@SculptorDad has anything happened of late to make you feel this way? Your CC name and posts led me to believe she had such an inclination, but even so you seem surprised to think this might be the right path for her?
It seems it’s a happier, and more exciting path, more than I previously thought so. And I value those more than I previously valued them.
My work is keep getting busier and I am having 60 hours weeks for the first time of my life. I am good at my work and I am happy with it. Yet it sometimes is suffocating to have so many hours. I have been studying all the great career paths for young people that involve 60 or even 80 hours weeks. Is it much easier when they are so young and full of energy? I don’t know. But I don’t want her to be professionally successful while having 60 hours or longer weeks unless it is her passion, and not forced to continue it just because she would have invested so much already.
Her logic of having a none-art degree/profession is that she can always do her art on the side and she doesn’t need an art degree for for the type of art she wants to do, while she has only one chance of getting a marketable college degree and starting off with a great job which is likely to define the rest of her career changes. There are other reasons of her ending 2.5 years of full-time community college career and joining her none-art boarding school last year, and she is very happy with it. But one of the reasons was to have other safer options.
But I am realizing that she also has only one chance for very high quality art education from a good art school too. That’s valuable even if she doesn’t need the degree. Giving that up to study computer science or economics doesn’t seem to be a logical decision any longer. She took AP Econ last year, and studied Python this Summer. She can do either of them well. But neither seems her passion. I have grown more confident that she can have a good financially rewarding career in another field, if she needs it, even with a fine art degree.
I am realizing so many things lately. For example, her wanting to have a good marketable career, which at times seemed a wise and mature idea, might be more from her fear of unknown future due to her lack of life experience. And I shouldn’t leave her there when I have three more decades of life experience. I still don’t have life experience past my own age. None of us do. But I should be more logical and less fearful than a teenager can be.
I watched Zukerberg’s Harvard speech with him mentioning that he could take the risk because of his family as a safety net. I don’t have much and we are a FA family. But I am only my mid-40’s and my income is increasing with a decent prospect. I can still be some safety net too if things really turn out bad. And God forbid, what if she becomes a stay home mom with a regret of not having studied what she wanted the most?
And that’s not only for colleges. She can have the remaining three years on her BS even happier, with less pressure, spending more time on her art portfolio instead of jumping unwanted hoops for college. Which is why I am talking about it to her now and not two years later.
Thanks to all for the college tour assistance. Hartford is on the way to Vermont, so all of the above are great choices for stops!
@SculptorDad --Has your DD thought about incorporating new media with her love of fine arts? Perhaps a Design program–Industrial, digital, or integrated design? These will have technical and creative aspects, and certainly be marketable as well 
@itcannotbetrue , Thanks for you tips! She is using graphic software a lot to draw these days.
Things are moving fast and suddenly we are talking about early starting, actually junior transferring to a four-years college with art major next Fall.
If a bs student moves directly to a college before graduating, is she still viewed as an alumni or a dropout?
@SculptorDad It is possible to double major and have both. Not so much at a school like RISD (unless she was talented enough to get into the joint Brown/RISD program) but many schools (I’m thinking LACs here because that is what I know best but I’m sure at larger schools, too) enable you to major in fine arts as well as something else, including computer science. It doesn’t have to be either/or. However, I do think you should let her drive it and, honestly, I don’t think you need to worry about it for at least another year. Just my 2 cents.
Has anyone else had to say goodbye yet for year two?!? Mine flew back today for pre-season sports.
She used to think that as the most wise choice and I supported it. Keep as many doors open as possible. But recently we, she realized that she won’t be really happy with the other options, and opportunity cost of keeping them open is high. Boarding school was her drive, and moving up to college is also her drive. All I have done is encouraging her to do what she really loves to do without being let down by unknown economic stability of future.
She could wait a few more years until she is ready to try for RISD, if she will ever become that good. But neither getting a brand name degree nor maximizing her potential is our goal. It’s about what will be the most enjoyable and full-filling at the moment and not caring about the future too much. She will still have going to a law school as her back up. UC is within her grasp and RISD is not.
She may apply to 7 UC campuses as junior transfer with Art major for next Fall. Applications are due November this year. With her nearly perfect California community college GPA, completed general education and major prereq mostly done, she has a good chance to be accepted by one of the 7.
@RuralAmerica That’s fast! We still have a month.
@SculptorDad I believe your daughter will need to stay in high school through sophomore year or age 16, whichever comes first. Research the (high achiever’s) early exit exam: The CHSPE. (California High School Proficiency Exam). It is administered by Pearson education, but is fully recognized by the State of CA as a GED for younger and higher achievers. It allows students that are dissatisfied or bored with high school to leave high school early at age 16/the end of sophomore year.
We are in a similar, yet dissimilar situation with our son who was at BS but did not find it to be a good fit. He took the test last March, knowing that he was coming home, passed it, and now is at a local CC as a freshman. From what I’ve seen in our university transfer research, many universities, but not all, still ask for proof of a HS diploma or its equivalency. You may be short-changing her and limiting her university prospects by not having her take and pass this test.
