This speaks well of you, your son, his university, the professors, and the alumni network. All wins. Thanks for sharing this story!

None of the schools on that list would ever be on the application list for my kids. We are a full (or mostly full, in the case of a place like Yale,) pay, merit-chasing family. My DD will enter college as a math major who hopes to keep studying her foreign languages, too. Being a female in the STEM group will hopefully be a positive. Best of luck to PonyGirl as she whittles her list down. Application fatigue is huge, so she'll want to prioritize and get started early. Once classes start senior year, there is so much less time to get them done on top of ECs, homework, and sleep. Seeing how stressful waiting until the end of March is, watching the results of the ever-more-competitive "selective" college admissions, and hearing about the feelings of rejection at yet another waitlist (or denial) helps a parent to guide their younger kids into making smart(er) choices for them. The Hive helps with all this if we are willing to learn from the wonderful people who have trod this path before us. @Calming Tea I'm wondering if you have a great big rocket blast emoji for day zero...

When my DD took physics & it took for.ev.er to get done (almost 12 months), DO capped payment at 9 months. Does he not do that anymore?

Exploration Education? I haven't used it, but have looked at it for several years.

I don't know. I think it is all online. Hopefully one of the families that use Mr D will chime in on this. (The OP didn't specify that they needed a book. I believe Derek Owens' PreCalc is different than most of his courses because it actually uses a textbook. So, DO might be a good PreCalc option for your set up.)

So, Memoria Press sent me a $10 gift card as a Christmas gift. Yeah! I've been pondering for months what to get. I only use their Latin on a regular basis. I don't need new levels of Latin. I already have & use their English Grammar Recitations (not the workbooks, just based off their questions), and their lower grade recitations (as part of our memory). I could pick up a few more grade levels of their recitations, but they get much more into the subject material in upper grades, so ... maybe not. I could pick up their states & capitals flashcards. Other ideas I should consider? (Remember, I only have $10 to spend. Shipping isn't included in the gift card amount, but I'm okay with ending up paying $5 including shipping.)

For what you are considering, I'd look for a once-per-week tutor. Mr. D might be another option - self-paced? I think you can go to help sessions?? Or back to Derek Owens.

@LisaK in VA is in IT My DD tried to get on UKy's address list last fall. She also submitted questions through their website, separately, for a particular program of theirs. She heard nothing from her questions and only started getting emails after their EA deadline passed. Guess which school she chose not to apply to? U Chicago, Case Western Reserve, and some small & large schools local to us were her big mail senders. Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon & Yale were in the next tier of mail senders. She got double from them compared to Princeton or Duke. I think she might only gave heard from Vanderbilt twice. (My DD isn't at all in the same category as yours, so that makes sense they would be targeted by different schools.) @kirag714 Those Wesleyan numbers are crazy!!

I agree kids are applying to more schools (although I think the numbers are higher since I applied to at least 8 by hand 25+ years ago). I also think more selective schools have increased their marketing to encourage more applicants. More applicants means lower admission percentage and thus a more selective feel. Based on the mail my kid received, schools made it seem like she was being recruited (although she was well-grounded in the fact that they weren't!). Some parents and kids are taken in by these slickly worded emails and applied thinking acceptance was a surer thing than it really was. The push for holistic and diverse classes has increased the number of kids who apply. Some lower income families now might apply to Yale, for instance, when they wouldn't have before. Underrepresented minorities are a growing admissions group, too. And, geographical diversity is certainly a factor in some cases. If a school offers ED, their RD admission rates are going to be lower than their overall published acceptance rate. Schools love ED because they can get almost 100% yield from those students. (It won't be 100%, but it will be higher than RD yield by a LOT. Yield goes into college "rating" formulas, so colleges like a higher yield, in general.)

Thanks, Lanny! I'm cheering for your DD's last two decisions to come in as yesses with great financial packages. Well, DH was surprised about the state college because my DD received their full tuition scholarship. But they require all students to be on their meal plan (even commuters) and the required fees are ginormous.

Like other posters have suggested, outsourced-with-due-dates (live) classes were better for my procrastinator (eldest) than at home classes. (I did the reading assignments myself and then doubled the time that I took when assigning them to her. I often quadrupled the writing time.) At home classes always ended up going into the summer. I think she calculated that it took her 2 1/2 years to get done with geometry. I limited the at home classes junior year, and they were huge stressors for me because of her slow work habits & avoidance behaviors. For senior year, she had zero at-home classes. It has been awesome for me. She may take all day to get her work done, but it doesn't affect me, and I know she can get it done quicker if she needs to. She loves all her classes this year, so that has helped immensely, too. My next two kids hate procrastination, so I don't have to face this again until child #4 gets older.

@Lanny Was that Tulane, perhaps? I can't remember where she has been accepted so far, so I apologize if I guessed wrong. We are full pay, so the only financial help we receive are merit scholarships. Thus, bottom lines are different. Interestingly, the one in-state option DD applied to is her most expensive option (not counting the private LAC that DD didn't pursue additional merit at because she wasn't interested) assuming she lived on campus instead of at home. If she lived at home, it is her second most expensive option after an OOS state school that she earned competitive merit at (but not their top award). Her top two are very close in net cost.

@Malory I listed your son's acceptance under Oxford College of Emory University. If you'd rather I list it under Emory instead, let me know. I wasn't sure if I should put it under E or O. Congrats to those accepted. Condolences on the recent rejections & waitlist notifications. I had a chance to update the list just now, so make sure to check I didn't mess anything up while doing so. Best of luck to those still waiting for notifications! (My DD could tell you how many days, hours, and minutes are left until "decision day." It is right around the corner.)

I agree. There is an article in the Wall Street Journal (behind the paywall) about how studies show that paying through the nose to go to a prestigious school isn't as much of an advantage as commonly thought. https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-elite-college-worth-it-maybe-not-11553084146

I'm with your daughter. Let her attack it, if she needs to, in college. DH took no foreign language in high school- they didn't offer any. He was supposed to take some in college but they cut his preferred language right when he started. He graduated having taken no language. Let your DD figure it out later. She's asked you to let her. Give her that one thing. Besides, maybe she'll be able to handle it then better than you are giving her credit for.