alewife
-
Posts
396 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by alewife
-
-
29 minutes ago, Nicholas_mom said:
Do I have to make sure to contact public high school to let my son take the SAT, like everyone does for PSATs? Or I just sign up at College Board site and I am good to go?
Just sign up through the College Board site. You only need to get involved with your local high school for PSAT and AP exams.
Good luck on the upcoming SAT!
-
2
-
-
3 hours ago, MysteryJen said:
(snip)
I absolutely second the recommendation to use someone who works primarily with athletes. Both for surgery and PT.
I agree 1000%. Selecting the right PT is extremely important and almost as important as selecting the right surgeon. My older son had Tommy John surgery when he was in high school. I spent a ton of time researching surgeons and ended up selecting a doctor that was 5+ hours from home. However, I didn't realize that I needed to be as diligent in selecting a PT.
When I took my older son to his first post-op appt 5 days after his surgery, I thought the surgeon was going to blow a gasket. He was furious that the PT had not followed proper protocol, (and I was too trusting that the PT was able to follow written instructions). Luckily, no permanent damage had been done. But I learned a valuable lesson that day.
My experience taught me not to assume that PT practices associated with a "big-name" hospital employ competent therapists. You really need to do your due diligence up front because not all PTs are created equal.
@MysteryJenI hope your daughter has a great, pain-free swim season!
-
2
-
1
-
-
On 8/2/2019 at 2:05 PM, plansrme said:
I haven't been on the Chat Board in forever, so forgive this interruption, but as I've been trying to find more BTDT information on this topic, I thought this might be a good place to check.
My 19 yo has been diagnosed with hip dysplasia in both hips. She has an MRI scheduled next week, and the dr. will not give her much information on prognosis and recovery until he sees the MRI. All she's gotten out of him so far is 3 weeks on crutches (non weight-bearing, I assume) and a longer rehab. This is per hip, so two surgeries, two rehabs.
She is a college swimmer, and his refusal to either tell her she has a future in her sport or she does not is frustrating. If anyone has any experience, i would love to hear it.
And if anyone wants to come help me track down the orthopedist who blew me off as a stupid mom, with no x-rays, no nuthin', when I took her for a hip dysplasia evaluation when she was 2 because I thought she had it then, grab your pitchfork and torches and come on down.
I am sorry to read this.
My son began having major hip pain at the beginning of the fall season last year. It was maddening to see him continue to play and watch him down Advil like candy.
X-rays and MRIs showed hip impingements and torn hip labrums. He had surgery on both hips simultaneously the beginning of June. The first few days post-op were extremely difficult, but he is happy that he had both hips done at the same time. He goes to rehab three times a week and is gradually regaining his full range of motion. The summer has not been fun, but he is now completely pain-free. The surgeon is very pleased with his progress and expects to clear him to play competitively by December.
When I was researching surgeons, it was recommended to me to make sure I find someone who has a lot of experience with young athletes. If you are in the Midwest and want recommendations for both my son's surgeon's name and the name of a surgeon who my friend's daughter regrets using, send me a pm.
Good luck to your daughter! Hopefully she will be back in the water swimming pain-free soon!
-
1
-
-
5 hours ago, Runningmom80 said:
We've recently figured out that DS 12.5 is mostly in high school level classes. We have him grade skipped with the to grade 8, due to his short time in school, and I'm wondering if there are any downsides to starting his HS transcript this year. My concern is that if he decides to take 4 additional years of high school (not skipping again) will it be held against him if his transcript spans 5 years?
I tried searching for the answer to this and didn't come up with anything. TIA!
My kids started high school level classes before the traditional high school age. However, they all graduated from our homeschool at age 18. Their transcripts were organized by subject, and I gave them credit for many of the high school level classes taken prior to their official start of high school, so their transcripts spanned more than 5 years.
This approach was not an issue when it was time to apply to colleges.
Good luck!
-
2
-
-
The College Board instruction for homeschoolers:
"If you’re homeschooled and want to take an AP Exam, you’ll need to arrange to take the exam at a local school that administers them. To register for an AP Exam, you’ll have to enroll in an “exam only” section in My AP. Here’s how.
Your first step is to contact AP Services for Students at 888-225-5427 (toll free in the United States and Canada) or +1-212-632-1780 or apstudents@info.collegeboard.org. That office can give you contact information for local AP coordinators who may be willing to test outside students. We recommend you do this no later than September 4.
