Would she be interested in a big project of some sort? Like, I don't know, building a boat or a guitar? Writing a novel? Learning to spin, dye, weave, sew? Or building a chair or learning to weld? Participating in a citizen science project? Restoring antique furniture? Is there something she's super-interested in that could turn into a big goal-oriented project? Mostly thinking aloud here...but if there's any chance she is a "maker" kid, a big project might be a good way to spend a gap year!

A couple of textbook ideas, the first one quite new, the second a vintage text: http://precalculus.axler.net/ https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Calculus-Mathematics-Merrill-Shanks/dp/0201076845/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=merrill+shanks+precalculus&qid=1594950062&s=books&sr=1-1 We ended up using the Shanks vintage book and really liking it (there were lots of nice hard problems!); we thought long and hard, though, about doing the Axler book instead--I loved the very readable prose.

I poked around a little online, and saw that 93% of Austin College students graduate in four years, that 94% of their graduates are either employed or in graduate school within a year of finishing, and that their students receive more Fulbright scholarships per capita than any other school in Texas. Now, I might be wrong and I don't know the school at all--but that group of stats says to me that they are doing a really good job there, working with the students they have, developing potential, growing successes--the vibe of those statistics suggests to me that the teaching is excellent and that the students are hard-working. That sounds like a good sort of a place to spend some time, I think. I hope you all can find some peace in these crazy mixed-up times. I think the stress of the pandemic is not helping any of us who have big decisions to make about the future. Don't worry about your extended family's opinions--the school sounds like a good choice, and you know your son better than anyone else. If you and your son and your husband are all happy, then that's all that matters--I hope that the anticipation can just be fun and exciting for you now that you have decided!

This has been a stressful season for you--I'm so sorry! Given the difficulties you mentioned with the school during application season, I can certainly see why you'd be hesitant to take a gap year and apply again next year--having to deal with those kinds of problems again would worry me, too. I wonder how your son would feel about narrowing it down to the two schools (Austin and Trinity) that are affordable even without the scholarship, and where you know you can bring the scholarship in, and then choose one of them. I know nothing about either school, but had a quick peek around their websites, and they both look like nice places--small, nurturing, good quality--maybe a really good atmosphere for someone who is still finding out who they are and what they want (which is totally normal for a teen!!). Then if you do get the scholarship people sorted out, that money is gravy on top of an already affordable school. He can save the extra for accumulating some certifications, or getting a start on grad school, or something else. It's just an idea--but I do think narrowing it down to two of the options that are already on the table might possibly remove some of the stress from the decision. It would for me, anyway--any time I can get a decision down to two choices, it seems much easier to me. Good luck! We're rooting for you!

I got the Tanton geometry books on Lulu years ago--maybe look there, if you haven't already? Those were fun books, as I recall. (I have math book addiction....it's the one thing I really, really, really didn't want to mess up when I first started homeschooling!) Oops, edit--I see that it's the Thinking Mathematics that you can't currently find--sorry! His site links to Lulu for those books, too, though: http://www.jamestanton.com/?page_id=20

Well, I have a sort of peculiar idea...what about some cool problem-solving? My mathiest kid loved this book: https://store.doverpublications.com/0486409171.html (If that link doesn't work--it's Bonnie Averbach and Orin Chein, Problem Solving through Recreational Mathematics, published by Dover.) There is a lot of advanced math in it--I think it would likely keep him busy, progressing, and having fun, too. Anyway, that might be too odd, but I thought it was worth mentioning--hope it helps!

I'm wondering if you might possibly prefer a German for Reading Knowledge textbook--these are usually designed for graduate students who need to pass language exams, so they are oriented toward learning to read academic articles. The only one of these I have ever used was the Jannach book, but that was 35 years ago. Here is a newer iteration of that book (first edition was by Jannach, later editions were Jannach & Korb, this one is just Korb): https://books.google.ca/books?id=7HluCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=german+for+reading+knowledge&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY18Pj4fnoAhWQvp4KHbq8A2kQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=german for reading knowledge&f=false ETA: Here's another, from a UK publisher: https://books.google.ca/books?id=dYWiDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=german+for+reading+knowledge&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjP7MXa4vnoAhVFip4KHXZ2CvIQ6AEISTAE#v=onepage&q=german for reading knowledge&f=false As an alternative, here is a well-reviewed open source text: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/a-foundation-course-in-reading-german Hope that helps!

