I have a rising freshman and a rising 7th grader.
We just went through the course selection for HS. What a nightmare (on me, not on him).
I believe that there is not enough people on this forum that have middle/hs age kids to make it really fly. We can exchange knowledge/ideas, but it will be a little one directional, I think.
But we can try!
I wanted to second Grinity's reccomendation of What High Schools don't Tell You (and Other Parents don't Want You to Know ). It is written from a perspective of a parent who aspires for her kids to attend top/ivy/portfolio type colleges so you have to read it with a grain of salt, but some of the ideas the author presents in the book are extremely valuable.
For example, I never knew that when applying for research positions towards the end of HS (and this is how you make those winning Intel/Siemens projects) candidates are being asked if they ever participated in a talent search? Who knew? Especially since the importance of participation is so downplayed by many, many schools?
This is a book my DH is reading right now. It contains a lot of things I was already aware of - nice way for him to catch up
