Quark - what type of questions did you ask? I'm curious about the type of context they wanted.

Very good information and informed opinions. Thanks, Quark, for explaining that the UC system does not ask for a school profile or counselor letter. That is part of the problem. Yes, Mabelen, prompt 4 is the one we would use if doing a homeschool essay. Thank you for looking into that. FWIW, we have hired TWO different consultants for help (one very limited). One is very versed with the UC system and advised against using the additional comments section. She felt it might set off alarms that it could be viewed negatively. We, on the other hand, would love to put the information there, and use the essays the way that all of the other applicants get to. 8 - Thanks for your comments - good information for the CA, which we will be starting on in a week! We are working on it both ways right now. Writing a prompt 4 about homeschool, and writing a different prompt not about homeschool. We'll have to decide this weekend which way to go. "We tend to take homeschooling as being well understood, but we are still a very small percentage of the population and more information provided about their experiences, the better understood they are as an applicant." 8, I see your point.

Thanks for the information. We weren't planning on doing it on the CA, however, my daughter talked to someone from one of last year's online classes who got into Stanford. Two essays are required, and she wrote the shorter one about homeschooling. I don't know what angle she went with, but she did tell my daughter that she wrote about homeschooling... sigh...

This is interesting. I would love to do it this way. Contradictory instructions are found under the homeschooling page that say: Personal insight questionsLike all applicants, you’re encouraged to share information in the personal insight questions that would provide context for UC admissions officers reviewing your application. Specifically, we’d like to know about your home-school environment and experience: Why did your family choose home schooling? How is your day structured? What extracurricular activities are you passionate about? We’re interested not only in your strengths as a scholar, but also your leadership qualities, passions and contributions to your family and community. Now, can you imagine writing this essay? Why did your family choose homeschooling? It is hard to answer (not impossible, I know) without sounding like you are putting down public school. How is your day structured? Well that varied greatly between elementary years and high school years. Pretty much now it is like public high school except that there are no specific windows of time to be dedicated to a specific subject. What extracurricular activities are you passionate about ? That could be included in a separate essay or in the activities section. Maybe we are reading this incorrectly and they aren't asking for all of these. I understand they want to understand the applicant, but students who, say, go to parochial school aren't asked why that chose that. Maybe these are suggestions and not all requirements?

Determined to finish the UC app and essays this weekend. As some of you might know, the UC system requires four 350-word essays. We have been advised that one of them should tell about her homeschool experience. It is frustrating, though, because it is a lost opportunity to tell other things about herself. The main UC site does ask homeschoolers to talk about it, but I think she can put a little in one essay and a little in another, as a non-main point, but still there. Also, when writing her science-related essay, that essay more or less speaks about her science learning through the years, so would that do it? Would love advice from current and past UC applicants, and anyone else who has faced something similar in the applications experience.

I'm finished with the transcript. I like it with one exception: there are only 26.5 credits listed, with 2 of them being P.E. We decided not to include any of her music lessons, music theory, MTAC adjudication, etc, in her transcript because we will list it in the activities section. I felt this was more in line with what many non-homeschoolers do if they are taking private music lessons and participating in MTAC. Her course load of the classes other than P.E. is heavy, with 11 AP classes. However, I feel uncomfortable with the 24.5 credits of "real" subjects when so many public schools are doing block scheduling and getting 28-32 credits. There is one area that I shorted her. During both 9th and 10th grade, she did Year 1 and Year 2 of a Great Books online class. She did this in addition to her regular grammar and composition coursework that I taught. I thought it would be more straightforward to list them together so I entitled each year "English Language and Great Books" and gave the I or II afterward. For those unfamiliar with the Great Books courses, the reading is heavy, heavy, heavy, plus there were four papers due per year. So... my question is, of course, should I change this and list 6 Language Arts courses instead of 4? I don't want it to look like I'm padding the transcript, but, truly, there was way more work there than 4 units.

So, I called the UC Admissions help line and the person said that they have gotten quite a few calls about this. She said to use the actual exam date. Still wondering if anybody else had this happen?

Gr8lander - Hope your dd is enjoying Princeton.

Academically, some friends are very similar, some are somewhat similar, and a few are quite dissimilar.

Okay, I will keep it under social studies on the transcript. I think now that I can even keep it that way when (hopefully) I turn it in at the end of the school year, as the UC system requires, even though I will have to enter it under the g requirement in the online UC application. Thanks!

I am 98 percent done with dd's transcript. For those who have done a transcript by subject area, what category would you put Economics under? For the UC system, it is listed as fulfilling the g requirement of the a-g requirements, but the g requirement isn't one of the usual science, math, English type of subject areas. With my current template, I have to keep it consistent and need to list it under a subject category. I'm beginning to see the benefit of doing it by school grade. By subject area seemed so sensible to me, but now I'm kind of wishing I had done it the other way.

