I'm doing a year of world mythology with my 12 and 15 year olds, and we're planning to listen to Elizabeth Vandiver's Classical Mythology course to go along with that....does anyone have a reading list that they could share that would work well with this? The course is on Hoopla through our library, so I don't have access to the guidebook. I can call them about buying it separately if someone tells me it's worth it, but I really just want to know what versions of the texts would work best with the lectures.

huh--interesting. My son took physics and is now taking linear algebra DE at a local university, and he's been allowed to use his graphing calculator on tests in both (actually, the first linear algebra test is today, but it's his understanding that calculators are allowed)

My husband teaches Calculus at a local public school--a well regarded one that sends many students to very selective colleges. Most high school math teachers would not be comfortable teaching Calculus, and schools often hire new teachers specifically as Calc teachers because they're difficult to find. Like Regentrude said, teaching is not a high paid profession compared to most fields that people who are strong in math or science might go into (I know this is where someone brings up how high teacher salaries are in New Jersey or wherever, but, generally speaking, a teaching career does not pay nearly as well as the vast majority of jobs in which one is expected to have an advanced math or science degree). DH has a degree in math, not math education, and didn't plan to go into teaching back when he was in college. He has a masters in math education now, and, while he says he learned some worthwhile stuff doing it (he did it online, several years into his teaching career), it was definitely more about getting the pay bump than feeling like it would make him a better teacher. Teaching attracts an awful lot of caring, talented people who are doing it for reasons other than money....but between the relatively poor pay and the other significant job satisfaction issues, it can't attract enough of them to teach AP Calculus well at every school.

We get 10 a month with our Hoopla, and I felt like I was deprived with that (okay, mostly because my 5 year old keeps checking out Paw Patrol episodes)....I'll stop complaining now; looks like we have it good! I'm planning to do Beowulf with all my older kids later this year, and I was going to give John Gardner's Grendel to my 12th grader at the same time...although I guess I should re-read it myself first (it's been well over 20 years since I read it, and I don't remember much), to see if I really want to do that.

We're not very far into this, so maybe it will become clear.....but is there somewhere on the common app where it tells you to send requests for DE transcripts? DS is saying he's already entered that he took classes at a college and it's telling him that none of his colleges require courses and grades. I was planning to upload a copy of his transcript in the transcript section, but no? Does he need to send the same kind of request to his college as he sent to me as his counselor?

My kid decided on his own what went on his (I am not a spreadsheet person; he is). He's got average SAT, admission rate, whether being male gives him an advantage or disadvantage :), location, whether they consider demonstrated interest or location, whether we have a visit scheduled, any special application requirements for homeschoolers, whether they require subject tests or the SAT w/essay, need blind or need aware, net price on the NPC, and he's adding a column now for application deadlines.

The people who do Radiolab have a podcast about Supreme Court decisions called More Perfect. There's also one called Constitutional with one episode about each amendment (I haven't listened to that one at all yet; she did one about presidents before which was....okay).

Ah--I didn't read it carefully enough and thought you had physical science in 9th grade. oops!

physical science, not physics ? When I was in school, you took physical science in 9th grade and then maybe you'd take physics in 12th if you were strong in science and/or were going to college. Now there are so many physics options (AP and otherwise) that kids generally take one or more of those but don't take a separate physical science class if they're doing a rigorous science sequence.

My oldest took a physical science class in 9th grade because a local hybrid school was offering it and I thought that's how science was done (since that's what I did in 9th grade....nearly 3 decades ago ?)....in retrospect, I would have started with biology or with an algebra based physics class. It turns out, at least in our area, physical science isn't generally offered in high school on a college prep track. Now that I know what our dual enrollment options and limitations are and what his interests are, I would have done biology and chemistry either at home or as outside classes and then he could have taken as much physics as he wanted dual enrollment (he likes physics; just wants to get through bio and chem).

My DS did nothing but Khan (after trying out a couple of different practice books and finding them frustrating to deal with) and that worked very well for him. He opted not to do the essay. There are very few colleges that require or suggest it, so it just depends on where he wants to apply. If there's somewhere on his list that DOES require it, go ahead and have him do it when he takes his first SAT. We figured DS would take it more than once and could prepare for the essay for round 2....but then he wound up getting a score he was happy with the first time. Fortunately, the last school on his list that required the essay dropped the requirement a few months ago; otherwise he would have had to decide between taking the SAT again JUST to get an essay score and not applying to a school he was interested in because he didn't have it. With a 1480 already, he's in great shape....one things I'd say is to make sure he's taking the practice tests under the same conditions as the actual test as much as possible. I.e. do it all in one sitting without long breaks in between sections. I read that people generally do worse on the real test than the practices; this wasn't the case for my son (he scored 40-50 points higher than his highest practice test), and I think it's partially because he did the practices as if they were the real test. ETA: I think a full practice test every week for 7 weeks might be overkill; it sounds exhausting, or at least it would have been for my kid. YMMV, of course, but be careful of burnout. My son did a total of 3 full practice tests over the course of several months, IIRC.

