I'm not a HOD user, but that had me curious so I looked on their website. This is what I saw. In high school each of their science years is 1 credit so far. World Geography year has 1 year credit of IPC (integrated physics and chem) World History has biology (1 credit) and the US History 11th grade has 1 credit chemistry (using Wile's new text)

I can share what I did. My academically average child did apologia biology as our main course, and then at the end of school year when we still had attendance days to fill we watched the biology101 dvd. It was a nice video series to watch. From reading through the "accreditation booklet", I know I would be frustrated trying to make it a full year regular needs high school course. It's like having a glass of water as part of your complete breakfast - just add a complete breakfast. It was much more enjoyable as a supplemental video. With my youngest, I might be able to use it as the spine for her special needs level biology class, but even then, I plan on having her do the field and microscope labs from apologia biology, and find something to read at her level. I know there are a lot of ways to homeschool, but I think a lot of the clock hours in the bio101 booklet are not high school level for the vast majority of regular needs students. I'm not that rigor homeschooler, over achiever stereotype either. I'm all for regular high school in high school. But I struggle with the 101dvd series being the main dish for regular needs. Side dish, or dessert.. sure. so you might have to shift your thinking and start with biology course and just enjoy the dvd as supplement. That may not have been the opinion and experience you were hoping to read. Do you need just a semester or material? do you need it to be high school credit? maybe some of that would help others to help brainstorm with you.

The problem Lori describes clearly wasn't an issue at my daughter's college. The only rule they have on that is you can't clep a class that you enroll and then drop or withdraw. That's another thing to check on and make sure.

our story. My oldest used REA guide (online) last year (the summer between college freshman and sophomore years) . She did about 2 practices and took the test. Didn't even really study on it. she passed quite easily. (college wants the 50 score like ACE recommends and she got in mid 60's without much effort.) Her high school work was probably not as rigorous as you did. We used mfw and never did AP or dual enrollment. I don't know if REA is the "best" or not but it was amble prep with minimal effort for her. and the practice scores she got was close to what she got on real test. She's engineering major who didn't want to take another lit class after high school. glad to get this out of the gen ed way.

My dd's advisor has been great at that. He was one of the main people who designed the program she's in. The undergraduate catalog spells out how to do each major and what to take when. It even tells if a course is only offered certain terms. Then, the students have a place on their student account (which student can access) which actually shows flowcharts, spreadsheets, and checklist of what you have done and what you need to take for graduation. I guess there's nothing wrong with homeschool parent helping to plan. I just want to let you know that it's possible the leg work on this is done for you at some colleges. Check the catalog. And at any pre enrollment meetings ask about what is available for student to check on this stuff. It's called Degree Works at my dd's college and seems to be a software used at several places around the country. When my dd was in the application process we found on college website that all of the spreadsheet legwork was done for us. Read the catalog. Look for program plans. Even when I was in college 30 years ago, this stuff was in the catalog for us.

On Essentials in Writing, they are just now beginning to offering Scoring Service. I don't know if their service is in your budget. I don't know details. I just know the scoring service is there. here' s link for you to find out if something like that could be helpful. He does the lessons but they grade/score/evaluate it. http://essentialsinwriting.com/scoring-service/

This won't help on the 2 different majors such as math/literature. and we're not in UC. But I can share some of my dd's current experience as a double major - BS in Electrical Engineering with BS in computer science. or as she and my dh call it "CS double gEEk" The degree paradigm for that double major can be done in 4 years to get the 140 credits. It means most semesters are 18 or 17 credits . Two semesters have to be 19 hours, which is one credit overload. One of those overloads is final semester and includes 3 gen eds. In her case, she got one Gen Ed via clep exam. And will also do 2 summer courses this year in order to avoid the 19 credit load. (summer tuition for 6 credits (2 courses) isn't that much higher than the per credit overcharge that she would otherwise have.) It is busy for her. She seems to like it. Some students who start off in this double major sequence eventually drop one of the other. She doesn't want to drop the EE to have just CS because then she'd be in the college of sciences instead of engineering and that would mean foreign language requirement. If she's in engineering, she gets that part of her "geek social life". I think she likes doing both. She's motivated. Yes, she says there are others who do these sequence in 4.5 or 5 years. but she is on track to get it done in 4. social life: she seems to have time for romance, and D&D games, LARP. (live action role play. I told you, she's CS double gEEK, right?) work study job as math tutor, and even shows up to church on weekend with us. She craves social stuff and found her nerd and geek social life in college. I'm happy for her. I don't know how she manages all of that. I never taught her that level of intensity in stuff to do. in terms of courses for prep while in high school? I have to take a pass on that. She didn't even do dual enrollment in homeschool. no AP's. the clep lit exam wasn't until she was in college (summer after first year. her college allows that.)

