"College Shopping"
Rachel turns 17 this week. She's a junior in High School at the Main Street School of Performing Arts. http://www.performing-arts-school.org/ She did not go out of her way to want to go to school there-it kind of just happened. She, like her brother Ian, went to a Lutheran School from Kindergarten to 8th grade. She did not want to go to one of the big local schools like Cooper, Armstrong or Wayzata. We initially were going to send her to West Lutheran High School. When my wife and Rachel sat down to register for 9th grade classes, my wife made it clear that Rachel should be in an advanced English class, because as an 8th grader, she was already reading at a collegiate level. Not suprisingly, she was bored out of her wits in 7th and 8th grade. My wife was told "we think Rachel will be JUST fine in 9th grade English"-"No, she really needs to be in an advance English Class", my wife told them. My wife and Rachel soon found themsleves having an audience with the prinicipal of West Lutheran. Rather than being understanding, he set up quizzing my wife if she thought my daughter was more intelligent than several of Rachel's classmates who were going to be going to West and would be in 9th grade English. My wife was stunned. I remember her calling me to tell me what happened. " We can get that kind of lousy service at a PUBLIC high school and not have to pay a dime" is what I remember telling the RedHead. (Thanks to that dick-headed principal, I hold West Lutheran with the type of disdain I usually hold for the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Stade Francais, the New York Yankees...and Hilary Clinton)
My wife had heard about MSSPA, a charter high school, and had a talk with their principal- who could not have been nicer about placing Rachel in more advanced classes in her 9th grade year.
Well, as my daughter is on the verge of becoming 17 this week, or as the Hmong or hillbillies would say "an old maid", she is going to be starting her college shopping in earnest. By her own admission, she is "so ready for high school to be over". She is going with a friend and her family out to Colorado and Wyoming to check out some universities there. In a couple of weeks, she and I will go up to Fargo("It's below zero, but hey, it's a DRY cold") North Dakota to check out North Dakota State. I know that at some point she is also probably going to want to check out some places in Texas, Like A&M or Texas Tech. We have a long strange trip in the elusive search for a college for my Equine-crazy daughter. To Paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, we have miles to go before we sleep.
