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Would you move the whole family for the needs of one child?


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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Feeling nervous here too and application has not even been submitted yet (oh wait, maybe that's why I am crazy nervous lol). You have a bunch of us rooting for her and you. I hope it all goes well. It's such a journey isn't it? This thread captures a year+ of worrying quite well!

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Good luck to dmmetler, quark, luckymama and everyone else whose child is going through applications.

 

I have an ex-colleague whose family temporarily moved to Australia while he was in college there. At that time the visa requirements wasn't that tough for Australia. His parents did buy a house there probably because it was cheaper than renting. They sold when he graduated.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, it's crunch time.

 

Right now, we have three paths (depending on how interviews, etc go)

 

DD has an interview/campus visit/assessment with her desired program and with the college departments she would be looking at for college classes (since she will be coming in with a major pretty well set, and a lot of prerequisite coursework already completed, that is likely to be very relevant for her, more so than kids who are less decided-and it also is necessary to trying to set up her herpetology work there).

 

She also set up an interview with the local CC bio/health professions/biotechnology chair and the advising office (and yes, I mean DD set it up-she did the e-mailing and calling herself. If it weren't that she can't do the online application, she'd have done that, too). She has three college departments that have faculty that have explicitly told her they want her to apply and come do research with them, so the plan would be to do some of the prereqs and gen ed courses that have articulation agreements, check out the three programs more thoroughly while checking the last high school boxes, and graduate in the next couple of years.

 

So, plan A and plan B. Both depend on her getting accepted. I'm not sure which is more likely-the first program is just plain highly competitive. The second requires the school doing something they have never, as far as we can tell, done. I'm not even sure which is plan A and plan B

 

(plan C is "just keep swimming". It's worked so far, I guess).

 

So, what questions do we ask? What do we do next??

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What to do next?   I have no idea.  But, I wanted to say I've enjoyed reading about your daughter. 

 

As far as the school doing something they've never done before, there is always a first.   I know my University went from a hard-and-fast fairly high minimum age to take classes, to a low "with approval" min. age.  The first kid was a homeschooled son of a professor.  

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Well, we now have the official certification that our cover school considers DD ready to start DE. It took a bit to get the guidance counselor to actually look at DD's records (and she's very down on the local CC and on acceleration in general and early college in specific), but she signed off, so we have that just in case we need it.

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So, plan A and plan B. Both depend on her getting accepted. I'm not sure which is more likely-the first program is just plain highly competitive. The second requires the school doing something they have never, as far as we can tell, done. I'm not even sure which is plan A and plan B

 

(plan C is "just keep swimming". It's worked so far, I guess).

 

So, what questions do we ask? What do we do next??

 

Every school is different and my son's path is different from your daughter's. For us it was do the next thing. If they needed paperwork, we got that done, if they needed placement testing, he did that, and so on.

 

As for the schools never having done something before, they learn fast. If they have anyone there with sense, they'll see what she needs and decide from there. They might ask for extra info so be prepared with your binder of materials/ scores/ letters if you have any.

 

You'll want to ask for as much planning material as you can get. Or maybe you won't have to rush it just yet and things will be evident in a step by step fashion once she is admitted. On my side, I went up to the college's counseling section and just started collecting all their flyers to see if there was something there that would help DS and how we started thinking about the transfer student vs freshman college applicant path (initially). The transfer materials clearly outlined what courses he had to take for each major so we talked about it at home and we role played anything he was unsure of so he would know what to say/ ask when he set up counseling appointments. Try to get a counselor on her side (they might not talk to you, depending on college policy). If she has someone rooting for her it always helps.

 

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Well, we now have the official certification that our cover school considers DD ready to start DE. It took a bit to get the guidance counselor to actually look at DD's records (and she's very down on the local CC and on acceleration in general and early college in specific), but she signed off, so we have that just in case we need it.

 

This is good.  The counselor's opinion isn't going to matter much from here.  Access to professors is going to be what matters.

