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3andme

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Posts posted by 3andme

  1. Haven't tried the GC course but Udacity has a good free alternative. Introduction to Descriptive Statistics and Introduction to Inferential Statistics. These were developed originally for San Jose State as an online alternative to their Introductory Stats course. They are interactive courses i.e. watch a short video clip, answer a question or two, watch next clip, do problem set, etc..  If you don't mind the format, they do a good job covering the material in an accessible way. There is an interesting backstory to this course where many of the students failed; however, I think if you use it in combo with a textbook and do the work -- it's a good course. If you are looking for more of a college lecture approach, check out Coursera or Edx - they have quite a few stats courses as well.  For AP stats, there's also Edx's Preparing for the AP Statistics Exam (haven't checked this out yet) or Tarrou's Chalk Talk (aka ProfRobBob) videos.

    • Like 1
  2. Just a reminder that unlike SAT scores, you can delete AP scores if you wish.  So poor scores could be deleted before an official AP report is sent to the college. Scores of 1 or 2 don't seem to garner any credit but some institutions do give credit for a 3 so I would be hesitant to delete those scores.

     

    The conventional wisdom does seem to be that AP scores carry little weight for B&M students but AP classes and grades are weighted heavily in admissions decisions. This kind of annoys me because there is often a big divergence between the two as demonstrated by the AP score distributions. In some courses, almost half of students receive 1s or 2s (less than passing scores) and yet I doubt that half of students are given Ds or Fs for their AP course grade. While I don't think that everything should hinge on one test, I do think there should be better calibration of the school grades vs. actual AP scores. However, maybe the admissions depts already take this into account.

     

     

     

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  3. No experience with Horizon unfortunately but If he wants a workbook approach, you could also look at Fresh Approach to Algebra or CLE. These both provide a solid Algebra 1 presentation. Foersters will have a greater quantity of practical word problems but these two programs cover all the important concepts.

     

    CLE isn't exactly a workbook per se. It comes in a series of individual light units or booklets. We used it like a workbook though, writing the answers in the booklet. While more complex problems may need to be done on a separate piece of paper, many of the problems can be solved and written directly in the light unit. CLE is a complete algebra 1 program; however, there are no further levels available at this time.

     

     

  4. If you're visiting Goucher, you might drive a little further and check out St. Mary's College of Maryland. According to their web site, they are considered the honors college of the U of MD system and function as a small liberal arts focused college. The COA is about $29,000 instate and $44,000 out of state but they do offer merit to both in and out of state applicants. No idea about the culture on campus. 

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  5. Posted Today, 11:45 AM

    3andme, on 17 Jul 2017 - 9:21 PM, said:snapback.png

    Also, St. Andrews in Scotland is a popular alternative for US students.

     

     

    But this is not a huge tuition savings, unless you account for the 3 yrs vs 4, right?

     

    St. Andrews is a 4 year program. According to their brochure, it's about $34,000 a year (26,000 GBP) for tuition and room and board in the Arts & Sciences. Of course, there would be additional expense for foreign travel etc. but still a good deal when compared with many American universities at $60,000 plus. I'm keeping this in mind for oldest ds who hates cities and likes cooler climates. They have a well regarded International Relations program. Admissions for Americans seem to be fairly straight forward as long as you meet their testing criteria; although, they say they will also consider the app more holistically if those criteria aren't met.  

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  6. If you need merit, take a look at Trinity University and Southwestern.  They both have very generous merit and also relatively low total COA (in the low 50's). Trinity has a matrix showing gpa and scores and how much merit a student will receive.  For Southwestern, you can use their NPC to determine expected merit. I'm not sure about Trinity but "Chill & Hipster" were the two most common adjectives for Southwestern on Niche.com.

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  7. Some other possibilities across US:

     

    South 

    Trinity Univ (TX),  Southwestern (TX), University of Dallas (TX - Private), College of Charleston (SC), Hendrix (AR), Rhodes (TN), Centre (KY), Oglethorpe (GA), Sewanee (TN), Agnes Scott (GA)

     

    NE/Mid

    Goucher (MD), St. Lawrence Univ (NY), Clark (MD), Sarah Lawrence (NY)

     

    Midwest

    St. Olaf (MN), Gustavus Adolphus (MN), Knox (IL), Ohio Wesleyan (OH), Kalamazoo (MI)

     

    West

    University of Puget Sound (WA), University of Redlands (CA), Willamette (OR)

     
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  8. Here's a list of schools that do NOT offer Merit Scholarships. This might help to cross some selective schools off right away. However, still worth checking the Net Price Calculators on these since schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford may provide some need-based aid to families making up to $200,000.

     

    Ivies;

     

    Brown

    Cornell

    Columbia

    Dartmouth

    Harvard

    Princeton

    University of Pennsylvania

    Yale

     

    Other:

     

    Amherst

    Barnard

    Bates

    Bowdoin (except $2500 NM award)

    Caltech

    Carleton (except $2000 NM award)

    Colby (except $500 NM award)

    Colgate

    Connecticut College

    Georgetown

    Hamilton

    Haverford

    Middlebury

    MIT

    Pomona

    Reed

    Stanford (except Athletic scholarships)

    Tufts (except $500 NM award)

    University of Chicago

    Vassar

    Wellesley

    Wesleyan

    Williams

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  9. If you are looking for colleges that provide merit below the full tuition level, I've found Collegedata's College Match search tool to be valuable in narrowing down the field by geographic area, selectivity, and major.  You can then sort your results page by the % Merit heading at the top to find those schools that are most generous. 

