Big Picture Goals for 2022

[Gil]

Well guys, it's that time of year again.
What are the some picture goals for your AL for 2022?

For reference, here are the past threads if you're curious.
2021 thread

2020 thread

2019 thread

2018 thread

 2017 thread

 2016 thread

2015 thread

Edited December 16, 2021 by Gil

[Slache]

Math: He's a year and a half ahead in Saxon so I've replaced math with Art twice a week because I'm afraid he's going to hit a wall. He's also starting Beast Academy online soon, as is my non gifted, but mathy student. I will give each the option of Saxon or AoPS for prealgebra on.

LA: Continuing IEW and writing his own books. He probably spends 2 hours a day on writing. The current series is Fritz & Stuart, two tweens who think they have superpowers and are therefore heroes, but don't have superpowers and are just very, very lucky. It's a comedy and coming of age collection of chapter books.

Art: He is into drawing and nothing else. Artistic Pursuits as a family and virtual instructor independently.

Language: Latin and Greek are still going but he's grown bored of Japanese after 5 years.

No other subjects are advanced. We're doing SOTW, MP's Astronomy, piano, violin and guitar.

[Slache]

My biggest issue is meeting his academic needs while allowing him the space to write, but he seems to self regulate well. I realized I didn't really answer the big picture question. I don't think I have one. I think he's just doing what he's doing and I'm there to support him.

[SKL]

Last year's for mine were:

• Take more ownership of their direction in life; do things because it supports their growth and goals, not because Mom is forcing them to.
• Be willing to request and accept help when things are hard.
• Take more responsibility for a pleasant home (physically and socially).
• Start some kind of work gig, whether volunteer or for pay.
• Third degree blackbelt in TKD (eligible in September).

Progress has been made in most of these areas, and there is room for further growth in each of them.

For 2022:

• Take more ownership of their health (physical and mental), as well as studies, extracurriculars, and future plans/goals.
• When things are hard, request and accept help with integrity.
• Take more responsibility for a pleasant home (physically and socially).  Moving along the continuum toward being a great adult housemate / pet owner.
• Stay engaged socially and develop leadership skills in age-appropriate groups.
• Get a paid job and/or an official regular volunteer gig.
• Get a driver's license and use it responsibly.
• Prepare for the SAT/ACT and get a score that reflects ability.
• Explore spirituality and purpose in life.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

DS is wrapping up 3rd grade, moving on to 4th. This year will largely be about further developing skills he’s learned & increasing his willingness to complete work independently in environments other than our home. We’d love to travel more, especially next year when he’ll qualify for Every Kid Outdoors. 

Language Arts: We’ll continue to focus on paragraph-writing as well as quality  sentences. I’d like to begin having him write more across the curriculum. Occasionally we’ll string a few paragraphs together into short essays to work on introductions, conclusions, & transitions. Plus vocabulary, poetics, spelling, & a typed reading log.

Math: DS has come a long way with his willingness to write out his work & his ability to work independently. He’ll begin BA5 in Jan & might actually be ready for AOPS PreA afterward. 

Science: RSO Chem has gone well; we’ll continue in the fall with RSO Physics. DH is hoping to rent a plane when they get to the unit on aerodynamics & flight. 

History: History Quest has not been a great fit. We’ll complete Middle Times, then switch back to History Odyssey for Early Modern. 

Athletics: Soccer, tennis, swim, & scouting.

Electives: One Athena’s class of his choice to continue developing typing speed. I’d love to get him taking a foreign language or music lessons, but don’t see how we’d fit it into our schedule currently. Maybe once he completes swim lessons I’ll have him choose between the two. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax

[Clemsondana]

We don't have a lot of academic goals right now.  Older has been doing a pretty good job managing scheduling and schoolwork.  I have always asked for input, but kid has always been content to more or less do whatever schoolwork I choose.  Now they are starting to take more ownership of what they do. I think that, once I started talking about options for each course - home-grown, co-op, or DE - and said that basically they could use them in any combo, from doing everything at one place to picking 1-4 of each to mix and match - that it was eye-opening and kid has definite opinions.  We are starting to pick courses that explore possible career fields - my computer engineer husband is going to design a computing course that samples various aspects rather than having kid do an entire course on a coding language or circuits or whatever.  This year we're playing with a horticulture course so that kid can start to see if bio and ag are more of a hobby or career field.  

