We took our oldest to ACU last week for his freshman year. So far our experience has been really positive. His professor/advisor and his daughter helped carry boxes up to his room and while we were unpacking, the president of the university and his wife stopped by! The Welcome Week activities really seem designed to help them connect quickly. They have a strong Computer Science and Technology program and have been getting some great awards for innovation and technology. ACU is the first university in the world to incorporate Apples' iPhone or iTouch into the educational processes of the university. (You can find more details on this innovative program at ACU's website). Our son is into technology so this program was very interesting to him. ACU's football team has been really strong (#2 in NCAA Div II last year), so it's really fun to go to the games. We went to their preview weekend last year which they hold during homecoming and got a great feel for the alumni loyalty and school spirit, in addition to the typical admissions programs. I would think it's worth investigating more. DS was accepted at both Letourneau and Baylor, but ACU felt like the best fit. Blessings, Becky in TX

We have since relocated to TX, but I used to work for DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. (Hubby's alma mater.) Private LAC, small town environment, strong academics and alumni ties. It does promote its Greek system pretty heavily, but less than it did. About 3-4 hours from Chicago, with a large population from that area. I worked in the Career Planning office and the alumni ties helped many students with internships and placement. Many of the schools from the consortium it's in are listed in the CTCL listing: Denison, Kalamazoo, Wabash, etc. We are taking our son to Abilene Christian University in two days for his freshman year and both DH and I commented that it had a similar feel to DePauw. Blessings for a wonderful year of finding his place! Becky in TX

Lori, We did this a few years ago with Apologia, and I believe they were written to correspond directly with the Apologia modules. Since the students were going required to memorize the Biology vocabulary anyway for the Biology class, I thought it just made sense to go ahead and do the science roots. I think it helped in firming up the vocabulary, learning the actual roots and the scientific concepts to do it all combined. We did buy the preprinted cards that are available, and that helped expedite making them each week. For Abeka, you just might need to rearrange the order to correspond with the topics, but I imagine they are pretty similar. I am doing it again next year with ds #2. HTH, Becky in TX

I have used Homeschool tracker and Transcript Pro. They really are different tools. Homeschool Tracker (and I think Edu[track) is used through out the year to record individual grades on different assignments for different classes. I have an older version of HST, so I'm no sure about the latest and greatest grade weighting capabilities. Transcript Pro has you enter the class after it is completed with a final grade. It does allow you to determine your GPA scales, but I don't see a place to weight a grade. I think you would do that as you entered the grade itself. I have used it to keep an on-going log of extra-curriculuar activities, so that by Senior year, I am not scurrying around to remember what we did Freshman year. It does produce a nice looking transcript and you can make changes up until you indicate it as your final transcript; then no more changes can be made. HTH, Becky in TX

We saw a "hole" in our ds's punctuation skills a few years ago. After research we chose to go with Jensen's and have not been disappointed. I have seen the way they teach specific clause rules come up quite a bit on the SAT, and it helped my ds see it, too. I also really like the passages they read for punctuating-not boring strings of sentences, but an on-going story. We also pepper in some Daily Grams to keep all the grammar he learned earlier fresh. We did have an answer key included in the back of the workbook we purchased. HTH, Becky in TX

We have only used the Punctuation program, but I have found it a very valuable and easy to implement program. My kiddos had a good foundation with Shurley, but this has been useful for reinforcing key concepts. With a ds studying for the SAT, we have seen the 5 major punctuation rules in many sample test questions for writing. I also really enjoy that they use interesting literature samples for editing-makes the mindless exercises more engaging! HTH, Becky in TX