You'll want to consider both total amount of Social Studies credits for college admissions -- AND the specific KIND of credits required for college admissions. Most colleges want 2-4 credits (depends on the school, and depends on the intended major), with many many colleges requiring 1 credit of Social Studies as American History. Some also want 1 credit World Geography/History (your Ancients or Medieval would cover that), and some want 0.5 credit each of Gov't and Econ. Most colleges also accept things like Anthropology, Archeology, Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy, Psychology, etc. as meeting their Social Studies credit requirements. Social Studies is the one academic subject that colleges tend to be pretty flexible about, so even if you don't have what is specifically required (say, the Gov't. and Econ.), but DO meet the minimum total amount of Social Studies credits, the college may work with you and flex about not meeting their exact requirement. BUT... research, research, research, and get it in writing if a college is willing to waive the requirement or substitute a different type of Social Studies credit! And, be aware that some colleges might NOT flex, so think ahead about how you want to handle that -- so if you end up not doing APUSH, maybe self-study one summer and have DD take a CLEP test in American History, for example, if the college accepts a specific American History CLEP. BEST of luck as you plan for high school! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

Thanks Sebastian, that is also a good reminder: some schools require a new FAFSA every year in order to renew the scholarship. That was not the case at DS's school, but OP, if your student lands a scholarship, *definitely* find out if you need to keep filing FAFSA every year so you don't lose the scholarship!

Hi Quill! Looks like sending them is the way to go, and others have posted great reasons of why to do so. Your post title just asked "how do we FEEL about them", and I was responding just for myself about the general principal. ;) Congrats to your student and your parents, and have two lovely celebrations this summer! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Happy to help! I love helping to make booklists. (:D And just to encourage you, unless DD is heading off to a high school, you can actually have more fun and flexibility in making your own Lit. in homeschooling high school. We made our own Lit. for each year of high school and it was super! :)

And if you add an "e" it can fancy up the name: "Raine" and "Skye". :)

Rose or Rosetta? Viola? Aspen? Coral? Autumn or Dawn (season/time in nature)? Opal or Jade (the natural semi-precious stones)? Ariel (means "air")? Willow?

We don't have the finances to do destination weddings, so not a problem here. ;)

LOL! And I'm always thinking, I sure hope JanetC, 8FillTheHeart, Barbara H, and all of those other very savvy college BTDT moms show up and answer this!

I'm with you regentrude. It seems like an extra step in the process, probably because our culture has gotten to the point of ignoring invitations and rsvp-ing, so we now have to do something "additional" and "novel" (Save the Date!) to make it stick in people's minds. I am old and frumpy (:P, and personally find "Save the Date" cards annoying no matter WHAT the event, because they have no info (other than the date) on them, and no way of rsvp-ing or deciding/dealing with the event right then. "What's the point! More paper and postage wasted," I always say I get one. Because I am a scattered person and do better taking care of things the moment they arrive, I prefer to get the invite, make the decision, rsvp, and move on. I hate having to use up what few brain cells I have left with "oh, I have to keep one eye out now for the REAL invitation with all the actual info, and then do something about it at THAT time, rather than get this dealt with right now while it's newly arrived and in my hand." I also have a VERY high likelihood of putting that STD event on my calendar, and then forgetting/ignoring to rsvp when weeks/months later the actual invitation comes, because, hey, it's on my calendar, I must have already rsvp-ed... But, that's just old fuddy-duddy me. ;)

I know it's a pain and it's invasive, but it is the unfortunate hoop we have to jump to get aid... :(

MANY many colleges require the FAFSA before they will even look at your student to award scholarships, so yes absolutely it is a very good idea to fill it out even if you "know" you won't qualify. Your student will miss out on merit aid if the school requires a FAFSA and you didn't file it. Also, some schools have a higher figure than the FAFSA for need-based, but the school still requires the FAFSA for awarding any aid, so your student may actually miss out on possible need-based aid by not filling out the FAFSA.