I found the thread I was thinking of--I hope there's something in there that might help!

We use that same book, Emily. I like it. What we use for supplementary problems are the old Addison-Wesley books by Johnson/Lendsey/Slesnick/Bates (Alg2/Trig) and by Shanks/Brumfiel/Eicholz/Fleenor (PreCalc). Those are really excellent books.

I think I've read that the old Physics B test is the closest. The Kid used the multiple choice questions from those old tests (still up on the College Board site) as extra prep for the SAT. Kathy at one point recommended the website of an AP physics teacher with lots of good materials, which the Kid also used. (I think her name was Doris or Dolores or something like that...I'll see if I can turn it up for you.)

Maybe she could start up her own little choral group as a student society, Clear Creek? My choir-loving kid wound up at a university with no music program and started a glee club with some other students who wanted to sing--he made a lot of friends that way in the first month of school. I know it wouldn't be the same as that awesome St Olaf choir, but some kind of singing club might still be fun for her. I hope it all works out in whatever way would be best for her. Good luck with the scholarship!

All of my kids liked the Chakerian/Crabill/Stein Algebra 2 and Trigonometry (out of print, sadly, but a used one shows up once in a while). One of mine also used the old Addison/Wesley Algebra & Trigonometry book by Johnson/Lendsey/Slesnick/Bates for some extra problems or alternative explanations for some topics--it's an excellent book, as is the precalculus book that follows it (by Shanks, Eicholz, Brumfiel, and Fleenor).

So very happy to hear your update, Halcyon! And congratulations on the wonderful news! And good luck with the remaining decisions!

One of my kids has been learning Japanese and is doing well. He has textbooks and workbooks that he likes reasonably well. Because his text has accompanying audio but no video, he has been supplementing his written work with the Irasshai videos, as he learns well that way (we didn't find out about Irasshai until we'd already gotten a certain way through the other books, and he decided to just keep going with those, rather than switch over to the Irasshai companion textbook/workbook). He's all done the Irasshai videos now, and would love to start another series of videos (preferably picking up more or less where Irasshai leaves off, if possible). Does anybody have any suggestions? (I know a live teacher would be even better at this point, but we just can't add anything else to the schedule this year.) Free is good, but is not necessary if there is something good quality and at an appropriate level. Thanks so much for the help!

I have a dear friend whose daughter is going to the University of Arizona in the fall, and she is so excited!! Congratulations to your son!

Does UIC have computer science, beckyjo? And would the free tuition deal apply there, too?

I thought of two more possibilities (around the same price as the first group I posted): 1. University of Prince Edward Island (just shy of 5000 students) in Charlottetown, PEI (population 35,000). There is an airport, but you would have to connect from a larger centre (probably Halifax). There is bowling! https://www.upei.ca/future-students I'm not sure how homeschool-friendly they are, but he could look into it, if the city is big enough for him. Charlottetown is cute, and one can easily walk downtown from the campus. 2. St Thomas University (about 2000 students) in Fredericton, NB (population about 60,000). There is an airport, but again, you'd be connecting from Halifax or Toronto, most likely. https://www.stu.ca/ STU students are welcome to take courses at the adjacent University of New Brunswick (about 8000 students at the Fredericton campus, which is the oldest English-language university in Canada; there's a second campus in Saint John). Fredericton is very tidy, walkable, and rather genteel, I think; it's also home to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, which is excellent and might be of interest to him. (And there are two bowling alleys in town.) UNB (the Fredericton campus) itself might be worth some thought, though it's larger than he wants. There's a school-within-a-school there called the Renaissance College ( https://www.unb.ca/fredericton/renaissance/ ) that looks interesting--it's a select small cohort that stays together throughout their degree, and there are two required internships (one domestic and one international). Here's a nice video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UypxLSpJiNA (I'm not trying to talk you into Canada, I promise! Just tossing out suggestions in case they might be useful, and maybe ease your stress somewhat.)

