Neuroscience and world/human geography/anthropology

What about The Great Courses?

Oh, and her other extra curricular is volunteering at an environmental learning area. She helps maintain the grounds and when there are classes, she helps teach science to the kids. During the summer, this is full time. It is all volunteer now. She is kind of hoping they offer her a paying job after she turns 18. I kind of wonder if when she gets to college, IF she can try out some environmental science type courses, or geology, if she might go that direction. Rice has environmental engineering. They also have a minor in sustainability. Since she was talking about building us some solar panels for our home, maybe she would be interested in environmental engineering. I don't know. But, Rice just has everything she would be interested in. And the way they are set up, she can try out a few different things before she has to declare her major.

Rice was perfect in every way. It has a variety of majors and is easy to switch between majors. Most classes are small. The residential college system is a huge bonus. Even though she is not a music major, she can still take part in limited music classes and orchestra type activities. She spent two days there, attending classes and being in the residential colleges and everything. She LOVED it! She loved the classes, she loved the other students, loved it. It was a perfect fit. It has every single major she is currently considering, as well as being easily accessible to change between the majors. TAMU already told us she has to file paperwork and usually min wait to change majors is one semester, but can be much longer depending on which major you are switching to. The housing system is frustrating there. And they are so overcrowded that they start every year with kids sleeping in bunk beds in the lounges of the dorms. Meanwhile, my son is at a small private school in Texas and everything has gone GREAT! They do not want to be at the same school. But it might just come to that eventually anyway, I don't know. We will have to see if she gets in to Rice.

Dot....I graduated from from a huge state university that was very similar to Texas A&M. I hated it too. It was huge, impersonal, profs were inaccessible. I really think she wants to do science as an undergrad. I think it is best to save the big universities for grad school. Going to a huge university for undergrad can mean these exact problems.

She knows she wants to do math/physics type degree. Basically, she is narrowed down to math or physics or an engineering that is physics leaning. As in, not chem engineering, or even computer engineering. Currently, she is declared at a Mechanical Engineering major at Texas A&M (already accepted). But aerospace or civil engineering seem to have more physics. And she is interested in a straight physics or math degree.

I feel like we need to revamp. Which, this is late in the game to do that. My daughter's SAT scores are high. She has a lot going for her, from excellent ECs to, just a lot. She already got in to Texas A&M. But she is applying ED to Rice. Rice seems perfect for her. But if she does not get in, we have no clue where else to look. She does not know what she wants to major in. Should she apply to UT Austin? Part me of thinks UT Austin is better saved for a grad school option. Originally, we were looking at schools like Swarthmore, Carleton, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Haverford, etc. But every time we visit a school far away, she hates it (and so do I). In fact, we through in St Olaf as a bonus place to visit while in MN, but had not been considering it originally. LOVED St Olaf. And St Olaf is not the kind of school daughter was looking at originally. Hated Carleton. Met with the Tufts people twice now (at events Tufts held). Did not like them at all. We are thinking maybe we want to stay closer to home (Texas, OK and Louisiana and Arkansas are close by). I just really need feedback and help here. I am running out of time. I will describe my daughter...she is conservative, intellectual, no interest in sports (fencing and such she likes, does not like football, etc). She is very good in all her subjects and works hard and has SAT scores in the 700's, including the SAT2 scores. She plays the viola and loves music. Music is a big part of her life. She is thinking she won't major in it. She is definitely a classic musician. We are very down to Earth people and are tiring of some of the arrogant and rude people we run in to at college talks. (I can explain that more if you want, but we seem to keep running in to those people). Any suggestions?

Dot...my son would love that. His college is very very sedate. It is a good school. But never see stuff like this there.

I know I probably missed something..but what is PNW plans? And why have they changed?

I think of St Olaf for music. Also, is it the only college in the midwest my daughter loved. I have a friend who went to Wartburg, he is a pastor now. I do not know a ton about that school.

We don't go there for only a week. Our oldest is in public school. So we went there when she got out and returned to Texas a week before school started. We wanted to spend the fall there this year, but with oldest in school, we could not. Plus, we stay with my grandmother, who comes here to stay by end of October.

Spelling Workout is simple and can easily be done without the TM. I highly recommend it.

I pulled out our Latina Christiana to use again. Last year, we did a class that used Minimus (so I did not teach it, but I have the textbook). Now, going back to Latina Christiana, a program I used to love, it just seems so boring. We also happen to have the high school level Cambridge (the first two) books. I am wondering now if I should go ahead and move on in to Cambridge with my 12 yr old.

I would get 1 textbook and 2 workbooks. I do not like CWP personally, so I don't get that. I felt like it just gave the same problems you would see in the next level up, so why bother. Just move on to the next level. I never bought 2 of the textbooks because I would sit down and teach from the textbooks. I sat with them, not in front of them. If I were working a problem on the white board, we were not looking at the book really then anyway. I never ever had a need or desire for 2 of the textbooks while doing Singapore Math.

