Upromise Card members received the e-mail offer below. Does anyone know if it includes the purchase of gift cards? This is the last week of the Holiday Gift Guide, an exclusive offer for Upromise MasterCard®cardmembers. This week you can earn a total of 20% cash back for college from participating partners when you activate the In-Store offer and pay with your Upromise MasterCard®1. College Savings not earned on purchases of Kmart Pharmacy, Martha's Flowers, One Hour Photo Lab, Portrait Studio, Picture Maker, NetZero HiSpeed, DentalPlans. Please notify Upromise Customer Care of any cash back from Sears.com, Kmart.com or MyGoFer.com that has not posted to your account within 90 days from your date of purchase. Sears Holdings, Inc. will not research any transaction after 90 days from the date of purchase. Neither Upromise Mastercard nor K-mart/Sears could supply an answer! Thanks.

Has anyone used 529 funds to pay for the PCAT test and/or the Pharmcas fee? TIA

Has anyone used this Chinese herbal formula to ease painful menses? An acupuncturist recommended it to my daughter and I haven't been able to find much in the way of reviews or warnings. TIA

Thanks Hoggirl--I'll try that.

Would like to hear from anyone (on list or pm) whose student took the PCAT for pharmacy school. Not sure what prep materials are needed, esp for someone who will not take Organic or Anatomy until after the test. The free Kaplan PCAT diagnostic test did not show any areas of concern. Is that test accurate? There is such a wide variety of opinions on Student Doctor Network. What should he purchase, if anything? Thanks.

Unfortunately, you can't. We write a check for the first $4000 to take advantage of the full tax credit opportunity. Then use the 529 funds. "You can't use the same higher education expenses to qualify for both a tax-free distribution from a 529 plan and the American opportunity tax credit," says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the financial aid website FinAid.org. Because the American opportunity credit amounts to a free $2,500 off of your taxes each year (provided that you spend at least $4,000 on college expenses), Kantrowitz advises parents to use savings or student loans to cover the first $4,000 in tuition, fees and course materials, then 529 plan distributions for all other expenses. Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/college-finance/3-ways-make-529-plan-work-1.aspx#ixzz2oe8QKhy0

Mrs. Gilleran does such a complete job with my ds' Calc AB class I really don't have any involvement in it. I asked him for his input: "The AP Calculus AB course is far from self-teaching. Mrs. Gilleran posts long messages every weekday to prepare her students for the material they will cover, explaining sample problems ahead of time and making herself available to answer any questions via email. Some students have even said in the past that she provides TOO MUCH information! The discussion board is also used by many students on a near-daily basis, ensuring that every student who wants to learn has the tools necessary to make it happen. Additionally, Mrs. G also provides videos on most concepts taught in her class so that her students can get that "Dana Mosely" experience that some may miss from their Chalkdust days. Finally, Mrs. Gilleran makes sure that we complete our work in the textbook by the end of February so that March and April can be spent reviewing heavily, during which time we are encouraged to contact her to let her know how we're feeling about the material, telling her what areas we feel strong in so that we can focus on any weak areas to ensure that we score 4s and 5s on the AP exam. I highly recommend her class to anyone who can handle a challenging course and is looking for a teacher who cares about her students."

Yes, but some need change. CB has recycled Biology and Chemistry SAT questions for years.

I agree with Kareni. My ds is in the PA Homeschoolers class right now and really enjoys it. He says he spends a little more time on it than the AP Calc and Chem classes--about 13-15 hrs/wk as a guess.

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For those looking to save $$$, Blue Tent's cost is $100-150 less than PA Homeschoolers. http://teacherweb.co...pson/apt18.aspx My ds needs a serious amount of direction and individual instruction for his writing and that's just what Brigid provides. Thanks to her, he scored a 5 on the Eng Lang exam last May; he is taking Eng Lit with her now. I can't say enough good things about her. ds is self-studying AP Physics and is taking AP Stats, Calc and Chem w/ PA Homeschoolers this year. All the teachers are terrific and highly recommended!

Yes, I haven't found any way to show the GPA and credits together on the resume without some type of explanation about one or the other.... Guess I just need to decide which one to use by itself. Thanks.

Thanks for answering! 1) Did you mention the GPA only covers 3 years of school? If so, how did you word it? 2) Did you also include credits, and if so, did you note how many years the credits covered? TIA

Uncertain how to post GPA and credits on the resume... Should the resume reflect the current GPA and credits only through 11th grade, for example.... " 3.9 GPA; 21.5 credits through junior year" Or should it be..... "3.9 GPA; 28 credits anticipated upon graduation" Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks.