You are then responsible for contacting coordinators on that list to see if one of them can arrange testing for you. You should do this no later than October 4. Note that schools may have their own local deadlines for receiving requests from outside students to test at their school.
The AP coordinator who agrees to help you will provide a join code for an “exam only” section in My AP. You’ll use the join code to join the section so that the AP coordinator can order your exam."
-
5
-
-
It looks like the Subject Test requirement is just for homeschoolers: (Although, it looks like you can have a mix of SAT Subject Tests and AP exams)
Washington and Lee University is pleased to consider applications from home-schooled students. Given the unique nature of each student's curriculum, we suggest including the following, in addition to the material for all of our first-year applicants, to ensure an accurate and fair review of your application:
- Results from five SAT Subject Tests or AP Tests
-
2 hours ago, Joyfullyblessed said:
That is, until a few minutes ago. I called the university that our son wants to attend. It local, about 15 minutes down the road, & where he’d like to go. The lady I spoke with told me that he WILL have to have a diploma from an accredited program. What?!? I had read online that home educated students that didn’t go through an accredited program could apply using what they call the “portfolio method” which has a checklist of items that must be included. I told her this, & she said “yes, I know, but from what I’ve heard from the home school specialist here is that they have to have attended an accredited program.” 😞😞😞
So, now I’ll wait... til Monday. Maybe, just maybe, that girl was wrong. And, if not, they need to update their info online ASAP. 😤
I would bet a large sum of money (and I am not a betting person) that the woman you spoke with is completely clueless and flat out wrong. If homeschoolers had to attend an accredited program, the university wouldn't have the "portfolio method" as an option.
I bet you will get good news on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!
-
3
-
-
@roadrunner. Would pre-recorded work or does it need to have a life component?
-
19 hours ago, kokotg said:
I think there are lots of ways for schools to guess which kids have significant financial need and which don't without actually looking at their financial aid forms (even if it only factors into their decisions subconsciously). Common app has zip code and parents' professions on it, for example. Not to mention that many, many of things that make kids appealing to top tier colleges are much more readily available to wealthy kids than to poor kids--prep schools (not just for superior education, but for counselors who have personal relationships with admissions counselors at colleges and a low enough workload to actually work individually with each student), test prep classes, private tutors, expensive extracurriculars....these schools can afford to offer financial aid to low income kids because they know that the system is still set up this way and there will be plenty of very wealthy kids vying for spots. And, of course, even top schools that offer excellent financial aid are rarely need blind.
I agree. In addition to the ways you mentioned, the colleges are receiving the student's adversity score from the College Board when the student submits an SAT or ACT score. (I don't understand how this is legal since it is not disclosed to the student, but I digress...)
If you look at the Common Data Set for schools that state they are need blind, the percent of full-pay students does not vary by more than a fraction of a percent from year to year. If they were truly "need blind", I would expect more variation in the number of full-pay students from year to year.
-
2
-
1
-
-
On 7/22/2019 at 10:48 PM, Janeway said:
I looked up their policy to clarify it and they are allowed to smoke on campus at SMU, just have to stay away from residence halls and stay 15 feet from an entrance to a building. In my case, I was standing at the entrance to the library. The way the entrance that I was at, you have to walk past the university provided ashtrays (which had people smoking at the time) in order to leave. I doubled checked on the policies of all the other schools we toured and all the others are smoke free campuses. I am shocked that in this day and age the campus would not be smoke free. The town I live in bans smoking in public.
The smoking outside of buildings would have been a big turn-off for my kids, too. This is something we never even thought to consider.
My town bans smoking in public, but the ban is limited to indoor public areas. People are permitted to smoke in outside areas, such as sidewalks, parks, etc. Just curious if your town ban smoking in public everywhere or is the restriction limited to indoor public buildings?
My son's college says it is a smoke-free campus. However, they still permit smoking in outside areas as long as they are 25 feet away from any building. It looks like SMU's policy is similar and they also say they are a smoke-free campus. My daughter's campus is also smoke free, but they don't permit smoking anywhere on campus, even outside.
So it looks like it might not be enough to see if a campus is smoke-free. It looks like each individual policy should be examined to determine the college's definition of "smoke-free".
-
Just now, Lori D. said:
I just did it up as a text document list. DS#1 was a transfer student and just applied to/was accepted directly, so we got to bypass having to upload much of anything. However, the document was very handy for using towards short essay answer responses to questions for scholarship applications.
