@mountainsoul – what about colorado state?
So my D23 got an email a couple days ago about the school district’s “middle college school”, which is a public 11th+12th grade high school essentially co-located with the open-admissions university where I work, and lets students take classes at the college for DE credit as part of their regular curriculum.
To get in you have to have above a 3.0 (I think it is) and test into a particular level of writing and math (that is, not necessarily at the level of fulfilling gen-ed requirements, but not requiring remedial courses), but students are then placed in actual college classes to complete their high school requirements.
To my surprise, D23 was very excited about this yesterday and said she wanted to sign up for the info session next week.
So we’ll be looking into it. One interesting thing, which is a big plus IMO: For courses that satisfy high school credit requirements, all tuition, fees, and books are covered. For any other courses (e.g., music theory, which D23 apparently wants to take at the college level) we’re on the hook for all the college costs, but since I work there up to 12 credits of tuition per semester is waived, so I’m like hey, take all the music theory you want!
And as a side effect of this she seems to be excited about taking German as a college course, even though she’s kind of over it as a high school course (currently in AP German).
So this is all good, I think.
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CSU is a reputable college, but it’s not on our radar because CU Boulder has a well-regarded school of engineering with good career/educational outcomes. Plus, I’m an alum. Go Buffs! 
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Does anyone know of a solid, smaller LAC that has a good photography program (but not as a major). My D is a very strong student academically but very much an introvert so doesn’t have all the fancy ECs that will likely be important for T20 schools. However, she has recently gotten into photography and has really found her niche. I’m hoping this interest will help her stand out when she applies to some schools. She doesn’t want big, urban or “rah rah” so we are thinking small LACs might be her thing. Open to any and all suggestions as we start to compile her list.
@1923girls - Does she have a location preference?
Preferably west of the Mississippi
How about the Claremont Colleges out in California? Offers some additional variety of college experiences while keeping that smaller LAC feel.
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Has anyone here heard of Maialearning as an alternative to Naviance? D23 is my youngest of four, so I’ve been through the college search/app process three times already and all were different (oldest was fairly straightforward, 2nd was an athletic recruit, 3rd has an LD). Of course, I thought with D23, the process would be easier with my previous experience, but she has thrown a wrench in that by announcing she is very interested in going to school in UK/Ireland. A new learning curve, but I digress!
Last night her school’s college advising office had its first parent/student session. Since she goes to a different school than my older three, we attended the virtual meeting to see how her school handles the process. Most of the info presented was things I already knew, but they mentioned that they use Maialearning instead of Naviance. Apparently they used Naviance in the past, but switched to Maialearning. They did a quick slideshow showing a couple of things it does, and it looked pretty similar to Naviance, but this was the first time I have heard of it. Just wondering if anyone else’s school uses it and whether anyone can compare to Naviance.
On a different note, D23 is doing well this year. Her school is hybrid. For most of the first semester, she was attending school in person 2x/week. We requested she be all remote between the holidays (my son was having surgery and we wanted to avoid a possible exposure/quarantine situation). We planned for her to go back after winter break, but she decided for at least the 3rd quarter she wanted to remain all remote. None of her friends are in her cohort/classes and at least two of her teachers teach from home, so I guess she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle (wearing mask all day, no friends, no socializing afterschool, getting up earlier for the 30 min commute, winter blahs). She plans to return to campus in March. Her school recently had its staff all vaccinated, so perhaps there is a chance they will return to all in person by 4th quarter but either way, she won’t stay all remote for 4th quarter.
She was recently accepted into the IB Programme and currently selecting courses for next year. She plans to go for the full diploma, but that could change with the rigorous coursework. She’s working PT at a locally owned small hardware store which she really enjoys. I guess that social outlet makes up for not being in person at school. Her Model UN club has been working remotely and already had one conference. Her big conference is next weekend. It’s the same one she participated in last year in DC so she is really missing the fact that it is all remote this year. That’s about it for a little update on D23.
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Reed College or Whitman are both in the PNW and could be good for an introvert seeking a LAC experience. Colorado College could also be a good fit but their block plan (i.e. one class for 3.5 weeks) is not for everyone.
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This list has some ideas for photography programs: Colleges With Fine Photography Programs | CollegeXpress
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Hello ALL! Any parents out there with the same predicament (budding BSMD sophomores)?
