Claire – I hear you! Makayla has decided she’s heading into veterinary medicine and after the undergrad work (usually 4 years) she still has to get accepted to a vet college. The ones she is looking at have a 10-15% acceptance rate of applicants. Eeek!
For science she can do oral or written narrations, we aim for an even mix.
One thing that helped Makayla was to have her research entrance requirements for the schools she is interested in – both for undergrad and vet school. She saw that it wasn’t just mom’s crazy suggestion that she get 2 years of a foreign language in – that the schools require it. So now she’s planning what language to do for 11th and 12th. She looked at average ACT scores for students accepted and will take the ACT for the first time this year (10th) and see what areas she needs to work on improving from there.
Another thing that has helped is having her in at least 1 outside/online class each year, so she gets a different teacher that isn’t mom, who she doesn’t feel so free to ask for extensions on assignments, etc. In 8th it was a mythology course. Last year a Graphic design with Adobe Illustrator (that I couldn’t begin to help her with, so she was forced to do the work and use the teacher’s office hours when she had questions). This year is two Veterinary Medicine courses and a Criminology course. All these require her participation, written work, graded tests and quizzes, and live online presentations to the rest of the class. It’s pushed her gently out of her comfort zone to learn new skills or strengthen weak skills.
Do I worry? Yes and no. I think we did a lot less work in high school than we realize – and a lot more fill in the blank and busy work. Does she need to be prepared to handle the workload and follow the teacher’s expectations without the opportunity to negotiate? Yes. So we’re just nudging up the difficulty and are actually grading things now that she’s in high school. (We only graded math before, and science tests in junior high). I know that she’s capable. I know that I can’t be the motivating factor, she’s got to want it and be teachable and willing to learn how to work for it.