Interest-led and college-bound?

[PeachyDoodle]

Experienced mamas, I could really use some help.

 

It's my first time posting on the HS board. We're just starting to think about high school for dd12, but as I try to build a big picture of our goals for these last few years, I find myself wondering exactly how much freedom we're going to have to pursue topics of interest to her.

 

She is definitely college-bound. And obviously that requires a certain amount of hoop-jumping to meet the minimum admissions requirements. For some subjects (e.g., math), the pathway is pretty well-defined (although she will be through algebra 2 before ninth grade, which presents its own issues, but that's another conversation). But for others, there seems to be more leeway. For example, four units of English would traditionally include a couple of years honing writing skills and working on various genres and literary devices, followed by a year of American lit and one of British or maybe world lit. What if she'd rather study, say, epic poetry? Or Southern American writers (Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, etc.)? Can we do that?

 

I would love to give her a high school experience that takes full advantage of our ability as homeschoolers to follow her interests. But the last thing I want is for it to jeopardize her chances at getting into college. Will a unique, personalized course load help her stand out as a student, or will it hinder her? Should we save our exploration for electives?

 

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about "relaxed" homeschooling or unschooling here. I fully intended for all of her courses to be rigorous and challenging. I'd just like to tailor them to her interests while still ensuring that she learns what she needs to know. 

 

 

[regentrude]

A unique, personalized course of study will make her stand out. You can put together course descriptions and submit them with your transcript, so people can see what you have done. I recommend giving the courses good titles that say something about the content, as opposed to generic "English 9" etc.

 

Customizing English is very easy, because there is no prescribed sequence.

My DD's English courses on her transcript are: Ancient lit, Medieval+Renaissance Lit (both homeschooled as part of an integrated history/lit study) , Shakespeare, Fantasy lit (both DE at uni), and British lit (completely unschooled).

[8filltheheart]

My kids' literature courses have been as off the beaten path as "The Apologetic Works of CS Lewis," "The Cultural Significance and Psychoanalysis of Fairytales and Folklore," and "The Literary Allusions in the Movie Inception." History has followed similar non-traditional courses. It has not negatively impacted my kids at all.

[Tsuga]

You might find it worthwhile to look through different AP course offerings to see how much freedom there actually is. A lot of college-bound seniors spend their entire senior year on projects, having finished an IB program as juniors. So rigor in my opinion does not in any way curtail the opportunity, even the need, for specialization and deep dives.

[almondbutterandjelly]

I know a lot of people say to give them interesting titles, but I just do English I, English II, English III, and English IV and do what we want.  However, we're not shooting for anything other than our local university.  It is not a highly selective school.  (I honestly am trying to keep our transcript as normal looking as possible to slide right in there.)

 

 

[kokotg]

I've found high school English very easy to customize, as there doesn't seem to be a specific, prescribed curriculum. Even for AP lit, there's not a specific reading list that has to be covered (and you can answer nearly any FRQ using Hamlet as your work of choice, so as long as you've read that you're all set  :laugh: ). I keep reading lists and write course descriptions, but we pretty much do what we want with English....my oldest will be a senior next year, and he's planning to do the AP lit exam; I figure that will be "proof" enough for most colleges that we've actually been doing something with our time. Our state university also accepts the SAT to verify that you've been doing a real English class. 

 

We've felt like we've had a fair amount of freedom in other areas as well. Science has tripped us up a bit (and I'll be more careful with the sequence for my next high schooler), but science isn't an area he's especially interested in. For math, he's done a pretty standard sequence and is doing BC Calc now; that will leave him two semesters to explore advanced math topics with dual enrollment classes next year. He did AP art history as an elective, and that was a really fun experience for him. He's taking advantage of dual enrollment to graduate with 6 units of Spanish and is thinking of minoring in Spanish in college. 

 

Basically, I feel like homeschooling has given him so much more time to explore his interests than traditional school would have. Dual enrollment has helped with that, too--being able to get an entire unit of credit in a semester has been really handy. We've done a couple of college tours now, and the impression I get from admissions people is that they very much like to see kids who are passionate about something and are demonstrating that passion both in their courseload and extracurriculars.

