...for suggesting these resources. I have a lot of students asking me for college advice, and I have never used either of these. I appreciate you sharing them.

In order to make it easier for folks to add to the list before posting (and so that no one gets dropped as happened to Michelle in GA, I suggest that we put the date in the Title field of the post so the next person to reply will know which thread to copy when they add their own information to the list. Now, ...adding my own dc and hoping I didn't drop someone when I copied what I thought was the most complete post. CherylG's ds-UCLA, graduated, UCSB, UCSD, Westmont, all accepted. UMD-attending for master's in engineering. CherylG's dd-SBCC school of nursing-graduated. Creekland's ds - Covenant College, Union University, Calvin College - all acceptances at this point. Deb in NZ's dd - Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (begin Feb 2010) dkholland- ds - Covenant College (accepted), Patrick Henry College (accepted) Grove City College Gwen in VA -- Washington & Lee (attending); acceptances from U Chicago, U Pitt, U Dallas, U Delaware, Hillsddale, UVA, William & Mary, College of Wooster, Case Western Kate in FL-ds-Cornell University (accepted Early Decision so all other apps had to be withdrawn) Katia - ds- Ellsworth Community College (AA Computer Science) , Anderson University-attended , University of Northern Iowa (BA Computer Science), Kansai Gaidai University, Kyoto, Japan-attended Katia - dd#1- Hilldale College-attending , accepted at: Luther College, Ball State University, University of Northern Iowa, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music Katia- dd#2 - applying to: Hillsdale College , Warner University (accepted) LaJuana - dd#1 University of Dallas - graduated Summa cum Laude. Also accepted to Hillsdale. LaJuana - ds#1 University of Dallas - graduated Summa cum Laude. Also accepted to Hillsdale. Attending Westminster Theological Seminary (MDiv). LaJuana dd#2 Attending Oklahoma City University Bass School of Music (Musical Theatre and Vocal Performance). Also accepted at Samford University (AL), Whitworth University (WA), George Fox University (OR), Covenant College (GA), Houghton College (NY), Oklahoma Christian University. LaJuana ds#2 Attending Whitworth University. Also accepted at University of Dallas. (Except for dd majoring in MT and VP, my dc knew where they wanted to go, applied to two schools only, and were accepted at both.) Laughing Lioness - DS -Boyce College (KY) attending. Accepted to Augustana College (SD) and St. Mary's School of Nursing (SD). Liza Q's dd - Saint Francis College - attending. Kings College, St. John's University, Brooklyn College - accepted Margaret in CO--dd accepted to Western State College for dual credit, accepted to Hillsdale College, graduated, accepted to CU Boulder School of Music, finishing Master's Margaret in CO--dd accepted to Western State College for dual credit, accepted to USNA, attending finishing Firstie Year, accepted to flight school, acceptances: Hillsdale College, USAFA, USCGA, ERAU (on NROTC), School of Mines Margaret in CO--dd accepted to Western State College for dual credit I'm going to stick my should-have-been-son-in-law (killed last spring), accepted to Hillsdale College, transferred to WVU, graduated, accepted to Toledo Medical College. Michelle in GA ds- University of Georgia (accepted); Berry College (accepted); Georgia Tech (currently attending) Moira in MA dd -- Acceptances at Dalhousie U (Nova Scotia), McGill U (Montreal) Mommyfaithe's dd #1 (accepted College of St. Rose (NY) attended Sage College Albany, NY Graduated Summa Cum Laude Mommyfaithe's dd#2 Attending Russell Sage College. Accepted SUNY New Paltz, SUNY Albany, waiting to hear from Simmons College in Boston Mass. MSPolly's dd- Acceptances at Covenant(TN), Union U(TN), U of MS, Belhaven U(MS) Osmosis Mom Dd 1, Wellesley College (attending), accepted to Merrimack College, BU, Simmons, Emmanuel College Sharon in MD's ds-Drexel University -attending; UMBC-Meyerhoff program, UMD-College Park-College of Engineering, Messiah College- acceptances Susann-dd-Rose-Hulman, Purdue, University of Evansville, Trine, Taylor, Cedarville-acceptances Susie-Knits ds1 - Rose-Hulman, Valparaiso, U of Evansville, TN Tech - acceptances TransientChris's DS- George Mason U,attending; Hillsdale College- attended, Abilene Christian, Hampden-Sydney, St. Olaf- accepted Valerie(TX) - ds UT Arlington attended Valerie(TX) - dd accepted Biola (CA), Messiah (PA), Belhaven (MS), Mary Baldwin College (VA), UTA (TX), Hardin-Simmons (TX), Univ. of Mary Hardin-Baylor (TX), and Ouachita (AR). I'm missing one. ??