 

Got to say - I've been following nervously, as we have the same choice ahead of us a year and a half from now.  So far, the local directional uni has been helpful, so we're leaning toward the DE route. 

 

Best of luck!  Having options is a good thing, but certainly doesn't make the choice easy.

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Pretty good response from the CC-basically, go ahead and apply and put in a birthdate that lets the system work, and we'@@ change it in the computer, some classes will have age restrictions (since the two biggest programs at this campus are early childhood education and nursing, I would imagine the state licensing has something to say there), this is an unusual situation, but we'll see what we can work out. The ACT scores were a big help. So was the fact that DD is very used to talking to adults.

 

She seems pretty happy.

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There is a state U as well-but it's a big, SEC football/party focused school. I've taught enough classes there to be reluctant to put a 11 yr old in lower division, gen ed classes, and DD is nervous about the size of campus. Upper division classes would be fine. The school her mentor is at is a 3 hour drive, which isn't tenable to do for a class that meets 3-4x/week, and the other schools where the bio program has expressed strong interest are even farther. There is a state U in the neighboring state about 90 minutes away, but out of state tuition adds up fast.

 

Right now, the CC looks like the best option If we stay here.

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Right now, the CC looks like the best option If we stay here.

 

I'm not sure how your state laws work. For us, we've filed the private school affidavit every year since DS started his DE and this enables us to keep him in our "private" homeschool. CC DE therefore is just another decision like homeschooling with outsourcing. We can revisit not just every year but every semester. Her journey might be similar in that way. Try one quarter/ semester, if it doesn't seem to work, look for Plan B/C/D.

 

Is this process for winter/ spring semester?

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If we can get the hoops jumped and the schedule worked out. I rather wish we'd pursued this last year so she would have been able to see if it was a good fit before doing the interview/assessment.

 

The plan now (worked out with the cover school counselor) is to not change her graduation date, so she'll still officially be a private umbrella school middle school student-who is simply accruing high school credits (and who has a college transcript as well). I'm starting to hate the phrase "unique situation"-maybe because I know that it really isn't all THAT unique!

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You have done what you can at each stage. 

 

I was just talking about this to DS yesterday. I asked him if he has any homeschool regrets and he said not one. He asked me if I did and I said yes, just one. There was this program that we just couldn't fit into his schedule for various reasons. I think he would have really grown from this program. But I also know we made decisions based on need at that particular moment. So if you think one door was closed, I'm sure it's because another had to be open. :grouphug:

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I'm starting to hate the phrase "unique situation"-maybe because I know that it really isn't all THAT unique!

In reality, though you know your dd''s path isn't that incredibly unique, *she* is one-of-a-kind!  :)

 

If it helps, I think of it as the person saying "this is a unique situation for me because I've never run into it before."  The world is big... there are a lot of things that are unique in one person's eyes that are common/normal in another's. 

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My 15 yr old sweetheart of a cat, who has been struggling with oral cancer for the last few months, will cross the rainbow bridge this afternoon. She's in too much pain and struggling too much to wait any longer. The timing couldn't be much worse, because we leave tomorrow for DD's interview/assessment. Financially, it would cost too much to reschedule. DD has already been stressed and anxious, and now she'll be dealing with her grief and with my grief (which is intense when I had HELLP syndrome and lost my son at 22 weeks, this cat basically became my substitute baby, staying with me, cuddling, and comforting, for months. She still is trying to do exactly that-the veterinary oncologist said she believes that Shy is only hanging on now because she doesn't want me to hurt, and I believe that's the case). I have no clue how this is going to go. Please keep DD in your thoughts this next few days.

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My 15 yr old sweetheart of a cat, who has been struggling with oral cancer for the last few months, will cross the rainbow bridge this afternoon. She's in too much pain and struggling too much to wait any longer. The timing couldn't be much worse, because we leave tomorrow for DD's interview/assessment. Financially, it would cost too much to reschedule. DD has already been stressed and anxious, and now she'll be dealing with her grief and with my grief (which is intense when I had HELLP syndrome and lost my son at 22 weeks, this cat basically became my substitute baby, staying with me, cuddling, and comforting, for months. She still is trying to do exactly that-the veterinary oncologist said she believes that Shy is only hanging on now because she doesn't want me to hurt, and I believe that's the case). I have no clue how this is going to go. Please keep DD in your thoughts this next few days.