[PeachyDoodle]

A unique, personalized course of study will make her stand out. You can put together course descriptions and submit them with your transcript, so people can see what you have done. I recommend giving the courses good titles that say something about the content, as opposed to generic "English 9" etc.

 

Customizing English is very easy, because there is no prescribed sequence.

My DD's English courses on her transcript are: Ancient lit, Medieval+Renaissance Lit (both homeschooled as part of an integrated history/lit study) , Shakespeare, Fantasy lit (both DE at uni), and British lit (completely unschooled).

 

 

My kids' literature courses have been as off the beaten path as "The Apologetic Works of CS Lewis," "The Cultural Significance and Psychoanalysis of Fairytales and Folklore," and "The Literary Allusions in the Movie Inception." History has followed similar non-traditional courses. It has not negatively impacted my kids at all.

 

**Swoon!**

 

These are exactly the kinds of things I have in mind! I've been waiting years to get to this point. I know lots of people are interest-led in the early years, but my kids always seemed interested in most anything at that age. It's only as they've gotten older that dd has started to want to dig more deeply in certain areas. I have degrees in history and English literature, so I think I can do a good job with those. I hope dd will be as excited about choosing her path as I am.

 

8FillTheHeart, I was so hoping you'd chime in. I've read your book and found it very inspiring! 

 

I'd love to hear about unique courses others have designed if anyone wants to share.

[Donna]

Dd has been following her interests and maintaining a rigorous high school schedule. Like your daughter, she had finished through Algebra 2 before high school. She has basically done two "English" courses each year...one in conjunction with her history studies (Ancient Lit and Medieval Lit) and another with a tutor with literary analysis, writing literary analysis and a novel, and this year journalism-analyzing articles and writing from varying perspectives and researching and utilizing primary sources. She is learning two languages, French and Irish. We have put the Irish "course" together with online courses, a tutor, and various other resources. 

 

This year she is taking a number of courses through dual enrollment. She could technically have an AS degree by the time she graduates high school but she has chosen to pick and chose courses based on her interest. There is some hoop jumping in that she must, for example, take the college's English 101 course as a pre-requisite for the courses she really wants to take.

 

Plus there are always electives...we put together an Irish history course in a very interest-led fashion and she has taken a couple music theory courses (one as an AP). Last year she developed and completed an amazing project and she is working on something this year but not sure she will complete for financial reasons.

[Lori D.]

I'd love to hear about unique courses others have designed if anyone wants to share.

 

We made our own English courses every year. The favorite of DSs was our "Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi Lit.", covering things like:

 

Frankenstein (Shelley) - Gothic/Romanticism

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) - Christianity

The Time Machine (Wells) - Socialism/Evolution

Brave New World (Huxley) - Capitalism/Dystopia

Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) - Dystopia/Apocalyptic

A Cantical for Leibowitz (Miller) - Post Apocalyptic

Cosmi-Comics (Calvino) - Existentialism

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Absurdism

 

We also enjoyed designing our own Fine Arts credits for one son. He ended up with 2 credits:

1 = Filmmaking -- resulted in creating 6 short films, each focusing on developing a different visual aspect

2 = General Fine Arts -- which included several different units -- I remember one was on digital photography, and another was on creating music with Garage Band...

 

For my homeschool group co-op, last year I led a Fine Arts: Intro to Film Appreciation & Analysis course that I created. The first semester we focused on cinematic elements (framing, lighting, sound, color, editing, etc.) and the second semester we focused on film genres.

 

 

For the writing aspect of an English credit, you can focus on a semester or a year of Journalism, or Creative Writing (novel, short story, poetry), or even Creative Non-Fiction. And, if your student esp. loves Literature and/or Writing, you can do extra (beyond the required 4 credits), and that can be come Elective credit(s). :) Have fun designing your own coursework! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

I know a lot of people say to give them interesting titles, but I just do English I, English II, English III, and English IV and do what we want.  However, we're not shooting for anything other than our local university.  It is not a highly selective school.  (I honestly am trying to keep our transcript as normal looking as possible to slide right in there.)

