Ugh. My sympathy. My T1D didn't do accommodations, but I certainly understand why you want them. I would bang on the College Board door (by telephone) and ask them. I thought all testing centers needed to accommodate whoever signed up, but apparently I'm mistaken. Again, how frustrating.

My kids did Math Level I, Physics, Chemistry, U.S.History, English Lit, and Latin. My kids actually LIKED taking the tests. They said that it provided incentive to really learn the material and master it as a whole -- a sort of really well-done final exam that forces the student to assimilate the material in a way that they don't have to just for individual exams. Note -- don't bother doing the Math Level I if your student has the background for Math Level 2. Math Level 2 has an easier curve and covers higher-level math, so there really is no reason to take Math Level 1.

I'd check out the "if establishes residency" clause. Call the fin aid office to find out how this is done and how common it is. My dd attends an OOS public. She has had a well-paying job in the state the entire time, lives off-campus, and lives there over breaks. (Her job requires her to be there all but two weeks a year.) HOWEVER, because we pay her tuition she cannot establish residency that will count towards getting in-state tuition. I know that sounds weird, but I talked with many people about this for any number of hours.... Basically, in order to establish residency that counts towards paying in-state tuition, she would need to live in the state with no parental support for one year. Then and only then can she receive in-state tuition. So I would really check out whether establishing residency is something that can be done or if it is a fake carrot, a bribe that can never be cashed in.

About Furman --- they do stack scholarships. My dd received two half-tuition merit scholarships from Furman (one from the math department, one from the music department) which combined to the equivalent of a full-tuition merit scholarship.

DD transferred in to her college as a sophomore. She HAD to live on campus her sophomore year, and it stunk. Mold, mildew, and not wonderful roommates. (She was the fourth in a trio of close friends, which made it extra-challenging.) She moved off-campus for her junior and senior years. It has been WONDERFUL! She loves her apartment, her apartment-mate and she get along really well, it is less expensive, and she enjoys LEAVING campus at the end of the day and having a life not 100% surrounded by 18-22yo's. She is involved in her church community and in the local dance scene, and oddly enough her social life has improved since she moved off campus!

At least in our experience, grad schools in music are interested in seeing a college transcript, recommendations, and a statement of purpose (length requirements vary). Most likely there will be a preliminary audition done by sending in recordings of pieces. If the student makes the preliminary round, then there is the in-person audition process.... No test scores of any kind are required -- the powers that be care about how good a musician the student is and is he at least a reasonable student, but the focus is on music, not on general academic prowess.

It not only depends on the TYPE of program but also on the individual program. My dd1 applied to PhD programs in engineering. There were no interviews. The schools invited accepted students for a fully-funded (including travel costs) accepted students weekend. Mostly PhD's in engineering are fully funded, with both tuition costs covered and a stipend. Her stipend was generous enough that she actually saved money while in grad school My ds1 applied to a master's program in computational something-or-other. He applied and he was accepted. Period. There were no interviews, but he did visit after he was accepted. The tuition was fully funded and he had a reasonable stipend, but if he had not been living at home he might have had to dip into his savings to completely cover living expenses. (I would guess the shortfall would have been on the order of a thousand or two.) My dd2 is applying to grad school for a master's in music. Some programs are fully funded while others are not. She is only applying to fully funded ones for obvious reasons! Music students usually visit schools and have "sample lessons" with their desired teachers about a half a year before applying.

How and when kids mature is incredibly kid-dependent. My ds1 lived at home for four years after college. We all survived! :-) It was a good time for bonding, and it helped him get his feet under him. He is now married and living across the country! My ds2 went off to India unaccompanied for two weeks when he was 17. He dropped out of college and has fended for himself since then -- at age 24 he has a wife, a house, many boats, and a dream career. He was on the accelerated track to maturity, which was hard since my husband and I were always playing catch-up! At the same time, my very independent 22yo just had major surgery and spent two weeks (in the middle of her college semester) at home. She has required a HUGE amount of support this year. Sometimes life events get in the way of independence, and our job as parents is to be there for our kids when they need us! Every kid is different, and as parents we need to love each one DIFFERENTLY!