...I would skip BJU 7. I don't think it's necessary for a student who has mastered BJU 6. The Pre-algebra book is BJU's suggested 8th grade level, and a much better text.

The Algebra 1 text presents the information in an introductory manner. In the way the foundation is built, so grows the building. I would rather build a solid foundation and not get to all the details in Alg/Trig than build a shaky foundation and forge ahead. My pocket change...

...BJU's Pre-algebra book after BJU 6 and before Foerster's Algebra. It continues to develop skills introduced in the elementary BJU series, but it also goes deeper in application. With my older children I went straight from BJU 6 into Foerster's, but I think they would have benefited from at least half a year in BJU Pre-algebra before Foerster's. Without the prealgebra, my children had some weaknesses in dealing with negative numbers and exponents that slowed us down in the first half of Foerster's. The BJU Pre-algebra book covers a lot of really excellent material using a method that would be familiar to your children after completing BJU 6. There is a new edition due out in the spring, and I don't know anything about it, but I do love the older edition I have. You can see the table of contents of the older edition here: http://www.bjupress.com/product/236091?path=70130&samplePage=#lookInside . I am even using my BJU Pre-algebra book to help a student who has been out of high school for a few years study for SAT exams. It is an excellent book to prepare a child to tackle Foerster's. I wish I would have used it with all my children. I share your love of Foerster's Algebra. The beauty of its logical approach to teaching math and the depth of mathematical thinking it cultivates makes it one of my favorite textbooks ever published.

The middle school years are a great time for learning to write especially when you have a student who is capable and eager to learn. By the time a child gets to high school, much writing is already required, and taking the time to learn to write can squeeze a student's schedule. Of course, it's never too late to learn to write, but the earlier a student develops writing competency, the more capable he or she will be of thriving in the rest of the high school curriculum.

The Writer's Workshop by Dr. Greg Roper. It is an excellent book built on solid classical principles of analysis and imitation. I'm glad Sarah mentioned it.

can be found in this thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106881&highlight=Building+Great+Sentences While I think this is a worthwhile course for the teaching parent, I wouldn't use it with a student. I think the professor's disdain for grammar, in particular, wars against our attempt as classical educators to help students understand the structure of language, particularly as it relates to the structure of thought. Instead of moving the student toward mastery of rhetoric and persuasion, this course moves a student toward writing in the train-of-thought style of modern fiction. Long, loose sentences are the entire focus of the course, according to the professor. I'm not convinced that will help a student learn to express his or her ideas well; it might even hinder the development of rhetorical skill unless the student has already mastered the canons of rhetoric. There is much more to mastery of rhetoric than mastery of the cumulative or loose sentence. I know you said your interest was especially in creative writing, and it could be more helpful in this case. Still, there is more to creative writing than mastery of the cumulative or loose sentence. The professor says that he believes more information in a sentence is better, but that is a fairly modern idea about storytelling. Often the things implied or left unsaid engage the reader more than the inclusion of every detail in a train of thought. Just a slightly different perspective for you to consider as you decide whether to purchase this course...

I think transcripts from most high schools would not have ballet listed as a course. There are lots of extra-curricular activities that take more time than academic courses take, but, in my mind, that isn't a good enough reason to include them on the transcript. If your primary interest is in showing your daughter to be well-rounded, listing ballet in her extra-curricular activities will accomplish the same goal. I have never heard that admissions officers look only at SAT scores and GPA. Everything I have read says that they look for unique individuals, and that characteristic shows in extra-curriculars and the personal essay. SAT scores and GPA are probably the first sieve for screening potential applicants, but I don't think they are usually the deciding factor for admissions.