 

Agree, that this can be a good approach for the transcript, esp. if you'll be submitting a separate Course Description document, where you can go into detail about the interesting focus of some of the unusual "home-grown" courses. :)

[Corraleno]

She is definitely college-bound. And obviously that requires a certain amount of hoop-jumping to meet the minimum admissions requirements. For some subjects (e.g., math), the pathway is pretty well-defined (although she will be through algebra 2 before ninth grade, which presents its own issues, but that's another conversation). But for others, there seems to be more leeway. For example, four units of English would traditionally include a couple of years honing writing skills and working on various genres and literary devices, followed by a year of American lit and one of British or maybe world lit. What if she'd rather study, say, epic poetry? Or Southern American writers (Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, etc.)? Can we do that?

 

I would love to give her a high school experience that takes full advantage of our ability as homeschoolers to follow her interests. But the last thing I want is for it to jeopardize her chances at getting into college. Will a unique, personalized course load help her stand out as a student, or will it hinder her? Should we save our exploration for electives?

Of course you can do that, and yes it will help her stand out!

 

DS's English credits included a year each of Greek and Roman literature, plus a course we called Epic and Saga in World Literature, which combined a Coursera course, "Sagas and Space in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia" + an online course on Tolkein and philology that covered Norse, Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon language and literature + a bunch of Great Courses lectures + reading lots of epics like the Prose Edda, Saga of the Volsungs, Beowulf, Mabinogion, Táin bó Cúailnge, Popul Vuh, Sundiata, Ramayana, etc. (The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid were covered in the Greek and Roman courses, so I didn't include them in the Epics course, even though he read all three multiple times, including the first two in Greek.) Everything else that could count as "English" that didn't fit into one of the other three courses I lumped into a generic Literature and Composition credit.

 

His history credits were American History (because I think colleges generally do expect to see that one), Ancient Greek History, 20th Century World History (this was the "grab bag" credit into which I threw most of the stuff that didn't fit into the other courses), and a DE course in Western Civ. Science credits were Astronomy, Chemistry w/lab (co-op), Bio with A&P (co-op A&P lab class + add'l bio stuff at home), and an online DE class on Human Evolution (taught by Donald Johansen, discoverer of "Lucy"!)

 

Foreign languages included 5 yrs of Greek, 2 of Latin, 2 of Old Norse, and 1 of Turkish, plus he had elective credits in Linguistics, World Languages, Classical Art & Architecture (combo of reading, 3 Lukeion workshops, various Great Courses, and archaeological tours of sites in Greece, Italy, and Turkey), and World Music (college text + iTunes U lectures + researching the history and techniques of throat singing, teaching himself multiple styles of Tuvan, Mongolian, and Tibetan throat singing, and learning to play the didgeridoo.)

 

He was accepted with a large scholarship at his first choice school, and passed up offers from a number of elite colleges. No regrets at all.   :thumbup1:

Edited February 7, 2018 by Corraleno

[quark]

We didn't do anything as cool as Corraleno! I just wanted to add that my kid's least favorite output subject was history and I took some inspiration from the Paidea School course descriptions to create two much more meaningful, survey-style courses which were later followed up by history and government via dual enrollment at the community college. In fact, since we had an excess of literature credits, I wrapped one of our ancient literature classes as a social studies class!

 

9th grade ancient history was ancient civilizations through epics (and we borrowed heavily from Great Courses and Fagles' re-tellings as resources). My course descriptions went like this:

The purpose of this course was to introduce the student to the civilizations of the ancient world, starting from the Near East with The Epic of Gilgamesh and ending with the epic traditions of ancient India. Instead of a dry, textbook treatment of history, we used a critical study of English translations and retellings of selected world epic masterpieces. We focused on intellectual growth by strengthening the student’s ability to read analytically and reason carefully, by reinforcing the student’s knowledge of the outlines of history, by making him conversant with major historical personalities, and by developing sensitivity to cultural diversity. 

