on the off chance you're in Wisconsin (I didn't see a location on your profile).... https://www.kidsfromwi.org/ summer touring show throughout WI (with the occasional show in Illinois or Minnesota) Pretty high show quality, with decently large attendance (many shows have several thousand).

sorry for the late reply, here. For context, I have a BS CS, have worked in both startups and big-tech for 25 hears, and regularly hire and interview both new-grads and experienced CS folks. A few thoughts... - when starting out, where you go to school matters more than it probably should. This will be especially true if/when hiring tightens up. It's tough to get through the weeding out process at medium and larger tech co's as a NCG if you aren't coming from a known university that they hire from. Same is true for the internship opportunities - which DC should definitely, absolutely, plan to take advantage of once they get to that point. - ML/AI is especially math heavy. And the teams on the forefront of that tend to be, IME, a bit 'elitist' about academic background - so here again, location matters more than it probably should. - always, always consider cost of attending. That said, if there was a field where it'd be worth, IMO, taking on 40k of student debt to attend a top-10 university vs the unknown local U, this is probably it. For reference, summer internships at big tech for juniors (and sometimes sophomores) may roughly 30k for the summer and often end with a job offer for post-graduation. -IME, the 'BA in Math with CS focus' is not an equivalent degree to a BS in CS. It's a very solid option, but not the same. You mentioned Illinois was local to you. Some sort-of nearby Universities you might consider that are widely thought of as having top CS departments include: - Wisconsin (UW Madison) - Northwestern - Michigan

older son's experience was likewise not good. First-year students were not allowed to just look at the catalog and pick classes - they had to talk to the counselor and have them sign them up. The counselor was unclear on the requirements for his major and refused to submit the set of classes/schedule he wanted. Part of the issue is he arrived w/ all but 1 GE completed due to AP and DE courses, so I'm sure his schedule was a bit unusual but he was also really specific 'I want to take every intro dance class you have. There are no prerequisites, I can fit them in my schedule, I'm under the credit-hours limits for the term, and here is my plan showing I will do that and still graduate in 3 years'. Counselor was undeterred and signed him up for only 1. He ended up having to just contact the dean, who leaned on someone and fixed it. I was shocked. When I was an undergrad they just handed you the book and said 'you sign up via phone starting at 8AM tomorrow. good luck'. I'm sure that's also not great for many people.

IMO, this the way to go. 1) I highly recommend you start with an actual programming language (Python, Java, C if you're a glutton for punishment) not a scripting language. 2) IMO, learning to program requires feedback and interaction with a human. you will simply get much better at it with actual feedback. It's like learning to write essays - you need a human to tell you not just what's _not grammatically incorrect_ but rather what's done well, what's done poorly, and why. So..MOOC with someone who's available, AoPS, DE class...whatever you can find, as long as there's a person there to help.

came here just to say this. CVC now has multiple levels of HS chem. None are 'easy', but there's a huge range. And Connie is just the best. SO encouraging. I had a stem-ish kid (mostly mathish, tbh) who was convinced they despised chemistry (there were actual tears over 'you must take this'), who will be headed to college next year as a Chem/IntegratedSciences major. I blame congratulate the CVC class for that. 🙂

Just occurred to me..perhaps to compare it matters what the credits were? And one include pe, for example?

28 for ds2. 2 from 8th (alg2 and german1). 2 were de. 7 AP classes for 6 credits (I counted each Econ as 1/2). (Admitted at at MichSt and northwestern)

DS took the 'AdvHonorsChem' 2 years ago, and is taking OChem from Connie now. We went with graded both times, and totally recommend it. The opportunity to practice working fully independent from me was great, and Connie is a fantastic teacher. Grading is more than just if the final answer is correct, but includes a requirement that reasonable humans can understand how you got to that answer and that the process is correct. I've been pounding the table about that for years, but having someone else enforce it was transformational. I will also second the PPs note that the classes are excellent, but challenging, and a fair amount of hard work. 10/10 would recommend.

DS got into the Integrated Science Program @ Northwestern! You have to apply separately, after you're accepted to the university. He's super excited. (It's basically an honors stem major that combines physics, chem, and bio with a smidge of extra math. All very small classes)

That's unfortunate, but I'm not 100% shocked. Our older did 1-4, the younger 1-3. One and two where honestly easier for us because they sent home the answers so a parent could at least kinda help. From 3 on you had to send in the packets and over time it seems like the grad-students charged with grading and doing weekly chats with students have been less and less engaged. OTOH.....it worked pretty well for us. The kiddo who did through German 4 just took a placement test at his college, now almost 3 years after his last class with OSU, and scored into the second-half of year 2 of the college's sequence. Which was enough for him to test out of the language requirement, so he was happy. It's too bad to see a long-standing online option open to homeschoolers go away.

hooray! DS-TheYounger is doing the DanceOfJoy 🥳 over here. He applied ED to Northwestern, who announced today. He got in! Very excited. Next step is to apply to their IntegratedScience major (reports vary from 50% to 10% on the fraction of incoming freshmen who apply to that major who are accepted, so no idea how nervous to be). Either way, he's headed to NU and it'll either be Chem or IS&Chem.

+1 for Stats. Honestly...I wish we made all HS kids take it as part of their 'be a functioning adult' education. Knowing enough stats to be able to tell when someone is trying to pull one over on you (using mean when what you should care about is median), understand where 'polling margin of error' comes from, or make decent decisions in board games with dice should be considered a life skill, IMO.

Some of this might be class specific. AP HumanGeo is widely considered one of the easiest AP courses. The concepts required are trivial and the analysis they're looking for is pretty superficial. It is, in fact, mostly a vocabulary course. If you know the definitions and have a reasonable grasp of a handful of stats/stories for 2-3 representative countries, you'll do fine on the exam. we self-studied this w/ DS19 when he was a freshman. I think we had a pretty thorough course, including a broad set of primary sources, an actual text book, and decent amounts of writing. In the end, though, the thing that got him a 5 was a week with the Barrons book and a stack of flash cards.

My DS has a high ACT score but is mostly looking at universities that do not provide any merit-based scholarships. Does anyone have a source for outside (e.g. not through the university) merit-based scholarships based on test cores?

sure, but is single-variable calculus really the edge of understanding for someone with a BS in math? Didn't they see that (likely in HS, but at least) in the first 1/2 year of their first-year in college...so they've got another 1.5 years of lower-division and then 2 years of upper-division math beyond what's in CalcBC? Wouldn't anyone with a BS STEM degree have seen single and multi-variable calculus, stats, diff-EQ, and (if they went to school in the last 20 years) LinAlg, at least? Not to mention application of this in Calc-based Physics? That seems sufficient, no?