Sorry -- I was not specific. I meant if using online courses for the core 16 credits for NCAA you go with "approved providers" -- at least NCAA *used* to require approved online course providers... And there were threads from about 8 years back where everyone was listing textbook publishers that NCAA accepted/did not accept as approved. Is that no longer the case???I don't think that was ever the case, even though some homeschool providers did jump through the hoops of getting NCAA approval. I was involved in those thread discussions 8 years ago and had numerous conversations with the guy who was the homeschool liaison at the NCAA (I am not sure if that position exists today.). While there was a list of approved online providers, those were more of an issue with public cyber-schooled students, not us homeschoolers.
The NCAA also had an approved textbook list, but their list back then did not include the textbooks that we were using for math. When I questioned the NCAA rep (I think his name was Kevin) about the process of getting these textbooks approved, I was assured that I didn't have to use a textbook that was on their list. I just had to make sure that the book I was using was at least high school level.
By the time my son was going through the process and debating playing D1, the NCAA had changed its process and had implemented worksheets that homeschoolers had to complete. Online courses still did not have to be approved by the NCAA. The homeschooling parent just had to list herself as the teacher of record on the worksheets since she had the responsibility to issue the official grade on the homeschool transcript.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Lori D. said:
(NOTE: if planing on playing Division I or II sports in college, then you need to use NCAA "approved" online courses or materials, but "approved" is not the same thing as "accredited".)Unless something has changed in the past three years, you do not have to use an NCAA approved online course provider - you just need to list yourself as the teacher of record on the worksheets homeschoolers need to complete. As long as the textbooks and other materials that you select for your home-brewed classes are at the high school level or above, the NCAA will be satisfied.
-
9 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
I just tallied our hourly commitments with music (we are dropping sports and it is breaking everybody’s heart here) and it’s 63 hours a week including class time. It’s not workable.
How many online classes are on your schedule? If you have some of those in the line-up, can you replace them with home-brewed classes where you control the timing and can set your own deadlines?
-
1
-
-
6 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:
I just tallied our hourly commitments with music (we are dropping sports and it is breaking everybody’s heart here) and it’s 63 hours a week including class time. It’s not workable.
Can you move some of your classes to the summer to free up some more time during the regular school year?
-
3
-
-
6 hours ago, Roadrunner said:
I know this is so very individual and that’s why I am asking. How many hours of academic work does your high schooler do daily? (Not counting extracurriculars).
I am especially curious if your child has a time intensive extracurricular. We have about 15 hour commitment outside of academics. And that’s after quitting some things.
My kids did school from 8 am to 2:30 pm, with a break for lunch, Monday through Friday. (My oldest conducted research every Wednesday from 8 am - 5:00 pm during the school year when he was in high school, so his Wednesday was longer.) In addition to that time, they usually met for an AoPS class in the evening once a week, conducted their lab experiments on the weekends, and continued with math and reading literature throughout their summers.
In my experience, I dropped quite a few online AP classes because I felt they were an unnecessary time suck. I found it more time-efficient and just as educational to create my own AP class that fit better within our time constraints.
Good luck finding a schedule that works for your kids!
-
3
-
-
43 minutes ago, Joyfullyblessed said:
Hello,
This post is specifically for those who have homeschooled or are homeschooling their kids through high school.
Our son will be going into 10th grade this coming school year. He did online schooling last year through a fully accredited program. Overall, it was a very good experience for him (with just a few tweaks here and there needed). We’ve discussed many times if he wants to continue with the online school, and he says yes. Most likely that will be the route we choose, but I am just curious about those who have chosen to homeschool on their own through high school. Here are some of my questions...
1. How difficult was it to make sure all classes were accredited? I know there are online course that are accredited (like Derek Owens), but I’m not sure if they exist for all subjects.
2. How hard was it to create a transcript for your child?
3. Did your child have a hard time getting accepted into a college?
4. How did you keep up with everything? Meaning, what was or is the most efficient way of making sure all is completed as it should be throughout these years.
I know some of my questions may seem silly or even worded incorrectly, but I’m simply trying to find out more information from those who have done this. The online schooling is a nice option (he does not want to go to the local high school which is fine by me), but it is still a bit expensive. Thank goodness for payment plans. 😄🙌
Thanks for any info offered!
1. Most of my kids' classes were created by me and were not accredited. It was not an issue with any college.
2. I created my kids' transcripts using Microsoft word. Each transcript was a page long that listed the courses taken along with grades and standardized test scores. It is an easy process, and I think there are software packages available for those that want to use a standard template rather than creating a transcript from scratch like I did.