For younger, self-regulation while learning to struggle is a bigger deal than any particular academic goal.  Kid has always been successful at academics, athletics, and music with minimal effort but has now reached the point where things take work, and adjusting to that is a bit of a struggle.  We are also starting to look at what is needed academically to pursue a couple of career fields of interest.  This is part of the ongoing process of helping kid understand that there aren't a lot of well-paying jobs that don't require effort at some point - like, the job may take daily physical effort, or large amounts of time, or maybe you invested many hours developing a skill and now you are well-paid to use that skill while not working crazy hours.  A musician friend once said that you weren't paying for the 2 hours of work playing at your wedding - you are paying for the hours that they spent practicing in college that let them play at the wedding - and we're working on the broader application of that idea.  

 

[Clarita]

This is my first year of actual school (I don't really thing preschool counts for us we weren't that intentional about it) and oldest is in K4 everyone thinks he is ridiculously smart, but who knows.

I struggled for a little bit in the early school months of figuring out a routine, what we even want/need school to look like.We've finally got to a point where we are checking the boxes. 

My overall goals moving forward is I want more than just checking off the boxes. I want to be more flexible to exploration and perhaps even foster some of that exploration. I am currently reading Brave Learner and I want more of that. 

The only specific subject related thing is I had plans to seriously teach my kids Chinese (fluent reading, writing, and speaking). So, I'm not doing that anymore. We had so much fun just doing our Chinese Music Class and my kids are totally learning to recognize words and stuff. The few vocabulary we know we talk about and my kids aren't shy about saying them. Could we have done more and my kids have gone further? Sure, but this feels right.  

[Dmmetler]

To continue semi-independent living as a college student. 

[Not_a_Number]

For DD9, the biggest goal is to figure out how to work with me again profitably. She has done an absolutely amazing job organizing herself this year: she does her co-op classes herself, and she picks her math and Russian work herself (for math, she's been working through random problems in the AoPS introductory series and AMC 8 problems), and she's very self-motivated and driven... but at some point, I need to teach her something again. I've been incredibly relieved to let her manage herself, since we previously had a totally unreasonable amount of resistance and conflict (her ability to refuse to do something she doesn't want to do is just as impressive as her ability to make herself work at some she does), but we can't run on fumes for ever. 

We're currently taking a break from even attempting to work together, since it was just causing stress, but we'll try again after the winter break, and I expect it to be slow going. We need to figure out some way not to trigger her mulish resistance (and my eventual anger when faced with it). We figure she'll be mostly working on her own moving forward, but still, I need to be able to give her nudges. 

For DD5, the biggest goal is to figure out how to avoid her also developing the same mulish resistance that DD9 had, lol. Both my kids are gifted and very stubborn and aren't easy to work with. But they wouldn't at all be served well by school, so we make do. 

As for academics, DD9 is prepping for the AMC 8, has started writing poems for fun, has been enjoying reading kids' stories in Russian and translating them to English, and is going on her 5th year seriously practicing the piano, while DD5 is reading chapter books, writing clearly, and working on two-digit multiplication with negatives and positives, so I feel like I never need to worry about that nearly as much as I do about their willingness to work... much like @Clemsondana, I guess, except it's with BOTH my kids. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[SoCal_Bear]

@Not_a_Number Quote: but at some point, I need to teach her something again. 

Honestly, for my son, we needed to separate one that. It became very obvious this wasn't going to happen anymore about a year and a half ago. He needed outside classes and no direct teaching one on one by me. We have moved to a much better place with him owning his journey with the classes he has selected. We have some bumps yes. He is willing for me to do a couple of enrichment type things (a book club and a math enrichment) in a group type setting but nothing just one on one. I just want to put it out there there are other options.

