My dd is starting 8th grade

[cathmom]

Am I insane to be thinking about what colleges might be the best fit for her and all that?

 

I think it's because I just did the whole college process 2 years ago with my oldest that I'm thinking this way.

[Tullia]

...sometimes dc take unexpected twists and turns on the path to college. I don't regret taking the approach of keeping as many doors open as possible just in case.

[Cammie]

My dad started taking me on college tours when I was still in Junior High. We have started taking dd at the age of 6! This is not with the intent of picking her school right now. More to get them excited about the idea and the possibility of what is ahead in their lives. I hope it is motivating for her and helps her keep her eye on the prize!

[HSHS]

My DD (with no pressure from us) started looking into colleges this past year and she was in 9th grade. We leave a lot of her educational-planning to her and she's very capable and independent because of it (not that I'd recommend that, it's a very risky method xD) so when the idea occured to her, she researched it and looked into admission requirements, etc because high school started this year and she needed to know what requirements she would have for the next few years. Turns out, we don't have any, we just list exams since we're international but she found out all of this herself. She did find out she had to think about references eventually, she's been figuring out her GCSEs/A Levels on her own according to requirements from Unis here (England) and the US and working out how she'll do it, contacting schools. She's been very active in her education, more than she ever would have been at school. (:

[Nan in Mass]

I think you need to in order to plan an approach to high school. You will want to keep her options open as long as possible, but if she is willing to choose some things, like ivies or not, APs or not, CC or not, or deciding to maximize either humanities or foreign languages or science/math, then there is time to do more of whatever happens to be of interest to her each year. Having chosen a general direction, you can look at what the requirements in that area and try to take advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling to do some interesting projects or go further or deeper into something. You can also see what the price of keeping all the options open is.

-Nan

[cathmom]

As I see it, the main areas for her are:

 

1. Science. Nature is her passion, but with dyslexia this is going to be interesting. I do plan for her to do the Cornell bird program, probably junior year. I want to have her volunteer at our vet's office. She has said that she wants to be a vet, so this would help her decide. So I really want her science to be excellent.

 

2. History. This is her other passion. She was begging me to record a show on the Black Death, for example. So I would really like to do a bang up job on history.

 

3. Spanish. She really wants to learn Spanish. I am a Spanish teacher, so I will do some at home and then I am thinking of having her do a community interpreter certificate that our local community college offers.

 

4. Ballet. She also loves dancing.

 

Those are the areas I'd like to focus on for high school. For math we'll do as much as we have to in order to make the science possible - she hates math. I'll keep building her vocabulary and test-taking skills, and work gradually on getting her writing up to par (she currently receives O-G tutoring for the dyslexia). She loves literature and can discuss it pretty well. She'll do Seton's English courses with accomodations.

 

So, knowing all this about her, anyone recommend any colleges we should look at? I have looked at Cornell a bit. UNC Greensboro possibly. What else?