Highschool To College Meeting

Last week our homeschool group held an informal meeting for those of us that are getting ready to transition a student from High School to College.  What a blessing this night was!  (I wish I would have had this two or three years ago!  It's never too early to start getting ready!) We were blessed to have a panel of six homeschool mom's come and talk to us.  Five of them have kids that are currently in College.  One has younger kids, but worked in College Admissions at a small Christian College before she had kids.

Of course my brain was hurting by the end of the night!  The info was SO valuable!  This post is my attempt to try to make some sense on my notes and share a little of what I learned. :^)

• College Level Examination Program (CLEP)
• Dantes Testing
• PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test 
• SAT
• ACT
• AP Tests (You don't have to take AP Classes to take AP tests.)
• Dual Enrollment
• Honors College - If students have an ACT score of 25 or above and a high school GPA of 3.5, they are eligible to enroll in The Honors College. Honors College students benefit from early enrollment, personal advising with the dean, and one-on-one research with professors.
• College Fairs - Check with your local High Schools and Community Colleges for schedules.
• Free College SAT Prep Classes - Check with your local Universities for schedules.
• Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) 
• The National Science & Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant (National SMART Grant) 
• Scholarships - http://www.fastweb.com/ Look for scholarships online
• Financial Aids/ Student Loans - (See Debt Free U link below.)

Books Recommended

Debt- Free U, How I Paid For An Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships or Mooching Off My Parents
By: Zac Bissonnette

Accelerated Distant Learning The New Way to Earn Your College Degree in the 21st Century
By: Brad Voeller

Fish Out of Water - Preparing Christian students for the secular campus.
By: Abby Nye

Other Websites to Checkout

College Plus - Website (business) coaches you through clepping to a degree for approx. $3000.00

clepprep.tripod.com  Site for learning how to accumulate college credits the EASY way, using their FREE lesson plans. 

KOHL's Cares for Kid's Scholarship for Young Volunteer's

presidentialserviceawards.gov - Keep a record of service in a private online journal of your volunteer time and experiences. You can keep a record of your activities serving your neighbor, your community, your country and the world. Then you can submit those to earn volunteer service awards.

ratemyprofessor.com - Find a Professor, Find a School, Find a Textbook

Wikipedia page for College Boards - A clear definition of the tests for getting into College and getting scholarships.

Whew!  Now that I have links to all the info I just need to wade through it and figure out what is what!   This should keep me bust for awhile!

:^)

Mom

Waiting

We haven't heard anything yet about the job interview.  They said we would know by April 1st.  Of course we were hoping to know MUCH sooner! It's weird not having ANY control over this!  This is probably the first thing he has ever done in his life that has absolutely nothing to do with me.  There is no one I can call to speed up the process.  There is nothing I can do to make them know how awesome he is!  ;^) 

Of course I can pray.  And I do!  I even drove over to the water park the other day and sat in the parking lot and prayed for him.  I prayed for more than him just getting the job.  I prayed for the safety of all the kids and families that will be there this Summer.  I prayed for any friendships son will make if he's working there this Summer.  I prayed for him to do a great job and learn and mature because of the responsibilities he will have. And of course I prayed that his application would SHINE and that they would be calling to offer him a job SOON!

This letting go thing is not going to be easy.

Mom

My First Job Interview

This morning, I went to my first job interview. It was at a job fair for a local water park. A close friend had worked there for several years now, and we went to the job fair together, in his case to reapply, and in my case to apply for the first time ever.

I'd filled out applications and turned them in before, but unfortunately I'd never gotten an interview, or as well as I can tell, a second look.

However, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And so, when I heard about this job fair a month or so ago, I decided to head in and get an interview, and hopefully a job.

My real preparations, however, started yesterday, as I filled out an application, found some nice clothes to wear, and got a haircut, in the hopes that I might look my best and impress my interviewer.

And so, after filling in my application, and getting a good night's sleep, this morning my friend and I headed out to the job fair.

As we stepped into the job fair, being held at a nearby mega-church (the water park is owned by a family of Christians), the two of us split up since he was a reapplying employee, and I was a first time applicant.

Immediately, I was told to sit down at a table and wait. And wait I did. Finally after around 20-25 minutes, they moved all of the applicants together into one large group, and a man gave a powerpoint presentation, talking mostly about the different poisitions available, mentioning different policies the park had (no visible tattoos, no visible piercings other than girls ears, etc.), and different perks for working at the water park.

Finally the split the large group up, by moving people who were interested in different jobs into different groups. Probably around 75-80% of the applicants were applying mainly to be lifeguards.