I just started working on my counselor letter today, so I'm glad to have this thread to follow. I know parents with kids in school worry plenty about the college admissions thing, too, but I can't help but feel a little jealous right now of everyone who doesn't have to write counselor letters or course descriptions!

Rice looks awesome, but it's in that crapshoot for pretty much anyone category (something like 9% admission rate). He has a bias against Texas for whatever reason, but I've been trying to get him to look at Rice.

I hope it's feasible because we're trying it this year ? (world history). I did US history with my oldest a couple of years ago, and that went pretty well. But we used Pandia Press's curriculum for that and just had to add in some AP specific material, so it was a little easier. We've also done art history and human geography, though. I'm still working on pulling together World History, but so far I've ordered a textbook (I got the Bentley Traditions and Encounters one, but I can't remember why anymore. I'd read too much, and I just wanted to decide and be done with it already!), I'm having him go through the material on Khan Academy, and I ordered a set of DVDs from Great Courses. I'll add in lots of test prep material (particularly practicing DBQs and other FRQs), some longer non-fiction and documentaries as we have time, and some projects and assignments (I use the sample syllabi on the college board site a lot as a resource for that).

There's a high school plans thread around here somewhere, but I haven't seen any for individual grades. I have a 9th grader this year, so I'll play ? English: finishing up WWS, Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind, and a year long world mythology study Math: Foerster Algebra 2 and Art of Problem Solving Spanish: online at Georgia Virtual School Biology: online at Georgia Virtual School Social Studies: AP World History, if I can pull stuff together and get him ready for the exam Music: piano lessons and homeschool band (starting clarinet and playing keyboards in jazz band) he's also doing a homeschool math team and just started volunteering at a house rabbit shelter (he's there right now for the first time; hope it's going well!) and he might take a class dual enrollment at CC next semester--maybe some kind of programming or game design

Just formatting it and making it look professional. I can handle the math part ?.....which I guess means I probably should just look for a blank template that I like.

yeah, I guess I just need to suck it up and make my own. I don't actually need it to look pretty, I guess, just....real. I'm paranoid it's going to look like I had my 5 year old make the transcript, but I probably should have a little more confidence in myself ?

They do, but that's not their strength. They don't have a political science major, for example (only a minor), so if he decided a year or two in that he wanted that, he'd have to transfer. They also give you much less freedom to choose classes and explore different disciplines than a typical LAC. We've been looking at lots of schools with few or no distribution requirements, and that appeals to him. We met with a math professor when we visited Williams, and the first thing he told us was, "if you know you definitely want to do math and nothing but math, then don't come to Williams." Because it's a small department that won't be able to offer the same things as a large research university, so if you're sure you're going to major in math and then hit grad school, you should be at a big university. But if you're not sure and you want to explore different areas, then you're better off somewhere that gives you time and freedom to take classes all over the place before settling on one (or two) majors.

Oh, yes--we're definitely taking the ridiculous fees into account when we look at the finances!

Hendrix is on our list! The net price calculator spit out a pretty competitive quote....I think it was probably a combo of merit and need based that they were showing. It's just as far away as some of the midwestern colleges we're looking at, though, so I kind of think of it more in that category.

I'm looking for some kind of transcript generator where I can enter letter grades and tell it how I want the grades weighted. I got the HSLDA one, but it will only weight courses that you title honors or AP, as far as I can tell (and it won't let you decide how to weight them). I need to weight for dual enrollment classes, too, and that doesn't seem to be possible. my plan is to weight everything the same as the county we live in would if he were in public school. I can also just do it myself of course, without any kind of app to do the math for me and make it look pretty/official, but it seems like what I'm looking for must be out there, and my google powers are failing me.

meh....probably should be in the high school board

I keep coming back to the College of Charleston....I think every time I do the financial aid looks lackluster, but I will take another look. He likes Charleston ?

Right--not superscoring. He has pretty close to a 1600, but not a 1600. But, yeah, with the Zell Miller scholarship, he already has tuition covered at any public college in Georgia, which makes it tough for out of state publics to compete. But private schools with solid financial aid usually give me a number comparable to what we'd be out of pocket at UGA....and we'd come out ahead at those once we have more than one kid in college (since our financial aid would go up with need based aid then but not with the Zell Miller)

So it looks like to get even the 2 years of housing covered, you have to get a 1600 in a single sitting on the SAT? Hmm... actually might not come out any better than Tech or UGA in that case.