The only major you really need to know for sure going in is Chem Engineering. Pretty much everything else have the same Freshman- Sophomore courses. Most students go in with at least Calc 1-2 and Univ Physics 1-2 done.

I think it depends on the program, but I know Rose Hulman is as hands on as you want to make it. There are two large project buildings, one primarily for clubs and independent projects. Lots of research opportunities if that your jam, though.

I’ll just + 1 this list. I liked Ender’s Game, but the level of swearing in it would make it challenging to read aloud. Project Hail Mary was one my dd suggested to me. It was good. My Antonia is a favorite. ETA- The novella of Beggars in Spain. I haven’t read the novel.

For something lighter, maybe The Importance of Being Earnest? From your list, maybe The Chosen.

Mine tried that for Micro. Didn't work for it, lol. Wish she could have found a seat for human geography. She reads that stuff for fun.

+1 for Mission Possible and checking out Outschool. We put together several short courses and some self study into one course that way. Also, around us, sometimes colleges have an International Relations intro course. It's common enough to be in our statewide transfer catalog. Schools near you might have it in person (or online) as a DE option. It might be too late to sign up for MIT's online, free Splash/ HSSE program for this summer, but it's worth checking out today. There's some sort of deadline: https://esp.mit.edu/learn/HSSP/index.html Dd did two of her short courses we counted towards a class like you are talking about.

My nest is already empty. Dd is gone for the summer and will be home a little less than three weeks before her school starts. We have almost everything done. Mostly just sending AP test scores and packing a few more things.

My dad recently died and me being his POA made things 99 times easier than trying to do things through mom. My 17 year old is actually my mom's backup POA after hubby and me. She has good sense and knows when to seek professional counsel. This thread has me considering seeing if she would like to have us as her medical POA after our experiences with her older brother.

Yep. We probably should have too. In our case it was the roommate left kiddo (who was temporarily blind) in the emergency room of a hospital that we didn't know existed. We wouldn't have even know if a nurse hadn't gotten the passcode to his phone from him when he somewhat came around and called "home". This is our straight-as-an-arrow kid (he is now a detective). Tox screen came back clean.

And PFW ranks higher than some schools many people have heard of for undergrad engineering, as do some other regional campuses for other flagship schools. For kids who are kind of "over" the idea of the freshman college experience, they can be a really good fit because housing is often apartments and most students have jobs and lives outside of school.

Yes, but in conversations with them it's a small bump for in-state. ETA Purdue has historically encouraged both out of state and international students because of the tuition bump. My older dd's dorm was 40% international students freshman year. Since Covid, I'm sure that has changed.

No- that’s the total that Purdue gave us for everyone at the accepted student’s day.

One of mine ended up in the emergency room because he was texting and walking. He was hit by someone who was texting and driving. So you never know. That kid plus a scooter would have just been a bad idea, lol. (That's the emergency room visit we didn't find out about until later. Fortunately his brother was visiting him and went along).

In Indiana, Purdue is 25-30% admit for CS and Engineering this year. There are regional Purdue campuses that are even cheaper and easier to get into and have good faculty and facilities. We get a lot of kids in engineering programs from the coasts- California especially- even our privates are a good deal because cost of living is lower here when you start looking at apartments and such. Dd also applied engineering to three private unis with engineering. They were all slightly less selective- 50% to 75% acceptance. I work at a private uni that’s probably 85% acceptance to engineering and CS. (dd did DE there) The privates don’t all have every type of engineering and vary widely in cost and quality. Two of the privates she applied to were pretty well known, so I was surprised that their acceptance rates were fairly high. The third was a good- but- rolling admission school that had both engineering and a music programs for non majors.

Maybe some ideas in these kits? https://timberdoodle.com/collections/curriculum-kits or here: https://pacworks.com/ I had a IRL friend who used Silicon Valley Online High School for some "let's just get done classes": https://svhs.co/ They weren't amazing, but not terrible, and really what they needed at the time. She did supplement a little (Spanish, I think).

We didn’t validate either (French, Latin, Russian), although dd did some outside class work for Russian. She’s going to a STEM college.

I work at a uni- if you can pay bills with your own portal, then kiddo did sign at least a limited FERPA waiver.

I guess I don’t see any reason to do the POA. We did/ will do FERPA waiver and HIPPA because it’s easier for various things. All three of our older kiddos were hospitalized at least once during college. Yep- once was a “oh yeaah by the way” after the fact, but once kid was incapacitated and hospital would do nothing because “college kids all do drugs and we need to wait for the tox screen” Husband had to shout at the doctor to get things rolling. That, and they are also on my HIPPA.

I'm having whiplash that this thread is a year old. My ulcer has all new things to be fired up for, lol. How is everyone's last summer before college?

My dd had a good experience with the Russian Conversation class. I think they lost a Russian teacher, though. There aren't as many offering next year.

I am currently writing a digital OER textbook for my university's library consortium because information literacy and understanding how to research are huge areas of weakness for students ... and some faculty.

I used/ liked Classical Academic Press’ Rhetoric Alive. CAP is not a secular publisher, but I don’t recall anything overtly religious.

As a side note- Dd applied to colleges as an 11th grader, giving her the option to not graduate early if it became apparent that she needed a senior year. That wouldn’t have worked for a lottery school, but was fine for the ones that she was interested in attending. They were more in the 30-60% acceptance range. As for OPs question about science, we did less traditional sciences in 7th- 9th grade and dd was able to DE the more traditional lab sciences as the “for majors” versions. The profs at the DE school are solid for those courses.

What everyone has said above is true. Our situation is very specific to our kid. She wants to be an engineer, a very lock-step course of study most places. She has a specific college she has wanted to attend since she was in 8th grade with a scholarship partially tied to my place of employment (a job I don't plan to keep forever). What interest in research she has is with a professor at the school she'll attend in the fall. The small private university where she does DE has given her a taste for classroom study and she wants more of that. A couple of advanced students from the local DE university work for me and are attending on scholarship, and it is/ was a poor match for that kind of learner, particularly a female one. I don't want to keep her there for too long. We live in a fairly remote place with few opportunities. Her siblings have graduated and gone (She'll be a lot closer to her three adult siblings when she's away. They live near her college and a larger metropolitan area). Her friends here have graduated and gone- some are even approaching college graduation. She's aging out of one of her main activities and her other extracurricular has changed enough to not be a reason to stay. She's an accomplished pianist, but her hands are too small for her to pursue it professionally. She's gone as far as she can with it for now. For her, moving on is as much about social need as it is about academics. Her brothers graduated at 19 and 18, so we're not ones to say that our kids must do xyz. We just work with the kid we have in front of us using the resources available at the time.

She could have done a Rotary year abroad but turned it down. My dad and uncle were both Paul Harris fellows and their club really wanted her to be their outbound student next year. She’s is doing a language immersion program this summer, though, covid- pending. She’s done a lot of service through the years. She knows what she want to do next. She’s always been a bit of an old soul and is ready for college. She did a summer program at her school and already has friends there. She’s our caboose kid and I wish I had a reason to keep her another year, but it would do more harm than good.