If I were in that situation, I'd find a local homeschool co-op or just a friend and make a barter. If you coach and edit my child's English papers, I can offer to help your student learn my first language. That may be the old school way of doing homeschool, but it works. I just don't think the next logical course for a child who just finished 7th grade is to find college class. That is mostly dealing with letting them grow up to be ready for reading amounts and levels and content, as well as everything else others mentioned.

In some states ACT/SAT is already accepted for homeschoolers to use for yearly testing requirement. Couldn't hurt to ask where you live.

I think we needed it for CLEP registration as well.

update on the 21st. (feel weird quoting my own post...) I just received email notice from ACT that the score report is available now. So, yes, now I can see the format I was expecting with more than just the numbers.

There was another thread in the last week about good scores. All of it of course depends on various goals and various colleges for what good is. You'll want to look at your state's flagship university, as well as state schools that are less flagship. (example: in TN, look at UT Knoxville, the so called flagship, and U of Memphis, the not so flagship). What are they giving? State grants... in TN, for example, a score of 21 composite gets you the lottery based grants. Then look at fancy private college near you and the less fancy. Where my oldest attends, ACT of 30 and higher are in the top category where dollar amounts are about 50% of tuition. However, there are some full ride scholarships at that same school that are based on 21 score, but lots of community leadership. Then, there's the "you can stack scholarships" aspect. So my daughter gets over 50% tuition from ACT score, stacked with departmental scholarship (which began at score of 27), plus a state grant, then she got a runner up scholarship for just showing up for the interview for a full ride program and coming in not first place. (they gave out 4 full rides from a total of 100 applicants) At the big fancy private school, a 30 on ACT is chicken feed and barely high enough to be considered worthy to submit the application. (some places are like that) It's just too loaded of a question because it varies based on where you're looking. Hope that will help you know where to begin to look in your area.

Nukeswife, I agree with Princeton Review book for strategies on time and how to guess. and from glancing at Merry's post.. yeah, it's about strategies. We also used the Real Act prep book. And the free preparing for ACT student guide books. scroll about half way down for those http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/test-preparation.html and my middle daughter did alg 1 in 9th as well. I'm glad you feel more encouraged. :) It's common to prep for ACT and take it 2 or 3 times. not more than 12 times though. Where I'm from, I don't think many student do prep work for PSAT. But oh, ACT.. you should see some of the boot camps that homeschoolers offer for each other. There's no way my dd could have handled the prep class!!! eek. This is my dd who had to use the student book prep I linked just a moment ago in order to know the obvious stuff like filing in the basic info from the ticket and I let her practice even writing the agreement that they sign. She was that level of nervous and some stuff isn't always obvious to her. She also broke into tears for an entire day about 1 week before the test. "math will be the downfall of me. I just know it." She cried the whole day and not even her cat could calm her. After the test? I took her to the animal shelter to just let her hug on every dog in the shelter. that's my middle kid. does that help with the perspective of what it was like for us? I had to show her that math of 19 was going to be enough to take college math at community college after she graduates high school. I had to show her that 21 in our state is good enough. I get it on the not feeling up to the task of homeschooling sometimes. My youngest? I'm in count down mode. 48 more months of homeschooling and I can legally stop. My very lofty goal for her in high school is to acquire enough regular level (not rigor, not honors, but regular, basics) high school to get a regular diploma and not just special ed. I'm sure we can do special ed and if that is what it is, that is what it is. But oh my push the limit, raise the bar part of me wants to reach for that regular level basics diploma for her!

agreeing on all of that. I like hearing all range of scores. Average ones. super wowzers ones. cool. I'm glad for them. Doesn't mean I'm a failure if my child isn't doing that. and even the student who struggles. My oldest dd had a homeschool friend who got 17 on her final try. She got into college and had to take remedial classes in summer and gets tutoring and helps. No matter how well she did in class (even tutoring) she could not test well on that thing. and the mom of that student is one of the veteran homeschool moms in my area who is no failure at all. chin up !!

I actually don't think that confirms you messed up. My middle gal that I'm bragging on in this thread got about 19 on her first practice test (taken last fall) with no prep at all. We practiced and prepped for over 6 months while also doing regular level 11th grade work. That's why I'm over the top excited with 24. I know there will be people on here who got 32 and higher. I know there are people who will not except lower than 30 from the child. So what???? To me? to hear a sophomore with no prep gets 18, doesn't sound like you messed up. This first score is a baseline with no prep. That's not a homeschool fail at all. really, it is not. I'll offer hugs for you feeling a bit down. But I think your report is a good one for a 10th grader who took it with no prep as a baseline. remember... the only thing to really compare is growth in your child from year to year. Not whether or not it meets some Hive thing that one drums up. chin up, please. I'm proud of your son's score as a sophomore with no prep.