     

    However, I've found you often need to dig a little deeper to really understand the true merit picture. Some schools offer a small amount of merit aid to many students while others offer more generous aid to a smaller group and it's hard to discern the difference from the merit % alone.

     

    To get more detailed data on a specific college, you can mouse over the college name and click on "Money Matters". Scorll down and you can then see the actual number of students who received merit aid and the average award. This will be a better reflection of the size of the awards. At the very bottom, it also has some more details on types of merit awards. Once you've found some potential candidates through this process, click on their financial aid link at the top of the Money Matters page to get more specifics. 

     

    College Confidential also has a long thread on "Schools known for good merit aid" which can be helpful.

     

    Are there any specific criteria you have in mind? The Hive here can probably provide some good candidates with additional specifics.

     

     

     

     

     

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  10. The College of Creative Studies at UCSB could be a hidden gem for the right student seeking an intellectual, small college experience within the large UC system.

     

    If you're looking for merit (non-need based) scholarships, Chapman, University of San Diego, and Santa Clara are worth a look. They are all mid-sized private colleges. Chapman is strong in film/entertainment studies and business. USC and some of the Claremont Colleges give merit as well but it's much more selective. 

     

    Also, if you're in N. California, you might consider looking north to Oregon and Washington. There are some nice liberal art colleges such as Reed, Lewis & Clark, Willamette, Whitman or University of Puget Sound. They would only be a short plane ride away. 

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  11. If you don't want to deal directly with a proxy server, you can try earlyscores.com or apstudents.net. These sites were created by students so I can't vouch for their technical security however they do make it easy to get your scores without a proxy. For some added protection, I changed the CB password before using it and then changed it again immediately after just in case.

     

    Good news here! 5's on Microeconomics, US History, and Comparative Govt. This is our third year doing AP tests and I feel like my ds and I have finally found a good formula for AP prep - solid subject preparation and then last 3-4 weeks review only using as many actual AP or review book tests as available. We do self study but I spend a lot of time researching materials and understanding course expectations/scoring to assist ds.

     

    I also think hearing sooo many 5's here on the WTM boards also may give one a skewed view of what to expect... either we are surrounded here by seriously high-achieving, high-performing kids and/or those not getting the 5's of the world aren't as much reporting their scores. :-) so keep it coming with reporting your dc's scores, good, bad or meh - and do tell if from an online provider. i think it is immensely helpful for those of us looking toward future classes.

     

    I do think the results may be skewed because the AP scores are often used as an outside source of academic validation for homeschoolers and therefore taken more seriously than by some B&M students. This is certainly our main reason for doing APs here. 

     

    Most high school students don't even submit their AP scores until they start college and are looking for credit. The primary benefit they get from AP classes is a higher weighted GPA and evidence of course rigor on their transcripts for college admissions. Some of these students don't take the exam seriously because it doesn't affect their final grade, it's free (cost picked up by school) and they don't expect or care about getting college credit.

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  12. For those with dc taking APs, it's often good to take any related SAT 2 Subject tests immediately following the APs. I hate to say that because of all the testing but that seems to be the recommendation.

     

    There is a May 6 test date (late registration open until 4/25) and also a June 3 test date (regular registration ends 5/9).  Here's an old thread discussing why your dc may or may not want to take SAT 2 tests.

     

    SAT 2's corresponding to APs include:

     

    • Literature
    • Physics
    • Chemistry
    • Biology (two versions)
    • US History
    • World History
    • French
    • Latin
    • Chinese
    • Japanese
    • Italian
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  13. Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I was wondering if anyone can tell me a little about answering the DBQ sections. I know they have to mention all or almost all of the supplied documents. Is the best way to do this by saying for example - "Document 1 says ..." or is it better not to reference them as Doc 1, Doc 2 etc and rather use the title or author -  like " the excerpt from Common Sense supports ..."? Or does it make any difference and I am overthinking it lol?!

     

    My understanding is the ideal way to include the documents is to allude to the main message or thrust of the document rather than to reference it directly. The document number should then be placed in parentheses after the allusion much like a footnote or citation. If there is a particularly pertinent phrase or sentence, you might quote it but generally it's not necessary to quote directly from the documents. 

     

    For example, let's say Document 2 is a photo of an 80 year old African American WWII veteran receiving a  Medal of Honor in 1995.  You might write "While African American soldiers served valiantly in World War II, it would be many decades before society fully recognized the scope of their contributions (Doc 2)."   

     

    While the above is the ideal, I think you could still get a point if you present the information more directly. (Ex "The photograph in Document 2 shows us ....") as long as it provides evidence to support the thesis. 

     

    There are many good videos on youtube regarding the DBQ and LEQ. 

     

    Here's a good series on DBQ in general (not specfic to AP). 

     

    Here's a good series at Khan Academy reviewing the different kinds of questions with specific examples.

     

    You can find many more videos on youtube by googling "write dbq", "redesigned dbq", "how to dbq", etc.

    • Like 4
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