As I was applying mainly for retail positions, they moved me into a smaller group. I was one of the first people they interviewed. Unlike most interviews, they split us up into groups of three, and interviewed us all at once. It was interesting. I was the first one who was asked a question.

"Tell me a little bit about yourself."

I told them that I was going to be a senior next year, that I was homeschooled, and various other small tidbits about myself.

"What position's, specifically, are you interested in?"

I told him front gate, or cashier in either the kitchen or locker areas.

"What are you greatest strengths and weaknesses?" He asked, finally.

Ah yes, the big question. I had spent most the time I was waiting debating what my answer to this question would be, should it come up. Did I answer with a fake sounding strength, disguised as a weakness? Should I be honest?

First I started with my strength. I was a people person, and people told me I was quite Charismatic, and good with words, I said.

Finally, for my weakness I decided to go with an actual flaw. I told him I was a "bit high-strung".

Then the two girls sitting at the table had their turns. Humorously enough, their answers to the greatest weakness question was that they were "I'm too friendly." and "I have too good of a personality."

One can only hope my gambit of honesty pays up as I sit here and wait, hopefully, for a callback.

Finishing Up!

My 16 year old is in the home stretch of homeschooling!  It seems like only yesterday we were starting out on this adventure called homeschooling!  But, in reality that was 14 years ago!   A few months ago I got the idea that my son and I should start a blog and co-blog through rest of his homeschooling career.  I figure there are a lot of people out there that might be interested what it's like to homeschool all the way from start to finish. He liked the idea too. But, I wasn't sure where to start.

We are doing a lot of thinking/prepping for next couple of years already happening.  So I was thinking we should start documenting things sooner instead of later.  Then today I was reading to my 2 younger kids.  We were reading a History book that I used with my oldest 7 years ago.  As I flipped through the book a piece of paper fell out of the back of the book.....It Said:

I NAC OD TI WETH S'MOM EPLH. I EVOL MOM

It took me a couple of seconds to realize what it really said:

I CAN DO IT WITH MOM'S HELP. I LOVE MOM

There are NO words to explain the flood of emotion that followed.   I had almost forgotten the struggle that it was to teach my son to spell!  It was always a conundrum to me because this was my child that could spontaneously read when he was three!  But spelling was a whole different challenge! For years he struggled with spelling and writing.  It was almost like it was painful to him!  So many times he gave me papers with all the words written backwards.  If he did write the letters in the correct order then more than likely he would write entire sentences and paragraphs with no spaces between the words.  

Hewouldjustwriteeverythingtogetherlikethiswhichwasveryveryhardtoread!

If this was happening today I  would have been Googling like mad trying to find an answer.  But, back then the internet was pretty new.  Homeschoolers were not connected the way they are now.  So we just kept trying different things.  Finally, I came up with the idea of having him do all his writing on graph paper.  That was the answer for him!  Before long he could write the letters in order with proper spaces.  And as much as we struggled through that I somehow haven't thought of it in years! I honestly don't know if I ever saw that paper before.  If I did I don't remember it.  But today it had SO much meaning!  We have been through SO MUCH together on our homeschool journey.  Some of it was FUN, some of it was HARD, all of it is a TREASURE!

So reading this really made me really think about the fact that my son still needs me!  And although in many ways I wish I could keep the next couple years from happening, I want to be there for him in every way I can! Even though he is  taller than me and has been for quite awhile there are still A LOT of things he needs me for.  We are blessed to have a wonderful relationship and he is very open and honest with me that he is very grateful for my support and involvement in his teen years.  We talk about everything.  We laugh about MUCH that is happening in the world around us as we try to figure it all out together.  I am VERY blessed!  

The idea of this blog is to document the coming years as we get through it together.  Some things will be FUN, some will be HARD and all of it I want to TREASURE! I remember so well people asking way back when we started what we would do about High School.  I always said we take one year at a time and figure it out when we got there.  Well, that has been SO true!  We have taken one year at a time and here we are about to finish the race!

I am amazed and overjoyed with the amazing young man my son has become.  Every day he impresses me with his knowledge and his ability to learn and understand things that are way over my head.  I always use to take comfort in the thought that I only had to stay one day ahead of him.  Now I marvel at how he passed me up in knowledge several years ago!  Nothing could be more rewarding to me since I have been his only teacher.  With that said there are still SO MANY things I still have to teach him!  So many practical things.  Some of it we will figure out together like how to take the SAT and ACT, how to apply to Colleges, etc.  Some of it I will know pretty well like how to apply for a job and how to drive a car. These are exciting days that I know for a fact will go too fast! I invite you to  follow along as we head out on the last leg of our homeschool adventure!

Oh, and we both agreed that I Can Do It's With Mom's Help is the perfect name for our blog! 

Mom