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dhudson

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Everything posted by dhudson

  1. My oldest has loved his Engineering Honor College. Benefits for him have been nicer dorms, smaller classes in the dorm, weekend retreats, special dinners and things like the program rented a movie theatre to allow them all to watch Geeky movies. Priority registration has been huge, but the best thing has been an amazing community of like minded, super smart kids. He’s made life long friendships.
  2. DS accepted to University of Colorado -Boulder Aerospace Engineering with Scholarships DD accepted to University of Colorado-Boulder Technology, Arts, and Media Engineering with Merit Scholarships
  3. I have twins - my ds Embry Riddle Aeronautical University - Aerospace - President’s Scholarship Colorado School of Mines - Scholarship Boettcher Scholarship Semi-Finalist ( Competitive CO Scholarship for full ride to CO Universities) my dd Embry Riddle Aeronautical University - Aerospace Physiology President’s Scholarship, Women in STEM Scholarship University of Colorado - Denver Boettcher Scholarship Semi-Finalist
  4. I will be the voice of dissent. I wouldn't include it on the transcript. I also don't include Algebra 1 on my kids' transcripts as they took Alg II their freshman year. It wasn't needed. If your kids continue to be busy and productive, they will be involved in many things in high school and those things need to be included on their transcript. A transcript that is too full of activities and classes that they couldn't possibly do in a 4 year high school (and since they didn't do it in high school, that's a true statement) can be very suspect to colleges/ scholarship admissions.
  5. I saw this today on the WTMA course descriptions for Intermediate Grammar. I may have missed a previous discussion as I have been engrossed in Robotics but I did a search and couldn't find any previous posts. Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: A Complete Course for Young Writers, Aspiring Rhetoricians, and Anyone Else Who Needs to Understand How English Works: Core Handbook Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: Student Workbook 1 Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind: Key to Student Workbook 1 *Please note: the Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind series is forthcoming from the Well-Trained Mind Press. Texts will be available for purchase before classes start in September. Could this finally be true? Maybe just in time to give my Sophmores a hefty review of grammar before SAT/ACTs.
  6. We are supplementing Thinkwell Geometry with Khan's Mastery Challenges and is seems to be working pretty well.
  7. The Denver Zoo is fun. Chitaqua has some good hikes in Boulder. 16th Street Mall in Boulder is fun. We love Estes Park and Rocky Mtn National Park but it would be a bit of a drive. We like to take people to White Fence Farm for dinner - it has great fried chicken but also has a petting zoo, slide, cute shops and playgrounds. Casa Bonita is a landmark, horrible food except for the sopapillas but has cliff divers, little melodramas, caves to explore and an arcade. Remember that Nov might be beautiful but also might be cold and snowy. Layers are a must in Colorado as you never know what the weather will do.
  8. I agree, Terry Pratchett is the go to author for my stressed boys. They always find something to laugh about.
  9. My oldest graduated high school days after he turned 17. Went to college and lived in Honor's Engineering Dorm that same year. Academically, he did fine, he was mostly bored but emotionally he struggled a bit. He had some depression issues but since he was only 15 min from home we could manage it. He turned 18 and flew to Boston to work for MIT and lived in a MIT Frat house with graduate students. He handled this summer much better with a year more maturity even though it was a harder situation. He started back to school today and chose to live at home. I really think emotional maturity is a far better determiner than academic maturity. For more younger twins, we just put them in the next academic class but leave them closer to their age for school. They will graduate at 17, almost 18.
  10. I think that money is a big issue. My ds is going to a University 15 min away from us that is not highly selective but he was accepted into highly selective schools. The other schools didn't have as strong of a program in his field plus his University has a special Engineering Honors program specially designed for those top students. Those high school stats don't necessarily show what programs the kids are going into.
  11. My ds loved his messenger style laptop bag. He said it was by far, the most useful graduation present he received. http://www.amazon.com/Timbuk2-Command-Laptop-Messenger-Bag/dp/B0136NC96U?ie=UTF8&keywords=Messenger%20laptop%20bag&qid=1464017822&ref_=sr_1_14&sr=8-14
  12. Amazon prime was my go to and my ds only lived 15 min away.
  13. Some of the more helpful thing my ds found in the dorm- A sturdy locking trunk. Really good, noise cancelling headphones. Memory foam pad for on top of his mattress. Kindle to get cheaper, digital copies of textbooks. Messenger style, really sturdy laptop bag.
  14. I am a planner but one of the things I learned along the way was that new curriculum was being written and published as my kids got older so what I thought I might use changed because there was new and better products. For instance, my younger kids got to use WWE/WWS but my oldest did not. I found that having long term goals a much better plan. I focused more on what philosophy I wanted to use and what I wanted my kids to be and know. I could then have long term plans without focusing on the "tools" of the education while focusing on my long term goals. It also allowed us to be more nimble and move to curriculums that helped us to individualize their education based on their needs. The other thing I learned was that even though my oldest didn't use the same curriculums that my youngest kids have, he has done very well in in high school and in college. Our philosophy of education, our goals and how we taught the info turned out to be far more important than the actual curriculum used.