Hoping someone can confirm or correct my information. The changes I heard about from original to current (2015-16) are: *instead of called "grade" it is called "level" *cover art *pdf files are not on the discs but are emailed (download?) in terms of content *they made corrections to typos *as far as I ever heard, they did not go back and re do the video lessons, so the content can't really be all that significantly different in the workbook. I still have our completed papers from my dd's using a level a few years back with the older (2011) version and am comparing it to the online sample of that same level which says it was revised in 2013... The noticeable differences are the formatting of the table of contents. Current version is more appealing to look at. and with headings. looks like a printing error was cleaned up. The content looks so close to the same that I would think one would be able to buy the current workbook with older dvd. oh, one new thing but this isn't content change. They now offer scoring (grading) service for high school levels. (edit: as an addition purchase from the program) hopefully someone can confirm or correct my info. Maybe there was a level that had something significant. Maybe not.

We didn't do essay and we didn't get an email either. I'm thinking the email referenced was from a specific talent search program (which I guess got scores a day earlier) and not from ACT itself. I'm enjoying hearing all of the stories. hope I don't run out of "likes"

Got ours this morning too. I am having trouble finding them in the same format that I was expecting from the sample student report on their site. But got numbers. not national percentile though.. good thing I don't need that number for anything in record keeping. the printer version doesn't look like the sample student report. but hey.. I got the numbers. I am very proud of my slow to average, slow and steady middle child. Her science score was lower than others which tells me she was really tired by the end. (The number was lower than her practices.) But, I'm really happy with 24 composite because I know it shows her ability for what it is and higher than our original goal of let's hope for a 21 or 22 composite like the state wants to see for college grant. I know on this forum there are people of all levels and abilities (my oldest got "only" a 30 for my own example.) and sometimes the average people are missed, but yeah, o yeah,, my average (and struggling learner who wasn't always as high on the charts as average) did great in my perspective. Oh, she's 11th grade, and still has time to grow and learn and be even more ready in a 1.5 years time. very excited for her individual accomplishment. fits our goals and demonstrates her ability.

I feel old on this thread. I realized it's been 13 years since I used mfw the first time. My oldest started in 2nd grade with ecc (before adventures was written), and she's doing very well in college. used it whole way through. Middle gal is just finishing 11th grade. youngest has autism. it was too much for my youngest to handle from about her 2nd grade time until currently. I'd have to trim a lot to make it work and she really just wants a chapter to read, fill in a blank and go be the developmental delayed person she is with autism. I still have hopes to use parts of ECC in this child's geography credit. (She is special needs). some books will be hit or miss. I liked that I didn't have to do much shopping or planning. Other people will find that as a turn off. For me, it was an answer to prayer. It really was enough to do and my oldest was college ready. When we were in younger years, I enjoyed the idea of book basket. For others, that idea of getting books and letting them not finish all of them, or get them back to library is a hassle. For me, in the younger years, it was a fun thing to do once a week to go to library by myself while hubby watched the kids. or we'd all go together. It was a smaller town with the best library. Moved to larger city, and going to library here just was blah... overall, I was glad with the decision in 2003 and glad with it now. No, I didn't like every.single.book in the program. That's ok. Yes, I like teaching from a textbook without it being a read aloud. Yes, we enjoyed many of the read alouds over the years. Crafts were usually simple enough I could do it. i'd scale back as needed. If you really feel trapped by lesson plans written by others with no ability to give yourself permission to do it otherwise, then mfw and similar programs probably aren't what you want. For me the lesson plans made it easy for us to get it done. I don't know how to reduce my experience over a decade of liking it into a short answer. School got done. we had fun with science (other people hate it). Then they grow up and take the lesson planner by themselves ..

bingo. that would make sense. If you already had those listed, no need to send the email I got on Monday. We still don't have even a clue where to consider sending scores, so I'll pay the fee later.

in 2012 maybe our paper copies were sent to cover school. We didn't use homeschool code. maybe that's the difference??? and if she didn't include those schools, the deadlines to include them for free was yesterday. I hope you got that email on Monday morning from ACT. We got it in both the emails for student and parent. Thank you for registering for the APRIL 2016 NATIONAL ACT test. There is still time for you to list up to 4 colleges and scholarship agencies to receive your scores at no additional charge. The deadline to add colleges, make changes, or cancel reports to colleges and scholarship agencies is 12 noon, central time, on the THURSDAY immediately following the regularly scheduled Saturday test date. Requests for changes or cancellations after this deadline cannot be honored, and you will have to pay additional fees to add score recipients after the deadline. I would have said something sooner on this thread, but I figured everyone got that email on Monday and knew it.

