Not sure if Homeschool Spanish Academy would meet your needs, but they have native Guatemalan teachers. My daughter is doing their scripted high school Spanish program, but I know they also have adult programs. You could email them and ask about teaching specifically toward your situation. They do online teaching and easy to schedule. Some of their tutors are not as good at English and you might want one that can do both English and Spanish well. The price is cheaper than most one on one tutoring. It does not include a lot of literature and movies, but you could probably add that in.

If you think he might be in the running for National Merit next year, then I'd take it this year for the experience. Otherwise I'd only consider it if you think he needs the testing practice before ACT/SAT.

Roaches and damage I'd certainly complain about, but in some parts of the country it is almost "normal". Every school has a different policy about rooms that are not full. Sometimes they will move students, some will charge a higher rate if you choose to stay where you are. They can also always move someone else in unless you are paying the private room rate or similar for fewer than full occupancy. I've warned friends that are in similar situations this year, that their son's private room may not stay that way - or they might end up getting charged for it.

I don't keep up with everything. However, I do try not to assign work for ME to grade that I don't have a sufficient background to do so.

My dyslexic daughter has been doing Homeschool Spanish Academy for the past few months and it is going great. She is very happy that Spanish pronunciation seems to follow more rules than English. If you do HSA, talk to the teacher if he needs more review or to slow down.

What do I think of pop quizzes - they are a valid way to assess if kids are learning the material and a way to motivate to study. In a good class, it will be known that pop quizzes are a possibility. A good class will also make the material available for students to learn outside of the classroom - whether it is handouts, homework, notes taken in class, etc. If a student isn't allowed to review outside of class then it greatly devalues the class.

I agree that it is my GIFT to my kids rather than my obligation. My parents have gifted me with my first degree and in other ways. We have pointed out through the years how the grandparents are giving gifts to our family and we hope to be in the position to be able to pass that gift giving on to our children and grandchildren. In my family, it is more an attitude of paying it forward.

We did not use it.

OP - You are NOT the only one, but it might feel like it when you ask certain groups. You have to decide what is best for your family and instill those values in your kids. Many, many times I am walking a path that is very different from my friends or those I know, but I have to do what I feel is right for my family. What is best for one child may not be the same for the next so I don't always treat all my kids the same either. It sounds like you and your son are making this work well. However, I don't think it works well for everyone in various situations. I certainly advocate buying cheap cars, looking for cheap living costs, and learning financial responsibility. How you teach this varies from family to family and also often depends on the family finances. I do think many forget to take into consideration the opportunity costs of what you lose out on by having to work - and I don't mean social time. I would also caution anyone that wants to argue that they worked their way through college years ago that college prices have risen ridiculously faster than everything else in the economy so it is no longer an equal comparison.

Sure, I'd put them on. They would go under electives. I might leave them off (or at least not put all three on) if my student already had plenty of electives. My STEM student, math geek, had Old Testament history as one of his electives.

It's frustrating for me that I feel like my boys can get much more money going out of state rather than staying in town at the flagship university. It certainly was true of my oldest. We will be casting a wide net for the second because I don't feel like we have a good safety in state - his safety (easy admit and good automatic money) is six hours away. My kids would be sure to be admitted, but even with very competitive resumes the merit money is somewhat random.

I don't think there is a specific right or wrong. I do think if you have the income to be able to help with college then that is a good thing. Also, if the parents have the income it will show up on the FAFSA and may limit what the student is able to get from the college. I do think it puts a student in an unfair position if others can get money from a school, but they can't because of their family's income, but the family doesn't contribute to the costs. I know life's not fair and everyone has to learn to live with what they are dealt. I've gotten a lot of flack by paying for a lot of things for my oldest. He is very smart, but has learning disabilities. A lot of his energy has been spent learning how to learn at a high level with his learning disabilities. There is no way that he would be able to accomplish what he has done academically if he also needed to work and support himself or pay for his insurance, tuition, etc. He's on a path to be a self-sufficient educated adult, but he would not be where he is today if I he had to work in high school.

What does your student want to study? What resources/people do you have to help? Do you have people to talk to in a specific language for practice? My older two boys did Latin by their choice. My daughter is doing Spanish and finding it useful. My fourth will have a choice, but I'd lean toward him doing Spanish.

