I did have success with that strategy when I bought the two other zoology texts that I knew I wasn't going to cover formally). A small bit of geology was hit in the geography course we did one year. A small bit of geology is covered in Apologia's grade 7 General Science book. This year I'm planning to buy my younger a rock & mineral field guide, since she seems to be interested in that sort of thing. That's it. I seem to remember hearing a long time ago that Apologia was planning to come out with a geology book. I have no idea if that is still in the works or what the timeline is for publication.

I think you can change your view in the Kindle to show the book cover instead of just listing the title. I don't do this but I do have most of my books sorted into folders, which makes it easier to find what I want.

We have Kindle but assuming these are also available on ipad - my kids both like Stack the States and Math Run.

My bachelor's degree is in psychology so I can attest to its uselessness without a master's, except for jobs which simply require that you have a bachelor's in SOMETHING. Like the job I have now!! There are a lot of jobs like that out there, so in retrospect I wish I hadn't focused so hard on what career I wanted (because I really didn't know what I wanted) and just pursued my academic interests, because ultimately I would/could have landed in the same job anyway. The university that I work for offers degrees in Industrial Psychology and Safety as well as Forensic Psychology. Both of those fields have career paths after bachelor's level. So the smart thing for me would have been to do something like that, and then even though I never did make it to grad school I would still have had more opportunities for employment within my field. Neither of those sound like what your daughter is interested in, but my point is that if she's interested in psychology, there may be other specialty bachelor's programs she could look into. Also if she's more interested in counseling than in psychology, she could get her bachelor's in education or some related field, and then go for a master's degree in educational psychology. You can be a school counselor with ed psych but also any other kind of counselor with that degree. I don't think she needs to rule out careers that require a master's degree, just so long as whatever her bachelor's degree is in has applications on its own.

My first time wandering into the high school board... I work in the admissions office at a private university. Can't speak for American but perhaps my experience might help anyway. My university recently went test optional a couple of years ago. We are easy on homeschoolers so it is optional for them too. There are lots of students who mark on their application that they will not be sending test scores, but then we receive them anyway, either because it is on their high school transcript, or because they put us down when they took the test so the scores got sent to us anyway. So what happens is, yeah, we still know what scores they got and so that is going to end up indirectly influencing our judgement with admission. But, because their data record is marked "opted out", the scores don't get factored in when their scholarship award is calculated. If they ask whether or not to submit, we usually say that if they scored at least as high as the average for our students, then they should submit. If not, then submitting might not hurt but won't really help either. You should contact American University admissions and ask them what their test scores averages are or if they have advice on whether or not to submit. I'd say if your student scored over 29 on ACT or 1300 on SAT then definitely submit. It can only help. Also, regardless of whether or not your student has an associates degree, if he/she is graduating high school in 2017 then he/she is a first time college student with advanced standing, not a transfer student.

I read the 1 and 2 star reviews on Amazon. That's usually where I manage to find content warnings.

I don't have experience with SOTW 4 and a younger student, so can't speak to that. But when DS was in 4th grade, the content struggles that we encountered were 1) quantity - there's a lot more to cover in a year and 2) So much of it was about remote places and I just got fed up trying to extract answers to the narration questions out of him when the content just seemed so irrelevant to what a 9 year old needs to know. In theory I appreciate the attempt to focus beyond Western Hemisphere but in practice, it got tedious. So I ended up just editing the book down. We didn't cover the entire book. I skipped the sections/chapters that didn't seem important to know. Out of what was left, I don't know that it was any more disturbing than wars in the previous years. I think what makes it more disturbing is that we actually have photographs and film from these events. So, the supplemental literature that you choose will determine how upsetting it might be, probably more so than SOTW itself. My pared down version probably would have been okay for a second grader, with age-appropriate books to accompany.

Pilgrim's Progress Robinson Crusoe Crime and Punishment/Brothers Karamazov Vanity Fair Ben Hur I haven't read them myself, but Faust and Ivanhoe are on my "Christian classics to read someday" list.

I used the Early Bird workbook with my son. He really liked it - it is colorful and has lots of pictures to cut out and glue. The only problem was that we blasted through it so quickly and then I didn't know what to do. If I had it to do over again, I'd have paced myself slower and filled in the gaps with lots of math lit like the Stuart Murphy books. When it was my daughter's turn for K, I just used the first Miquon book because I had it. We moved slowly and filled it in with lots of lit. She did enjoy using the rods and counters (poker chips). Singapore doesn't require too many manipulatives because the ideas are expressed so well in pictures, so it was good that she got some experience with the rods in the beginning.

I never had time to do all kinds of projects but I did use the Ancient Times History Pockets and both of my kids enjoyed it.