[mckittre]

My big picture goal for my 12 yr old in the next year and a half is to figure out how to gently ease him into spending more time on academic work, particularly for the subjects he's not interested in or advanced in. And for me, figuring out what and how to count things as official high school credits before we get there. (He's in 7th grade). 

Basically, we've always been fairly unstructured, but now he's getting older and there's things like college applications (and college classes) in the future, and I'm worried I'll screw it all up. He's always dived deep and spent a lot of time on the things he loves (right now he's doing a lot of computer programming, and collaborating with adults on a pretty cool project), but I've never really forced the hour-a-day for every subject, every day, mentality. Particularly in cases where he's doing as well or better than public school expects without spending that much time. But I feel like I'll kind of have to do that for high school credits, and am not sure how we'll make that transition smoothly. He's a pretty easy going kid when I tell him to do things, but he likes his flexibility and freedom, and I don't blame him. Especially since he sees both his parents working from home with very flexible and interest-driven schedules -- so it seems a bit hypocritical to tell him he has to do otherwise.

My 10 year old is in public school (her choice). She's anxious and shy, and my goal for her is to try and convince her to ask for harder work when the school work isn't challenging, though I don't hold out much hope she'll actually do it.

 

 

 

[Not_a_Number]

On 12/26/2021 at 10:58 PM, calbear said:

@Not_a_Number Quote: but at some point, I need to teach her something again. 

Honestly, for my son, we needed to separate one that. It became very obvious this wasn't going to happen anymore about a year and a half ago. He needed outside classes and no direct teaching one on one by me. We have moved to a much better place with him owning his journey with the classes he has selected. We have some bumps yes. He is willing for me to do a couple of enrichment type things (a book club and a math enrichment) in a group type setting but nothing just one on one. I just want to put it out there there are other options.

Yes, I know there are other options. Both I and DD9 would like to be able to work together again, so given that it's mutual, I'm not ready to give up on it. If I have to, I will. But we're not there yet. 

[Clemsondana]

On 12/27/2021 at 3:56 PM, mckittre said:

My big picture goal for my 12 yr old in the next year and a half is to figure out how to gently ease him into spending more time on academic work, particularly for the subjects he's not interested in or advanced in. And for me, figuring out what and how to count things as official high school credits before we get there. (He's in 7th grade). 

Basically, we've always been fairly unstructured, but now he's getting older and there's things like college applications (and college classes) in the future, and I'm worried I'll screw it all up. He's always dived deep and spent a lot of time on the things he loves (right now he's doing a lot of computer programming, and collaborating with adults on a pretty cool project), but I've never really forced the hour-a-day for every subject, every day, mentality. Particularly in cases where he's doing as well or better than public school expects without spending that much time. But I feel like I'll kind of have to do that for high school credits, and am not sure how we'll make that transition smoothly. He's a pretty easy going kid when I tell him to do things, but he likes his flexibility and freedom, and I don't blame him. Especially since he sees both his parents working from home with very flexible and interest-driven schedules -- so it seems a bit hypocritical to tell him he has to do otherwise.

My 10 year old is in public school (her choice). She's anxious and shy, and my goal for her is to try and convince her to ask for harder work when the school work isn't challenging, though I don't hold out much hope she'll actually do it.

 

 

 

One thought is that, while it's helpful to keep up with things more as you start to figure out high school credits, there's no need to switch to the traditional 'hour per day per subject' format.  My older does some subjects, like math, daily or most days.  But, other subjects can be handled differently.  Over the summer kid decided to do a science fiction 1/2 credit elective.  Kid chose 3 book series and read them, then read from a textbook about scifi to get ideas about themes.  Then kid wrote a paper.  Kid is working on a fine arts credit and we are doing it by hours.  Kid has a list of a couple of activites that count towards hours - drawing using an instruction book, music rehearsals at church (we aren't counting it as an extracurricular), and a co-op ballroom dance class.  Once they reach the required number of hours, they have the 1/2 credit - they just write down what they did and keep a running tally.  Outsourced classes take care of themselves from that perspective.  Kid wanted a horticulture class, and they read some from a text, some from a living history book from a crop scientist, some from other books, and they are doing hands-on work (gardening, pruning) that they record hours for, something like a lab.  You can still work in units if they prefer to binge on a subject (a lot of our friends do that over the summer), or do a mix of daily and units.  