Hi @4kids4us - haven’t heard of that alternative to Naviance but I’m in the same boat as I was well-versed in Naviance thanks to D19 and S23’s school just switched to SCOIR. It has scattergrams, and seems to be somewhat similar, so I think you’ll probably find that Maialearning is close enough…
And my son is also interested in going overseas for all of college - to Australia (we are dual nationals). So I’m investigating that now. There is a FB group called Flown Abroad, Full-Time Version that you might want to join. There are quite a few parents with kids in UK schools. (Not many at all in Oz, unfortunately for me 
)
Meanwhile, my work has a new benefit - Bright Horizons college coaching - which I am happy to use. There are webinars and resources and q&a portals where they get back to you fairly quickly, and they also offer one-on-one counseling sessions by phone with their coaches, who are all prior admissions or financial aid officers. All free, so yay, work!
I had my first session with a coach yesterday - they obv. aren’t set up to hold our hands on a weekly basis or anything, but she said the benefits people seem to be OK with, like, 3 sessions a school year or something in that range.
They also will put together reach/match/safety lists for you starting in February of junior year, based on you uploading all your kid’s data. So a pretty good alternative if your high school counselors have tons of kids to monitor, or if you want a second opinion
She was impressed with my knowledge - I think we all get that reaction, being cc denizens - and said it was unusual to talk to a sophomore parent without having to explain a bunch of stuff, lol.
She said S23 is on track with course rigor and ECs in terms of wanting selective schools. Said she had noticed right away that he was doubling up on math this year and called it a smart move.
But she warned that if he gets more than one B, he will not be on track … which I knew, but am hoping my son internalizes pretty quickly, as he has two Bs on his interim report card. (He got one in ninth grade.)
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So the family took D17 to the airport yesterday evening for her flight across the continent for her in-person spring semester.
Then we came back home, and before D17 had even boarded her plane D23 had moved her drum set from her room into (what had been) D17’s room as the first step in taking it over as her music studio.
Hey, I guess if the opportunity presents itself…
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Wow, that seems brutal but perhaps not in the context of your high school. D had some Bs on her transcript from fresh/soph years and is at an ivy.
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@Gatormama Australia would certainly be cool too! I think D23 is focusing at the moment on English speaking countries although she did say that the accent in Scotland is much harder to understand so she wasn’t sure she would consider a university there I actually did recently join that Grown and Flown group (I’m already in the main one as well as the Study Abroad one). I figure I need a much bigger start with D23 because I am totally inexperienced with attending university abroad, other than the typical semester abroad that my oldest did (as well as me many years ago!).
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I recall driving home from dropping off my older sister from college and my little brother asked if he could have her room LOL
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I have the opposite problem here. Four kids, two boys and two girls. Boys have always shared a bedroom. Oldest, a girl, has been away at college. Due to COVID, she stayed in her off campus apartment the entire last year, not coming home for summer as planned. Her room has been sitting empty. With hybrid/remote school, I suggested to my high schooler that he use his empty sister’s room for his online classes because she has a desk. He refuses because her room has lavender walls (one of his teachers won’t allow them to change background). So instead he uses our formal dining room table which is open to the entire first floor and means I have to constantly be aware of any noise I’m making (no running the Roomba, emptying the dishwasher, etc).
The only one who seems to want to be in her room is our dog! Twice this week I have found him lying curled up on her bed at night. He normally sleeps outside our bedroom door (we invite him in but for some reason he prefers to stay there). I texted my daughter to say he must really miss her!
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I happened to “strongly voice my disappointment” in the 2 C’s my son will have on his report card while he was gaming with friends not long ago. His buddy overheard and happened to mention it to his dad, who just happens to be an associate principal at my son’s school. End of story, my son’s grade went to a B+. (Summer school teacher didnt grade my son’s final and didn’t return communication. Because my son was on vacation and it didnt upload “on time” I didnt push the issue because I felt like it was partially my sons fault.) What I didnt know was this temp summer school teacher had some other parents complaining and got their kids finals graded and counted. So it wasnt like he did anything illegal, just did what should have been done this summer.
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omg, this “on time” stuff gets me too. My kid is constantly showing Fs on his day-to-day grade book b/c he hasn’t submitted stuff. What did they do when they were in person? It slays me. I guess there was in-class shaming/peer pressure or something.