Depends on what your student's goals are. My dd's only recommender was our county's 4H coordinator. It was fine because dd was applying to engineering schools and our extension office was through the same university as our state's flagship engineering program. The private university she will attend had a required recommender, and they were also fine with the extension coordinator, even though that school specified that it should be a teacher (We asked- they are pretty familiar with homeschoolers, so it was fine). Dd had also done a summer program with them, so she wasn't an unknown. We did use one of dd's Blue Tent teachers back when she applied to boarding school. Dd also has done enough DE that she could have used one of her calc professors if necessary. ETA- Sort of a Zombie thread. Sorry!

Dd finished had finished one algebra 2, but glancing DOs, I knew she wouldn't be ready for his precalculus. We did a 2nd pass through Alg 2 using his. She tested through the first half but did most of the second half over a summer. It worked well. I was fairly hands-on since we didn't pay for grading. I was happy to not have to teach anything, and having access to a tutor helped if her answer and his solution didn't match up, but it still looked right. ETA. I forgot we also did his prealgebra and physical science. Those were great options for dd at the time.

Yeah, I worded that unclearly… I meant “accepting them”.

Does anyone take SAT 2 scores anymore?

I agree here. I work on a small university campus and share office space with accessibility services and the mental health folks, and I see this play out every school year. We lose several kids the first week who probably weren't ready to be away from family, and several more mid semester who didn't continue whatever it was they should be doing to manage their mental health. They try to make it on their own and it doesn't go well. For that reason, I say close by, but also really weigh if it's time for him to make this move at all or if he needs another year. Whatever decision you make, though, make it and stop talking about it. That seems like it would increase anxiety.

We did Derek Owens self-paced here and hired a tutor. The tutor was relatively inexpensive and dd was also doing a math elective that year.

Can she take the next class over the summer somewhere?

Also a possibility is course by-passing. Some schools allow a student to take a higher level class and upon completion, get credit for both that class and the pre-req.

We are in the same club. Dd really looked at the AP Micro materials for the first time today. To be fair, she did a Macro self study last year (but not AP). She is just testing to apply the credit to her second major. If she tanks it we won’t send scores.

Farrar posted this in her Facebook group: https://www.nacacnet.org/news--publications/Research/openings/?fbclid=IwAR34GaZDj_3JteFVKMhhvVJDOWt--21JGShovgB042cziXTwsvZKb_-59kk There are some decent options in my state (at least one with automatic merit). ETA. The university I work for is not on this list and I know they are still taking applications. All the big scholarships have been awarded, but I know financial aid still has some options for good students. So I guess if there's a school a student is interested in, it would be worth a phone call.

Dd is youngest of 4. By the time she put in her college apps she had been on close to thirty college campuses for various reasons, including touring with siblings. She had opinions for sure when she started to apply.

British Lit Through History: https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/british-literature-through-history/

We needed it for the common app, but that was a Mom-is-the-counselor variety.

This is why we homeschool.

I'm think you all are due for some good Karma... ETA- we had one that came in as 70K per year. 🤯 Def not what the NPC was. Glad we didn't try to visit ahead of time.

Maybe TMI? I know students often debate small vs. large and I really wanted to do a PSA about how unexpectedly great an honors program can be for the right student. That, and I don’t have anyone IRL to tell this. 🙂

I think I have everything updated, including some from off-list. Life has been a grueling kind of crazy the last few weeks, so if I missed an acceptance, please let me know!