No, this is tricky stuff. If you are doing diagramming, it helps you visually chart the connections. But if not ready for diagramming yet, or if not planning on doing diagramming, then I found that it worked best for us to "problem-solve" it by asking ourselves a lot of questions, and eventually the answer to one of those questions makes the most sense. So questions for: Beyond the hill, we found a beautiful little pond. might look like this: Is it an adjective phrase adding on to the noun of pond, telling us who or which one or what kind -- so, is it a "beyond the hill pond"? Is it an adverb phrase adding on to the adjective of little, telling us how or how much -- so, it is "beyond the hill little"? Is it an adverb phrase adding on to the adjective of beautiful, telling us how or how much -- so, is it "beyond the hill beautiful"? It is adding on to the verb of found, telling us when/where it happened -- so, is it "found beyond the hill"? Bingo! That last one is really the only one that makes sense. Also, sometimes rearranging the sentence can help you see where it fits and what it is modifying: We found, beyond the hill, a beautiful little pond. We found a beautiful, beyond the hill, little pond. We found a beautiful little, beyond the hill, pond. We found a beautiful little pond, beyond the hill. This is trickier, because both the first and last rearrangements make sense, and that last rearrangement makes it sound like beyond the hill goes with pond -- that's where you also go back and ask the question from above, "Is it a "beyond the hill pond"? Ummm... possibly. But what other options are there? Go back to those questions. Asking if the prepositional phrase tells you about when/where is a very helpful clue for seeing that it is modifying the verb. For your second example: It was cold and windy on the shore of Lake Huron. For "on the shore", is it: Is it answering when/where? -- then it is modifying the verb, was Is it answering how or how much? -- then it would be modifying the adjectives, cold and windy Is it answering who or which one or what kind? -- then it would be modifying the noun, Lake Huron -- but in this case, the noun Lake Huron already has a job as the object of another prepositional phrase, so it is modifying the verb and answering the when/where question ETA: Another approach is to break down the sentence to the simple subject and predicate, and then slowly talk it through to figure out what all the other parts are adding on to. So in the case of your second sentence: It was cold and windy on the shore of Lake Huron. simple sentence = It was This is a tougher sentence and not so intuitive. First, "It" is an unclear pronoun, so let's figure out what "It" is the subject here -- really, it means "The weather" ("The weather was cold and windy on the shore of Lake Huron.") Clarifying that pronoun will help us see if anything else in the sentence connects to it. Right away, that helps us see that "cold and windy" are adjectives describing the weather -- what kind of weather? Cold and windy weather. Next, I'd mark the 2 prepositional phrases. So now we know that neither of the nouns in those prepositional phrases are the subject or the object, because nouns don't get to do 2 jobs in the same sentence. Here, both nouns have the job of object of the preposition. So now we're down to figuring out what each of those 2 prepositional phrases is modifying. In this case, I'd jump to the last phrase, because it's easier to see right of the bat that it is modifying what it's sitting next to -- which shore? the Lake Huron shore. Now we are down to figuring out what "on the shore" is modifying -- is it modifying the subject "It" by answering who/which one/what kind -- an "on the shore It"? No. Is answering how/how much to modify the adjectives -- so "on the shore cold and windy"? No. [And remember, in English, adjectives precede the noun, so if it is modifying a noun, the prepositional phrase should make sense in front of the noun.] Is it answering when/where and modifying the verb -- so: was on the shore? Yes. We did use Winston and liked it a lot, and did not do a formal diagramming program. Instead, I modified Winston and we did it on the whiteboard with colored markers to draw boxes and circles and lines/arrows to visually show what connected to what or modified what -- a variation on "parsing". We also used other Grammar supplements along the way to help practice GUM (Grammar Usage and Mechanics). BEST of luck, whatever you use, in your Grammar adventures! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Okay, all of this helps a lot. :) However, as a result, my response is: No, I don't think you can attain ALL of those goals with this particular genre choice. lol. Sorry! Just my opinion, but while most Sci-Fi and Dystopia is competently written, it is focused on philosophy and ideas -- which makes it very "discussionable", but you don't often also get an author who writes with beauty and creativity of language. But I think that's true whenever we are building a Literature unit around a particular topic. Again, just my opinion! :) Agreeing with Tanaqui that you can get a lot of worthy discussion out of YA dystopian works, even if they are not the best-written works. Of the YA titles I suggested above, IMO, House of the Scorpion dances on the edge of poorly-written but the setting, characters, and premise are so unique, and the questions it raises are also unusual and new, that it makes a worthwhile inclusion to a Literature study. The other YA titles I suggested range from competently-written to better-than-average in writing, and again, they are worth including in a Literature study for discussion about topic, theme, and creativity -- not necessarily for a high writing style. You can certainly get some great prompt questions for writing assignments out of this literature, whether it is "well-written" or just "competently written". ;) But, if you want to do writing imitation from well-written literature, then go ahead and do Anne of Green Gables or other classics known for their beautiful writing style. You don't have to make ALL the literature for the ENTIRE year revolve around a single theme or genre ;) -- for example, you could alternate a dystopian book with a beautifully-written work that you want to make sure you cover in middle school. You could even try doing the year-long study on Anne of Green Gables (Where the River and Brook Meet Anne of Green Gables) and intersperse dystopia for lit. discussions... Just a thought! :) (That's also a good idea to mix in lighter or positive-themed works when doing Dystopia, as that is typically a very dark and brutal focus for an entire year.) For a history study on political thought and different types of government, some Literature that would tie in: Animal Farm (Orwell) -- Soviet Communism & western Capitalism The Time Machine (Wells) -- starts with Victorian monarchy; the Time Traveler sees how the future went towards Socialism, which ultimately failed and, coupled with Evolution, the far future results in two primitive "devolved" groups of peoples -- the underground Troglydite people (descendents of laborers) and Eloi people (descendents of the soft, pampered wealthy) Watership Down (Adams) -- shows several different types of societies/gov't types Below the Root (Snyder) -- utopia (although, it becomes apparent that it is utopia for one group at a cost to another group of people) The Giver (Lowry) -- dystopia The Pushcart War (Merrill) -- how wars start; humorous book The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (Hentoff) -- censorship possibly even The Book Thief (Zusak), although the focus is not explicitly on Nazi-ism you do see the results possibly even The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Tolkien) -- although the major themes in the book are not about politics or gov't, you do see self-governing Hobbits with an elected Mayor (the Shire), several "city-states" with Lords (Rivendale and Lorien), monarchies with Kings & Queens (Rohan and Gondor), semi-orderly/semi-chaotic gangs with "boss" leaders (orcs), a "libertarian" (lol) very minimal gov't (Fangorn Forest), and a totalitarian dictator (Sauron the Dark Lord of Mordor) -- your students are at a great age for doing the year-long Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings study, and the trilogy is beautifully-written, which would give you loads of opportunities to incorporate some of your writing with the trilogy BEST of luck in finding the balance of Lit. that you want and that your students want this year! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Thank you for sharing more -- I've only read one Butler book (Dawn, which I enjoyed), and am looking forward to reading others, but it definitely had some adult content. ;)