Colleges can be incredibly supportive. Go and ask. Talk to the Dean of Students. Talk to the Bursar's Office. Talk to the folks in Financial Aid. And if they don't know, keep asking. Dd2 had a very VERY serious medical issue this fall, and we were afraid she would need to drop all her classes in mid-November, which would not only look REALLY bad on her transcript but also have prevented her from graduating in the spring. She has received nothing but support from the powers that be, ranging from helpful professors to the amazing dean of students and the person in charge of medical issues. I am surprised and relieved at how completely awesome the entire staff has been. (She has many incompletes but nothing that she can't mop up eventually.....) So talk. Ask. Beg. Plead. Tell your story. And people will probably be incredibly supportive and helpful.

We never received any money offers before January. Some came weeks or even weeks BEFORE the official acceptances were released; some came a week or so before most students were notified, and some came with the acceptance letters. A few came with the financial aid offer and were not part of the acceptance process at all.

Funny story about students who come for help sessions -- I have a friend who taught organic chemistry at an elite LAC with lots of pre-meds. One time she looked around in frustration at the students who were at the help session -- they were both A students, and there were plenty of students in the class who were NOT A students. She actually told the two students who came to the help session -- "Why are YOU here? And why aren't all of the other students here?" The two students who were at the help session ended up at 1) Harvard Medical School, and 2) the #2 engineering program in her field in the country. Apparently those two didn't "really" need the help, but they were the only ones there. (And maybe the reason they succeeded so well was because they were the type of student who came for extra help when the material wasn't 100% clear!)

Whether you thrive or sink in online classes is at least somewhat personality (rather than intelligence) driven. I had two kids who thrived with online AP classes in high school, and one who thought online classes were a torture device designed to frustrate isolated students. He QUICKLY moved on to brick and mortar community college classes!

Dd is. We'll see! She's only applying to one program.

So much depends on the student! I steered my older two towards LAC's. They are happily employed, but their work is not their PASSION. My younger two went wildly different routes -- one spent a year at a college that has one (and only one) major. He dropped out and is working in the field in which he was majoring. He is successful beyond his (and my) dreams -- even without the extra three years of schooling and the degree. He is truly living the life he dreamed of. He started dreaming of this career when he was about 12, and he is truly living and breathing what he has dreamed of doing. We had out doubts about it since it is a VERY unusual field, but he is thriving. My youngest is a music major. She couldn't be happier, and she truly lives and breathes music. She started out at a LAC as a music math double major, but she wanted more music, so she is now at a conservatory. (And yes, her area of expertise does have actual employment available!) So I think it all depends on the student. If they are passionate, you might be careful to not calm that passion, even if it isn't in an area you consider "practical".

Four out of four of mine have changed paths in college. #1 did a dramatic change of career path (from art conservation to engineering) but in order to apply to Ph.D. programs in engineering she merely needed to add some classes her senior year. Not a big deal. #2 kept on adding majors. He started out as economics/public policy and added math and philosophy along the way. He got a master's in data analysis and now works as a software programmer. Talk about shifts! #3 dropped out after a year because he didn't feel that college would help him pursue his dreams. He is now 24, and his dropping out seems to have helped jump-start his life -- he has a successful career in the field of his dreams, he owns a house, and he is married. #4 started out as a math / music double major at a LAC. After a semester, she decided to focus on music. She transferred to a conservatory and should graduate right on track despite the transfer.

Hugs. We let our younger son fly unaccompanied to India for ten days when he was 17. He was a (paid) invited guest at an international kite festival, and there was only one other American invited...... So no supervision, no way to contact us other than a quick "I arrived" from the airport, and no one for us to contact other than the kite festival coordinators.... I was a WRECK. Of course, he drank tap water (!?!?!) and got lost, but he loved the entire experience and made it through unscathed. The whole experience upped his confidence immeasurably, and we are SO glad he went. But I wouldn't want to relive those days again.... So lots of sympathy!

I know you don't "have" to send the official AP scores but we did as a way of making things more official. I figured that anything we did to make the application more "bona fide" would be worthwhile. And yes, I have talked with a few homeschoolers who have confused AP scores on the exam with AP grades in the class.......