...the lecturer thinks that the considerate writer includes lots and lots of information for his or her reader. But, I think he goes overboard in including thoughts far too loosely attached to the original sentence to make them effective. As a strong believer in the value of grammatical understanding, too, I would argue with his contemporary-minded contempt for knowing the terms to describe grammatical concepts. Still, he does a service in getting the listener to think about the ways in which clauses and phrases are attached to the main independent clause of a sentence, and I am gaining some helpful insight into ways I might want to improve my teaching. I just wouldn't use this course with students. I also think that this professor's ideas would be more helpful to the creative writer than the essayist. I suspect that his and my personal tastes in literature would not coincide; he shows such a preference for the rambling loosely attached style of some of the 20th century authors that I find less than satisfying to read.

I'm not quite half way through the course, so the jury is still out. So far, I think it is okay, but not the best TC course I've ever listened to. I think it is a course that is more helpful for the parent-teacher than for students. The primary focus of the lecturer is on writing long, long sentences, a sort of declaration of independence from the conventional wisdom of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. He discusses the different ways in which additional information can be added to sentences, with less time spent exploring what makes the different forms of the sentence more or less effective. Some of the things he says are...um...less than helpful, such as his definition of style: "Style is what the writer writes and what the reader reads." Other things he says have been helpful for me as a writing teacher to think about.

...on the transcript, you can report the grade by your standard, not that of the tutor or class. I always put my own grading standard below the class list so that it is clear how the letter grades were derived. You could also list the course scores by number rather than letter, and then use your grading scale to calculate GPA. When you record information on the transcript, you can choose either to report GPA as "weighted" or as "unweighted." If you choose to report a weighted GPA, you may want to add one grade point for AP classes. Standards at colleges vary widely as to how to weight grades. One college one of my children applied to added one point for honors classes and two points for AP or IB classes. The varying methods of calculating weighted GPA is why I chose to report unweighted GPA on my children's transcripts. That way the colleges can change the scores to reflect their own method of calculating weighted GPA, which they will do automatically when they evaluate the student's application. From everything I have read, the most common grading scale in private schools is the one you use, with A's being 90-100, etc. http://privateschool.about.com/od/tools/a/gradepolicies_3.htm A+ 97-100 A 93-96 A- 90-92 B+ 87-89 B 83-86 B- 80-82 C+ 77-79 C 73-76 C- 70-72 D+ 67-69 D 63-66 D- 60-62 F Below 60 You can use the pluses and minuses to give more precision to the calculated GPA by assigning fractional points to represent them. So, an A- might be worth 3.8 points rather than 4.0 points, and a B+ might be worth 3.5 points rather than 3.0 points. (High schools and colleges vary in the fractional part of a point they assign for +'s and -'s, too.) So long as you indicate on your transcript how you have arrived at letter grades and GPA, you are free to do whatever is convenient for you and what you think best represents the work your student has completed. When you are writing your student's transcript, you're in the driver's seat. The most important thing is to communicate clearly on the transcript your grading standards.

...my Legomaniac would be an engineer, but he is a recent English/Greek graduate heading to seminary this fall. One of his best Legomaniac friends is an architect. I think Legos appeal to people of all sorts of gifts.

...no. My problem is not with the text, but with my own mathematical limitations. Foerster's Algebra and Trig covers some very difficult high school math and does it thoroughly and with clarity. It just brushed up against some thin places in my own mastery of math, and that made it a bit painful.

Since we added unlimited texting to our phone plan, my children have been in touch with one another multiple times during the day. It has been an excellent way to facilitate what they already wanted to do--stay in touch with the family. It also has been really good for the youngest, who is the only one left in our home school. He misses his college siblings.

I was just going to list the 6th edition on the FS board.

...to use this book, but never been able to fit it in. From all I remember about it, I wonder if you could call it something like "Introduction to Applied Mathematics." I know the book focuses on real applications of mathematics, so this was the first thought that came to mind.