Ooh, yes, Among the Hidden. :) Is Parable of the Sower okay for tweens? Some of Octavia Butler's works include adult content...

Ug! So sorry to hear that. :(

Ideas in this "Wiki How" article. Look for YouTube videos by Leofwin (and this one), and Old English English lessons by EnglishcHerewulf, and Leornende Eald Englisc. And possibly the book Learn Old English with Leofwin by Mark Love. Here's the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Old English. (:D What about contacting a university with an Anglo-Saxon language learning dept. and seeing if you can hire a college student to Skype-teach your son once a week?

Is there a reason you don't want "modern" books? Because even the 3 you listed were all published in the mid-20th century (so, 65-75 years ago), which seems pretty modern to me. ;) And there are some pretty brutal parts in all 3 of those books. (Protagonist in Fahrenheit 451 turns a flame thrower on his captain and incinerates him; kids kill two fellow shipwrecked kids in Lord of the Flies -- one by rolling a boulder onto a kid, and another where the group beats a boy to death; and Animal Farm becomes a police state in which the ruling pig takes a mother dog's puppies away, trains them into vicious guard dogs and turns them onto animals who disagree with the leadership to tear them apart.) Not to nit-pick with you (lol), and it's just my opinion, but I personally don't see any of the 3 books you listed as being "pure dystopia". Lord of the Flies (1954) has a strong contemporary setting and shipwreck survival story focus, and maybe it's just me, but I see the major theme not so much being "dystopia", but more about showing how fallen man's sinful nature comes out when the controlling element of civilization is removed -- the shipwrecked boys devolve into barbarism. Themes that stand out to me in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) are loss of literacy and what happens when a society starts losing its Literature foundation, plus the book ends with a very sci-fi theme of a type of Apocalypse. For Animal Farm (1945), the author himself called it a "fable" (a moral or cautionary tale), and it's very closely connected to specific real-life figures of the Soviet Communist regime of the 1920s-1930s, plus overall condemnation of both Socialism and Capitalism... On the other hand, I guess the Wikipedia definition of dystopia as works of fiction that explore social and political structures does apply to all three works -- it just looks different than what we've come to expect dystopian works to look like from the more recent spate of dystopic novels. (:D For the most part, the Dystopia genre is a pretty recently developed genre -- 1960s-70s and esp. the recent boom in the last 25 years -- with only a few older sci-fi titles such as Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World also overlapping and exploring dystopian ideas, so you're not going to find a lot of older books that fall squarely or only in that category. This short Wikipedia article on Utopian and Dystopian Fiction provides good background info. The Time Machine is sci-fi, but because it explores social and political structures, it is considered to have elements of dystopia. You might look at Jack London's The Iron Heel as an early dystopia that explores a totalitarian government, or We (1921) by Yevgey Zamyatin -- but I honestly don't know how interesting they would be, esp. to middle school ages. And things like The Handmaiden's Tale (Atwood) and A Clockwork Orange (Burgess) are much more adult. Some ideas -- although they are "modern" (1970s or more recent) and not necessarily "older classics", they are appropriate for middle school (or may want to wait till high school, as noted) The Giver (Lowry) -- published in 1993 (25yo) -- very much considered a Young Adult classic and is squarely in the dystopia genre Below the Root (Snyder) -- published in 1975 -- utopia/dystopia When the Tripods Came (Christopher) -- published in 1988 -- strongly sci-fi, but a dystopic element of "what if the aliens from HG Wells' War of the Worlds conquered Earth" House of Stairs (Sleator) -- published in 1974 -- dystopic world where teens are being experimented on with behavioral modification techniques House of the Scorpion (Farmer) -- published in 2002 -- depends on your student, may need to wait for high school The Hunger Games (Collins) -- published in 2008 -- depends on your student, may need to wait for high school If you're willing to stretch your book unit parameters a bit, or explain what your goals are, I'm happy to try and suggest more books to help you achieve those goals! :) BEST of luck in putting together your unit! Warmest regards, Lori D.

If doing a gap year, be sure to put in applications in the fall/winter of DD's 12th grade year, get accepted, get the scholarship offers and financial aid packages, and then contact the schools and ask about their policy for deferring entrance for a year to do a gap year. Otherwise, DD might miss out on possible scholarship offers. AND -- HUGELY IMPORTANT here, do NOT take ANY college credits/courses during the gap year or gap semester, as that kicks the student out of freshmen eligibility, loses the freshmen scholarships, and knocks the student into transfer student status. Be VERY careful about continuing education and a gap year!!

Need-based has to do with your family's financial information. Need-based is almost always based on the EFC number (Estimated Family Contribution) that is generated when you fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Most schools require that you fill out the FAFSA before they will award any money. The EFC number is what the government thinks you should be able to contribute each year towards your student's college costs. It does not take into consideration extenuating circumstances such as single-income, high cost-of-living areas, and health expenses. Note: you CAN appeal to a college to request more aid, as long as you can bring in all the financial documents to back up your claim to having more financial need than what the EFC on the FAFSA shows. Merit-based has to do with either good GPA and high ACT/SAT scores, or good at sports (athletic scholarship), good at music or art or etc. (fine arts scholarship), or you match up with the certain qualifications required by the scholarship (first in family to attend college; of a certain racial/ethnic background; have a disability; etc.). Some merit aid ALSO adds a requirement of need-based.