 

For 10th grade, we did a world history survey that made heavy use of Larry Gonick's history series of graphic novels along with Guns, Germs, and Steel and several Mark Kurlansky mass market books. We focused on culinary history too. It was so much fun! Described this way: Instead of cramming the span of world history into one year, we surveyed key events, spanning from the Paleolithic Era (2.5 million years ago) to the end of World War II. We focused on world events from the 1800s to 1945. We were purposeful about studying world history as a story of connections between peoples, political entities, economies, dietary choices, and cultures. We explored specific historical episodes in greater detail, namely, the Industrial Revolution, World War II and the Jewish Holocaust.

 

Here's 10th Grade literature:

Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature

Texts:

• 7 science-fiction texts: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; War of the Worlds by HG Wells; The Invisible Man by HG Wells; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by RL Stevenson; The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury; The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov; The Eye of the Sibyl by Philip K. Dick.
• How Great Science Fiction Works by Prof. Gary Wolfe, PhD (24 college-level lectures, 31 mins each).  
• 6 texts by J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit; The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King; Tales of the Perilous Realm (an anthology of the following novellas: “Roverandomâ€, “Farmer Giles of Hamâ€, “Smith of Wootton Majorâ€, “Leaf by Niggleâ€, and “The Adventures of Tom Bombadilâ€); The Children of Hurin.
• Supplemented with 16 hours of Sindarin and Quenya linguistics taught by ___________ (deleted for privacy), a Tolkien expert; the "On Fairy Stories" essay from The Monsters and The Critics and Other Essays by JRR Tolkien; and Tolkien: A Biography by Michael J. White.
• To round out his study, we pursued a highly enjoyable critical analysis of movie productions like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and sci-fi classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Back to the Future.

Topics: Introduction to and critical analysis of science fiction and fantasy literature, with special interest in world building. He also studied Elvish linguistics and author biographies. Special emphasis on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with particular focus on character development, and the themes of war, evil and friendship.

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by quark

[quark]

I won't list all the math kiddo did...just wanted to say it was a lot more than the traditional math sequence...number theory, counting, mathematical logic, group theory, abstract algebra, crytpography and then some of the same ones but at a higher level in subsequent years. If your concern is that she is already past algebra 2 in ninth, there's lots more math to learn and I'm sure boardies here will have ideas for that!

[GoodGrief]

My oldest had quite a few creatively titled courses (and creative content, of course). I'm not sure those helped her in admissions so much, but ultimately it turned out fine.

 

Depending on your college admission goals, I would caution you to make sure you are providing a full explanation of the content of non-mainstream courses.. The universities are trying to compare apples to apples, and you do want to ensure that they understand that your course was rigorous.

 

You might want to consider an SAT subject test or two (or more) to help with the apples-to-apples comparison. Not absolutely necessary, but probably something I would do with my older daughter if we were to relive her college app experience :-) Probably less necessary if she has awards or some other means of validating her high school work. I know some here cringe at the "validating" idea, but it can help, depending on her college goals.

 

My second daughter completed Alg 2 before ninth grade. The main problem we ran into was where to go with math for senior year after she completed Calc 3, and the higher level dual enrollment courses weren't scheduled in a way that made it practical for her to enroll. Ultimately she did AP Stats senior year, and it turned out fine. If you are in an area with lots of dual enrollment math options, you may not run into the same issue :-) One other thing I'd encourage is doing a review of algebra and geometry prior to the junior year PSAT, if she intends to compete for National Merit. They really can become a bit rusty in those earlier math skills as the years pass.

[madteaparty]

We are doing interest led even though we realize this will hurt selective college admission. I may end up regretting this: If my kid was say a recruited athlete or had some other major accomplishment like that, then you can basically do what you want. But he is not ;)

If you study three languages simultaneously, double up every semester on literature, and spend months at a time traveling, there’s little time left for hoop-jumping.