Everything is a huge learning curve. I'd encourage you to pare it down to essentials or things that are hard to drop like online classes and start building up a routine. As things become a little easier, you can start adding more it. I'd also encourage you not to compare your daughter to everyone else - especially the high achievers on this board. Take education one step at a time and do what is best for HER. My daughter who is in 9th grade could never handle the schedule you have for your daughter, but she is rapidly progressing in what she can handle and will probably surpass many of her peers in a few years. It's difficult to learn to juggle online classes. Often they assign a lot of work as well. I try to push in one area at a time rather than change everything at once. In your case, everything is new as she came from brick and morter school to homeschool and it is a very different routine for high school.

Sounds good to me.

I've had admission counselors tell me that the honors designation is meaningless for a homeschooler. It really just helps them tell if a student is taking the most rigourous courses offered WITHIN their own high school and doesn't tell much about comparing students from different schools. That said, I will designate some of my second son's coursework as honors because I think it hurts some scholarship chances at some schools if you don't.

For National Merit, I think the letter of recommendation is basically one more box to check. They just want to make sure the students are continuing to do well in school, do well on the SAT (as in prove the PSAT was not a total fluke), and basically be recommended. The ones I know that don't make it have bad grades or are not US citizens.

My oldest did AoPS all the way through. My second finished the intro books or AoPS and then switched to Derek Owens.

Take a look at MEP math level 7 - it's free online. Not sure if your student is quite ready for it, but it might be a nice fit.

We only waited on a few, but they were outliers in his search. The benefit of applying early is to find out early, get financial aid earlier, and more scholarships get handed out early. This is potentially better information to then make a decision.

I don't remember all the details, but I know we submitted each college separately. All the information remains in the common app so you just have to do any supplementary info. I know we submitted some colleges early and then waited on an early decision. My son had filled out the information for other schools but never submitted it as he was accepted ED.

I agree with the above. I find that the NPC are pretty accurate for need-based aid and automatic scholarships. Your actual cost may be very different if you also get merit scholarships. The EFC from the FAFSA is a number that may or may not have any bearing on what individual schools do. The FAFSA determines if you get federal aid. One thing I found as I played with some NPCs is that some schools will give you need based money and then add more automatic merit based on ACT etc. Others schools as your ACT increases they give you more merit while decreasing the need based so that your cost of attendance does not change.

While I'd first try to follow what the college wants, sometimes you have to check a box that is not entirely accurate. Just as our homeschool courses don't always fit exactly what the application expects of typical students, our recommendations may not either. If the college specifically says that they don't want extra recommendations, then I wouldn't give them. However if they say you can give additional recommendations such as clergy or coach, then I'd have no problem asking a scout master. My son turned in two "teacher" recommendations on the common app. One was actually a teacher and could answer the teacher questions. The other was a math coach. His math coach wasn't sure if he should write a "teacher" recommendation since he had never had my son in class. We asked him to do his best to answer the basic questions or put not applicable and then describe truthfully exactly how he does know my son for the recommendation. In this case, we wanted a math teacher recommendation, but essentially I had been the only math teacher for my son.

Ask the university who his admission counselor would be. I suspect it will fall under whomever does the homeschool since that is how he is applying. In reality, I'm not sure it matters who will be his admission counselor as you are really just seeking information and any is likely to be able to give you an answer.

It's certainly not impossible to apply ED and still need lots of financial aid - my son did. ED schools have counseled us to look very carefully at the finances BEFORE applying ED. IF you are full pay, then you probably can see what it will cost you, but you won't be able to compare it to scholarships elsewhere. You are committing to pay the cost upfront if accepted ED. You might still get a merit scholarship, but rumor has it that more merit scholarships are given to regular decision applicants to try to lure them to the school. If you need financial aid (like us!) then the school we were looking at said to run their net price calculator and/or talk to financial aid office before applying ED. While you can't get you exact numbers, this school said that their NPC is very close to accurate if you input real numbers. I played around with their net price calculator, changing our income and how many students I had in college as well as my student's income. It gave me a realistic idea of what to expect. Ultimately we got more than the NPC said we'd get. My son applied Early Decision (binding) and we got his financial aid award with the decision. It did come with the ability to turn down the offer if the financial aid did not meet what you needed to go to school there. Ultimately, they gave him an additional merit scholarship on top of his need-based grant they initially told him about. Early decision was a very good decision for my son. He had a clear favorite school and IF admitted it looked like they would give us a large amount of need based money so the finances looked reasonable. It also gave my son a decision in December (rather than April). This was important as he didn't have a clear second choice school or even several he liked. If he was turned down at his top choice, it would give him several months to consider others schools - most of which he had already applied to. I felt comfortable with this school being a good fit academically, socially, and financially. If my mom instincts said otherwise, I would not have allowed him to apply ED.