Not dumb questions at all! :) To land merit aid (scholarships based on good grades or high ACT/SAT scores), the ACT may be as low as 26-28 or need to be as high as 34-36. It all depends on the school's statistics of what the average (50%) and 75% (top 25%) scores of incoming freshmen are. For someplace like Stanford, the *average* ACT score is 34 -- so if you don't have a 35 or 36 (and 36 is a perfect score), then you're unlikely to get a merit-based scholarship. On the other hand, if the school's average ACT score of incoming freshmen is 26, and your student has a 28-30, the student is very likely to land a partial scholarship. And if the student has a score above 30, then the student may land a substantial scholarship. "Full ride" scholarships cover all costs -- tuition, room & board, and expenses. These are very rare. "Full tuition" scholarships cover the full cost of the tuition, and sometimes (not always) also the cost of required fees, but do NOT cover the cost of room & board and other expenses. There are more of these than "full ride", but these are still more of "the exception rather than the rule" in scholarships. The majority of scholarships are "partial scholarships" and may be able to only be applied towards tuition, or may be able to be applied towards room & board, books, or other expenses. The other "big" score is when your student takes the PSAT in 11th grade, and is in the 99th% (97th% and up if Latino due to some additional special scholarships), the student may qualify for NMS (National Merit Scholarship). If the student becomes a NMS finalist, the student receives the 1-time NMS awards of $2500, which isn't that big a deal, BUT, many universities offer FULL tuition and some offer FULL RIDE scholarships to NMS finalists. Here are some lists of "automatic" scholarships for certain ACT/SAT scores: Prep Scholar Blog list: "Guaranteed Scholarships Based on ACT/SAT Scores" Prep Scholar Blog list: "85 Colleges with Full Ride Scholarships" Yola Site: "Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships" College Matchmaker website list: "134 College Scholarships Awarded Solely for High Grades and SAT/ACT Scores"

