Northeastern University, Boston University, and WPI had no issues with a gap year (blanking on the name of the fourth uni; will try to remember to come back and post it later). University of Kentucky had issues, but ultimately they allowed me to take a gap year, and I'll be attending there this coming fall.

I'm currently taking a gap year, and will attend begin college this coming fall. I applied to five colleges last year, and was admitted with merit aid to all five. After I was admitted, I emailed all the colleges and asked whether they would allow me to defer a year, and whether I could defer my merit aid as well. Four out of the five colleges had no issue with the gap year and would keep my merit aid for me. Any need based aid would have been reassessed the following year based on that year's FAFSA/CSS. One college (unfortunately my first choice!), said they didn't allow gap years except for medical reasons, and even if they did allow a gap year, my merit aid wouldn't follow me. After many emails, phone calls, and an in person visit, I did manage to get a gap year approved. In my favor, I was a National Merit Finalist, which this particular college heavily recruits. National Merit had zero issues deferring my scholarship; it was a routine matter for them. All that to say, whether colleges allow gap years and whether merit aid can be deferred varies from college to college. There is a section on the common data set for each college that says whether they allow admission to be deferred. That's not foolproof, though, because all of my colleges said they allowed deferred admission, but in practice, not all did. For all the colleges, taking classes for credit was a huge no, and would have caused me to count as a transfer student instead of a first year freshman. I also did have to commit to one college; I couldn't keep offers open at multiple colleges. If I had wanted to apply to various colleges this year in addition to the ones I applied to last year, I think I would have been able to do so, but I would have been out the tuition deposit at the school I committed to. There's actually a whole contingent of students on College Confidential that will take a gap year just to apply to different schools / reapply to top tier schools that rejected them. As for ACT scores, colleges generally still want to see them even after a gap year, and the date you take the test doesn't matter, so long as they get the results by their application deadline. I certainly did not cure cancer or save the world during my gap year, but I did have a purpose and a plan. For me, that especially mattered, as I had to convince the one college they should let me take a gap year. Some colleges might ask for a brief explanation of plans, and I think the Common App has an essay about things you learned in a gap year if you apply during the gap year. Other than that, what you do doesn't matter that much, and many colleges even encourage gap years.

I wear riding breeches everywhere, and yeah, they're pretty much a high quality legging. I even wear them without a long shirt, skirt or dress, because that would be inconvenient and unsafe while riding. No way am I changing clothes to go to the grocery store on the way home, and anyway, the breeches cover just as much as my jeans do. Everyone at my barn also wears breeches, regardless of gender. It's not an issue.

Well, here's an article. He wasn't killed by a 91 year old woman and he hadn't killed 18 people. :confused1:

I started pet sitting at 11yo, then at 13yo began working at the barn to pay for shows & riding lessons. At 17yo, I got my first 'official' job working at a math tutoring center. Around that time, I also picked up a job cleaning stalls 4x a week to pay for leasing a horse. I volunteered and had a fairly intense extracurricular schedule as well.

I've had unmonitored Internet access since I was 13yo. I've only once or twice come across questionable things, and yeah, I readily clicked off. Even at 13, I was not interested in looking at naked picture of attractive men, no. And I've never purposefully searched for anything pornographic.

The Remains of the Day. There was no plot so far as I could tell.

Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon? or maybe Fight Song by Rachel Platten?

I know computer science has had a couple 7th or 8th graders, and I've seen 9th graders in other classes. Wouldn't hurt to contact teachers and ask.

One note about Mrs. Walker's class -- we did have two 'book clubs' with other students. However, we were allowed to choose the book we read and who we wanted to read it with. Also I think we had one or two peer reviews over the course of the year, but Mrs. Walker always also gave feedback, so we never just got a peer review. I normally hate group work, but I've found a huge difference in group work between my PA Homeschoolers classes and other classes. I've never had a bad experience with group work in PA Homeschoolers classes, because I'm never the one doing all the work; everyone does their fair share. Workload was about an hour a day, sometimes more when bigger papers were due. My writing has improved this year, and I've been very happy with the class. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Hum, well, I'm not really sure if that's the best way to go unless you want to impose restrictions on how they can accomplish the missions. The missions themselves don't necessarily require creative use of sensors and such (though you certainly can creatively use sensors to accomplish them). Something like this might help you, though. The resources are for RobotC, but RobotC does work on Mindstorms if you were interested in having them try a text based programming language.

I took AP Lit with Mrs. Green. The class workload was not bad at all (maybe five or six hours a week?), Mrs. Green gave good feedback on assignments, and I felt like I learned a lot and improved my writing. If you have any other specific questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them!

:seeya: Teen here. I read on the chat board sometimes, though mostly on the high school/college boards. I researched and chose my classes all four years of high school, so this forum was a valuable resource.

I only applied to four colleges: WPI - scholarship Northeastern University - scholarship Boston University - scholarship University of Kentucky - full ride / honors college

I'm a senior and actually taking this class right now. I love it. The material is useful, and there's no inane busywork. There are no specific meeting times, but the class board is pretty active, and if you have questions they're usually answered within a few hours. The textbook used is very clear and easy to understand. Also, Mrs. Matheny is great, and super helpful. Theoretically, assignments are daily, but we don't have to turn in homework, so I tend to work for longer periods of time a couple times a week. Usually there are deadlines about once a week for tests or other things. There is a decent amount of writing, and answers have to be phrased exactly, but it's not too bad once you get used to it.

Yes, this. It is possible to be situationally depressed without having depression.

I think you will find the link Mrs Mungo posted helpful. However, yes, it is certainly possible to be situationally depressed without having depression.

Everyone with depression has a mental illness. So, no, their brain does not function as it should. Just the same as someone with heart disease has a heart that does not function as it should. Often, in both cases, various treatments can help, but some types of disease are treatment resistant.

But the issue with mental illness is that the nature of the illness interferes with thought processes like that. It is an illness that affects the brain, and affects thought processes. Depression interferes with the natural functions of the brain. Many times it can be helped with medications, but many times it cannot. It is not the fault of the depressed person that their illness interferes with proper functioning of the brain.

Divergent Life As We Knew It Feed House of the Scorpion Uglies Ready Player One Delirium The Maze Runner

By that same logic, anyone who has cancer should die. But they don't, because some forms of cancer are less aggressive and are able to be treated with available drugs. Some forms of cancer are not. This is the same with mental illness.

i.e., humans with illnesses, including mental illnesses. Sometimes...people's organs don't work. The brain is an organ; sometimes the brain is diseased and doesn't work. Same way someone who has an autoimmune disease has a body that works to kill them.

Aww, so cute. :)

From the wording it looks as though not all students on this team are from one high school. FRC kickoff was today, so the season is not over. I bet they'd love to have another team member, but be warned that FRC is an extremely intense commitment. Here's a list of FRC teams in Hawaii if he is interested in FRC.