Edited February 7, 2018 by madteaparty

[snowbeltmom]

We are doing interest led even though we realize this will hurt selective college admission. I may end up regretting this: If my kid was say a recruited athlete or had some other major accomplishment like that, then you can basically do what you want. But he is not ;)

If you study three languages simultaneously, double up every semester on literature, and spend months at a time traveling, there’s little time left for hoop-jumping.

Umm no, a recruited athlete cannot "basically do what he wants" if he is aiming for selective college admission. The athlete still has to meet the SAT threshold, the SAT Subject Test threshold (if required by that school), and the rigorous transcript threshold. There are many athletes that have been recruited by coaches at the highly selective schools, but were rejected by admissions during the preread session because their academics did not meet the standards of the college.

[snowbeltmom]

The vast majority of my kids' English and history credits are interest-led. The only typical courses they have on their transcripts in these areas are US History and either AP English Language or AP English Literature. They do provide quite a bit of outside validation though, in the form of SAT, SAT II's, and additional APs in their areas of interests if available.

Edited February 7, 2018 by snowbeltmom

[madteaparty]

Nm

Edited February 7, 2018 by madteaparty

[snowbeltmom]

nm

Edited February 7, 2018 by snowbeltmom

[PeachyDoodle]

We are doing interest led even though we realize this will hurt selective college admission. I may end up regretting this: If my kid was say a recruited athlete or had some other major accomplishment like that, then you can basically do what you want. But he is not ;)

If you study three languages simultaneously, double up every semester on literature, and spend months at a time traveling, there’s little time left for hoop-jumping.

 

Yeah, no athletes here. :)

 

I'm not sure "selective" is really on our radar. I think it's possible she could get into one (maybe, I really don't know) but even if she did, she would need major scholarship money. So she would have to be extra competitive. No one here, including dd, is interested in accruing massive college debt, even at an Ivy. 

 

Right now, she is attracted to smaller schools. As long as she is getting a good education, that's fine by me. I am nervous though. AP, dual enrollment, designing our own stuff or jumping through the hoops -- it's overwhelming. Seems like a lot of decisions to hang on the current musings of a 12yo. What if she changes her mind about wanting to shoot for Duke or Stanford?

[Corraleno]

We are doing interest led even though we realize this will hurt selective college admission. I may end up regretting this: If my kid was say a recruited athlete or had some other major accomplishment like that, then you can basically do what you want. But he is not ;)

If you study three languages simultaneously, double up every semester on literature, and spend months at a time traveling, there’s little time left for hoop-jumping.

Well DS studied three languages simultaneously (and added a fourth after dropping Latin), read tons of literature, traveled extensively, and didn't jump through any hoops (other than taking the ACT), and he was awarded maximum academic scholarships that had nothing to do with his sport. I've seen kids who applied to the same school post on CC that they were offered less (or no) academic money, or were even deferred/rejected, despite having higher GPAs and/or test scores than DS, so the adcoms must have been at least a little impressed with his transcript. He had zero APs and only two DE courses, but he did have multiple gold medals and perfect scores on the National Greek and Latin exams, a really good essay, and super strong recommendations.

 

I'm not sure where your cut-off would be for "selective" schools, though — the one DS will be attending admits ~40%, with the top 25% of enrolled students in the 33-36 range, and is ranked around 50th (although top 10 in his major). If that's within the range of what you'd consider "selective," then I don't think you need to worry about hurting your child's chances of admission. DS also had informal prereads at some very elite schools and was told that his academics were fine, so at least his transcript would not have precluded him from being admitted at those schools, although whether he could have gotten into an Ivy without an athletic hook, we'll never know. But then again, nearly everyone accepted into Ivies has some kind of hook, whether it's athletics or national math or science awards, or starting a successful business, or whatever. It's not the number of APs that's going to make or break an Ivy admission.

[Roadrunner]

I think Interest Led can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. When I hear that word used IRL among homeschoolers, it almost always means “we do 10 hours of computer programming (or insert your favorite subject) because that is what my child wants. We don’t check boxes for every subject.†I understand that’s not what we mean on this board.