1) I would be concerned if there were rumors about it closing. A school closing while a student is there can cause major turmoil to the degree-getting process. Schools do close. A once-upon-a-time major music school is in the process of closing right now. 2) I would also be concerned about a school if its finances were tight. That would mean less funding for everything from summer internships to on-campus jobs to on-campus activities. If you are concerned about a school's finances, do check it out carefully!

For an activities resume we did a few pages. Each kid had different categories, but examples would be volunteer work, Civil Air Patrol, Keyboard Activities, Reenactment Volunteer Activites, or Paid Employment. On each page we had a table. The first column was the activity, the second was time commitment (usually hours per week but occasionally two weeks dduring the summer or whatever), and the third was a description. The descriptions were full sentences, and occasionally the descriptions would go on for several lines. We put awards, etc., in the description except for BIG ones (like the Spaatz for Civil Air Patrol, which got its own listing). For example, for my music major we would put "Competitions Won" in the activity column and then list the actual competitions with some info about them in the description column. Activities resumes are an amazing way to showcase non-traditional activities like kayak-building or involvement in reenacting or working in a sail loft -- things which need explanations. We put all academic awards on the transcript and then listed them in the application. We did not include them on the activities resume -- we treated the activities resume as a compilation of extra-curricular activities.

My dd double-majored. Her main interest was art conservation, so she double-majored in cchemistry and art history. Thanks to AP's and dual-credit classes she graduated in four years. It worked well for her, though she ended up going into engineering. My ds triple-majored. He started with economics, added philosophy, and then added math. He did it in four years, but it's been a mixed bag. 1) Question #1 at interviews -- WHY did you triple-major? Why didn't you just focus on taking classes you liked from a variety of fields? 2) He nearly dropped the economics -- he decided at the end of his sophomore year that he didn't want to pursue economics, but he was spending his junior year at Oxford and you need to sign up for ALL classes in the spring preceding, so he couldn't change those classes, which meant that he only needed to take one class and do a final project his senior year. Given the negative response to triple-majoring in interviews, he wishes he had just abandoned economics after his junior year at Oxford. I'd encourage your student to pursue his interests very seriously and to choose classes that reflect those interestsbut not get hung up about actually fulfilling a major.

National Merit and employer $$ here exclusively. We found the colleges' merit aid to be amazingly generous, so we were happy with that.

I would just make sure that the degree can/will open the doors that the students wants it to. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, do any students from the foreign university attend US grad schools? Or get jobs in the US? Do US companies know what to make of this degree? Are the student's most-wanted grad schools comfortable with accepting students with degrees from non-US schools? (It must depend on both the foreign degree and program and the US grad program, but do check it out!) Many US students have been going to college in Canada for decades, so companies know what to do with a McGill degree, but do they know what to do with a degree from Southampton? (BTW, if you are going into naval architecture, companies know exactly what to do with a degree from Southampton -- HIRE YOU! Southampton has an amazing naval architecture program! But outside of the tippy top schools, do companies know what to make of foreign degrees?)

I graduated with ~1000 others plus ~1000 grad students. ALL of us received our diplomas at the graduation -- all diplomas were personally handed to us by the president and the provost, who alternated. Of course, to keep all the diplomas and students correctly synced, we had our names checked umpteen kazillion times while walking to our seats and another time or two on our way up to the podium..... I do not envy the person in charge of the logistics! (Oh no -- you got the flu and won't be walking? Quick -- let's pull that diploma out of the stack. Fifteenth stack on the left, 23rd diploma down......)

Yes and yes. My older two kids are both in STEM. My oldest is a daughter with a Ph.D. in a STEM field from the #2 department in her field in the country. She was wined and dined. There were special programs to help women learn how to interview, how to navigate the job-hunt process. There were dinners where only female candidates were invited. My son, also with impeccable STEM credentials, has never been offered any of those perks. BTW, I was accepted to a top STEM school during a year many moons ago when diversity first became a thing. I've always wondered if I would have been accepted if I hadn't been female.... It's enough to make a cynic of me......

Basically it benefits the technology companies to have this myth continue. If people believe there is a shortage of STEM employees, people will continue to emphasize going into STEM fields and there will be a resultant surplus of STEM-credentialed workers available. This surplus of potential employees means that the companies can be pickier about who they hire, which benefits them.