[What is the point of the Ivies?]

19 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

And do they love math or is it a means to an end?

I think that parents can only push a child so far, at some point it has to come from the child. I think that for AMC and AIME it could be the parents pushing but to get to MOP and IMO it has to come from the child. The ones that make it to MOP and IMO have a passion for math

[What is the point of the Ivies?]

42 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Beats me. My ds had the equivalent of 2DE and 3AP, the rest was AoPS or homegrown. But we were going for the CMU scholarship, so I did have to write my transcript so that they would give my son weighted credit for his GPA. The decision for us was to clearly indicate on the transcript University level study in certain homegrown courses, prove it in the course descriptions and through competitions, and provide a weighted GPA for the purposes of the scholarship. His 1580 SAT score supported the mommy grades. They took everything I said at face value, and he got the scholarship. But, I think that there are people here saying that they can get free tuition at their local universities for a GPA weighted by APs only (not DE and I'm assuming not homegrown university level courses). If this is true, financially the APs may be the only option to get those types of scholarships. Personally, I would pick up and move to a different state. LOL. Because I don't want to be told what I have to teach my kids. My homeschool, my content.

I think they took your son’s grades at face value because his schooling was validated by his participation in the IMO. The kids who are able to get that far in math are the exception to the rule. I don’t see an average homeschooler applying to MIT with a homeschool transcript and getting accepted. 
The kids I know who got to MOP and IMO started taking AMC 8 in 2nd grade and started qualifying for AIME by 4th and 5th grade. My ds feels that he is behind because he didn’t qualify for AIME until 6th grade. 
The high school that we are looking at for my son, has about 10 students a year get accepted to MIT. These kids are not the average PS kids, they all took APs and DEs, plus they are MOP or USACO campers, or they are doing research at the University. 
 

[What is the point of the Ivies?]

27 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

 There is no one size fits all in college admissions and each parent/child will have to do what they can for their circumstances. 

Each school is different and each child is different. There are many paths to a university. My 2 dds ended up at the same UC and same engineering major, but they took very different paths to get there. One was a homeschooler and the other went to PS. I think that you have to work with the child in front of you and find the best path forward. 

[What is the point of the Ivies?]

26 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

I think sometimes you also need to deal with reality. Our state flagship is getting more selective and due to a generous state funding, high achieving students can get free tuition. This has made it very popular for students looking to reduce their college expense but they weigh core courses that are AP and IB only. They acknowledge that Dual enrollment shows rigor but they don’t give it extra weight. So for my 2dd who is likely to apply, her chances will be lower than her sister’s who had 10 or so AP credits as she will likely have more DE credits than AP’s. While it may be nice to just do our own thing, real hard cash sometimes compels in another direction so things are not always as clear cut and dried as they seem. 

So true, many schools are getting harder to get into, including the state schools. So parents and kids have to face hash realities, of the college admissions game. When I was applying to colleges, our state university system accepted all public high schoolers graduating in the to 20% of their high school. But this is no longer the case. 

[Physics Competitions]

We don’t have any physics competition experience, but my son is taking physics with Awesome Math. He is taking it along with Thinkwell’s Honors Physics class. We decided to add Awesome Math’s physics class for additional practice this semester. The Awesome Math Physics class is much more challenging than Thinkwell, the homework problems required that you really understand the concepts and can derive the equations and definitely not a chug and plug class. 

[Fastest way to learn to code apps?]

24 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Honestly, that might be a wise way to start, but if I start by doing too much planning, I'll never write anything 😂. I really need to just dive in and make something crappy... then I'll get mad at how crappy it is and improve it and do all the research! 

You can just start with storing everything on the client side and then add a backend if needed later. 

[Fastest way to learn to code apps?]

Before you start you should look at the cost of putting your iOS app on the App Store vs an android app in the Android store. If you want to target both platforms, I would look at using Kotlin. Kotlin is used for cross platform development. There are lots of tutorials on iOS development on Kotlin. 
https://kotlinlang.org/docs/mobile/create-first-app.html

Also research what you are planning to use for the backend, perhaps something like AWS. It’s very easy to get started with AWS. I think they still offer free accounts. 