My son took Molding Your Argument a few years ago, and he learned so much about writing arguments that summer. He had already studied Traditional Logic at the time, which probably helped him in general, but I don't think it was essential. Dr. McMenomy teaches students how to write arguments after the traditional classical pattern of analysis and imitation. At the beginning of the summer, students select a single topic about which they will write all summer. My son chose to write about violence in movies. (Dr. McM asks students not to choose something that they find so morally compelling that they cannot argue both sides of the issue.) Each week through the summer, students study an example of a classical argument and analyze it to understand how the author shaped the argument to make it effective. Then they write an imitation of the example argument about their chosen topic. By writing and rewriting the argument for and against the issue all summer, they learn so many ways to present arguments! Perhaps more importantly, they learn different ways to think about arguments. The class is low stress because, like most of the summer classes at Scholars Online, it is not graded. The students can focus their efforts on learning, not on earning a grade. Feedback comes in the form of peer review and in-class discussion of student writing. Each week students are assigned to provide feedback to another student on his or her argument. Some of the students comments were not very helpful, but some students really put thought into analyzing their fellow students arguments. (I think those students are the ones who got even more out of the class, too.) During class, Dr. McM goes over a few student arguments each week, and he uses student examples to further instruct students about writing arguments. There isn't time to go over every paper in every class, but they cycle through the students so that each student has his or her papers critiqued in class every two or three weeks. Because each week brings a new form of argument, if a family vacation (or harvest, for our family) prevents the student from being in class one week, it is easy to read the class log for that week and then return to analysis and imitation of a new argument the next week. I think the whole "Molding Your..." series is brilliantly conceived, and all of my children have taken at least one of the classes. I think I will be enrolling my youngest in Molding Your Argument this summer. We are an orcharding family, so summers aren't the easiest time for classes, but this series is well worth including. I think it is especially effective when my children aren't being pulled in all different directions with other studies. It allows them to focus on writing, which helps them when the school year rolls around in September. hth

I don't think a physical science course is necessary. We are able to do biology, chemistry, and physics in the first three years of high school, so that my children who have been more science-oriented have had the option of pursuing an advanced science in senior year. The most science-minded of my children started out with BJU Biology in 8th grade, so he had two years to pursue more advanced study of science in high school. The chemistry in BJU's biology course is a bit challenging if you have never had any chemistry before, but it is certainly doable. I didn't see the need for spending an entire high school year on physical science, though. We just took our time through those first few chapters in which the chemistry is difficult.

...about this too. My youngest is interested in art, and I know so little. He's a 9th grade student, and so far we have done the Teaching Company course on European Art, and that's about it. I have a number of resources including Janson's, but I'm wondering if that is up-to-date enough to be used for an AP course. Have you seen the course guide? http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/arthistory/ap-cd-arthist-0708.pdf Also, has anyone done the AP Studio Art? Our local private school offers a class for this, but they take two years to complete the portfolio.

Scholars Online has been using the name since 1994 when they were affiliated with ISLAS which was made up of Scholars Online Academy and Regina Coeli. It's too bad that Veritas Press picked up the same name when they started their online venture a few years ago. Thankfully Veritas Press seems to be changing their name to Scholars Academy since that is the name on all their web pages now. Scholars Online is found at http://scholarsonline.org/Info/index.php whereas the Veritas Press Scholars Academy is found at http://resources.veritaspress.com/Scholars_Online/Scholars_Online_Main.html

