<p>Thanks IJD. I checked the link and the closest place is 4 hours away. </p>
<p>I’m trying to figure out why information for things like this just isn’t getting out in our school district. I think I’m going to schedule some time to speak with her counselor, but it’s going to be tricky. I don’t want to alienate her, but at the same time I think information on things like this (and the linguistics test I just heard about the other day - again when it was too late for her) needs to be disseminated some way.</p>
<p>I don’t know why more schools don’t offer the AMC exams. They are very cheap. But they do require some extra work and organization. </p>
<p>What I heard from the middle school when I was trying to get the AMC-8 going (which finally happened, but almost too late for my elder) was that they worry that kids will come out of a hard test like this and have very few right, and be discouraged or think they are “bad at math”. I think that has to do with how it’s framed, and I think it’s actively good for kids to know that what goes on locally and how they compare in their local high school is not true for the rest of the country. It’s a big world. Kids need to be given the opportunity to know how they measure up. It’s not doing them any favors to tell them that they’re so wonderful at home, but not put them in a position to shine in the larger world.</p>
<p>sunnydayfun
D1 is a Foundation Fellow at Univ of Ga.
[Welcome</a> to the University of Georgia Honors Program](<a href=“http://honors.uga.edu/c_s/scholarships/f_f/foundation_fellows.html]Welcome”>Foundation Fellowship - UGA Morehead Honors College)
As part of her scholarship is studying for a " Maymester" at Oxford- actually taking classes with Oxford Dons. There are 17 freshmen fellows. UGA fully funds her expenses : ) Historically, the kids then backpack around Europe on their own. They have received lots of advice from older Fellows on the trip. H and I have not been involved on the planning. Our stipulation is no sleeping on the beach or at Railway stations. She will have a couple of credit cards with her, so we have told her we would rather pay for a hotel than have her stuck somewhere unsafe. The group will probably break up into 3 smaller groups. 17 is a large number to travel together. She has a couple of great " guy friends" so I am hoping they will travel in a mixed group.</p>
<p>I am sure we will be nervous wrecks when she is traveling. She will be 19 and some of the group will be 20. My parents wouldn’t let me travel to Europe at that age ( with my now Husband) and I always regret it. I am sure she will have lifelong memories of this trip!</p>
<p>WordWorld: CONGRATULATIONS on the college acceptance!! It is great to at least know they are going to college somewhere, isn’t it?!</p>
<p>Regarding traveling in Europe, my D’11 (now a freshman in college) went traveling with 3 girl friends in Europe last summer. They would check in occasionally, and us parents were in touch with each other, so if 1 heard from them, we would all get the update. They had no problems (other than feeling a bit too much “togetherness” at times), and the rule was they had to stay in their group of 4 whenever venturing out. It worked out really well. Our D had a credit card if needed, and common sense really did seem to prevail amongst this group - or at least that was the scenario reported back to us trusting parents!</p>
<p>D’15 has finished midterms, and now settling back into school after a long winter weekend break. Looking ahead to the summer is a good distraction from all of the work being given right now :)</p>
<p>AMC-10-I was clueless what its about until I read from this thread. There is a test site just 15 minutes away from our house. I asked S2 if he knows anything about it when he came home from school. He said a student (who is very good at math) asked him if he was going. He also told me the math teacher invited a boy who sits next to him in the math class to the competition. Therefore, my understanding is at our district the teachers invite top math students to take the exam. S2 is not that great at math so I do not really care.</p>
<p>I took a 3 month backpacking trip to Europe after graduating from college (many years ago) and it was the best thing I ever did. I went with just one friend, and it worked out great. I’m hoping my kiddos can do a semester abroad during school and do some backpacking as well. It’s a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>I backpacked in Europe the summer before grad school. I’d graduated UG and then worked for two years, so I had a little money saved up. I went alone, with no planned itinerary, just had 6-week Eurail pass and went wherever the spirit moved me. My budget was very tight, so I skipped most of the tourist-y stuff, bought my food at end-of-day farmer’s market discounts, and spent more than one night sleeping in train stations (because I’d blown my daily funds on museum entry fees and couldn’t afford the $ for a hostel). There were lots of young people just backpacking around in those days, so it was always easy to just meet up with temporary travel partners. I met so many cool people!</p>
<p>I am looking forward to doing more traveling in a few years, after getting D15 launched. She is my youngest, so that’ll be my distraction from empty nest syndrome. But this time I’d like to have a bit more $$$ – I’m getting too old for sleeping in train stations. :eek:</p>
<p>mihcal1, your trip sounds a lot like mine. Along with sleeping in train stations (which we only did a few times), we took overnight train rides if we decided to go somewhere a bit further and just slept in our seats - not even the couchettes unless we got lucky and could sneak in a sleeper car.</p>
<p>in 2016- we will be talking about our darlings being home for the holidays, ( good and bad)hopefully reporting a great first semester and discussing if they will move off campus for sophomore year. I will be settling down to an empty nest.</p>
<p>I can vouch for the effectiveness of “empty nest” travel plans! This year is my H’s and my 1st year as “empty nesters” as our D11 is in college, and our D15 attends prep school - they are both over a 1,000 miles away from home. I was SO worried that I would fall apart this past autumn, not being a room mother for the first time in 10 years, missing my D so much, missing our routine/schedule, etc. I was really fortunate to have a lot of travel opportunities this past fall semester, taking trips I would never have been able to do with a child at home. Having these travel plans was the absolute best distraction, and I’m planning more for the spring ;). I HIGHLY recommend it!!!</p>
<p>Have your schools talked about next year’s classes yet? D. told me the counselors will go to the classes this week to talk about that. We still don’t have a real plan yet.</p>
<p>Teachers made their “recommendations” a month ago or earlier, but we haven’t had any forms to fill out yet and D has not met with her GC. She tried to a couple of weeks ago (because I had an idea for an unorthodox schedule for next year) but she was told to wait, that he was busy with mid-year reports and scholarship applications for seniors.</p>
<p>We had to have course selections in by Feb 1. A few years ago, we had lots of kids sitting about for a week at the start of school as the very stressed counselors worked thorough a huge scheduling mess. Last years schedules were issued before school finished and schedules tweaked over the summer. So much better for everyone.</p>
<p>D is planning on taking:
Accel Geom
AP World
AP Human Geog
Gifted Spanish 2 and 3
Gifted World Lit ( or whatever the 10th grade lit class is)
Gifted Chem
Latin 1</p>
<p>We are on block - so that allows 8 classes</p>
<p>Latin 1 was a filler class. She want to take AP Env Science, but I put my foot down. 2 AP’s are enough for her sophomore year. The kid is involved in sports each season. I don’t want her overstressed trying to balance classes and sports. I think she has chosen a pretty tough schedule.</p>
<p>We have a meeting scheduled with D’s advisor later this month to discuss classes for next year, but I’m pretty sure we already know what she’ll be taking:</p>
<p>Honors Eng 10
Honors Pre-AP Calc
Chem I
French 3
APUSH
Choir :)</p>
<p>Not sure, since new offering and D1 didn’t take it. The teacher is really good and that is part of the reason she is taking it. I am assuming it will deal with more population type geog, culture, disease etc. No dbq’s as in AP world history. Hoping it will be AP “light”</p>