[The Deepest Math Programs]

1 hour ago, kirstenhill said:

Is this the Aigner proof book? https://www.amazon.com/Proofs-BOOK-Martin-Aigner/dp/3642008550

Does it require Calculus and beyond level math skills or could a student who is finishing up Geometry and Alg 2 get something out of it? DS13 is highly disappointed in the lack of proofs in his geometry class and wants to explore proofs "for fun" - It actually hadn't occurred to me there might be whole books just about that topic. 

my son is going through Peter Eccles book on proofs and is really enjoying it. It does not involve Calculus.

An Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning (Numbers, Sets and Functions) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521597188/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_186GE500676CN0AJJ80Y

[History/ Social Studies Recommendation]

On 3/14/2021 at 12:09 AM, lewelma said:

Why don't you create a course that is interesting to him. Do it yourself. Here are just some random ideas for a STEM kid:

1) History of science

2) Ethics of privacy and information

3) Ethics of bioscience 

4) Environmental Law

5) History of Manufacturing

6) Science communication - how to talk and write for a lay audience

7) The impact of colonialism on Africa (not STEM, but my younger did this and it was super fascinating)

Basically, ask him what he wants to study, and design a course around it.  Have him write a research paper on something that fascinates him. If he is really high end, you could do something like The ethics of evaluating risk in large scale scientific projects . My older boy studied that for a term, and did a research paper on the Gulf Coast oil disaster - the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He reseached how it came to happen due to a lack of leadership and due to complex and inefficient governmental oversight. This overlaid with a capitalist motive made for fascinating stuff, and very valuable to a future STEM leader. 

Social Science/ History can be crazy broad.  Link it to his STEM interests so that it is work that he values and is interested in doing. Have the output be small, make the focus on the research and the learning. 

 

This is such a great I idea. Ds has been learning about AI. I will have to look into creating an ethics for AI. How did you handle English with your son? Did you also incorporate STEM into the English classes? My son is taking a high school English literature class and he absolutely has no interest. He is able to do the work and is getting an A in to class. I would like to make English more interesting.

[Python for research]

Is she familiar with Kaggle? It's a site very popular for AI and Data Scientist. There are free courses that she can take. They hare courses on PANDAS, Data cleaning, geospatial analysis, ect.. 

https://www.kaggle.com/learn/overview

[AP Physics C vs College Physics]

5 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I have a ds who loves physics and at that age he knew he wanted to be a physicist. (He is currently a 3rd yr grad student at Berkeley.) He was not as advanced in math as your ds. (He took AoPs cal in 10th.) 

We used high school to broaden his interest.  We designed astronomy classes using GC lectures and college astronomy texts.  He self-designed a course around Kip Thorne's BLack Holes and Dark Matter book.  He took those courses alongside other sciences.  Then he started DEing in math and physics at a local U.  He ended up taking 5 physics classes and 4 math classes DE.  When he was at his actual UG uni, he was able to skip all of the intro astronomy classes after talking to the profs bc they ended up using the same texts he had self-studied at home.  (Their physics/astronomy dept is small and he entered taking the 300/400 electro mag sequence, so when he talked to them about what he self-studied, they didn't doubt him.)

Anyway, that is a long way of saying that he can study other science topics outside of the traditional sequence and have fun doing them.   They will broaden his understanding of whatever fields interest him and that knowledge is definitely not wasted.  It will also make him a more interesting college applicant bc he has demonstrated internal motivation to explore topics vs simply thinking vertically.

Eta: FWIW, if DEing at a 4 yr is an option, I would bc of the lab experience. Way more interesting labs than at home.

We have been trying to use this time to broaden his interest. My DH designed an AI class for him this year, he is learning about Tensorflow and GAN. Ds has enjoyed the home-designed courses much more. We have avoided DE and APs for ds until now, but we are running into the situation where ds is learning university level subjects and not getting credit for them, which is causing a problem, when trying to enroll him in classes at the college. Ds took AoPS Calc BC in 6th grade and when we went to register him for math at the college, the administration informed us that the highest level math that Ds can test into is Calculus. So he is retaking calc this year, which was a good choice because he is gaining a lot of confidence from having the highest grade in the class. The college and ds's charter school are both advocating that we enroll ds in college classes instead for self learning college topics so he get credit and avoid the situation of having to retake classes. We are also researching other paths, so Ds can avoid DEing in too many college class at an early age, we have no plans for him to graduate early.

