I haven't read all this, but I wanted to share our experience. My dd knew she wanted to go to a private liberal arts college, preferably Christian. I did some research to find where she had the best chance of getting aid -look at the stats for a college, see what the avg. test score and GPA is- we picked a few that she had a good chance of getting aid to. She also had a 30 ACT, graduated with 29 college credits, very active in community service and leadership roles. She received full tuition to Mercer, with an added Tift scholarship of $1000 per year. She also applied to Sanford - but decided she didn't want to go there before she go into the scholarship process. She really loved The King's College in NYC, and put her focus there. She applied for the full tuition scholarship, but just got an honorable mention. But this is her dream school. She has worked hard finding scholarships, both through the college and locally, and she almost has her entire first year paid for. She will have to take out the $5500 Stafford Loan, but aside from that is $5500 for the year away from having it all paid for- a pretty big feat, considering it is a $48,000 a year school!! She has several scholarship applications still out there, so we are hoping she will get more, but if not, we can handle $2250 a semester. We don't qualify for any federal grants either, but are in that gap of not really being able to afford to help with college. So my point to all this is that private schools often offer way more aid than public schools (at least in our case as my son who is attending public college received no aid and is going to have more debt than his sister when he graduates). And if your child is motivated and willing to work for it, there are a lot of scholarships out there. She has won about $4200 just from local organizations, and could have gotten more but missed some deadlines. Do some research. I found a list of scholarships on the local high school's website. Talk to your financial aid counselor at the college. Ours has been very helpful!

We were told by a couple of colleges to make sure we had all the credits that the local/state required for public schools. To cover all my bases, I picked a range of schools (from local community college to state university to Harvard) and made sure my kiddos would have the credits needed by any of them. You never know what is gonna happen junior year- a kid that has seemed totally unmotivated may decide to pursue medical school!

My dd decided on The King's College in NYC. She loves the house system, the city, the fact that it is a small, Christian, liberal arts college, really just the whole atmosphere and philosophy of the college. She will major in Religious and Theological Studies. She also received a good aid package - but turning down full tuition at Mercer was a hard pill to swallow!

Lol the rules are definitely different - we are a small tight-nit conservative Christian community. At least among the homeschoolers. It's not just the actions, but she hardly knows the boy, had a pregnancy scare, and to top it off, she has medical issues that could make the drugs be a worse problem. And she told the information directly to my son who is a couple of years older. He told me because he is worried about her. She also told him she lied about staying with a friend and drove to the beach for a couple of days with the boy and another friend and was at a party where someone put something in her drink and she passed out.

I just found out from my kids that one of their friends has been smoking pot, lying to her parents and staying out all night, and sleeping with a boy her parents don't even know she is dating. :/ I am floored. Shocked. Cannot even describe it. We've known her since she was four-she is a senior with my daughter this year. They used to be extremely close, but the last year they have drifted and she actually spends more time with my oldest son. I know I need to talk to her parents, but boy oh boy how do I start that conversation??? Please tell me someone has had to deal with this and can give me some advice!!!

My biggest advice would be to hurry, LOL. My dd has already applied to several outside scholarships with deadlines that started back in early December. Most of the really big ones, like Elks MVS, Reagan Foundation, CocaCola, -deadlines are long past. A few others that she will be applying for have deadlines in early March. It always takes longer than you think, as most require letters of recommendation and you will have to contact those people to ask permission and then give them time to write the letter and submit it. Also, I googled "____ county high school scholarships" (insert your county) and was able to find the page at our local high school with the scholarship info they give their students. Our biggest help has come with merit aid directly from the school. She chose schools where her ACT score was at the top range of admitted students, and I think that helped. And encourage your student to try something new! My dd is applying to be on the debate team, although she has never been on a debate team but has debated in class, because it offers a $2000 per year scholarship. HTH!

I weighted my dd's dual enrollment courses by .5 point. Initially I was going to do 1.0 point, but the scholarship program she was in required .5 for dual enrollment and 1.0 for AP. Not sure why.

Over the last 4 years of high school, my daughter has developed a love of many things! Writing and marketing are two of the big ones, thanks to her leadership roles in Key Club and NaNoWriMo. For her senior year, I let her design a Media & Marketing class (senior project) in which she has developed her own website as a sort of marketing tool for colleges to see what she has done/is doing. She was able to get an internship at a marketing firm, and is looking for an internship at a graphic design firm now, as well as trying to learn to build a website from scratch instead of using a service like Wix. She also has a blog and has been writing some wonderful articles! I thought I would share in hopes that it will be encouraging to you:) She worked really hard her first 3 years of high school and has enjoyed being able to explore her interest before heading off to college, not to mention that she has gained a lot of skills that she can use for employment while in college and avoid working at fast food places! I hope you enjoy her writing and are encouraged in homeschooling your high schoolers! http://www.haleygdavidson.com/

I could have written this post 2 years ago. I was raised by grandparents who didn't have a clue about that stuff, so no one really helped me either. I had to figure it out on my own. My son sounds EXACTLY like your son! So while we are still trying to figure it out, I will tell you what we have done over the last 2 years in hopes that it will help. He ended up going to a university about 5 hours from us because he had been to a summer program there and liked it ok, and they had the major he wanted (only 3 or 4 colleges in GA did). It ended up being a nightmare-we were driving up there almost every week because he did not get involved in anything and wouldn't go to church alone and started hanging with the wrong crowd (his roommates were big into partying). Over Christmas we had a big talk and he decided to come home and go to the local 2-year college. Ok. sounds good, right? Well he did fine that semester but has waffled since-already changed his major and transferred again to university about 1.5 hours away. He is taking classes on Tues & Thurs and commuting, but he hates his classes and is talking of changing his major again! The paperwork required in all the transferring has been horrible, and he has missed deadlines and had some really close calls. I've had to stay on him like glue. I've come to wonder why we are doing this. I've encouraged him to take time off, do a gap year, travel, intern, something--but he does not want to get out of his comfort zone. Meanwhile he is causing a lot of disharmony in the home with his siblings because he is basically miserable and misery loves company;) So while I don't have any solid advice about what to do, maybe you can learn from our mistakes and make better decisions. It is really hard because his sister is the exact opposite! And it drives him crazy. These are the homeschool issues no one warns you about, right? :)

Update on my dd--she received a full tuition Presidential scholarship to Mercer University, plus a $1000 per year Tift Scholarship to Mercer, as well. Still anxiously awaiting results from scholarship competition at King's! She was also accepted to the American University of Paris, but has pretty much decided against it as they don't offer much in the way of scholarships. ;)

I'm so proud of my dd (my 2nd to go off to college). She is getting to interview for 2 major scholarships so far, but both fell on the same weekend! So now we are doing the run around trying to figure it out. Looks like she will have to fly to NYC twice-once for the scholarship, once for their big visitation event-in the span of 3 weeks. Thankful, hate to complain, but oh. my. word. She is running me ragged!!

I tried adding our new ones by "quoting"- hope I did it right! Feel free to fix it if I didn't :)

My dd was accepted to The King's College in NYC with a presidential scholarship! She will be competing for the Founder's Scholarship, which is their full tuition scholarship, in December. :hurray:

We are trying to finish up college apps, and I'm not sure about the reading list. She is applying to John Cabot in Rome, American University in Paris, The King's College, Samford (Fellows program), and Mercer. Should we include a reading list, and if so, should I put EVERY book on there? We have about 90% listed right now, but it makes it go to two pages, even with the lists in two columns. I'm thinking we need to just delete the young adult, fun books. What do you think? Thanks!!!