Transcript question: science textbook dates?

[TiaTia]

Has anyone had a college require an applicant to provide dates for spine textbooks in course descriptions?  Thoughts/ideas/information on "how old is too old" for listing a science textbook?

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

My dd isn't interested in majors in the sciences/STEM.  I included the edition and year for each text book in the course description for science and math courses.  For social studies/humanities courses I included the edition.  For novels just author and title.  So far she has had positive results from admissions committees/officers.  No one has come back with any questions.

 

My gut says for a kid interested in STEM work that the textbook choice and age for science courses might matter but I have no experience or proof to back that up.  Hopefully one of the board members with kids in that area will answer with their experience.

[ThisIsTheDay]

I've never had a college request a course description. I've included them only because I believe they have been one more tool to present my kid in a positive light.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Several of the schools ds applied to specified what sort of information they needed in order to evaluate a homeschooler.  A transcript with course description was the easiest way for me to assemble and accumulate the info.

 

We used Apologia for Chemistry.  For physics we used College Physics by Knight & Jones and Apologia.  None of these were super old, but they weren't last year's edition either.  

 

For biology we used Miller & Levine's Biology.  I went back and forth over the best edition.  I finally went with the dragonfly edition, which is 2004, because Kolbe had a course plan that was easy to implement.  I decided that this edition was OK when I realized the very large public district near us was using the same edition still.  Their students go on to many select universities.

 

I haven't had anyone question the date of the edition we used.  Having said that, I wouldn't use a biology textbook spine that was any older than the dragonfly edition.  I think too much is moving too quickly in biology.  I am hoping to update to a newer course plan when ds3 does biology.

[regentrude]

None of DD's colleges wanted to know the year of the textbook. I have listed the names and authors of the textbooks in the course descriptions.

 

Physics books can easily be fifty years old; in fact, those were probably much better. Chemistry - several decades is fine. We're talking intro courses; the cutting edge material would not be covered anyway.

Biology - not so much. Progress has been fast in cell bio and genetics. OTOH, form and function of organisms has not changed much, so you could use an older text and supplement with more recent material for the new stuff.

 

But I cannot imagine that any college looks at the year of the text.

Edited February 7, 2016 by regentrude

[Nan in Mass]

None of DD's colleges wanted to know the year of the textbook. I have listed the names and authors of the textbooks in the course descriptions.

 

Physics books can easily be fifty years old; in fact, those were probably much better. Chemistry - several decades is fine. We're talking intro courses; the cutting edge material would not be covered anyway.

Biology - not so much. Progress has been fast in cell bio and genetics. OTOH, form and function of organisms has not changed much, so you could use an older text and supplement with more recent material for the new stuff.

 

But I cannot imagine that any college looks at the year of the text.

Completely off topic, but when I was in college, I (and most of the class) flunked a physics test. I was panicking so my father drove out to help me study for the re-test. He brought his own college text book and we sat next to each other on my bed, each with our own book open on our lap. The books matched almost page for page. The boxed formulas were even in the same spot on some of the pages. I was surprised but my father just laughed and said of course, that you had to get pretty high up in physics before things began looking different, that the basic formulas were the same. On the other hand, when my mother looked through my sister's bio book (both were bio majors), she said that the emphasis seemed to have changed entirely. My sister's book emphasized evolutionary mechanisms, ecosystems, classification, and chemistry. Hers had emphasized things like anatomical mechanisms and behavior. My children used the dragonfly book, which I found at the dump swop shop. I thought it was ok except that the classification was outdated and it simplified some of the more complex concepts like genetics so much that we couldn't figure out how it worked. They glossed over some crucial information. My mother had to explain it to us using the diagrams in my sister's college Bio 101 text.

 

I tried to avoid putting dates in the course descriptions for bio. We used some pretty old natural history books lol. I just listed titles. For other sciences that were more textbook based, I did put the edition. I didn,t have anyone ask me for dates. I didn,t always supply everything the college asked for, either, for the safeties. U Mass Amherst wanted a dated transcript, for example, which I ignored.

 

Nan

[TechWife]

I didn't have to provide any course descriptions. I do have some course descriptions written and have sufficient notes to create the others if I ever need to, though I can't imagine why I would. I didn't think to put the date of the textbook in the description, though. I don't think it's really important. 

[Kareni]

As I recall, I simply listed the textbook title, author, and edition.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[AngieW in Texas]

I didn't provide any course descriptions or book lists, but none of my kids were applying for elite schools. My kids were accepted everywhere they applied.

 

I was worried about the applications my youngest put in at three NY schools, but she was accepted at all of them with hefty scholarships, just not hefty enough except for one of them.

[TiaTia]

Off topic some more -- Nan, how did U Mass Amherst respond to not getting a dated transcript, out of curiosity?  BTW, I just saw that they require "proof of graduation" in the form of an "official" transcript from some entity or else a GED.  Sheesh.

[Nan in Mass]

Off topic some more -- Nan, how did U Mass Amherst respond to not getting a dated transcript, out of curiosity? BTW, I just saw that they require "proof of graduation" in the form of an "official" transcript from some entity or else a GED. Sheesh.

They responded with acceptance to engineering school, honors program, and a scholarship. He did have a CC transcript with drawing, speech, comp, precalc, calc, chem, physics, and bio on it. My transcript had no grades or dates. I suspect they just ignored it. I couldn't get them to back down on the GED requirement, despite pointing out the other two options were unavailable in Mass. and sending them our school department paperwork from each high school year saying that our homeschooling plan was acceptable and our yearly assessments were fine. But I see they have just backed down on that some!

 

Nan