This may not be the right forum, but the networking forum isn't very active. Longtime homeschoolers but moving to the US for the first time. We'll be near Seattle, and I have read that homeschoolers can participate in certain public school activities. That might be a good option for my social DS. If you've done this, could you let me know how this has worked out in practice? Doesn't matter if it's not WA specific; I'm just trying to figure out what our options may look like. DS is not very sporty but is quite musical. Thanks all!

I don't have anything helpful to add, but wanted to say that this sounds like a difficult situation, and I hope things get better sooner rather than later.

If you camp, it will rain. I've camped here with the Scouts for ten years and we basically assume it will rain every single campout, and it does. For Hadrian's Wall, a few years ago we did a walking tour of part of the wall. It wasn't with a group, just our family. We went through a tour company that organised B&Bs and luggage transport. It wasn't super-pricy, and we were able to specify how long we wanted to walk every day and so on. It was fantastic. I think we did the four-day version but there are variations on this.

Apparently I omitted to mention a key accessory to the gumball machine, which DS told me about last night. They have added a pair of chopsticks, and the idea now is to fish the gumballs out with chopsticks. Adding here in case it's helpful or anyone else has a DS like mine.

This is far from being a necessity, but I got DS (sophomore in a suite with 5 others) a gumball machine for Christmas last year for his dorm. It's a decent one but not fancy. It's been a hit with his group. Every few months I send more gumballs.

If schools require essays, then that would be a good place to show how this interest started. What I would say is, what was your DD's thought process here -- what about taking care of her grandmother and volunteering made her develop an interest? What did she do as a result of that interest (like ask questions, do reading, etc)? How did one thing lead to another, and how did her thinking and attitude change, and what does she see as next steps?

By way of background, one of mine applied as a classics major, knowing full well she was premed but not wanting to disclose that. She ended up majoring in comp lit but getting "certificates" (more like a minor I suppose) in chemistry and classics. I suspect you're being told to major in classics but there may be more "demand" for a classics major than for a science kid, and this may at certain schools increase odds of acceptance. My classics kid did get the offer of a preread from a classics prof at a highly selective, so go figure. She's now bouncing-off-the-walls-happy at med school, but still loves classics and literature. If your dd applies as a classics major, what is there to stop her from majoring in a science? Many kids apply to x and switch to y. Nothing wrong with changing your mind (at least not in principle; I imagine there could be financial implications). When you say selective colleges won't consider her, is this because of the lack of science internships and so on? Would she have a shot as a classics major? I'd encourage your daughter to reach out to get lab internships, even via via or putting something on LinkedIn or cold-calling. I get that it may feel "slimy", but if your DD is sincere in her interests and wants to get experience in the field of interest, this is genuine and a good thing, and I suspect people will be very happy to help her discover where her interests lie. She could even do some informational interviewing as a first step, to find out more about the work and then refer to these conversations in her essays. The informational interviewing could then lead to asking for help finding internships. I will say that I helped a family member with a last-minute panic on essays this past December (I volunteer as a college consultant), and she did not have a good result, largely, I believe, because she applied to engineering programs without having any engineering ECs or summer experiences. On the other hand, she was applying to engineering programs, not to a college of arts and sciences.

We took the Madeline books with us to Paris once, and it was remarkable how the illustrations matched up with the buildings/sites. We did a road trip once for the Little House/BetsyTacy books. Mankato was great, and we also saw the Little House on the prairie near Independence, KS, Mansfield, MO (good museum), Walnut Grove (awesome because you can actually wade in Plum Creek and there are leeches), and DeSmet (LOTS of Laura history there).

Thank you. Sixteen is just around the corner so this gives me hope. It's so frustrating as I'm a single parent with minimal support from exDH and quit my job to try to get my own business off the ground and help DS with school. It's maddening to spend so much time on policing him when I'm trying to start something that would ultimately benefit him as well. He definitely has problems with screens -- if he plays Minecraft once on the weekend, he then spends all week trying to play during lessons. In terms of the time spent (actual subject of thread sorry), DS has seven subjects for which he'll take exams and works from 8 a.m. to around 5 or 6 p.m. but this includes several hours for music practice/breaks. He has three days that are shortish because of afternoon/evening activities, and then puts in around an hour in the evening, and two days that are long. Weekends are mostly free because of Saturday music school and needing a break on Sunday. From what I see of his friends and other kids in his Scouts, he's putting in less time on school than they are -- I'm getting emails from Scouts around 11 p.m. for stuff when DS is fast asleep and DS never misses Scouts because of homework, whereas most of his friends regularly skip meetings due to school pressures.

Not to hijack the thread, but my ds is also in need of near-constant supervision (15 yo) and it's making me crazy because I can't get anything else done. Do you have suggestions/solutions from your experience? I've moved as much stuff as possible offline but there's a limit to that.