All of my dd's SAT test scores are off by a day. I never noticed this until entering them into her college application today. For example, she took the SAT with Writing on October 1, 2016 but her score report shows it as September 30, 2016. Has anyone else had this? Which date do I report to the colleges - the actual day she took the exam, or the date on the score report?

{{Hugs}} to you MusicalMom.

This was finally resolved this morning. It was a battle. The call center is located in the Philippines and the representatives there liked to claim that they have no way of contacting anyone here in the states (who are the only ones who can make a change) other than through email! After a week and a half, all of a sudden, the representative and his supervisor told me that I would have to have the school verify her grade level in order to change it. Two problems with that: 1) If they didn't require verification in order to register, they can't require it now. In other words, they took her word for it every time she has registered for an SAT or AP exam, but now they won't take her word for it that a data entry error had been made? 2) They never told me this when I originally called a week and a half ago! (Although number 2 isn't even a concern since their claim in number 1 is invalid.) I finally resorted to informing them that I was recording the call (and their constant promises of a call back by the "higher department" in 24 to 48 hours, claims of inability to do anything more, and conflicting statements - even within the same conversation. I called five different days - every promised 48 hours. I think the recording finally did it, as a manager was all of a sudden magically able to contact someone in Virginia who left a message for me this morning that she had made the change. I checked and it is fixed. Overall, a very bad experience with the College Board call center. I do plan on following up on this by contacting the person who called this morning, as well as an email to the Western Region V.P. Glad it is done. Didn't need that stress.

I tried calling the Western Regional Office. Very cleverly, there is no way to speak to anyone. There are two options, and the second option is for seminar info, etc. The first option gives you a recording with another number to call: you guessed it, the main SAT number. So, I did call again. I spoke to an agent who said he would have a "Higher Department Specialist" call me back and that I could expect this call by this time tomorrow. Thank you, Sebastian, I did ask for a reference number, and he gave me one. I will post tomorrow with an update. I will say that I don't expect to get the promised phone call...

Her grade in her college board account is correct. It is correct in every other report - the SAT she took in June, the SAT subject tests, and her AP Exams.

TranquilMind - what did you do beyond what I have done?

There was an error in my daughter's SAT score report. When I signed her up, I obviously didn't click after I chose her grade and when I scrolled to the next question, I accidentally scrolled within the grade level and moved her from 12th Grade to 2nd Year of College. To show how prominently the error is displayed in the report: We saw the error when scores were released last Thursday, and I immediately called the College Board. The "customer service" agent said he would put in an order to have it changed and would expedite it at the highest priority, which he said would take one to two days. Long story short, a week later and it is still not changed! I called on Tuesday, speaking to two agents and then their supervisor. I was told they have no ability to do anything about this once they put the order. It goes to the "Escalations Team" and they have no way of contacting them. It is a perfect set-up so that customers have no recourse. I got a little "firm" with the supervisor, Nathan, and asked to speak to his supervisor. I was told he could put in an order for that, and someone would get back to me within 48 hours! I didn't do it, because I could see how that was going to go: when nobody calls me, I have no recourse again. HAS ANYONE HAD THIS KIND OF TROUBLE WITH THE COLLEGE BOARD BEFORE? What can I do?!

That is fantastic!!!!

Some schools are reach schools to almost every student - Stanford for example. They are jokingly called "lottery schools" for a reason. That doesn't mean your sons shouldn't apply to such a school if that is where they really want to go. They are only juniors. And if 770 is their math score, that is already very good. I'm willing to bet that their scores go up after another year of math class. Are they in pre-calc or calculus? The math done in these classes, while technically not covered on the SAT, requires the knowledge of the type of math that is. Review geometry and trig separately before they retake the exam, and enjoy their junior year.

DD got all of her ACT scores (both multiple choice and writing) a few weeks ago even though it looks like they can take longer.

In case anyone is interested, this is my dd's longtime French tutor. I highly recommend her: http://www.speakfrenchtoday.com/

Regardless of where you take a French online course, by the third year, your child is really going to need a tutor in order to learn to speak properly and to comprehend spoken French well. I would highly recommend using a native French speaking tutor only. There is nothing like the real thing!

We didn't do it. Just didn't have the time. We have no regrets whatsoever. We knew SAT scores were what were going to matter the most to us, and she scored very, very well on that when the time came. So, my thought is, regardless of how you expect your child to score, don't force yourself to do it if it doesn't work for your student.

I had my daughter take the SAT II French Subject Test at the end of 9th grade for the same reason - bubbling! LOL!