I think it moves too fast. I went fast with my daughter. But if something is taught too early, not only does it stress a child, but then they need to be re-taught it when it is more developmentally appropriate. Basically, when we learn something at an age, we will see it in a way according to how our brain is developed and where our life experiences are. A few years later, we see things in a different way, and our brain works different. Simply put, puberty changes how we write and think. My oldest two were writing whole papers before 12 yrs old. But then I read with SWB, something she wrote a while ago, that the brain is not developed for big papers. I did find that I had to go through and pretty much reteach everything. Or they had to re-learn. And their writing skills were fine, but got much better later, after re-learning everything. So now, with my youngers, I am focusing on a great sentence, great grammar, and even great paragraph. After 12 yrs old, we are moving in to bigger papers.

I bought this and started using it. But to me, it feels redundant and like busy work. Maybe that is just how it feels now and it will get better. I have level 2. Anyone try these books? If so, what was your impression? Was it redundant? Or did it really add something? Or anything else?

It was about more than the NHS. It was about the fact that she could not get physics. I also saw a very neat interdisciplinary course being offered in the spring that is a geology/environmental science combo. I wanted her to be able to take that before she heads off to college. But yeah, I think you are right. She might end up with things going wrong with the more selective schools if she changes to home school at the last second. And Rice is her dream school.

I did Singapore Math with my older kids, and then went in to Jacob's Algebra. Now I am using Horizon's, which has a pre-algebra and an algebra. I hear people frequently referring to prealgebra just being a review or a stepping stone year, and going straight in to the algebra, especially with Jacob's. My child does not struggle at all with Horizon's math 6, which we are finishing up now. What would you all recommend next?

We spend part of our year in another state. Our oldest, who is in public school now, earned a 216 on the PSAT. For our state, she missed the cut off. For more than 40 other states, she would have been a NMSF. The National Merit would have made a world of difference for us. Colleges were sending us information telling us how they would give her all this scholarship money based on NM status. This is our last year ever having a public schooler. We will never ever do public school again. The rest of our children homeschool. We already said that next fall, we will spend part of it back where we are from, which is South Dakota. Thing is, and I called and checked this out with the National Merit corporation, it does not matter where you live when the results come out or when you graduate, it matters where you were when you took the test. So, if we had our child take the PSAT while we are still in SD (plan our trip that year so we are there on those dates) and use our address up there at the time, even if we change the address over to our Texas address the very next week, he would end up NMSF if he makes the lower numbers that SD requires. I am beginning to think that we should do this if we still have our place in SD when the time comes. Is this nuts? Or just a very good idea? (we actually might not have our place in TX by then as DH is eager to sell our house here and live there permanently, but I am not sure I want to be in SD all winter and if anything happens to DH's job, employment is better down here).

I think we will be visiting OU in Norman on Friday. I would love to hear more about it! I have seen less merit money and financial aid these days.

She is applying to Rice early decision, but if she does not get in, she is thinking of applying to Wash U, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, and Haverford.

My daughter home schooled through 8th grade. Then she went back to public school for 9th grade. It has been a joke every step of the way. The math education is terrible so we do math on the side. She has taken straight AP courses. AP Chem seems fine, but the rest of the science classes along the way (all preAP) were full of gimmicky little projects that were not really science related and the teachers were just coaches who did not know the material. Here we are, senior year. She already had over 30 credits. But because she is subject to their scheduling rules and bureaucracy, she still has not had senior English. Our schools are on a block system. You take 4 classes in the fall and 4 in the spring. So you might have all of math in the fall and all of English in the spring. She was already accepted at Texas A&M and a few other schools. She is hoping for Rice. Her SAT scores were all in the 700's and she is in the top 10%. Problem is, I am sick to death of dealing with the school and their petty junk. I STILL get comments from some people about the fact that she used to home school and her younger siblings home school. AND, she is considering engineering and again, has no math this year. And she had really wanted AP Physics, not AP Chem, but they could not fit it in to her schedule. Now, the NHS coach is trying to get her kicked out of NHS again, just because she feels home schoolers do not belong there. She told us in the past that home schoolers do not belong there. Now she makes up excuses every step of the way. Today's excuse, my daughter's supervisor for volunteer work does not have good enough handwriting on her signature. She actually expects my daughter to take her volunteer paperwork back to her supervisor and tell the supervisor that her handwriting is not good enough and to resign with better handwriting. That is not going to happen! So, she is being kicked out of NHS. Here are our choices. She can continue in that high school, and just skip the graduation ceremony (she and I both agree she will not go to graduation if she is kicked out. The NHS students wear different graduation stuff and such). She could leave at the semester end and take English 4 online and still take her diploma from this school in the spring, skipping the ceremony still. Or she could just leave altogether. I could get her started on dual enrollment courses through the local community college, and she can graduate out as a home schooler (we are in Texas, we can do whatever we please when it comes to home schooling). What do you think? She loves her orchestra teacher, but that is the only thing she will miss. Everything else on her schedule is the English or filler classes that she does not need or want to graduate.