My 2pworth comes mostly from my memory of being an adolescent girl, not from the parental side. Just throwing it out:
- it really doesn't sound as though the virtual school is a good fit. (Assessment mostly by dubious multiple choice - eek!) It sounds as though you're seeing the transcripts as a major benefit - but is that really important? Plenty of homeschoolers without formal school involvement seem to get into good universities.
- you have years in hand at this point, in the sense that your DD is years ahead of her age peers. Could you maybe relax a bit and use one of them now? I guess this may mean undoing the idea that she's in "high school" now, but she's going to be the kind of applicant whose application needs to be looked at by a human rather than a computer, anyway, so surely that needn't be a problem. I think if I were you I'd offer time-limited unschooling, along the lines of "we'll do it this way for a year, and then reevaluate. If by then you've learned how to challenge yourself and work consistently to your own plan, and you want to continue, we'll certainly consider it, or maybe it'll make sense to go to timetabled schooling, or something in between. But we expect it to take a while for you to establish a pattern and we want to take the pressure off, so we won't worry about what it is you learn in that year: you choose."
- adolescence really can be that bad especially when one lacks friends and doesn't feel as though one fits in. Depression, even suicide, and anorexia are real and serious problems. Sneaking sweets does not rule out anorexia (actually, quite the reverse). Please take this seriously. Your DD clearly has a lot to cope with. Could you get her a good psychotherapist? Also, does she have trusted adults to talk to other than her parents (and if she has but doesn't see them often, can you quietly arrange more access)? Both might really help.