[Drama Llama]

My big goal for my advanced kid is for him to figure out what's important to him.  He's had a lot of stress in the past year, and has responded to that with an intense need to be very very busy, and not alone.  Since his social circle is limited by the pandemic, this has meant that he does a lot of whatever the people around him are doing.  He's developed some impressive skills in lots of areas, but I hope that eventually he'll pare that list down to what's important to him.  I'm curious what that will be. 

Actually my goal for his brother is kind of the same, but for different reasons.  His things are definitely music and sports, but he lost the opportunity to explore and figure out which instrument, or style of music, or sport.   I think that the pandemic will subside and he'll get a chance to play with other people and figure out what he wants to concentrate on. 

[SeaConquest]

We are still in survival mode and adjusting to me working full-time. It's been a bumpy ride. Sacha turns 13 this month and it feels like we will be staring down the barrel of the high school gun shortly. He was accepted at SOHS as a FT student, but I am not sure that he will be able to handle the rigor of the writing courses if he actually enrolled FT. So, we are really trying to figure out what to do with him for high school because I am not sure that he will be able to continue at his current charter much longer (too advanced; they have no way to transcript his courses). He has done great in his SOHS C++ class this year, but that's probably because he already knew how to program in Python and Java. Hopefully, he will move into their Data Structures class in the fall, but we are not sure what else he should there take next year? Maybe AP Chem or Bio? Not sure. Everything seems intimidating from this point on.

He is just starting AoPS pre-Calc, but is really struggling with attention issues during the 430-6pm time slot, as his ADHD meds wear off. He really would prefer a live class, so I am thinking about SOHS or Blue Tent BC Calc for next year instead of AoPS. He has also told me that he is just DONE with writing classes, so we both think that he should just knock out a few composition and lit classes via DE to meet A-G/high school requirements and call it quits. He wants to focus more on Civil Air Patrol, which he enjoys so much that he cut off all of his hair for it. So, I think he will probably take some econ to round out his social studies, but I am really more concerned with the social aspects of his life now that he is heading into his teen years. The pandemic has been so isolating for so long. I can tell that it is affecting him.

Similarly, I am starting to feel like Ronen would be better off in a brick and mortar elementary school. So, I am on the hunt for a really nurturing, project-based environment for him. The social-emotional stuff is far more important for Ronen. He's a very bright and creative kid, and the isolation has really not been good for him either. Both boys also need far more physical activity, to be sure. 

Everything feels very much in flux, and I hate that. 

[mckittre]

Sacha sounds so similar to my oldest! He'll be 13 next month also, loves computer programming, in AOPS intermediate algebra right now, and it's like pulling teeth to get him to write anything. AOPS classes are an hour earlier for us, which is nice. Sacha sounds like he's doing way more work than my kid, though.

What do you mean that the charter can't transcript his courses? I don't understand the CA charter system, but I guess I'm wondering about a similar thing myself. I've always homeschooled through my school district's official homeschool program. They'll reimburse a couple thousand dollars per year in educational expenses, in exchange for the minimal paperwork of filling out report cards (which have always been a paragraph description by me for each class, plus a grade the kid gives himself). But now I realize that he actually has an official transcript that just says things like "7 science" and am figuring I'd better change that somehow before he hits high school. I'm concerned about social isolation as well. He's far too content with his family, but I don't think that can last, I don't see any local options for him, and he hasn't yet been interested in trying to make friends online.

 

[Condessa]

-#1 is physical health.  Ds7 is 10 months into his 27 month chemo protocol, so as long as that is going well he will continue on chemo this whole year.  He is doing well enough that several of the specialists are spacing out his visits more, so that will free up some of our time for other things.  We are also trying doing his pt only once a week.  I am really hoping this will allow us to get the kids back into some physical activities.  (I wanted to last semester, but it just didn't work out.)