[AP Physics C vs College Physics]

Can anyone give me pros or cons to one versus the other? I am trying to decide between AP Physics vs College Physics(calculus base). I am trying to figure out which one is the better for a younger math and stem kid. He is a rising 8th grader. He has already completed Calc BC and is taking Thinkwell Honors Physics this year. 

He's had experience taking college classes.

[History/ Social Studies Recommendation]

13 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Does it have to be an outsourced class?

No it does not have to be outsourced. He is doing Thinkwell Honors American Government right now and finds it bland.

[Math After AP Calculus (and Where?)]

36 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

I do like programs like this https://www.smash.org/programs/smash-academy/  and this https://www.hiddengeniusproject.org/ but I am still not sure how that gets you to modern algebra by the end of high school. I am just not seeing much diversity in high-level math and computer science programs, no matter which ones S enrolls in and he has picked up on that over time, forcing us to have some hard discussions. The barriers appear to be multifaceted and difficult to solve.     

Caltech does admit kids who have taken up to AP Calc BC. My dd's best friend was one of these kids. He is African American, went to public school, and first generation college student.

If a student is admitted and the don't have the math background, Caltech places them in the "remedial" math program.  These kids are caught up to their peers in regular math by the second semester of their freshman year.

[Math After AP Calculus (and Where?)]

26 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Keep in mind also that most of us haven’t experienced a math course at a STEM university. 😉

From what we have seen on MIT open courseware, even the great teachers at CC don’t come close to MIT depth because the student body at a CC is not nearly as capable as MIT students.  Yet the level is still heads above high school.

I don't know about MIT, but for Caltech.

Math 1a (single variable calculus) is pretty heavy on the proofs. They expect you already know calculus, so the point of the class is the proofs. They also expect the incoming freshmen to have taken Modern Algebra.

 

[Sounding board for thinking about next year?]

11 minutes ago, calbear said:

You would not be able to do SO until you are no longer with your charter. If you are enrolled in a public or private school, you must participate on a team sponsored by your school. School teams are strictly prohibited from taking students who are enrolled elsewhere.

This is why we are not participating this year.

[High school courses - STEM Track]

34 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

Alternatively, getting AP/DE credit for classes outside your major can help with college - instead of a 3 hr English or history class in college, having credit for that requirement allowed us to dedicate more time to studying our science classes or spend that time in the lab.  But, I wouldn't load up on those sorts of classes  At schools that we've looked at, 1 English and 1 history are all that would be useful.  We're looking at this now with our older.  Some classes are time consuming whether taken in high school or college, so we're looking at balancing getting some done in high school while not limiting our ability to study interesting things or overload the schedule.  

Our own experience leads us to not encourage trying to test out of a ton of intro classes in the desired field of study.  Like, as a biochem major it was helpful to test out of English and testing out of physics would have been lovely.  But, the college bio classes covered more than the high school AP course, so I'm glad that my high school didn't offer it.  I don't mean don't skip anything - if you make it through all of calc in high school and are taking linear algebra, you might not need to go back and retake it.  But, spouse tested out of 2 semesters of calc but chose to only skip the first one to make sure that they weren't missing anything that they'd need later.  

I have to agree, my dd was able to get credit for most of her GEs, she only had to take 2 writing classes in college. Not having to take humanities classes gave her more time to concentrate on her engineering classes.

[Sounding board for thinking about next year?]

13 hours ago, SeaConquest said:

I was looking at Science Olympiad because of the classes that S is now taking with those medal winners. How did your DS get involved with a team? I only saw SD school teams; no homeschool teams. And thank you for all of this AoPS advice. I do remember many many moons ago when Quark and Lewelma's uber genius sons were taking Intermediate NT and they too struggled with that course, so it put the fear of G-d in me way back when Sacha was barely out of diapers. 😆

He was part of a school team. They were fine with him on the team because his sister(medal winner) was volunteering, teaching 2 events.