<<<I've long thought we would use Prentice Hall's Chemistry...we'll be using Miller/Levine for Biology most likely, but the reviews were not favorable for their chemistry book...and I don't see it mentioned a lot here either. Is this a good book? If not, would anyone please share with me why it isn't.>>> My ds took Honors Chem through Chemadvantage (no longer offered), so I had to find another choice for my dd. dd will study Chem for two years and for this first year we chose Prentice Hall Chemistry because that's what our local public school uses and after talking to the chem teacher I was convinced that was a fine choice. Also purchased the workbook and teacher's manual that beautifully parallel the text, chapter by chapter, section by section. Didn't spend much, got the text from Paperback Swap. She just completed chapter 5 and we are very disappointed in how poorly electron configuration was covered. Just a couple pages, very surface level, no details. Chapter 6, Periodic Table, looks the same way. Dd is studying to eventually take the NYS Regents exam in chemistry, pretty easy test, but the colleges like to see it for anyone pursuing health sciences. I am supplementing with curriculum and worksheets for the entire year supplied by two different NYS public school teachers. We have found the Prentice Hall text (so far) does not cover the subject matter well at all. Dd couldn't answer half the questions on the worksheets for electron configuration, although she had completed the Prentice Hall workbook easily for the same chapter. The periodic table chapter looks like the same story. We will have to do a lot more supplementing if we continue with this book. But we do have great resources to pull from, plus her brother is again w/ Mr. Moskaluk this year, so we aren't worried about it. But no, IMHO, I wouldn't chose this text no matter what level your student is at. Doesn't do a good job. (But after Mr. Moskaluk, everything pales in comparison )

This is the cover of the one he used. It was the new set (at that time- 2009) http://www.chalkdust.com/geom.html http://www.chalkdust.com/geomout.html This one says Larson, but it looks like the Alexander text? I'm not recommending it, but my dd took the PSAT/SAT before taking Geometry and did just fine on those questions since she had taken plenty of practice tests.

CD Geometry was my son's least favorite of the series. It was the only level that didn't use Larson as its author. ds didn't feel the DVD lessons and text complemented each other as well as Alg, Alg 2, etc. did. He only used the DVDs as needed, not for every lesson. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/search.php?searchid=12973454

That's what ds is doing--just listing his grades on the transcript. None of the colleges he interviewed with so far were interested in the extra paperwork. Several of the colleges accepted his SAT scores, SAT subject test scores and AP test scores from his transcript. So that has saved us some money as well.

Here's a nice one I think is from a fellow WTM member... http://quarksandquirks.wordpress.com/biology-hs-level/ It took my ds almost 2 years to complete the text, study guide etc. If your dd truly studies it, it won't be a time saver. Some schools use it to prep for the AP Biology exam as did my ds. Good luck!

My ds needs to bring a one page resume to a group interview. That's all the college wants, in addition to the SAT grades already submitted. --Presently, the resume heading is composed of his name, address, ph #, and email address. That alone takes up a lot of room. Any creative ideas to reduce this space used? --Does he need to include a paragraph stating his "objective" or "goals" or can he just list his test grades, activities, references, etc, which already fill the page? --He wants to include a few middle school awards (Nat'l Spelling Bee, NYS essay contest winner) but is that a mistake? I have been told these activities are meaningless once you are in high school, while others have encouraged him to include them since the activities were nat'l/regional contests that included prizes. TIA for any suggestions!

My ds found the first 3 chapters were review so he completed the chapter tests for those, then started w/ chap 4. We never plan the math out too much ahead, just jump in and keep working until it's complete. He struggled w/circles in both chap 9 and 10. Had to return to these sections to review. Used http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/math-algtrig.htm along with other math sites when needed. Took SAT Math Subject Test I afterwards and felt well prepared.

some links may be old..... http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=351468

You don't need to take the Regents exam in your school district. You may take it at any NYS school--we have used two different schools. Getting the lab book looked over doesn't take long--just find a cooperative teacher and you'll be fine.

If your student plans to major in the sciences, taking Regents exams can be worthwhile. Unless your student has an interest in environmental sciences, I wouldn't bother with Earth Science though as not only does your child have to complete 1200 minutes of lab time, but he must also complete a lab practical at the public school (unless things have changed in the last few years). The lab practical must be done in the school under teacher supervision. There is no way around it. My ds did it, but we are not bothering with it for my dd. The Regents chemistry exam is easy to score 100%, as it is entirely composed of past years' exam questions. Our district accepted ds' lab book from Mr. Moskaluk's honors chem class with no problem. Your student could also take the SAT subject exam in which he only needs to place at the 18% (of test takers) for Chemistry, 21/15% for Bio E/M, 13% for Physics, to reach Regents equivalency, as long as he has the 1200 lab minutes documented and approved. I contacted the state dept. to check on these numbers and they are correct! So far, in ds' experience, NYS adcoms have shown more interest in his Regents Chem exam grade than in his SAT Chem subject test score. http://www.nysut.org/files/bulletin100225_regentsalternatives.pdf

I copied Kareni's idea and created a "Partners in Education" supplement. It includes bios for each teacher (all online instructors), along with a letter of rec from each teacher, plus AP or SAT subject exam scores ds received for the appropriate subject/class. This supplement has been a big hit at each college ds has interviewed at so far. It's a great conversation starter and each counselor has come away with a little more knowledge about homeschooling. Many counselors have no idea of the online opportunities available to homeschoolers and they appear extremely interested in how a struggling writer like ds successfully communicates with an AP English teacher or how a physics or chemistry class can be taught online. In ds' case, our extensive course descriptions taken from his annual NYS plans have been of little interest. YMMV