-#2 is emotional health.  We have been working on this.  Dd12 has been so stressed with worry and I have been working on managing my anxiety, with a lot of progress since the baby came.

-#3 is better family & home management.  I am catching up in many areas bit by bit.  My kids are capable helpers.  I think some organization and having better systems in place would do a lot to helping us maintain a calmer environment in our home.

-#4 academic--This is still very vague.  It has never been so low in my priorities before.  The last two years have taken a lot out of us.  My kids' acceleration has given us some flexibility in taking time as needed to address various crises.  

• Dd12 may or may not go to school in the Fall for 8th grade.  We will most likely send her in high school, and dh thinks she should go and adjust to the change sooner.  She is currently taking a break from math classes and is just spending some time each school day bringing alcumus sections up from green to blue.  She completed Intro to Counting & Probability last semester and is interested in going on to Intro to Algebra B, but we need to get a handle on her stress and insomnia first.  For the most part she is doing great with the academics of her classes but needs more practice at managing her workload without falling behind and then playing catchup.  We also need to put more time into Science.  Really that goes for all four.  
• Dd11 is doing much better with her attitude about schoolwork (most of the time).  We have been working on spelling.  She is my dyslexic girl, and she has made progress with AAS, but it is such a slow slog.  For English, once we finish with our poetry unit in about a month she and ds9 will be focusing on essay writing.  Around the same time she will finish Math-U-See Prealgebra and start their Algebra.  That has been so simple.  The concepts are way easier than Beast Academy.  But she really needed to focus on accuracy, paying attention to what she is doing, following directions, writing down her work so she doesn't lose track of what she's doing, etc., and she's made a lot of progress with that.  I don't know what program we will use after MUS Algebra, or even whether we will jump back in with another prealgebra or algebra.  Any suggestions?
• Ds9 does great with all his work.  He could use some more challenge, or another subject to branch into, or I don't know--something more.  Maybe getting back into Spanish lessons would do it.  (We dropped all three younger kids' foreign languages this year to lighten the load.)  He hit some topics in math that slowed him down for a few months.  I expect he'll be ready to move on to prealgebra sometime this semester, and we will probably have an adjustment period when the level of work steps up.
• Ds7 is academically way beyond what I would have expected, given how much school time he's missed between appointments and his crummy days.  He's halfway through BA4 and nearly done with MCT Island.  Planning on detouring to Treasured Conversations before the next level of MCT.  We will mostly continue to just let him do whatever he feels up to whenever he feels up to it, though I am trying to be consistent at getting in short lessons on his areas of weakness (spelling and handwriting) on every good school day.

-#5 socially, we are in a pretty good place.  The girls have some buddies who live down the street, some of whom are homeschooling now.  They are also having a wonderful time in the church youth group.  All the kids love having the foster sisters over to play regularly, and also see them at church.  The boys don't have any good friends outside the family.  The two of them are best friends and don't seem to feel the lack, but I would like to help them find some more social connections this year.

[SeaConquest]

On 1/11/2022 at 10:08 PM, mckittre said:

Sacha sounds so similar to my oldest! He'll be 13 next month also, loves computer programming, in AOPS intermediate algebra right now, and it's like pulling teeth to get him to write anything. AOPS classes are an hour earlier for us, which is nice. Sacha sounds like he's doing way more work than my kid, though.

What do you mean that the charter can't transcript his courses? I don't understand the CA charter system, but I guess I'm wondering about a similar thing myself. I've always homeschooled through my school district's official homeschool program. They'll reimburse a couple thousand dollars per year in educational expenses, in exchange for the minimal paperwork of filling out report cards (which have always been a paragraph description by me for each class, plus a grade the kid gives himself). But now I realize that he actually has an official transcript that just says things like "7 science" and am figuring I'd better change that somehow before he hits high school. I'm concerned about social isolation as well. He's far too content with his family, but I don't think that can last, I don't see any local options for him, and he hasn't yet been interested in trying to make friends online.