  15. My ds had some outside classes which helped his transition. His senior year I had him take college level work, had hard deadlines and made him responsible for his work, so the actual workload and academics of college have been fine. However, my ds has struggled with when to eat. He lost 15 lbs in the first semester, which on his 160lb, 6'4 frame was far too much to lose. He also started getting stomach issues which I think we're caused by stress, not eating and the cafeteria serving much different food than we serve at home. He is an introvert so the lack of alone time in a dorm was a bit problematic as well. However, we got him on aloe juice and good belly daily and helped him look at his days to figure out when he could eat. I send him healthy snacks every month or so as well. Not sure I could have prepared him for that but maybe all kids have some sort of learning curve in college.
  16. Do you want to use curriculum from a certain religious perspective? If you would rather use secular, then use secular. If you are worried that colleges won't accept "religious" materials and want to use certain Christian based materials, then we found it not to be a problem. My ds got into selective schools, elite programs and received elite scholarships while using very Christian materials. We also gave our ds credit for Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, World Religions and Philosophy. We found that our ds' test scores, outside interests and achievements held a lot more weight than whether we used overtly Christian materials. I think it depends more on whether you want to use Christian materials or not. I do think it's vitally important to use rigorous materials in LA and math, and make sure your child has several rigorous lab sciences and an outside class or two.
  17. My ds did all his APs self studied. He is that kind of kid, though. My twins will be doing a combo of AP and self studied classes. I think it all depends on the kid.
  18. Have you looked into something like the Public School Homeschool Enrichment programs here in Colorado? I know several of my ds' friends went through our local program, APEX, and then they did DE through them. I don't really know anything more than that, but here's a list of some of them. https://www.cde.state.co.us/choice/homeschool_resources
  19. My ds is a Computer Science/Cognitive Science major in the Engineering Dept at CU. He will graduate with an Engineering Degree for Comp Sci. He does have to take all the math and sciences that an Engineer does. At CU, there is also a Comp Sci, non engineering major, which has less math and is more like Web design. My ds is looking into AI and Human Centered Computing and all of that is within the Engineering Dept.
  20. I called colleges early (before high school) to see what colleges like to see in homeschool graduates. I also have called due to transcript issues and financial issues. My son called to set up interviews, to make college visits or to handle anything regarding classes or to talk to his advisor. I think it's fine to have a distribution of labor, my ds wouldn't have known what to ask for in regards to transcript and the one time I had him handle the financial issues, it was a bit of a train wreck. He dies sit with me while we do all the financial stuff but he just doesn't have the background to know what the financial aid dept is talking about. We use it as a training exercise.
  21. This is a blog my ds and a friend of his wrote. He is currently a Comp Sci major, but has won a category at PennApps ( a hacking competition), spoke at 3 Scratch Conferences (Barcelona, Amsterdam and Boston) and has an internship to work in the MIT Media lab this summer. I don't understand most of what he says but from outside sources, it looks like he knows what he is talking about. Hope this helps. http://technoboy10.tk/after-scratch.html
  22. Another thing that can change the merit aid that schools advertise is prestigious outside scholarships. My ds applied and was a finalist for a prestigious private scholarship in our state. It was a long, laborious process and while he didn't win the scholarships itself, schools within our state kept sending him scholarship offers during the process which were offers on top of their highest academic scholarships. While we were waiting to hear about the final stage, three of the schools sent him scholarship offers yet again, which effectively gave him a full tuition scholarship for his first year and 90% thereafter. All that to say that there does seem to be more wiggle room in merit aid than it might first appear. Talking to the financial aid office really helped us as I am not sure I would have spent the time necessary (20 + hours) to just apply for the private scholarship had the financial aid person not told me about the unpublished scholarships that are earmarked for certain student populations. A friend of my son's got extra merit aid for being a girl in Computer Science, again, an unpublished scholarship that they wouldn't have known about without talking to financial aid for the college they were looking at.
  23. It can be really hard with twins. We have tried not to foster competition between our two but sometimes it happens. We still have them do different math just so they can't compete with each other. Sorry that it was a hard day.
  24. DS received 90% of his tuition in merit scholarships. He was a finalist for a prestigious scholarship in our state and the local University awarded him well for that honor. He scored well and had really interesting passions and achievements. He was accepted into the Engineering Residential Academic Program which meant he had to live on campus for a year. Between grandparents gifts and money he had saved (he's a saver and invested his own money into the stock market) and what we had set aside we have managed to pay everything off without anyone taking loans. He is moving home next year ( school is 15 min away) as he has been offered an internship at MIT which won't make him a lot money so we needed to save the cost of the dorm. We didn't save a ton for our kids, we had money in stocks and lost a lot of money. Oh well. We have some set aside for each of them, but not as much as I would like. We did tell our kids that whatever money we currently have budgeted for homeschool curriculum/supplies/ activities we would just roll over to help to pay for school. We have talked a lot about being wise in picking an undergraduate school. It needs to be a good, solid school and program but does not need to be an elite school. We have really stressed that getting out of their undergraduate programs without debt will give them a lot more options and freedom than going into debt for an elite private school. We are really impressed with the Enginnering Honors Programs which seems to be challenging and provides a lot of support and social activity.
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