@LKnomad, thanks… sorry, I think I should know this… what are colleges that save lives? Thanks!
@typiCAmom college that changes lives is from a book written by Lauren Pope, former editor of the NYT education section. He found that a specific set of colleges commonly had alumni that felt that theit colleges really made a difference. Most are private small liberal arts schools. I spent the day with my son at two of the colleges on the list, Whitman and Reed and honestly, they were really different. My son loved both and forgot all about the others. He actually got into Berkeley and UCLA but is going to Reed because he really just felt like he belonged.
Excited to join the group of freshman moms, and glad to see so many veterans of the college process among us! Our son will be our first child in high school.
I waver between binging on the CC archive and convincing myself to take a more mindful, hands-off approach.
He is a good kid but easily picks up anxiety from me. I have yet to perfect my poker face!
S’20 also went on college tour this spring break with D’17. They seem to have similar tastes:) Good or bad…lol…
@GuineaHen Not all CCers are moms! Welcome.
Sorry! Slip of the keyboard.
Question, What have you planned for this summer to help your Ss and Ds prepare for HS?
S will be taking his required health class on line to get it out of the way as soon as he get’s back from Boy Scout camp… He’s also currently doing an online math class to keep up on his math. We are still waiting to find out if he will be going to a neighboring high school or if we’ll continue to homeschool. If he goes to the public school he’ll have summer reading and math assignments to do as well.
In light of the recent news events we’ve also had a lots of talks about drugs, drinking, consent, choosing friends carefully…
@3scoutsmom are you in CA I am really confused about this required health class everyone keeps talking about.
Nothing. Not going the crazy route with this one. He is going to take art class and ice skate.
We homeschool BTW.
@LKnomad Nope, Texas! Here we have different levels of diplomas but I think all of them require health. DS will be doing the Distinguished Plan no matter where he ends up.
His plan is:
4 years english Eng 1 Pre-AP, Eng 2 Pre-AP, Eng Lang AP, Eng Lit AP
4 years of math Alg 2 Pre-AP, Pre Cal Pre-AP, CAL BC AP, Linear Alg and Multi CAL (he already has Alg 1 and Geo)
4 years of science Pre AP-Chem, AP Chem, AP Physics 1/2, AP Physics C (he already has Bio)
4 years of ss AP Human Geo, AP World History, AP American History, AP US GOV/AP Ecco
2 years language Chinese 1, Chinese 2,
1 year of PE Off campus competitive fencing
1/2 year Health (on-line this summer)
1 year fine art Digital Art
5 1/2 year elective credits Comp Sci AP, Comp Sci Advanced, AP Comp Sci Principals, Pre-AP Chinese 3 and AP Chinese 4
We just came back from our neighbor boy’s Eagle Scout ceremony. It is such a great commitment and honor!!!
My DS played video games all afternoon :). He will attend the magnet high school and we won’t get back the placement tests result till end of this months. We have to also see how it might impact his ability to play music and sports.
D20 is taking a summer school class at her HS. Her school has about 850 per class, so it will get her acclimated to school and taking public transportation.
DD is participating in some clinics for her sport, a summer league and a team camp. She is earning some money doing some refereeing. She has 2 books to read as summer homework. 10 days of family vacation and 6 days of church camp will get her out of town. She just returned from her 8th grade class trip. Oh, and she has a week of volunteering scheduled at a camp as well.
My youngest just graduated from high school. My advice: Make sure your kids get to be kids. They need down time! Don’t push, push, push all the time. Give them breathing space. 
@2muchquan I’m so jealous, I WISH we had public transit here but we are too far from the city and if DS20 gets into public school it’s about a 45 minute drive each way. Hopefully DS18 will have his license by then and he’ll be able to drive himself and his brother to school but that means we have to buy another car
@3scoutsmom, you know we are in Texas also and our school district no longer requires health… that sounds weird to me. Could that be really true?
@VANURSEPRAC It’s listed as a required class for the the new Distinguished Graduation plan on our school’s web site. They did drop the public speaking requirement this year that had been required by the state. I’ll try to dig a little deeper to figure out if this something the school is requiring but the way it was presented, I don’t think so.
I am with @MaineLonghorn My 2016 pushed himself. I would have never planned out his path or even mad the choices for him that he made. In fact, several times he chose a route I didn’t expect. But all the heavy lifting, summer programs, extra activities were all his choice. For my younger one, we shall see I cannot even think past 9th grade. I need to see how we deal with his auditory processing issues, dysgraphia, and the damage done by our local school district. If he wants to pile it on, we will pile it on. If not, we will follow his lead. We are not aiming for the elite schools, but we are looking at a best fit situation.
@VANURSEPRAC I stand corrected! It looks like that as of 2009 the state no longer requires Health class but allows individual school districts the option to require it for graduation. This puts me in an awkward situation, if DS takes it this summer it counts as a class taken in 8th grade so his grade won’t be part of his high school GPA or count against the number of online credits he can take if he gets accepted to public school. But if he doesn’t end up in public school it’s just a waste of time and money. My two oldest took the on-line health class and really didn’t get anything out of it.