I pulled all nighters often. My regular sleep schedule was to bed at about 2 or 3 and up at 10. I worked until after midnight and/or went to the computer lab (this was before you had your own laptop on your dorm room) to work on programs. Compiling was faster at night and it was easier to get a seat. So...staying up until sunrise was no big deal.

I'll be in the same boat in about 2 weeks! I'll be continuing with my part time consulting work and hopefully have a little more time to get to some tasks that have been patiently awaiting me for years! I bet I'll cry. :grouphug:

It was a homeschool academy. The teachers were college professors for the most part. And male. That helped too I think.

I haven't read all of the comments here, so I don't know what others have said. I just want to encourage you because he sounds like my son at that age! One thing that helped was that I put him in courses provided through an academy. It became very important to him to do his work for those outside providers and it turned out that competition with other students drove him to come to class very prepared. He still wouldn't do the work for me until I just gave up and stepped back. Once it was completely in his court, he did it on his own. He's a bit ADD but I suspect, in hindsight, that it was mostly an independence from mom thing. He is now a straight A college student and is making good life choices. I am sooo looking forward to bringing him home for summer break tomorrow!

I have experience building computers and I agree. It doesn't take very long to build one, even if you don't know what you're doing. And especially if you have new working parts. My son took old computer parts and built his own over just a few work sessions. Next he worked with the CPU clock settings and other such things and then he made it dual-bootable under Windows and Linux. He still didn't have anywhere close to a credit. We just considered it great entertainment. I guess I could have included under his programming course but I didn't think of it at the time.

I'm graduating my youngest this year but she'll be staying home while attending college next year. After sending my son 4 hours away to college a few years ago, at least I won't feel like that felt...at least not next year. Maybe the year after though. I have been so, so swamped that much of my daughter's schooling has been either independent, with a home school academy or dual-credit. Really, her schooling has taken me only a few hours plus one day per week driving her around for the past 2 years. Basically, I will still be busy with my programming/support job which is mostly done at home, taking care of aging parents and helping my husband to finish a huge remodel (about a 70% rebuild) of a farm house that we would like to move to by next summer. With whatever extra time I have, maybe I can use it to clean the house now and then! Those dust bunnies have been patiently waiting for years it seems!

DS is finishing up his sophomore year at a very large university and is doing great both academically and socially. He is on the highest deans list and is in his departmental honor society. Homeschool plus a gap year prepared him both academically and maturity-wise. His first year, he and his girlfriend both started at the same college and in the same dorm and since he tends to be an introvert, I was worried that he wouldn't branch out socially. He is still dating the same girl but he also found his guy-tribe within the first few weeks of his freshman year. They are all still good friends, all academically oriented and have a standing appt. to play pathfinders on Saturday nights. Next year he and all of his friends will be moving to various off and on campus apartments but all within a block of each other. They found it important to stick together so it looks like the friendship group will continue.

I think that the only time that it would be appropriate to suggest a gift of money for the mission trip would be if somebody specifically asks you what your daughter might want/need as a graduation gift.

You shouldn't count them twice, but consider that a 1 credit course is anywhere from 120 on the low end to 180 hours on the high end. So, you can take some of the history hours spent on the essay writing and count it towards the English credit. My kids covered history & literature for a time period and wrote essays that integrated them. For each year they got 1 history credit, 1 literature credit and .5 english composition credits. All together the 2.5 credits took about 450 hours or 15 hours/wk to complete.

This year the AP tests fall in the same week as my senior's dual credit finals, so she's feeling a bit stressed. But, she's handling it fine. I remind her that a 4 is as good as a 5 because she gets the same college credits either way. And a 3 will give her something also. Knowing that takes some of the pressure off. She's taking European History, Music Theory and English Language and Comp this year. I think she'll do fine - we didn't prepare with AP courses so she'll get 4s I'm guessing.

It seems like a lot to me, but your kids may handle that kind of load just fine. I suggest that you pre-plan what you will pull back on if you find that they are over-loaded. It's even possible that you could keep all of the courses, but not do them all at the AP level. Although I love AP college credit, you really don't have to do them for every subject - a few every year is impressive enough unless you're going to apply to super-selective universities.

We've enjoyed "Understanding the Fundamentals of Music" and "How to Listen to and Understand Opera" both taught by Prof. Robert Greenberg. Both courses are not only interesting but entertaining. And we learned a lot of material. I give them both an A+!

You can find the calculation tables in the pdf that will download on this link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwi_yd_6xJ7MAhWGGD4KHTjnCRUQFggkMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstudentaid.ed.gov%2Fsa%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2016-17-efc-formula.pdf&usg=AFQjCNG09qQNOHxPsssimUxj0MZZxIDb7A&cad=rja

If your student knows the material, why wait? If you plan all of your AP tests for 11th or 12th grade, you're either going to limit the number of that you take or your going to cram a lot of tests into a two week time period which can be really stressful.

I don't think it will cause a lot of problems with the AP tests as long as you throw in a little weekly review in March and April. This would probably be a good time to go through the AP study guides - just a few hours a week for those two months should do it.

I'm a creationist but not a YEC. I figure that we don't know how God did what he did, thus I don't find anything in the world of science that would disprove the existence of God. My daughter, who sees it pretty much the same as I do, used Apologia Biology in an academy setting and they did not even discuss any in-the-beginning arguments. They did skip the evolution chapter which is where the YEC philosophy comes to the surface. The rest of Apologia Biology pretty much covered biology from the perspective of...well...biology. Plants, animals, bacteria...all that stuff.