 

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry for your family. :grouphug:

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We made it. Everyone's a little snappish, but otherwise OK. DD is enjoying the PokĂƒÂ©mon diversity (so far she's seen three species in the nearby that we don't have at home, and caught one). The hotel room is also in range of a pokestop :)

Edited by dmmetler
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We went on an unofficial tour of U of Waterloo while vacationing at Niagara Falls. Their youngest student is a 12 year old Indonesian :)

 

"But unlike other 12-year-olds, Diki is going to the University of Waterloo to study honours physics, with a few classes in math, chemistry and economics.

...

Diki taught himself English in about six months, by living in Singapore, reading English articles and watching English movies with subtitles, especially comedies.

...

Diki was also awarded a scholarship.

"

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3748608

 

The engineering facilities are lovely and the staff at the visitor centre are friendly. The campus bus is frequent too but we didn't try. Food courts are okay.

 

ETA:

Cost of milk and petrol is higher. Sales tax is 13%.

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We made it. Everyone's a little snappish, but otherwise OK. DD is enjoying the PokĂƒÂ©mon diversity (so far she's seen three species in the nearby that we don't have at home, and caught one). The hotel room is also in range of a pokestop :)

 

How is your DD feeling?  Is the trip helping to distract from the sadness?

 

:grouphug: :grouphug:

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She seems to be doing OK. We visited the UNR campus today, along with a senior prospective journalism major. They had assigned a wildlife bio major and a marketing major as guides and loaded her up with lots of stuff and information. It didn't hurt any that this is apparently homecoming for UNR, and there was a big carnival on campus. It definitely makes it easier for an 11 yr old to see where she might fit on a college campus when it has inflatable obstacle courses, giant human hamster balls, and carnival games :). She'd seen most of the stuff they showed her before due to doing summer programs there, so it wasn't a surprise. The wildlife conservation bio program really looks like a good fit in many ways.

 

She did the first part of the assessment and came out pretty positive and bouncy. It helped that she recognized some of the other kids from past events.

Edited by dmmetler
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DD is at the assessment now. She relaxed noticibly when we walked in and she saw the diversity of kids (hair color, clothing, etc)-it looked a lot like our secular homeschool co-op, as opposed to the rather strict and uniform dress codes. We did the parent Q/A and interview this morning, and then spent the afternoon looking at neighborhoods. I'll be interested in seeing how DD feels after spending the full day there.

 

It still looks like a lovely program and sounds like a good fit for what she needs. But the move....it's a big change.

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What is a "lottery school"?

 

Anywhere that the acceptance rate, no matter how qualified you are (and how overqualified for most programs you'd be) is low enough that you have a high probability of being rejected, so getting in is like winning the lottery-pure luck.

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Anywhere that the acceptance rate, no matter how qualified you are (and how overqualified for most programs you'd be) is low enough that you have a high probability of being rejected, so getting in is like winning the lottery-pure luck.

 

Ahh, see where I live a "lottery school" is one where you apply and then names are literally drawn from a hat to see who gets in.

 

Any updates on the application process with you dd?

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We should get the results (yes, no, wait...) sometime this week. I kind of hope it's sooner rather than later-I think she left her brain in Reno.

She might like the video in the CNN news link of baby turtles being released while waiting.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/01/americas/peru-turtle-release/index.html?sr=fbCNN110116peru-turtle-release0630PMVideoVideo&linkId=30581348

 

"(CNN)Peruvian environmental authorities will release 500,000 baby turtles back into the wild by mid-November, authorities said.

 

The yellow-spotted Amazon River turtles -- known by their local name, Taricaya -- are protected by Peruvian authorities and are considered a vulnerable species."

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