3. No.
4. I wrote a course description for each class listed on the transcript. I tried to make sure the course description was written at the conclusion of the course, rather than waiting to write the course description in the summer before college applications were due.
Good luck!
-
6
-
-
On 6/8/2019 at 3:48 PM, Daybright said:
(snip)
One of our goals in teaching our kids is to make sure that they are prepared for admission to a selective college, when the time comes. (We understand that they might choose another path, but we want to make sure it's a choice, not a lack of options.)
(snip) When we get to science and social science, though, I am a lot less certain about how to set benchmarks to make sure we stay "on track", given the wide range of topics that fall into each category. I could look up the Common Core standards for each grade level and say, OK, we want to do 1.5 years of material each year, or something like that, but I'm not sure if that is the most sensible approach.
Does anyone have thoughts on these issues?
Welcome to homeschooling! The most sensible approach will be the one that works best for your family. Fwiw, in the elementary years, I did not use a curriculum for anything but math and grammar. Everything else was interest-led. My kids' science involved mainly "hands- on" kits and experiments. They didn't begin using science textbooks until they hit high school level. This approach worked very well for my kids - they were successful in their AP science and college science classes. Good luck!
-
16 hours ago, JoJosMom said:
(snip)
Part of me would like to branch out and do something different and fun, say two semester-long classes, like Forensics, Astronomy, Geology, or <<insert suggestion here.>
Calculus based physics is broken up into two separate AP classes - Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism. One option would be to take a fun science first semester and then take AP Physics C Mechanics the second semester. The advantage of this option is that your daughter would have had the necessary calculus by the time the course starts.
-
2
-
-
Singapore math for elementary level
AoPS (beginning with algebra)
Memoria Press for Latin
-
1
-
-
51 minutes ago, Teaching3bears said:
By chance I met a group of students (3 males) starting a tutoring company and I think it will be a good fit for DS12. They seem to work with other kids (one at a time) at the library in a separate room. The room has a window but it is at the back of the library and nobody goes there and I feel a bit uncomfortable with him there alone with a stranger. I have seen people doing tutoring in the middle of the library but I feel weird asking them to do so without sounding paranoid. Also, there is a chance that they have been asked not to tutor in the middle of the library. (I hope I explained this clearly)
They also mentioned tutoring at the donut shop when the library is closed. This might be okay, though DS might be distracted by the donuts.
Our home is a bit chaotic with my 2 teens with special needs and bad moods, though I am considering that as well.
Where do you think is safest?
I think your son would be fine in a room that has a window. That room would also be less distracting than the center of the library or a donut shop. Just as an fyi - as a tutor, I refuse to tutor in someone's house as I prefer to meet a student in a public location for my own safety.
-
5
-
-
17 hours ago, ScoutTN said:
I think high school students who plan to be NCAA athletes have rules and requirements that others don't.
Imo, accreditation is generally irrelevant.
I agree. In my experience, accreditation is irrelevant. Homeschoolers who want to play D1 or D2 do have additional NCAA requirements that need to be met, but those requirements have nothing to do with accreditation.
Fwiw, my D was awarded merit aid at every school she applied to that awards merit aid, and none of her classes was accredited.
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, Joyful said:
So, there are different ways I can do the transcript huh? Just so long as it makes sense and gives a record of what was done, I suppose.
Yes, you are in charge of the transcript and can present your children's academic records as you deem appropriate.
Fwiw, I did not include any of the transcripts provided by the outside homeschool providers because they didn't provide any information that I had not already provided on the transcript, and ,more importantly, I didn't want these documents to detract from the other documents I had submitted. (My kids did not take any classes at a college or community college. If they would have, I would have been required to submit those. )
-
3
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, mirabillis said:
Care to share just that bit of your blurb from your school profile for us newbies at this whole transcript/college app thing? 🙂
Academic Providers did not have consistent grading scales. Some awarded an A+ for any score about 97%, while others awarded an A for the same percentile. In an attempt to standardize the grades, we did not list any grade as an A+. Our letter grades were assigned based on the percentile scores received from each provider. Our grading scale is stated on the High School Transcript.
-
2
-
-
I addressed this in the homeschool profile. I had a blurb that said that outside providers did not have consistent grading scales and + and -'s were not used on the transcript. I did not report the teacher's recorded grade anywhere.
-
1
-
1
-
Transcript question - photo?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
I wonder if the College Board submits a photo to the colleges?