I'm sorry, but I don't know about 529 funds--the schools would undoubtedly have some answers for you, though. Here's one site I found that might help: https://www.savingforcollege.com/eligible_institutions/?federal_school_code=&school=&state=CN&year=2019-2020&order_by=school&go=Submit&mode=search

One more thought...not in the northeast, though: Glendon College: https://www.glendon.yorku.ca/ . It's about 3000 students, and is a part of York University (on a separate campus, but one can take York courses as a Glendon student) in Toronto (easy flights for you). It's a good deal more expensive than the others I listed (tuition, fees, room and board will be around 30-32K), but possibly the ease of transportation would result in some savings on the travel front. It seems to me that he is interested in languages and international studies, is that right? Glendon would be a good place to pursue those kinds of interests. Home-school requirements: https://www.glendon.yorku.ca/futurestudents/apply/admission-requirements/home-school/ US applicants page: https://www.glendon.yorku.ca/futurestudents/apply/international-students/us-applicants/ Hope that helps! ETA: Just had another look at his want list: as far as I can tell, there are bowling alleys in all of the towns! Bishop's and Acadia probably have the most old-school architecture of the kind I think he's looking for. 😊

Halcyon, would he consider Canadian schools? Nearly all of the post-secondary institutions here are public, most have rolling admissions, and nearly all have very simple application processes (it's rare here to be asked for an essay or references or lists of extracurriculars--it's usually a matter of an application form plus a transcript). Application deadlines here tend to be later than there (you'd certainly have at least until February to apply to any of these, and possibly later in some cases). Some of the schools are on the Common App, I think (Bishop's certainly is), so you'd only have to tick off one more box on something you've already done. The exchange rate is very favourable for Americans right now (our dollar is worth about 75 cents, so most of these schools will come in around 20k-22k US per year total for tuition, fees, and room and board; some of them have good scholarships, and he would likely qualify for some--note, though, that a good scholarship in Canadian terms tends to be a few thousand dollars a year). Some US aid (Stafford loans, I know, but I'm not sure what else) is portable to Canadian schools. Small schools (about 2500-4000), near(ish) to big cities in the northeast in Canada: 1. Bishop's University, in a suburb of Sherbrooke, QC (pop. 170,000): https://www.ubishops.ca/future-current-students/students-from-the-usa/ They have rolling admissions, lots of Americans, and the application deadline is March 1 (for scholarship consideration). There is an airport there, though there would be better flights into Montreal (about an hour and a half drive from Sherbrooke). 2. Mount Saint Vincent University, in Halifax (pop. 400,000): https://www.msvu.ca/en/home/default.aspx There's a major airport in Halifax. 3. Acadia University, Wolfville, NS (small town, but an hour from Halifax, and there are shuttles): https://www2.acadiau.ca/home.html 4. Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB (small town, but half an hour from Moncton, pop. 85,000): https://www.mta.ca/Prospective/Default.aspx There's a good airport in Moncton; from the US, you'd probably fly to Halifax or Montreal and then take a short flight to Moncton. There is a shuttle from Moncton to Mt. Allison. There's also St. FX (https://www.stfx.ca/), but it may be too far from a major centre to be convenient for you (it's in Antigonish, NS, which is very small, and is a two-hour drive from Halifax). A little bigger than the others (about 6400 students), but right in the south end of Halifax is Saint Mary's ( https://smu.ca/ ). These are all good schools; all are public. I hope your new year becomes much less stressful very soon! We're all rooting for you!

