Indeed, any student emerging from the intensive classical education through the Rhetoric stage described will certainly be well prepared for top notch colleges. There are a lot of things I like about The Well-Trained Mind . The best parts of the book are its comprehensive structure, extensive resource lists, notebook and time-line ideas, and the authors' candidness in sharing personal experiences. The recommended schedules, though, are rather intimidating. Experienced homeschoolers know enough to adapt these suggestions to suite their lifestyle, while new homeschoolers may not.
Rigid schedules are a source of unnecessary stress and burn-out for many novice homeschoolers.
They may come away feeling defeated if they can't keep the schedule outlined in the book. A flexible schedule with choices for the student is more apt to yield success and harmony within the homeschool. All the planning and resources in the world won't do much good unless the child is motivated to learn the material. Then it hit me. It's true that there must be some sort of disciplinary consequence if school work is left undone, but subjects still need to be presented in an intentional manner to stimulate the child's interest and motivate her to learn .