I feel a bit bad for my S23. Hes on vacation with his dad in a touristy area and says traffic is horrible and lines for everything are packed. Sadly, his stepmom and stepsibling hate crowds and despise waiting and all the fun things he and his dad had planned to do are getting cut out by the sounds of it.
Pandemic is not stopping the crowds I guess.
D23 just texted excitedly that she saw a notification between classes that sheād gotten an email from the dual-enrollment high school, and when she checked found that her application has been accepted.
Itās effectively guaranteed admission if you place into either beginning-of-college-level math or composition (and she placed into both), but given what she texted us, she clearly had thought it was still not a given for her.
And you know what, I think thatās okay. If getting into the program was a surprise boost of confidence for her, Iām not going to disabuse her of that. Just as sometimes itās useful for our kids to experience trying and failing at something, sometimes our kids need to feel the victories theyāve earned, too.
12 Likes
D23 was just accepted to our stateās public residential STEM high school. She is super excited and it will be an amazing opportunity but Iām a little sad that sheās leaving the nest 2 years earlier than expected.
Sheāll actually be farther away from home than D20 is at college!
13 Likes
Cool that your state has one; I wish Vermont did. My S21 is now in early college in NY for his senior year but it has not been a fun-filled year thanks to Covid. Hope youāll get to visit at least.
1 Like
New class of 2023 parent here. New to this board and also, my kid used to be in the class of 2022. She was just accepted to an amazing boarding school for next year as a repeat Junior. I am actually relieved as she had no Junior year due to all cyber-Covid. And I was not ready to have a senior looking at colleges!
6 Likes
Results are in, both of the twins made the Leadership Team for Marching Band next year!!! Thing 1ās ego is a tiny bit bruised though because he didnāt get picked to be section leader, but got assigned as equipment/music manager. Same for Thing 2 (heās fine with the position lol). I told him any Leadership position is a big deal and it just sets him up for section leader senior year!
Heāll be fine lol and Iām very proud of these two monkeys of mine!
7 Likes
Welcome to the newbies! I am kind of jealous of getting to be a repeat junior next year. I seriously considered pulling my son and just calling it quits for the year a few weeks ago. He is going on a full year of trying to get mental health problems under control and school seems to really get in the way of that. Plus, trying to keep the grades up for college admissions when he is struggling so much is becoming a full time job for me. We made it over the hump though and have a good plan for next year to ease the stress. Also, I donāt want to be all braggy, but we finally found an alarm app that will wake my son up without my assistance. He may be able to function on his own in time for college! Also, from obsessively reading these boards, I found a couple of good financial safeties for college options and went back and looked at our pre-paid tuition plan and determined its better than I thought if you do not use it in the state it is attached to.
6 Likes
So Thing 2 got an email today from Senator Cornynās office that the Summer Page Program he applied to has been cancelled this year due to Covid 
The coordinator did encourage him to reapply for next summer and that his application would be given priority so there is that.
Sorry to hear thatā¦understandable and yet disappointing.
Iām thinking something similar may happen to D23 for a different program. She hasnāt been selected yet, and itās definitely a reach, but she did make it to the semifinalist round and has a shot. This past week rather than naming those selected as theyād intended to, they sent out a notice saying they were delaying notifications a month. We went from thinking she had a shot at this summer experience (a dream match for her) a few days ago to thinking it likely it wonāt happen and she maybe not even know if she was going to be selected.
In positive news, she got her 1st dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday (as did our whole family), so weāre looking forward to some more normalcy in summer activities anyway but will be sad if this program gets cancelled. I do think that many programs that run virtually this summer (D23 has one of those sheās been accepted to and is considering) will probably do a better job than they were able to do last summer.
4 Likes
Not sure if @stencils is still on the forum but did post early in this thread but has 2 at Temple so could give you the low down on that school.
I live in Center City Philly and that neighborhood has definitely improved since the mid 90ās when I moved here. When my S23 gets back to in-person school his HS is located a couple of Broad Street Line stops south of Temple. Lots of improvement in the area.
2 Likes
Congrats! How many states have those now? I went to NCSSM back in the 80s. Wouldnāt trade that experience for anything.
Havenāt been here in a while. My S23 is still remote and basically checked out of school. He just does what ever he needs to do and has good grades except for Pre-calc where itās a bit iffy. Has no desire to do any school related activities outside of class either. Heās pretty set on Computer Science so outside of class heās learned Python, Java and now heās learning Unity/C# as his desire is to make games as a career. He does still take music lessons every week so Gaming including music for games. The university where I and my spouse work offers all that and so he can go there tuition free so heās happy to go there. Iām going to get him to take the SAT this Fall and weāll see how things look and if we can hope for any merit at places.