 

Sorry, I am just getting back to this thread. It's been a busy month at work. To date, his transcript has been exactly like you described, he is taking Honors Physics, but it says Science 7, AP Human Geography is Social Studies 7, etc. This hasn't been a big deal to date because we haven't cared about getting high school credit and we always just send a separate explanation of his work for any programs/camps/scholarships for which he has applied that details the actual work he has done. But, he will finish pre-calc at the end of this semester, and will take calculus BC next year. But, his charter doesn't even offer calculus as a high school course. They simply are not going to be able to transcript his work in high school. He literally will have no way to do it because they don't offer any APs and, although they can transcript college courses, he still has to maintain 4 charter courses on top of any DE in order to stay enrolled at the school. And he simply won't have any charter classes that he can take in math, science, and several other subjects. We just don't see any way that he is going to be able to get to 4 charter classes each semester to keep him enrolled. So, that leaves him with the option of 1) going to SOHS full-time (which would be a major challenge for him because of the writing intensive nature of the curriculum), 2) going to a different school, 3) starting college early, or 4) us filing a private school affidavit and doing a hybrid of SOHS and DE, graduating from our own private high school/homeschool. He's probably going to have to make a decision sooner rather than later. I am not pressuring him one way or the other because ultimately he is the one that has to do the work, so he has to make the call IMO.   

[Noreen Claire]

DS12 will be going to the local public school for HS, so I am looking at the next 18 months with three areas of focus:

academic: Keep moving forward and challenging him in his academics: finish alg2 and move to geometry, continue with Latin before he chooses a spoken language in high school, work on more advanced grammar topics, and continue to strengthen his writing before starting at the high school.

self-sufficiency/executive functioning: Moving to public school will be a different world for him (he's been home since the end of 1st grade). I need to start having him have more input in scheduling himself and his schoolwork/chores. Also, he would like more cooking and baking lessons.

music: Keep up with his piano and viola lessons, and encourage his love of classical music. His viola teacher thinks that he can try out for the local youth symphony in the fall, but I'm not sure he would be able to swing that with his sports and other lessons. He's also self-teaching saxophone, so that he can join the high school marching band in 9th grade. We might use a Great Courses music appreciation or music theory course in 8th grade, if we can fit it in.

[Lawyer&Mom]

My goal this year is just feeding the reading monster.  DD8 is burning through books, and school only lets her visit the library once a week (I went daily at her age…)  She loves Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales.  Horrible Histories are less of a hit.  But I’m going to have to get every middle grade history book I possibly can to put off the more sensitive content of the high school books.  (Maus, Persepolis, etc.)  Which she would totally love, but she’s eight.  We are reading aloud Little Women.  We may read all the sequels just to tread water.  Want to keep her in (challenging, engaging) kid content as long as I can!  The struggle is real.

[Sunshineandstars]

Have you heard of the Birchbark House series? It's an excellent middle grade historical fiction series set in the same period as Little House on the Prairie, just from another point of view. I think it's great for widening horizons, telling history from a point of view that can sometimes be ignored. Prairie Lotus is also great.

[UHP]

On 2/2/2022 at 2:52 PM, Lawyer&Mom said:

 We are reading aloud Little Women.

Can I recommend "The Diamond in the Window"? Louisa May Alcott features in the background. It has a lot of sequels, too.

[Lawyer&Mom]

4 hours ago, Sunshineandstars said:

Have you heard of the Birchbark House series? It's an excellent middle grade historical fiction series set in the same period as Little House on the Prairie, just from another point of view. I think it's great for widening horizons, telling history from a point of view that can sometimes be ignored. Prairie Lotus is also great.

Ooh!  I’ve wanted something like this!  Thank you!

[Lawyer&Mom]

1 hour ago, UHP said:

Can I recommend "The Diamond in the Window"? Louisa May Alcott features in the background. It has a lot of sequels, too.

This looks lovely.  Thank you!