 

Now for English courses there is no real standard. Reading lists for say English 9 vary drastically from one PS to another. The only thing they have in common is kids read and write. I say pick your list, your theme, your topic. As long as you have a writing component, it’s all fine. Same with history.

 

I think where it becomes more difficult to improvise is science. One could devise a course in all sorts of specifics in science to stay true to interest led theme, but i would advise to keep those courses as electives and always cover the big 3 as intended if possible (physics, bio, Chem).

One could interpret interest led in a more narrow sense - my kid wants to major in Lit and languages, so we won’t check boxes in math and science, or we will check absolute minimum. I don’t know. I wouldn’t go that route unless my kid won a National writing award. I would use electives to show the passion for something while still maticulously covering the subject requirements across all categories..

[lisabees]

I won't list all the math kiddo did...just wanted to say it was a lot more than the traditional math sequence...number theory, counting, mathematical logic, group theory, abstract algebra, crytpography and then some of the same ones but at a higher level in subsequent years. If your concern is that she is already past algebra 2 in ninth, there's lots more math to learn and I'm sure boardies here will have ideas for that!

 

This! There is a lot of math to be covered! Check out Art of Problem Solving, MITx, various online providers, and local university courses. Hang out here and you'll be a pro in no time!

[GoodGrief]

Yeah, no athletes here. :)

 

I'm not sure "selective" is really on our radar. I think it's possible she could get into one (maybe, I really don't know) but even if she did, she would need major scholarship money. So she would have to be extra competitive. No one here, including dd, is interested in accruing massive college debt, even at an Ivy. 

 

Right now, she is attracted to smaller schools. As long as she is getting a good education, that's fine by me. I am nervous though. AP, dual enrollment, designing our own stuff or jumping through the hoops -- it's overwhelming. Seems like a lot of decisions to hang on the current musings of a 12yo. What if she changes her mind about wanting to shoot for Duke or Stanford?

 

FWIW, financial aid at the most selective schools is based on need rather than merit. That works to the advantage of some students' situations, but not others. Regardless, being academically competitive is necessary for admissions at those schools but is not a factor in financial aid. My daughter is at a smaller highly selective college, and the need-based financial aid offered there was far superior to most others on her rather large list.

 

At schools with large competitive merit aid packages, the strong academics will be necessary to get those scholarships.

 

Personally, I'd educate her with an eye to keeping her options open. That does not mean she couldn't have some quirky language arts and social science classes. However, I do think of high school as more of a foundational period educationally. I want to make sure those basics are rock solid so future learning can be readily built upon it.

[Corraleno]

Right now, she is attracted to smaller schools. As long as she is getting a good education, that's fine by me. I am nervous though. AP, dual enrollment, designing our own stuff or jumping through the hoops -- it's overwhelming. Seems like a lot of decisions to hang on the current musings of a 12yo. What if she changes her mind about wanting to shoot for Duke or Stanford?

 

The vast majority of kids who "shoot for Duke or Stanford" don't get in, and a very large percentage of the kids who are rejected jumped through every. stinking. hoop. there is. DS has a close friend who had a perfect GPA (unweighted 4.0, weighted was well over 4), lots of AP 5s, 1550 SATs, lots of volunteer work and meaningful ECs, excellent athlete  (nationally ranked but not top 10), and he was rejected by Stanford, Duke, and Notre Dame. Remember that whiny essay that went viral a few years ago, written by a girl who was rejected from all the Ivies she applied to, despite knocking herself out through four years of HS "doing everything right"? Coincidentally, both of those kids ended up at Ohio State (with great merit scholarships) — just like DS, who followed his passions and studied what he loved and did zero hoop-jumping-for-the-sake-of-hoop-jumping.

 

If your kid thrives in AP classes, is a natural test taker, loves to keep super busy with a dozen ECs, and wants to do math competitions or start a charity or whatever, then by all means don't hold her back! But if that's not who she is, it really doesn't make sense to sacrifice four years of her life in the hope of winning a lottery ticket. Trust that if you let her be who she is, and learn what she loves, she'll end up at a school that's perfect for her.

