I'm probably too late to the conversation to be of much use, but I'm wondering if you could shorten the list a bit. (I was glad to see you've turned these into bullets.) A shorter list is more likely to be read by your parents. Specific rules are helpful. No need to provide justification. Your class, your rules. Also I'm curious your library could possibly know or figure out if your families are paying or coming for free? Class Enrollment priority will be given to: families with older participating children families enrolling in all 3 classes Families must attend each week unless a student is ill complete all homework actively participate (what does this mean? can you leave this out? or be more specific?) obtain a copy of the book club book every week donate $10 or equivalent amount in art supplies check our FB at least once between Monday at 6am and Tuesday at midnight for announcements Parents must: Be at the library, the park, or able to return within 10 minutes of a text message Pick up children at 2pm. Students who are not picked up on time will join Targhee's family and taken home or on errands with them. (This was a policy at our girl scout day camp!) We retain the right to determine what is inappropriate behavior by parents or students and to disenroll families who do not adhere to the rules above.

So my question is, when the Common App asks if I'm using a 4.0 or 5.0 grading scale, which one is it? Where 4.0 = A in regular class and 5.0 = A in honors/AP class?

If I give a 4.0 grade points for an A, and 5 grade points for an A in an honors class, is that considered a 4.0 grading scale or a 5.0 grading scale?

OMG, jumping off that tall pier looks so freakin' scary! And what a long swim to shore; how long did it take? Was that a fireboat spraying them with water? It does look like an awesomely cool program and an "only in San Diego" rite of passage.

"Please indicate the most recent grades included on the transcript accompanying this form." Sounds simple except I imagine for my dd's earlier deadlines I will only have grades through junior year. But for her later deadlines I may have grades from first semester senior year. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to change my counselor profile once submitted. (I could be wrong.) Any suggestions on how I should respond?

You can use one to store books! ?

What? I would ignore that comment unless it came from the student in question. I flew by myself from the midwest to California freshman year. There were plenty of international students who arrived solo.

John Rosasco? (I haven't met him personally but he's widely used by homeschoolers locally.)

Thanks, RootAnn! All this time I hadn't noticed that I had direct control over the size of my margins. I saw "Wide" "Normal" and "Narrow" and completely overlooked "Custom Numbers" which translate to: "Set your margins to be any size you like." It totally worked, too. (Narrow was still too wide when it gets uploaded to CA.)

I created a transcript in google sheets and then create a pdf version of it. But when I upload it to the Common App, the margins are enlarged. Like a lot. And my transcript becomes tiny, taking up half of the area of the piece of paper. Did this happen to anyone else? Is there a workaround?

Similarly, there is another question: If the student has taken courses from a distance learning program, traditional secondary school, or institution of higher education, please list the course title and content, sponsoring institution, instruction setting and schedule, and frequency of interactions with instructors and fellow students (once per day, week, etc.). In addition, if the student has taken any standardized testing other than those listed on page 2 of the Common Application, please also describe below. I have much of this information in our School Profile, labeled "Educational Partners." I didn't include the schedule or "frequency of interactions" for each one, except in language that I copied for example from SOHS: "Students and instructors discuss course materials at least twice a week using web-based video conferencing technology. " I really want to write "See School Profile" here but I don't want to send them searching for the answer if they expect it in one place. Maybe I should remove it from the School Profile and put it into this field instead to avoid duplication?

This is a required question for the college counselor in the "Homeschool" section. Please provide any information about the applicant's homeschool experience and environment that you believe would be helpful to the reader (e.g. educational philosophy, motivation for homeschooling, instruction setting, etc.). I put this information into our School Profile. I'm wondering if it is better to repeat that information here, or is it better to write: "See School Profile."

A course naming hack that another homeschooling parent suggested to me was to find a similar course offered by some high school or college somewhere (google search) that was close or close enough to what you are naming. Use/edit the course name and description as needed, and voila!

You are allowed to give someone up to $15,000 per year before a 20% gift tax kicks in. But you can exceed this amount by paying for your student's tuition and medical expenses. So if you have a lot of assets to pass on, you can divert a bunch of it into tuition. Plus, if you don't care for your student's new spouse, he won't be able to spend that money.

I use "school at home" in a mildly self-critical appraisal of my own home schooling approach. I'm using it to ask myself to what extent am I taking advantage of the opportunities and flexibility that homeschooling affords me, that isn't available to students in regular school? "School at home" means I'm not thinking creatively enough about homeschooling. Of course, I would never criticize anyone else's homeschooling style, just my own self-assessment. Also, when I counsel other parents who are considering pulling their kids out, I encourage them to do the same thing: don't merely try to replicate the school situation at home, but think hard about other ways you can take advantage, again, of the flexibility and just plain extra time you get by homeschooling. I will advise them to not only think about the academics, but also think about any special projects your children might want to pursue, projects they might not have time for in regular school. But frankly, those "special projects" often come up organically anyway. And again, not in a judgy way at all.

Two words for your DH: Sunk cost. (aka, don't throw your kids under the bus just because you paid for it.)

Wait, both she and roommate #3 were fine with living together, but the school wanted to split them up? Why would they make the roommate assignment and then change their mind?

These days with so many low paid adjuncts teaching these classes, my sympathy tends to run to the prof's who are so mistreated by the CCs. (Not sure if that's the case for this class.)

My dd procrastinated probably 15 minutes reading funny articles on Arxiv like this one. Here's another one involving neural networks.  And prom.

Books make the best babysitters!

I won't take a vote on whether or not to enroll in school. But you will have a stronger case for your dh to homeschool if things don't work out at school. So perhaps give it a go, and like a PP wrote, go in with a good positive attitude toward school. Keep DH in the loop about any successes or difficulties your students are experiencing there. Good luck!

On writing: You can scribe for him as he dictates his solution to you. That gives you time to bring get him the therapy he needs for his dysgraphia. Or you can teach him Latex and have him type out his solutions if you think that would be easier for him.

For those planning for the future, I received an email from Maya Inspektor at PAH regarding her class's AP Lang & Comp scores. 46% of her students earned a 5 and another 30% earned a 4 (national average was 11% and 18%, respectively). So you'll be in good hands in her class (or at the very least, be in the company of exceptional peers).

Microwave potatoes! Brings back my own college memories. Slice them first to speed up the process, and throw on some ketchup to make them palatable.

I'm excited for you! FYI, the first chapter is deceptively "easy" but in reality is quite dense, I think, because you are dealing with "easy" material, that is: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You'll be applying a lot of rigor to what may be "obvious" though it really isn't. Addition and multiplication aren't so bad. But sit up straight when you go through negation, subtraction, and division. You may even want to keep a notebook of definitions and properties to refer to in your proofs. Reciprocals and division are fairly tricky, but important to understand. But that's the beauty of AoPS: you'll get a deep understanding of the why of these basic operations. And you won't be taking calculus learning negation by rote.