[Math After AP Calculus (and Where?)]

46 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm clearly underestimating CCs here 😄. I stand corrected yet again. 

my son's professor is a co-author of the Stewart Calculus Early Transcendentals textbook. 

[Math After AP Calculus (and Where?)]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I am sure they are good classes. To know how rigorous they are, I’d want to know if they do proofs and epsilon and deltas. I’m not even arguing that those are necessary, just that those are included at STEM schools, for better and worse.

I think how good a class is really depends on who is teaching. I was pleasantly surprise when my son's CC professor taught them epsilon and deltas.

 

12 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

It’s a terrible thing too. Parents think their kids are learning. If college admissions wasn’t linked to grades but national exams, then it would be easier to deflate the grading system. My friend’s kid got a 1 on AP calculus exam after getting an A in class. They can’t explain why, so the default explanation is “oh, she just doesn’t test well.” Hmmmmm, really? Because I bet you she just doesn’t understand the material. It’s really heartbreaking. 

It's even worst when parents know that their kids are not learning and are ok with it. My friend's kid took AP Physic C and she told me that the class was an easy A, because the teacher doesn't teach it with Calculus. But the kids get a GPA boost because it's an AP class.

[Math After AP Calculus (and Where?)]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

But it's much easier to have some standardization as opposed to making sure every single school doesn't use grade inflation. 

I mean, I agree with you that this is a ridiculous situation. And I would be horrified if my kid went to such a school. But the solution is NOT "let's get rid of tests." 

Man... I wonder what they were DOING in that calculus class? And it's not like CC calculus classes are super rigorous, either... 

They give the kids lots of extra credit opportunities. We had a neighbor boy come by asking for can food donations. He said that if his class wins the can food drive at the school, the AP Calc teacher would give the class 10% extra credit. 

[Sounding board for thinking about next year?]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Interesting! When I poll, kids invariably like linear algebra better than complex numbers. They are ok with 2D but find 3D hard.

That's interesting, but it makes sense. I am assuming that for most of students it was their first exposure to complex numbers. My son went into the class having worked with complex numbers for a year. He earned about complex numbers in his Circuits Lab for Science Olympiad. So for him most of it was review.

[To worry, or not to worry?]

24 minutes ago, eternallytired said:

I was just thinking that things had been going so smoothly, perhaps he'd be fine.  I guess I was too optimistic, too soon.

I also went through the same feelings with my daughter. We take her off the meds during the summer, so she can have a break. Then in the fall we go through the same feelings of optimism, but then realize that she does need them.

14 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

My daughter did terribly with Adderall, did ok with Ritalin, but is doing amazing on Vyvanse.  

 

For daughter it was the opposite, she did terribly on Ritalin, and ok on Adderall. The med that worked for her was Concerta.

[Sounding board for thinking about next year?]

My son said that in terms of difficulty he would rank them as

1.  Intermediate Alg

2. Pre-calc, Intermediate C&P

3. Calc

Intermediate Alg was the easiest. The writing problems were the most difficult part of C&P. He had to spend more time on the writing problem for Intermediate C&P than Pre-calc, but the concepts and problems were easier than in Pre-calc. The linear algebra part of Pre-calc was what made the class hard. He also said that he found trigonometric substitution difficult, along with Improper Integrals. 

[To worry, or not to worry?]

1 hour ago, eternallytired said:

He was on meds in first grade because he could NOT focus on anything.  But his body seems to adjust to meds very quickly: after six weeks, they didn't seem to make any difference.  After increasing dosage every two or three months for about a year to try to keep the meds in the range where they made an impact for him, the doc said we couldn't increase anymore, so we just took him off the meds.  He's been doing quite well overall sans meds, but things seem to be going slowly downhill in the past year-and-a-half.  Maybe it is time to take him back in to the neurologist and discuss re-medicating.  Thanks for the advice.

Dd's neurologist told us at the beginning that for some kids it may take trying several meds before finding one that works. Dd has tried 3 different medications. the first one was for 6 months, the second for 18 months, and the last medication was the one that worked for her. She has been on it for 4 years, no issues.