Thanks all -- interesting. DS and I will look for troops that go to Philmont and so on, and ask about how older Scouts are involved in leadership. Our Troop has leadership issues (I'm in the leadership myself and am trying to encourage Scout-led but there is resistance) and for a lot of Scouts, Eagle is just something that looks good for college. DS really enjoys being in leadership roles and helping younger Scouts, so it would be great if he could continue this.

DS15 has been involved in Scouts since he was small, and he really enjoys it. In our Troop, however, the older kids tend to stop attending meetings/activities once they get to around 14/15. They simply stop showing up, quietly do their Eagle, and then drop off. Is this usual for Scout Troops? We don't really have any to compare to. We'll be moving this summer and would like to find somewhere to move to with an active Troop with older kids involved, but if this is normal that would be useful to know. I think part of it is that, in our Troop, the activities tend to be very much the same year-in year-out so the kids get bored of the same old campsites, so I'm guessing it may be different elsewhere.

You're a long way from GCSEs/A-levels, which are likely to change significantly before your DC gets to that stage, but I find that these make homeschooling in the UK both simpler and more difficult. Simpler in the sense that it's quite easy to take a GCSE as an independent candidate (harder for drama and similar though). That's an independent qualification that makes it easy to show to the world what you've done. I don't bother with marking work or anything as DS will have to do exams at the end of the year in any event. You're also not obliged to take the GCSEs in GCSE year but can split them up. Much less pressure than doing 12 GCSEs at once! At the moment there are no regulations re homeschooling but that looks likely to change. Sometimes the Local Authorities will ask for meetings and to see evidence of work and so on, but they are limited in what they may legally require. Our LA is pretty rubbish in any event and doesn't seem to care. We got reported to them once because I was asked at A&E (eye infection) about school, and then the doctor made a big fuss about how she was going to tell the council about us and how we should be registered and all sorts of nonsense. I've heard of that happening to others as well, so now we don't mention it. There's quite a few homeschooling groups but it's a question of finding one that fits your approach. We've never been able to find a group that believes in taking exams or that school is an option. DS does afterschool activities with schooled kids and attends a Saturday music school. I'd like him to board for sixth form but we'll see how it goes. Depending on where you are, you could ofc try for a good grammar school or a scholarship. There's also more and more online alternatives. We tried MOS and Int&&&High but thought they were substandard. Having said that, there's a few more now that look like they might be okay. DS did three GCSEs last year and will do more plus work toward a couple of A-levels this year, and I think the pressure on him is much less than on some of his friends who are struggling to prepare for their GCSEs. The kids end up being tutored endlessly and not being able to attend fun activities because they have to do work. I feel quite bad for some of them. Sorry to ramble, and I appreciate that much of this will change over the next few years.

We had a similar issue when travelling to the US this summer from Europe. I was able to get a pricy policy that covered COVID. It was something like Patriot Platinum from visitorscoverage.com. We're US citizens (but non-residents) though so I'm not sure whether that made a difference. I got the cheapest that covered COVID and then got regular travel insurance that didn't cover COVID as a backup. When I asked around among the many families I knew who were in the US this summer, some were foregoing coverage and others had US-based coverage.

DD majored in comp lit, with certificates (like minors I guess) in chemistry and a language. She took one premed course during the summer.

I found this as well: https://www.testprep-online.com/scat-sample-questions I didn't pay for any of the prep but would have done if DS had not done well on the test. He's not used to standardized tests at all but managed to do okay.

DS14 just took the SCAT a few weeks ago. I had him do the practice test and, on the basis of the result and the fact that I'm tired, decided not to have him prep any more. I figured I'd let him take it and then do a retake (with lots of prep) if he didn't get in. Fortunately he did. He did better on the actual test than the practice. Having said that, I recently received an email from CTY about a testing pilot program they are running now that will permit students to use scores from a wide variety of tests to qualify: https://cty.jhu.edu/talent/docs/Testing-Pilot-Flyer-2021.pdf

Looking for some advice on helping DS (14, ADHD) to prevent/catch silly mistakes in his work, particularly in math and French. I know about the idea of creating checklists to check, but this is proving difficult to implement for a variety of reasons. Getting him to write down all the steps in math is an ongoing battle. He has meds and an EF coach involved. Does anyone have any tips or tricks that have worked? Thanks.