[SeaConquest]

I didn't mention this in the big picture goals because there was no way that it could really be considered a "goal," but Sacha always hoped to apply for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship when he was in 7th grade, as long as he could keep up his grades and test scores. We knew it was a crazy long shot, and the time he spent working on the extensive application process really set him back this semester, such that he is still finishing up his coursework. But, we found out last week that Sacha is a finalist for the scholarship which, given the talented applicant pool, is already an incredible honor for him. He will have an in-person interview over the summer and is, of course, nervous about it because... adolescence... and also, because he has never interviewed for something so high-stakes. It's obviously a big deal for him. They announce the winners in September, so fingers crossed!   

Edited June 8, 2022 by SeaConquest

[Sequoia Gifted]

Congratulations on your learner becoming a finalist! I see several finalists in the DYS group, and it’s a huge honor for all! The interview will also be invaluable experience going forward! ☀️☀️☀️

[SeaConquest]

On 6/8/2022 at 1:21 PM, SeaConquest said:

I didn't mention this in the big picture goals because there was no way that it could really be considered a "goal," but Sacha always hoped to apply for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship when he was in 7th grade, as long as he could keep up his grades and test scores. We knew it was a crazy long shot, and the time he spent working on the extensive application process really set him back this semester, such that he is still finishing up his coursework. But, we found out last week that Sacha is a finalist for the scholarship which, given the talented applicant pool, is already an incredible honor for him. He will have an in-person interview over the summer and is, of course, nervous about it because... adolescence... and also, because he has never interviewed for something so high-stakes. It's obviously a big deal for him. They announce the winners in September, so fingers crossed!   

Update, cross-posting from my FB page:

We found out last night that, unfortunately, Sacha was not selected as a CDB scholarship winner. Although we are all understandably disappointed, we are honored that he was recognized as a finalist and given a $1200 award to use towards his studies. 

As we explained to Sacha, these types of programs are like winning the lottery -- you can't ever count on them; you just roll the dice and see what happens. The best thing for one's mental health, obviously, is to enter a lottery without any expectation of winning. However, that got a bit more difficult to do (for all of us) once Sacha was named a finalist, so I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed that he didn't win. 

But, we all left the interview knowing that Sacha did his very best, and if they chose other candidates, it wasn't a reflection on anything that Sacha did or did not do. It was clear that the scholarship committee was interested in building a diverse class of scholars, and that they were looking to help students find mentors and the right fit for high school. As we left the interview, we got the impression that Sacha is fortunate because he has two very involved parents who have been homeschooling him the past 8+ years, already found a good fit for high school in Stanford OHS, and is lucky to have so many mentors and resources available in his life. CDB was meant to help gifted kids of substantial merit with additional access to high-level mentors and schools. If we failed at all, I think it was in showing the CDB committee how the scholarship would change Sacha's life. And the reality is that, as much as I hate to admit it, the committee was probably right: the scholarship likely wouldn't have changed Sacha's life very much. True, he would have had the prestige of winning the award, and would have had access to the community of scholars, but I am not sure how different that access is vs the amazing community of scholars and mentors to which he currently has access at SOHS. Mostly, it would have changed things financially for my DH and I. But, the award isn't about us; it's about the kids. So, I get it. Or, maybe, they just had too many boys interested in space and Sacha didn't make the cut. Who knows? These are lotteries, after all.         

So, all and all, a bittersweet result, but a good learning experience for him, and for us about managing expectations (and a preview of how competitive college admissions will be). G-d help me!

[Mom_to3]

Thanks for the update and congratulations to Sacha for being a finalist! It is a huge deal and such an accomplishment. I also appreciate your insight - I don't know the numbers for this scholarship, but I expect that the major achievement was making into the list of finalists - the rest, as you said, down to things not under your control.

[SKL]

Did I miss the 2023 thread in all the year-end crazy?  🙂

[SeaConquest]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Did I miss the 2023 thread in all the year-end crazy?  🙂

I hope Gil will update us on his boys. 🙂