first, agreeing that you're not behind in content. If you're wanting to add something fun, plan for doable field trips to children's museums, science museums, zoo, go to the park and look at the tree before you climb it. take some pictures of it. That's about all we did when my oldest was 7 and I had 2 other little ones under my feet or hanging upside down in a sling (don't judge me. she had a sensory integration issue). summer time was quick day trips in the state to some family museums and state parks. dh took off when he could. and we watched Magic School Bus and Liberty's Kids. school house rock .... and I told stories about "now when mama was a little girl...." and yes, you'll want to figure out something about planning and organizing and having a to do list that is doable in real world. I know I do much better with something to check off even if it's as simple as "yep, watched that science video with youngest. yep. did one chapter in history.. one section in math". ok, I did my best years when I bought pre made lesson plans, but that's another story. That didn't happen for me until oldest was 8 or so. go get some field trips and fun.

You're asking somehow who thinks all of ancient history is boring and dull and dry once you're out of grammar stage. I mean, high schoolers aren't going to be doing fun stuff like making Egypt crowns and taking 4 days to build a tabernacle replica, or wearing a toga to the living room. So, all of it can be boring in high school because there isn't the hands on history learning like you get to do in elementary and jr high. well, ok, I still let my girls get out the tabernacle we made in the lower mfw years. In theory, I should get all religious and say "well, the Bible of course! It's God's Word, active and something religious sounding". but there are people who say that's dry too. I'm glad MFW schedule the driest parts at hyper speed. We had to use audio on biblegateway to get through the pace that week (it was like doing the law books really fast.) My oldest added in books that she liked I'm guessing that's the year she and her friends were reading one of the popular myth series. But for "fun" it was other subjects and her life and her volunteer time. She was around a lot of public school kids who didn't like their books either so it was something they all talked about. One time she was "behind" in Odyssey or maybe it was Bulfinch and so she took it to the youth meeting. and her answer for that was "well, sometimes you just got to do your school and get it done". Now if you ask my middle daughter, she'll tell you that everything was interesting except that New Answers Book. She liked Cat of Babustes, and liked the whole epic poetry thing with Gilgamesh. She enjoyed the Bulfinch. She did struggle in Iliad so we did abridged. Liked Odyssey and she liked reading the Eric Liddell book. She even loved doing timeline and the picture style high school encyclopedias. Don't ask me. I had two different children from same family. One who was "fine.. if i just do this it will help me in college someday." (she's the one who is engineering student) and one who was "ooh... this is fun" (she might be an art/writer and cat rescuer). how's that for mixed review? :lol:

The only things close to a "skill gap" that I can think of would be 1. daily personal response to literature. In Iliad students are to read and response and think on topics such as anger/rage in their life (or society in general) with comparisons to what the Bible has to say about that. 2. enduring a longer book that one may not really like but has to do anyway. (cheeky grin) If student is not familiar with the story of Iliad, it may be beneficial to at least read summary of story/plot/characters, or use one of other lighter versions mentioned in the lesson plans to accomplish that goal. The Iliad being "quasi optional" is that the lesson planner just gives permission to put that book down if the student is bogged down and just can't. There are other times in the lesson plans in English to do "free reading" with any book from any list you want. You'll have options of when and what to add. So it could be during Iliad or another time. But yes, you can individualize.

a little more on the physics 101: I just skimmed through the "guide book". None of the quizzes require math. or if there is one or two questions over 20 quizzes that need math, it's simple equation. My biggest concern with it is whether or not it is semester course, or year. They say 1 credit, and tell you to do stuff to expand with write a 200 word report. But even then I'm just not seeing a full year of work in it. But it does look doable for my delayed/special needs learner. The guide book is more of an outline of the dvd script. quizzes are multiple choice. labs aren't heavy labs. they are demos. some will take a few seconds because you watched the few seconds on dvd. others might take a minute or two. I struggle with giving an hour of clock time devoted to "driving to the ice cream store and making note out loud when you are accelerating, changing direction...." as I said, I can see my special ed daughter being able to do this course as semester credit. She's behind in math, language ability etc.(and really doesn't like to do school.) But would enjoy being "wow'ed" at the fun of this. not sure if that answered the questions you have about it. It covers plenty of topics typical for high school physics, but just does it very lightly with little work for student.