Hi, FarmingMomma! Several of our resources are specific to our region of Canada, but here are some things of more general interest: Bumblebee Watch: https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/ Queen Quest: https://www.queenquest.org/ Xerces Society (invertebrate conservation): https://xerces.org/bumblebees Honeyland (fantastic film!): https://honeyland.earth/ Dave Goulson's excellent books (A Sting in the Tale, A Buzz in the Meadow, BeeQuest, The Garden Jungle, Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation) https://www.google.com/search?q=dave+goulson+books&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFm5qFrfDlAhUKP30KHWtgAooQ1QIoAHoECA4QAQ&biw=1280&bih=913 Paige Embry: Our Native Bees http://www.paigeembry.com/ Williams, Thorp, et al.: Bumble Bees of North America https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152226/bumble-bees-of-north-america Wilson & Carril, The Bees in Your Backyard https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160771/the-bees-in-your-backyard Nice big book list here (mostly UK resources): https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/recommended-reading/ Bumblebee houses: https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bumblebee-nests/ , https://www.awes-ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Building-and-Installing-Bumblebee-Houses-1.pdf (this one is a PDF) Bee gardening: https://beecitycanada.org/what-can-i-do/plant-a-garden/ , https://wildlifepreservation.ca/bumble-bee-recovery/ https://foecanada.org/en/issues/the-bee-cause/market-action/ Photographing bees: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/photography/photography-tips/2018/07/how-to-photograph-bees/ , https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/photo-tips/ , https://www.bumblebeewatch.org/photo-tips/ Hope that helps!

There's a lot of free (and good!) stuff on the mozilla website: https://learning.mozilla.org/en-US/activities

Maybe you might be interested in looking into a citizen science project? There are several lists of them on the web; here's the home page of one site: https://scistarter.org/citizen-science and the project finder: https://scistarter.org/finder . You could use an idea from there, and, if you wanted to, expand it to include a few more experimental parameters of your own. For instance, we're currently in the research/planning stages for a bumblebee project: reading lots of books by entomologists, learning to identify our native species from photographs, finding out what kinds of flowers bumblebees visit, taking an inventory of flowering plants already in our yard and identifying gaps in bloom periods (we need more things that bloom in early spring, we've learned, and we have another big gap in late summer), investigating which nurseries/seed companies don't use neonics, planting lots of new things in the garden (and planning for the other things that we'll plant in the spring), learning how to take macro photographs, etc. The kids are also building some bee houses, and will investigate which (if any) design is attractive to the bees. Once the bees wake up in about February, we'll start taking lots of pictures and submitting them to bumblebeewatch.org . The kids have decided to try to track which species visit which flowers: does colour matter? or flower structure? or whether or not the flowers are planted in drifts of the same plant, or whether areas of randomly mixed flowers are more attractive? are all of the expected native species present, or not? at what times of the day are they more active, and does the weather affect that? how late into the season are they active? does that vary by species? And so on--they're still coming up with other questions they'd like to investigate.

Is the college one of the ones that require you to submit all standardized test attempts? If not, maybe he could just roll the dice and take the Lit test in September without a ton of prep, and if it goes well, send the score, and if not, don't. There's only one official practice exam available, if I recall correctly (I think we also used a few of the multiple-choice sections from old AP Lit exams, too, for some more practice with those kinds of questions--those are harder, but they give you a feel for the way College Board asks questions about literature). He should make sure to have good knowledge of literary terms (personification, simile, alliteration, etc.); other than that, success on that test relies on having read a lot of good literature and having some sense of what kinds of things are worthy of discussion in the context of a given text--I think it's a test that students find either really easy or really hard. If he's been a keen reader for years, then he's way ahead of the game and there's not a lot more that can be usefully done in terms of prep (beyond trying out some sample questions and knowing the literary terminology). So maybe it won't be as time-consuming to squeeze it in as another test might be. I think there are six or seven passages on each test. There's a mix of poetry and prose, I know, and it is my impression that there is normally at least one passage in older English. Maybe that could be something else to practise? Have him read a few Shakespeare sonnets or soliloquies from one of the plays, just to get used to the feel of the language? ETA: Just thought I'd mention that maybe he'll even find it fun! The Kid came out of the test happily bubbling about the interesting passages, wanting to read the books from which they'd been excerpted! So maybe it will be an enjoyable experience!

Could you ask the school what they want? That might be simplest. 760 on Latin is great! If the school really does want another one, maybe the Literature test? (This is your philosophy/classics child, correct? I imagine he's a talented reader!) Or is there another subject he could prep for reasonably efficiently (i.e. he did the course recently and it's an area of strength)? I'm sure you already know this, but some of the subject tests are not offered at every sitting (World History, for example), so the schedule would need to be pondered, too.