I wouldn't worry about work-ethic too much at this stage. Sounds like they are good students and esp. that they buckle down for others means they are likely to do well at college. You might consider 1-2 classes of dual enrollment for each student in 11th and 12th grades, if you think they're ready for the challenge. That lets them "dip a toe" in the water of working at college level in advance (and how to study, organize themselves, meet deadlines, handle the online aspect of uploading papers or accessing the online syllabus, etc.), and those courses also can possibly transfer toward a future college degree, reducing the overall amount of credits needed and hence, reduce costs a bit. And, some areas have FREE or reduced tuition for dual-enrolled high school students! :) There are pros and cons to all options. You will have to start researching different schools and listing what is a pro and what is a con for each. Community college (CC) can be great by knocking out the first 2 years of college -- IF the CC is cheaper -- and -- IF the credits all transfer to the 4-year university with the degree your student wants. Downside is that most of the scholarships at 4-year universities are awarded to in-coming freshmen, and there are far fewer scholarships for transfer students (usually small amounts, and they are 1-time awards, compared to the "renewal" (i.e., good for 4 years) freshman scholarships. Your state university can be a good option as you don't have to pay out-of-state rates, and state universities often are cheaper than private universities (state universities tend to run between $10,000-$20,000 per year in tuition). State universities frequently have an "articulation agreement" with the local CC and accept certain credits as transfer credits and count them towards the degree. They also frequently accept CLEP test scores as credit. And if your state university is also in your town, you can save anywhere from $9,000-$12,000 per year on room & board costs as your student can live at home. The downside is that state universities frequently do not have a lot of scholarship money to hand out. They can also be too big and not have programs that are a good fit for students looking for something smaller or for a specific type of program or experience. And some state "flagship" schools are competitive for admissions. Small private colleges can surprise you financially -- while they do have much higher tuition costs, they also frequently have a lot of endowment money and can be generous with scholarships, so that the cost of private college with scholarships can drop down and be about equivalent to the state university cost without scholarships. Downside can definitely be cost, and if your student has to transfer to a different school partway through, a new school may not accept ALL the credits towards the degree at the new school, so it can extend the time (and hence, cost) of getting a degree. It all comes down to research, research, research -- what programs do the schools offer, how much do they cost, what are the odds of landing scholarships, and which are the best fit for the specific student academically, campus life-wise, and opportunity-wise? With good grades and test scores like this, plus loads of extracurriculars, yes, your students are good candidates for scholarships. But, the key is to start searching for colleges that are going to be a good financial fit for each student: Figure out your family finances -- what are you realistically going to be able to afford to contribute each year to each student: $5,000? $10,000? $20,000? Go to the FAFSA Forecaster to get an idea of what the Federal Gov't will expect you to contribute towards college (it will probably be far more than what you budgeted ;) ). Then use the numbers from the FAFSA Forecaster and use the net price calculators on various college websites to get a rough idea of how much it will cost. Then look up specific colleges to get a feel for how much scholarship money each might award. Go to the College Data website, search for the specific colleges of interest, and click then read through the statistics on the college. Look for where that ACT score of 30 would place your student in comparison with the rest of the incoming freshmen -- if in the top 5-10%, then your student stands a very good chance of a bigger scholarship. Also look at the "Money Matters" section for that school on College Data website and see how many students receive aid, what types of aid, and what the average award amount is. For more about Financial Aid and about Scholarships, check out the big pinned thread at the top of this board ("Transcripts, Credits... Scholarships/Financial Aid... links to past threads here!" -- the 5th post down in to that thread has links to a lot of great past threads on those topics. Start with these threads: "Overview/Explanation of Financial Aid" "Need-Based Aid" "Questions About Merit Scholarships" (what makes a student competitive, how can you estimate what you'll be offered, etc.) "Financial Aid vs. Merit Aid" "Scholarships" (how do I find them for my kids) "DS is our first child and a junior next year; what scholarships should he start pursuing?" (includes a good overview of financial aid aspect of scholarships) The good news is that only Division I and II sports require meeting NCAA requirements. The bad news is that Division III does not award sports scholarships. However, if your student is good at a sport AND either has financial need or good grades, there's a higher chance of getting one of the other types of scholarships (because the student will also be performing in the sports area for the school -- it's their sneaky work-around ;) ). Some community colleges (CC) do have sports teams, so even if DS wanted to start off at a CC, he might still be able to do track. Also, many CCs have scholarships for attending the CC, so be sure to have your students apply for scholarships -- find the deadline and don't miss it! -- if they end up attending the CC after graduating from high school. (The scholarships are only for college students, not for dual-enrolled high school students.) Right now, you can start doing some career exploration. "Medicine" is a huge field, and they may find that when they are exposed to the many different types of jobs in that field, that some are more appealing than others -- nurse, physician, surgeon, specialist (like cardiologist, orthopedics, optomology, etc.), EMT/paramedic, physical or occupational therapist, sports medicine, pharmacist, medical researcher, radiology or sonogram tech, respiratory therapist, anesthesiologist, dietician, psychiatrist, veterinarian... Read about what different jobs do, what education/training is required, what salaries to expect, and what the projected job outlook is for the different jobs at the U.S. Bureau of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook . Job shadow jobs of interest. Take a free online Interest Profiler test to come up with your 3-letter "Holland Code" of top interests in the way you like to work and then use those results to come up with lists of possible jobs that fit your top interests at CA Career Zone or NY Career Zone websites. Or just go straight to the Health & Medical career category at CA Career Zone - health & medical jobs and NY Career Zone - medical careers and explore -- both have info and videos of what various jobs are like. As your students begin to narrow down to what they might want to do, that will give you an idea of how to narrow down colleges somewhat, to those who offer degrees and internships/opportunities in the field of interest of each student. BEST of luck, as you get started wearing your administrator/guidance counselor hats! (:P Warmest regards, Lori D.

Outsource as dual enrollment to your local community college or trade school?? And, are you planning on moving into familiarity with a CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) course? The CLE text/course that you linked looks good (no personal experience). Here's are some YouTube videos on Mechanical and Technical Drawing. Here's a free 200-page pdf on Blueprint Reading and Sketching.

Cindy! So lovely to "see" you again, and what a terrific update! :)

Money Matters for Teens (Burkett) -- for a fee book -- also get the workbook for ages 11-14, or ages 15-18 Money Skills -- free lessons Next Gen Personal Finance -- free lesson units Practical Money Skills -- free downloadable lessons -- grades 7-8, or grades 9-12 Hands-On Banking for Teens -- free program, middle school + educator resources Washington State Dept. of Financial Institutions: Financial Education -- list of K-12 resources on financial literacy lessons with links