4 Likes
Overgeneralizing from personal experience, but what it took for my D23 to finally take school seriously (though admittedly more as a means to an end, not for the enjoyment of it for itself) was to find what she really likes outside of school, and realizing that she can leverage education to focus on it. For my kid itās music tech, maybe for your S23 itāll be some element or another of game design!
And also, since you mentioned music for games, just for the chuckles you should go to YouTube and find the āHirokazu Tanaka Songā. Hirokazu Tanaka is a highly successful and well known videogame music composer, but for that one he found ten other men with the same name and recorded them singing about how theyāre themselves, not him.
I still canāt get my son to care about precalc. 
But I tell my son all the time that if he wants to go to college OOS, that he has to improve his grades a bit to get merit money to make it affordable. THAT is what lights a small flame under his butt.
He said his dad and stepmom get on his case often about his gpa (and of course his stepsiblings gpa is higher but they also do online learning and sorry but I donāt know of any kids who home/virtual schooled full time who havenāt had a 3.75 or above unless there was true LD). I hate kicking the kid when hes down. Overall he just wants this year (and these classes) over with so he can start the schedule he feels he had more control over his junior year.
2 Likes
@Dolemite stirred me from a sleepy state of ignoring the fact Iāve got one more to go, my S23, on the college path. I introduced myself about 1000 posts ago, so Iāll do it again. Iāve got a D17 finishing up senior year at Temple, and a D20 as a freshman there. Weāre OOS but D17 ended up there as a recruited athlete, and then D20 fell in love with Temple and Philly and followed big sister there. S23 wonāt likely follow his sisters to Temple, but all three are STEM kids. S23 wistfully talks about going out of country for school ā and has mentioned Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia multiple timesā¦ weāll see in two years!
@Gatormama sounds like youāre in PA so maybe you know all about Temple already, but as an out-of-stater with two there now, Iāve spent lots of time on campus in the last 4 years and am happy to answer questions. Both girls are in the Honors Program there, which has excellent perks and Iād highly recommend.
3 Likes
Right after school today D23 attended an online info session for the University of Colorado Denverās College of Arts and Media. (A public regional, not a flagship, but theyāve figured out how to specialize well enough that they apparently have a name-brand music industry program. Out of state without a lot of scholarships available, but sheād be eligible for WUE tuition, soā¦) And now she wants to go there for college.
She said this made her realize that college advertising works really well on her. Not emails or paper mail (unless there are stickers! stickers are always appreciated), but the personal touch, that reels her in. It can even be a completely one-sided thing where itās a webinar presentation with no interaction whatsoeverāif itās another human being talking about how great the college is, yeah, she likes that.
(Actually, her one complaint was that there were so few people there that they had the potential applicants all introduce themselves, and she hates speaking in Zoom interactions. But she got through it, and still enjoyed the personal touch anyway.)
5 Likes
Hello everyone! Well here we go again! Iām back to CC, this time for our S23 whoās planning to major in computer science. Iām wondering if anyone here has any experience with the following pre-college programs?
- Inspirit AI ($900 for 2 weeks online)
- Envision MGTA - Mason Game Technology Academy at George Mason University (online & residential options - $500/$1,500 respectively for 1 week)
My son is VERY interested in taking their courses, but theyāre so expensive!!!
If anyone here can offer feedback if itās worth it or not, we may consider. OR if you have other suggestions, please share! Thank you!
2 Likes
My S23 is also interested in CS and Game Design.
What has your S23 done so far in regards to programming? My S23 has taken Python through AoPS and Java through Outschool. AoPS was more expensive but structured and well done and what he needed at his age when he took them. The Java classes were cheaper and a step above a self guided program. Heās now taking Unity/C# on Outschool which is more focused on Gaming than just learning programming in general.
My S23 is currently learning Java at school and will take AP Comp Sci next year. Heās teaching himself Godot/GDScript right now and is familiar with Unity/C#. He taught himself how to use Blender (modeling/animation). For now, game programming is just a fun hobby for him, and he prefers to major in computer science. Heās having fun teaching himself and wants to learn more Unity/C# and AI.
Which classes on Outschool would you recommend? Thank you!
If he is self motivated he could look for Free Courses like through Stanford and other schools:
https://online.stanford.edu/free-courses
Outschool has many classes that you can browse and see if anything catches his eye. My S23 is about to start a supposedly intermediate level class next week.