DDs (twins) graduated homeschool high school two years early, because of grade skips from when they were in b&m school. We were using an umbrella school from the country where we had lived when they were in school, which provided accountability for the girls in terms of check-ins with tutors and so on. One of them was/is very interested in music and decided to go to an academic boarding school with a strong music program for sixth form (we are in the UK right now, so she went for the last two years of high school to do A-levels). It was not that far from home, and the school's boarding structure was such that every third week was either a long weekend or a holiday. She took classes that she had not had the opportunity to take in high school. The school itself was not known for being academically rigorous; however, they did provide DD with many opportunities, both academic and otherwise, and supported her in challenging herself. So the flexibility of the school in recognizing DD's needs was key for success. This was down to individual staff but also the general approach of the school in supporting students as individuals. Other DD decided against this school and did two years abroad with an American high school program. This required her to learn another language and live with a host family for a year each time, without prior exposure to the language. This provided plenty of academic challenge; in addition, the program offered multiple AP options. Extracurriculars were dependent on location and luck, and this was one downside to these programs. DD was not able to continue with some of the activities she had enjoyed. In addition, looking back, I think that there was not a great deal of supervision of the students, who were left to roam free, depending on their host family's requirements. DD is sensible and mature and so this was okay for her, but from what I gathered, other students should have had more supervision. I think the supervision varies by country as well. In terms of college, both ended up at their first choice school and have done very well. In terms of SATs, IIRC, both took the SAT a few years early and the extra year or two didn't really improve on their scores. I

I have two who graduated two years early and did not want to go to university that young. One went to boarding school for two years, and the other did two years of study abroad. DC3 was in boarding school from age 9, which was the best possible option for him. DC4 is 14, homeschooling and in no way a boarding school type at the moment. I'd be happy to answer questions, here or by pm.

DD is off to med school in August and is renting an apartment with three other students she does not know from before. Apparently all the parents are being asked to guarantee payment of rent, and I'm okay with guaranteeing DD's portion of the rent but not anyone else's. The landlord also wants a lot of info from me: tax returns, W2s, paystubs, letter from my employer, bank statements, passport, etc. I have not rented in the US in ages. I don't even have a W2 because I'm not in the US. Is this kind of request normal? I really don't want to give all that personal info to a random stranger. Argh. Any tips on how to help DD get an apartment without giving out all of my identifying information? What should I watch out for when co-signing the lease?

We tried MOS for a year, but I got fed up with the lack of homework, lack of constructive feedback, teachers not showing up, etc. We're at another online school, which is better. I spoke with CHS as well but didn't think it would be a good fit.

Petty vent I know, but with other much much bigger bad stuff going on that I can't vent about, I'm going to say how irritating some of the kids in DS's Scout Troop are, and he has to work directly with two of the most annoying! He's SPL and his ASPL is a nightmare -- whiny, sucks up to the adults, tries to boss DS and acts generally like DS is his to order around. I monitor DS's WhatsApp and emails (he's only 13) and have had to step in a couple of times behind the scenes to help DS shut down this kid's rudeness. And it's the beginning of the term. Plus DS has been told to work with a very young junior ASM who is even worse. Spent a few days on a hike with this boy in October and he was, literally (and I mean literally), ordering much older and much more senior adults to stay hydrated (Mrs X, have you drunk water on this rest stop? You need to drink water now) and how to hike (Mr Y, you need to put away your camera or it will bump the side of that descent/Mrs Z, hand down your walking poles to me now). Trying to ignore it but it's soooo annoying. And of course the parents think their kids can do no wrong and are part of the problem. Argh.

If you can get a taxi (should book one in advance (through Addison Lee) to be sure of it) and get to the start point, you can do a London Walk https://www.walks.com/our-walks/walks-by-date/?d=2019-12-25 This seems to be offered only on Christmas Day. Here's a link to transport info for Christmas: https://tfl.gov.uk/status-updates/major-works-and-events/christmas-travel

I'm pretty sure I saw your question 2 posed recently on an email list serv I'm part of but can't locate the exact email. I believe the solution was to have the LOR writer send that particular recommendation directly to the school, and have the other recs from that writer made generic and uploaded through the Common App. As for 1, it's the recommender who uploads the rec, so pretty sure you would not be able to decide not to use the rec once invited. I'd say start very early with recommenders as some of them don't upload until super-late and it's super-stressful! As for 3, I'm not sure but on the basis that the grades/academics are the most significant criteria in admissions, I would say pick people who can speak to your DC's academics. I would avoid having three recommenders who are community leaders/other who can speak only to your DC's extracurriculars, or leadership skills, or music/sport talent. I think the school is trying to avoid situations where the recommenders says, gee DC was in my non-live online class, turned in the papers on time, did a good job on the test, but I've never had a convo with them irl. So if your online class was live, and DC had significant interaction with the teacher, I'd go with the online teacher and be sure the teacher gets the point to emphasize the personal interaction with DC that have allowed them to get insight into DC's abilities, outside of assignments and tests. I hope that makes sense! I think the key point is to ensure that the recs are balanced in terms of the insight the recommenders can give into your DC's talents, personality and ability, and that at least one (preferably two) speak to their academic abilities. But ofc that would be possible with ECs -- a recommenders could say, well DC volunteered many hours for our project and showed a real flair for writing well and persuasively.