...Dr. McM's paper discussing classical and Christian education? http://scholarsonline.org/Info/WhitePapers/CsandCE.html That might give you an idea of the underlying philosophy of Scholars Online, touching both faith and classical education. My children have collectively taken quite a few classes from the Scholars Online teachers over the years. While the teachers are all Christians and the founders' philosophy of education is rooted in the Christian faith, the classes are not moralizing, sermonizing, nor evangelistic. They are conducted in an atmosphere of respect for all human beings, precisely because the SO founders believe that every human being is created in the image of God, and as such, is due his or her respect. I have never known any of the teachers to engage either in preaching or in attempts to challenge or undermine a student's faith. The students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and faiths. While the majority of the students in my kids' classes have been Christians of various denominations or none at all, there have also been students who claim no religious belief and, I think, even those from other faiths. The reason this works so well is that charitable communication is one of the major non-negotiables in the SO classes, even when hot-button issues arise. Students learn to interact charitably and respectfully over all kinds of differences. Biblical allusion is an important component of any kind of analysis of post-Resurrection literature, and some of the literature classes examine Biblical stories as literature. The works are examined as literature, though, not as doctrine. Still, the fact that faith is a lens through which the Christian student examines literature and history is not purged from the class discussion, but is welcome when it is charitable. Through Socratic discussion, students are encouraged not just to react to literature or history, but rather to think through and to explain their own reactions to the literature under discussion. These classes are not "worldview" classes designed to train a student to think a certain way. Rather, they are classes designed to train the student to think. Period. Religious and doctrinal instruction is left entirely in the hands of the family. As for the specific classes you are considering: In Latin classes, the translation work is, of necessity, from the ancient secular authors who wrote in Latin before and during the time of Christ's life. The advanced student of Medieval Latin will encounter some of the early Christian writers' works in Latin since they were the prolific Latinists of the day. In the writing classes, the focus is on learning to write, so moral and religious discussions are less likely to arise unless it is to help a student learn to communicate his or her beliefs with grace and with logic. I hope this helps. Our family is Protestant, so it is possible that things went over my head that might have raised eyebrows to someone of a different faith, but I don't *think* this is too likely. I know that the McMenomys are adamant about charity being the rule for communication in the classroom, and that they do not view the role of SO teachers as that of teachers of doctrine.

Congratulations on her excellent scholarship, too. The second of my children to graduate from UD will graduate in a few short weeks. Both of them have gained a broad liberal arts education that will be an asset to them no matter where life leads them. The large core curriculum insures that students gain experience with a wide variety of disciplines and helps them to become well-rounded individuals. I can't say enough good about UD's education. For students who may be interested in UD, but would like some experience before committing to attending for four years, their summer programs in Rome for high school students are excellent: Shakespeare in Italy (http://www.udallas.edu/travel/italy.cfm) and Latin in Rome (http://www.udallas.edu/travel/latin.cfm) They also have a two-week college preparatory program called Arete designed by Dr. Louise Cowan which is held on the campus in Irving. http://www.udallas.edu/summer/arete.cfm

...that working with an accrediting agency diverted an incredible amount of time and energy from teaching into record-keeping and hoop-jumping. (I had to use the "service" one year only for a relative who lived and homeschooled with us for a single year before returning to a private school to graduate. The private school required us to use the accrediting agency for that year.) I have never used such an agency for my own children, and I found that the standards required were significantly below those I require, but the time devoted to record-keeping was far beyond what I have found more than adequate for my own children's transcripts, scholarship applications, and college admissions. IMHO, the money, time, and energy required to put everything into the order the umbrella schools want to see is money, time, and energy you won't have to put into the more important job of educating the child. There are some circumstances in which an accrediting agency may be essential. It seems that I have heard that they may be needed for admission into certain service academies (??) that will not accept a homeschool transcript from a parent. But those circumstances are most rare. I also think that from a philosophical standpoint, by submitting to an umbrella school, we are, in a sense, contributing to acceptance of the idea that homeschooling parents are not capable of administering their own children's education, but instead, they require oversight by professionals. That's not a concept I want to support. Writing a transcript sounds intimidating, but it really isn't as difficult as it seems, and there are lots of helps available, including many of us here who have written transcripts to represent the work of numerous children who have gone on to college and careers. My pocket change... Under His mercy, LaJuana

Apologia Physics is not intense. It is a good basic first year physics text. My liberal arts-oriented students used it in high school, but my son who was wavering about a major in engineering used the Giancoli Physics text: http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_giancoli_physicsppa_6/ Both texts are algebra-based physics texts, as opposed to calculus-based physics texts. One difference between the two texts is that the Apologia is easily completed by self-study, but at least for my son, the Giancoli text would have been pretty tough without a tutor. He studied with Dr. Christe McMenomy of Scholars Online: http://www.dorthonion.com/drcmcm/PHYSICS/ . He ended up in the liberal arts after all (English and Greek) in college, but he has a lot better understanding of physics than my children who used Apologia. The Giancoli text is the text used at ds's college for entry level physics for non-majors. It might be a good option for you if you want a college level algebra-based physics text. If you want just a good, solid first year high school text that can be studied independently, Apologia might be perfect. hth