I write in my books - highlighting, chapter summaries, notes in the margins. Sometimes I use sticky notes and sometimes not. To me, writing in a book means that the book has been taken more seriously. A book is about the interaction between the writer and the readers. Without that interaction, the pages themselves have no meaning and no value. I actually enjoy seeing what other people have written in a book that I'm reading because now I have an interaction between myself, other readers and the author. So really, the writing and even dog ears are artifacts of that interaction. I say write away. Someday, somebody else is going to read those books and gain even more from them because of the mark that you left.

No, you have not misunderstood. You have to wait until you have the student ID number. The account is pretty useless until the scores are in anyway, so you loose nothing in the wait.

The reason that I tend to recommend not planning to use AP tests to get credit for a major-specific course is because oftentimes the department will make you retake the class anyways. Sometimes if they don't, the student misses some important concepts that they will be expected to understand in the higher level courses. That said, it depends on the college, the course and the student. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the AP experience and credits even if you have to take the course anyways. The reason I tend to recommend the tests for gen ed credits is because getting those courses out of the way makes for easier scheduling and opens up some opportunities that the student wouldn't otherwise have. For example, my son is in a very structured program in college, but he also has scholarships based on taking an honors course every semester - all are outside of his major. So, not having to do as many gen eds gives him some room in his schedule to fit in the honors classes and possibly even earn a minor. In addition, his major program has recommended taking just 12 to 14 hours the first semester of his junior year because of the expected work load. Finishing his sophomore year with only two more gen. ed. requirements to complete makes that a whole lot more workable.

Although the AP test coordinator should know your state homeschool code, just in case they don't, you can find it on page 19 of the coordinators manual found at this link: https://professionals.collegeboard.org/testing/ap/coordinate Also, if you want to send a score report to a college for free, you'll want to know the college code for that. Many colleges are listed in the student booklet, but not all. If your student is not a senior already accepted into a college, I wouldn't do this. It isn't expensive to send a score report later and if you don't do it automatically with the test, you can pick and choose which scores you send later. For admissions applications, usually it works to self-report AP scores and then send them after the student has accepted the admissions offer so that they can get the course credits. When to send the AP scores does depend on the college. Some want the official scores sent in as part of the application process. As I recall, your child should be given their student manual with their identification code on it once all of their testing is completed. But, just in case the school holds on to this, they should write their identification code down and put it somewhere for safe keeping. You'll need it to set up an online account to be able to see their test scores. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait to get them in via snail-mail. Your student will need an official picture ID. If your child doesn't have a drivers license or passport, it may be worth it to go to your BMV and get an official state ID. Other than that, it's just the normal name and address type questions.

Have you considered opening another retirement savings account - either an IRA or 401K and putting your yearly maximum back in? Maybe both you and your husband could do this. This would lower your adjusted gross income by that amount. You have until April 15th, 2016 to this for 2015.

Some additional info: If your child has done the classical 4 year sequence of history, literature and composition, consider the AP Literature, AP World History, AP European History and AP English Language and Composition tests. My daughter took the AP Literature exam after studying the modern era and was very prepared. You student is pretty well prepared for the AP composition test if they have studied for the SAT writing and critical reasoning exam sections and are able to write a quick essay. The history exams will probably require the full cycle of history and also will require some essay writing abilities.

You'll probably think this is terrible, but usually all we do is purchase the AP study guides off Amazon for under $20 a piece. I read the reviews to figure out which guides to buy. Obviously, my kids had some background in literature, history, composition, music theory, etc before even considering the tests. But that background wasn't necessarily AP focused. The study guides cover what you need to know for the test so from those you can figure out if your student is completely unfamiliar with the subject or if they are mostly prepared. We often used the study guides available at our local library as a first pass before deciding if we should purchase one that they don't have to return in two weeks. If they are familiar with most of the material at the first pass, we go for it. Generally my kids start seriously working with the study guides 2 months before the test.

The AP tests cost under $100 each and some states pick up part of that fee. For example, in Indiana, the English Composition test is free this year. You do not have to take an AP course in order to take and AP test. My son took one AP course and passed 4 AP tests with a 4 or higher. He started college with 15 gen ed credits for less than $400. At most colleges, a 4 gives the same credits as a 5 and sometimes a 3 gives credit for a lower level course. My daughter is going to take the AP Music Theory test next month. I've heard that it is a difficult test, but the course that she wants to test out of only requires a 3 on the test. If she gets a 4 or more, she'll get credit for a higher level class that she feels she needs to take given she's going to be a music major. So, if she gets a 4 (or 5), I'm hoping that we can get the university to give her credit for the lower level course instead. Otherwise, I guess that test will be a waste because she'll be taking the course anyway. Bottom line - the AP tests are not that expense and 3s are usually good enough for some gen ed credits. There's really not much a risk involved.

I think CLEP and AP tests are good for gen ed credit. For my son, getting some of his non-major requirements out of the way via AP tests have made scheduling his college courses much easier. His major has a very strict sequence, so it can be difficult to get the gen ed courses in the available time slots. I'm not a fan of testing out of credits within ones major unless the student really did do the all of the work and learn all of the concepts involved. It can be a real disadvantage in the upper level courses to have missed some of the entry level material.