[PeachyDoodle]

 

The vast majority of kids who "shoot for Duke or Stanford" don't get in, and a very large percentage of the kids who are rejected jumped through every. stinking. hoop. there is. DS has a close friend who had a perfect GPA (unweighted 4.0, weighted was well over 4), lots of AP 5s, 1550 SATs, lots of volunteer work and meaningful ECs, excellent athlete  (nationally ranked but not top 10), and he was rejected by Stanford, Duke, and Notre Dame. Remember that whiny essay that went viral a few years ago, written by a girl who was rejected from all the Ivies she applied to, despite knocking herself out through four years of HS "doing everything right"? Coincidentally, both of those kids ended up at Ohio State (with great merit scholarships) — just like DS, who followed his passions and studied what he loved and did zero hoop-jumping-for-the-sake-of-hoop-jumping.

 

If your kid thrives in AP classes, is a natural test taker, loves to keep super busy with a dozen ECs, and wants to do math competitions or start a charity or whatever, then by all means don't hold her back! But if that's not who she is, it really doesn't make sense to sacrifice four years of her life in the hope of winning a lottery ticket. Trust that if you let her be who she is, and learn what she loves, she'll end up at a school that's perfect for her.

 

Thank you. I needed that.

 

This is really what I want for her. The thing I HATED about high school was the pressure to do more, more, more just to look good to colleges. We just didn't know any other way then. Now I know better, and I want to do better.

 

My hope is to help her craft a high school experience that really lets her explore and develop her passions. If that means one good extracurricular and no AP's, so be it. I don't want to manufacture classes and activities just to impress some admissions officer we'll probably never even meet. Of course, I don't mean letting her do computer programming 12 hours a day, like somebody said. Part of exploring your interests is having enough of a basis in the various disciplines that you can even determine what your interests are, IMO. And that's part of being a well-rounded person too. 

 

But there's my ideal world, and there's the real world. I'm trying to bring the two together. I'm pretty sure there's a way to do that, I just haven't quite put my finger on it yet.

 

To me, college is a goal, but it's not THE goal. I don't want high school to become all about getting into college. I want it to be part of a journey to becoming an interesting, educated adult who knows how to take an idea and run with it. College is part of that journey too. Does that make sense?

[PeachyDoodle]

I won't list all the math kiddo did...just wanted to say it was a lot more than the traditional math sequence...number theory, counting, mathematical logic, group theory, abstract algebra, crytpography and then some of the same ones but at a higher level in subsequent years. If your concern is that she is already past algebra 2 in ninth, there's lots more math to learn and I'm sure boardies here will have ideas for that!

 

Meant to circle back to this earlier and I forgot! 

 

Thanks for the ideas! I could see her being very interested in some of those topics. When it comes to transcripts, do you list those pre-high school classes, and if so, how? Does it look strange to show middle school classes on there? We may tackle a high school level science next year too. She's begging for chemistry.

[quark]

Meant to circle back to this earlier and I forgot! 

 

Thanks for the ideas! I could see her being very interested in some of those topics. When it comes to transcripts, do you list those pre-high school classes, and if so, how? Does it look strange to show middle school classes on there? We may tackle a high school level science next year too. She's begging for chemistry.

 

I graduated kiddo early and yes, I did list all that math. The rule of thumb is usually that if colleges see 4 years of math from 9th-12th, there's no need to list high school math done in middle school but for a kid who wanted to major in math and showed drive and passion early, I thought it appropriate to list all the nontraditional math kid did at younger ages (to show the many topics not usually covered by most students). I have a highly math spiky kid and this was appropriate for this kid. You don't have to if she has different goals.

[daijobu]

You can also customize her education by taking a look at MOOCs which often offer unusual courses that could reflect your student's interests.   For example here's a cool class about animal behavior.  You can also find good electives in books.  I used Make: Electronics by Charles Platt to create a multi-year elective course.