BTW, it is rather easy: DS passed it his first round with no prep.
PM if you have more questions!
@SculptorDad I can’t advise regarding early graduation, but I wanted to add that Tufts recently fully acquired The Museum School in Boston and they have offered a 5 year joint degree MFA/BA program for decades. I took classes at the Museum School while at Tufts and it was an amazing experience. NYU may have a similar program with Tisch (I took grad classes in design at Tisch)
Two suggestions to consider as well:
Bard College at Simon’s Rock: https://simons-rock.edu/
United World Colleges: This is a program for juniors and seniors in which they finish an IB program at a boarding school overseas (those chosen to represent the US get a full ride). http://www.uwc.org/
@itcannotbetrue , Now that you bring it up, she passed CHSPE 4 years ago. To register for the exam, I claimed that as an ungraded homeschooler, she was going to 10th grade curriculum at age 10, which was true in terms of regular public school curriculum.
Grier has been and will be a wonderful fit for DD for another year at least, especially when she wanted and needed BS experience. We recently found that she has some ADD symptoms that we didn’t notice while homeschooling or even taking community college courses. She is control for it now. But she wouldn’t have done well last year at a highly competitive BS that waitlisted her.
And good luck with your son! CC has lead many smart and hard working students I know to a good academic/career path.
@chemmchimney , Thanks for the suggestion. What’s unique about UC is that she can probably get in as a California CC transfer student now, while she won’t become a strong candidate for freshman applicant for other schools or UC for years. Transferring to UC also lets her to completely skip General Education. Not that it doesn’t have value. But she wants to focus on art for now, and she will get good general education eventually as a lifelong reader/learner anyway.
@CaliMex, I had pushed Bard College and UWC to her once. She thinks, perhaps naively, she is ready to join more mature regular college students age group, so Bard was out. And she still prefers Grier to any other high school including UWC. The only reason to leave Grier would be that she is emotionally ready to become an adult. Grier would still give her good academic training if she stays for 4 years, especially in writing and classical training that BS are known to be amazing. She just might not need it for her planned future.
Thank you all for your suggestions!
DD and I always thought that probably it’s a good idea to first become highly successful in some well earning profession for few years and art will always be there for her. Then my niece actually became highly successful. Only then the reality of 80 hours weeks hit and we realized how many women quit those jobs early because they found that they valued work-life balance more than they initially thought. Sacrificing so much to prepare for what you don’t truly feel for no longer makes sense.
Living in a foreign country and attending an IB program with top students from around the world may be more of a challenge than she thinks (UWC).
I’d be nervous of sending a previously homeschooled girl from an all girls BS to a large, co-ed university. I wouldn’t want my 15 year old’s first serious boyfriend to be a 20- year old college sophomore.
@CaliMex UWC would be any parent’s dream. But my daughter is not looking for academic challenge and why should she? Not to mention that there is really only a small chance even if she wanted.
She used be in co-ed community college during age 11-13, and had a few 20 year old male and female acquaintance some of whom she still texts. I really don’t mind and fully trust her judgement on boyfriend aspect. Let’s leave it as philosophical difference between us.
"But my daughter is not looking for academic challenge and why should she? "
I’m confused. She applied to some pretty top notch boarding schools a year ago and I thought academic challenge was one of the things that you and she wanted. What has changed in a year?
Two years ago, she wanted BS (especially top notch) for academic challenges and social interaction. She got them, and will continue to receive them for at least another year. We are very happy for that.
What has changed during this Summer is that she changed what she wanted to study in college to studio art, and narrowed down her career options. They don’t require the academic challenge, not too much anyway. Last year she was only a good reader. A year of BS has already made her a so competent writer that her English teacher asked her to stop participating in peer reviews. Another year will probably make her a good enough writer for anything she needs, so she is less in needs for academic challenges than before.
Also she is emotionally much more competent now and feels she will be ready to take a new challenge in a year, the one that her rising senior friends at BS will take then. I and my wife also feel that she is ready to move on to college dorm.
I recently watched Netflix documentary “Daughters of Destiny” about a free boarding school in India that takes children of poverty and educates them to be financially support to their family and community. What caught my interest was that there was one girl, with all the pressure of getting a good profession, still wanted to be an artist and she was going to be one. Even the seemingly very strict school head was eventually seemed to support it.
I think that documentary, among many things happened during last couple of months, finally changed me from passively supporting to actively encouraging my daughter to take art more seriously, which she was glad to hear. Once that was settled, transferring to UC in a year or so seemed the most logical choice given her unique qualifications and needs. No other options - focusing art in high school, taking more community college courses, or even going to local state university were satisfying to her in terms of level of art education, and art only schools seemed to far fetched for her current skill. UC was just right, not too hot and not too cold, and within a good grasp.