I'm quoting myself because we've done a visit to both. Big engineering school's honors housing/ program was astonishing. It's set up like the British education system- so each floor of the residence is a "house" and there is a great hall. Sadly, no sorting hat. The director of the ISS is an example of an upcoming speaker, and the students in each major get honors classes geared to them. The engineering honors track would be perfect for dd. The food court that can accommodate her food allergy is about a 5 minute walk. It's also the closest dorm to the academic campus. While there are Russian classes on campus, I didn't see any particular presence outside of classes. No cultural events or anything. Dd has friends on this campus, but they are all three or so years older as they are academic friends she made doing co-op language arts and science labs, so really not close enough in age to have shared experiences. The engineering accepted student day highlighted just how BIG everything is, though, and she will still be a very young freshman. We visited her small school again Friday. The day was an ordeal because of some car trouble. We got there, though, without DH and in my DIL's van. DD has been running some of the social media for the incoming class, so she had friends that met us at the union and the swim team ate lunch with her (I grabbed another table at dealt with some work email). As an accepted student she got an individual tour... and the tour guide was training other guides, so we had three guides, lol. Dd knew the tour guide from her social media work. While we were touring a professor stopped her car to shout a congrats to our tour guide who had just received a big research scholarship that morning. Dd loved the workshop spaces for students (she hadn't seen them before), and was a little overwhelmed by how busy the union and main public spaces were. She had only been on campus during the summer. She wants to double major ME with International Studies, but even with the DE she's bringing in it doesn't quite work without extra time. ETA- I looked at it again. She can make it work if she brings in AP Micro. So do-able, but no cushion. Since the IS department head was out, we met with the German professor, who was awesome. Unfortunately, that professor is on sabbatical next year and the professor who is most knowledgable about what would be dd's geographic area of specialty is retiring, so dd needs to weigh how that would work for her. She's something of an expert-generalist kid, so she really does want to balance the STEM with something else. She's likely to do grad school outside of engineering. She could swim there, and she's always better academically when she's swimming. The team lacks the cattiness we've seen on other swim teams, and more than half of the meets are home meets next year, so travel would be minimal. So, I do think she's going to end up at the small school. It's just a matter of if she wants to do the double major and how to make that happen. There's talk of the school adding a concentration in IS (but no minor). I really didn't think we'd still be undecided at this point. I'm glad we didn't do any schools as regular admit. That would have really confused things!

It also depends on the provider and what level he is in the languages. If he's in the first or second year for both languages, I wouldn't advise it. It gets tricky with keeping vocabulary straight, etc, especially since they are both romance languages.

I can verify that engineering programs (and camps) in Indiana have a good showing of CA people. In dd's engineering camp last summer at Rose Hulman, I think they had one more person from California than from Indiana, and the counselors said that there are lots of west coast kids at the school. As for the OP. It's a good idea to know where your kiddo wants to apply early in summer. Dd had her applications submitted before school started last fall. Two of her programs admitted Early Applications at a slightly higher rate, and she needed to have her big scholarship application in in October. We had two apps where she just applied without visiting or anything. We visited one of them after she was accepted and never visited the other. We did do the PA Homeschoolers Essay summer class. I knew we were going to need deadlines.

Work, 4H, and probably an early start college class. She's a semi-finalist to a summer study abroad scholarship (Russian speaking), but she's already said she probably won't go even if the program runs and she's selected. She's been a volunteer camp counselor last summer and before covid, but she didn't apply for that this summer knowing her summer would probably be full. ETA maybe summer swim club team.

I'll echo what Jen said about honors colleges at big universities. We just toured the Honors College at the large engineering school where dd has been admitted. It was a school DH and I and her older siblings had graduated from, and dd wasn't really interested. Honors is a new program/ residence and would be very much like attending a smaller prestigious school with a flagship engineering program attached to it. We were all pleasantly surprised.

I don’t, but it would be an excellent book for that.

Thanks all. Keep in mind these “foster kids” are all at least 40 years old now. It does need to be published in the paper, and I had to have it written by 9:15 this morning. So glad it’s done. I’m happy with it. I couldn’t have done it without you all!

Thank you all. I ended up with, "He was a beloved father, grandfather, and great-grandfather figure to many others." I included being a long-time foster parent to his list of things he did/ was involved in. For the sake of peace and fairness, I also did not include my step-children and grandchildren of 20+ years, although I consider them as much my children as any biological ones.