In regular US schools, I think it is often normal practice to take some other chemistry class before AP. But then that leaves the last year or 2 of high school to cram in several science APs, if you want to do that. I wanted dd to have a few science APs, so we started freshman year with AP chemistry. She'd only had middle school science which includes some, but not a lot, of chemistry. (Covalent and ionic bonds and the octet rule.) She worked very hard in that class as nearly all the material was new to her. But it was her only science class and only AP that year, so she had the luxury of devoting much of her intellectual energy to learning the material really well. This year is AP bio, next year is AP physics. I hear about students enrolled in regular school who can't take an AP unless they've had a prerequisite class in the same department. That's fine, but then if you want to take a bunch of science APs you have less time to do it before graduation. But maybe that's balanced by the fact that the AP classes themselves are easier?

That question specifically aimed at homeschoolers ruffled my feathers, too, until I read the above. Responding to this sort of question gives the homeschooled student the opportunity to show agency in their educational path, not passivity. No, I didn't homeschool because everyone else was doing it. I chose homeschooling because I wanted to do X and Y and Z. And now I choose your university because I want to do A and B and C. I should smooth my feathers and view this as an opportunity to show off more.

Take a look at this thread, toward the end there is a sub-discussion about options for AP calc. I took AP calc BC back in the dark ages before graphing calculators, and my dd is a stronger math student than I was so I figure she can handle it. I'm also trying to decide between PAH calculus BC which like you said, is more direct preparation for the exam, but maybe too much busywork for my kid who has been using AoPS for so long. Alternatively, we might self-study using the AoPS text, and then do some exam prep, since she's already had some experience with AP exams in other subjects. Another alternative is the JHU CTY course, but I viewed the sample video and didn't think it would be a good fit.

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Back in the old days when I was applying, I would give my high school teachers a stamped addressed envelope for them to mail the letter.

>>pop!<< That was the sound of my homeschooling bubble being burst. Point well taken.

I observed the LB trial (hidden away) while my daughter was online with the tutor. It seemed fine, but I left it up to my daughter, and she elected to stick with Ray. Like OnMyOwn, she thinks the homework is not very taxing. Ray is not very tolerant of students who do not prepare for class, so students should always arrived prepared with assigned vocabulary mostly memorized.

We have not used Language Bird, but we did take advantage of a trial class that was offered to us, and it seemed fine. You are paired with a teacher from Mexico 1:1 and meet by skype. Students move at their own pace. I'm not sure on whether there is a set curriculum with a textbook or what, but if you are in California, it is a-g approved, which is huge. I met the founder at a homeschooling conference, and she is very approachable, so I would contact her directly and maybe ask for a free trial. It is a new service, and I wasn't able to find many families who have used LB, so still not widely reviewed.

I will add that dd is a TA now in PAH AP chemistry, and she had to set an alert to her phone to notify her when someone posts a question to the discussion board, so she has a chance to actually answer it before Mr. M does.

I get this, and I probably do reside in the "homeschooling is awesome" bubble/echo-chamber, perhaps not also inhabited by adcoms. But I think--and maybe I'm overthinking this--but I think if not now, then maybe in a few years, the "I homeschool because it offers me so much flexibility" becomes a trope/cliche akin to "I built a well in Africa, and I learned so much from the people there" or "My uncle got some disease, so now I want to be a doctor." I think it might be cool if you rather took it for granted that you were homeschooling, instead to focus on your student's considerable achievements, and only incidentally mention homeschooling.

Excellent question because I think this is what determines the quality of your experience. The way teaching gets done is the flipped classroom concept. Your student reads the text, reads the teacher's notes, watches the assigned videos, does the problem sets. If anything is not 100% clear and understood by your student, then he/she posts questions to the discussion board. My daughter posted to the discussion board every week, sometimes multiple times in one week. There was a core of about 2 or 3 students in her class of I don't know how many--60 students?--who posted their questions. Mr. M would respond immediately. If he didn't a TA would, then later Mr. M would post to confirm. Often there was some back and forth emails between them and other students. Many students never post at all. Here's why. The trouble is, your student needs to be comfortable admitting to all the other students in the class online that there is something they don't understand. I became my dd's "stupid question tester." She would ask me a question, and if I didn't know the answer, she'd post to to the DB. If you don't post, then you don't hear from Mr. M. We were impressed not only with Mr. M's enthusiasm for chemistry, but also his competence and precision, and his detailed understanding of how the AP exams work. We all felt like dd was in good hands, and she felt comfortable posting her questions, because she wants to really understand every little detail, and she wants to do well on the exam.

I think to call it purely self study (which, to be fair, is in fact the way I've described it) is unfair. For my dd, it felt like Mr. M was personally overseeing her education in chemistry. She emailed him at all hours of the day and he usually responded immediately, with the two of them going back and forth on the discussion boards, dissecting finer points until she had 110% understanding. Those students who aren't interacting with the teacher, yes, for them it's self-study, but IME they are not getting the full value of their tuition. If they don't need an instructor, then yes, this course would be a waste. I think you can really think of it as a flipped classroom. Dd reads the text and Mr. M's notes and then arrives prepared at the discussion board with her list of questions. She had a funny competition going with 1-2 other students to see who would be the first to complete the readings and post their questions. But she scratched her head because apart from their small group, nobody else posted questions. We just couldn't get that.

I have no UC experience, but I vote for not wasting an opportunity, and using their application to present your dd in the best possible light. They've had homeschooled applicants before and admitted them, so they know the drill.

My dd is learning a lot in the Renaissance History class with Roudabush and enjoying the class.

AP Physics C at PA Homeschoolers is on our short list for next year. Has anyone taken it or is taking it this year? How did you like it? Any preference for Jack Kernion versus Jeff Lanctot? Any other AP physics C alternatives?

You can also just enter numbers into the google search box (or the URL field). Anything from 35*2^4 to z=x^2-y^2 (Try it!)

I was thinking of this myself. How many times have bright kids been accused a plagiarism because their work was too good for their age? (I've heard of this happening to local homeschoolers.) Humph.

Does anyone here recommend signing up to take the AP a 2 different locations, as a back up? (I remember reading here about an AP exam that had been reserved, but then it fell through, too late to do anything about it. )

It sounds like the real question you may be asking is: Is mastering long division by hand a worthwhile endeavor? or Does my daughter already understand long division and no longer needs the practice? If so, then it isn't a matter of using a calculator or not, but whether you should simply skip that unit and move on to something she ought to learn.

Consider AoPS' Introduction to Counting and Probability or AoPS Intro to Number Theory, mostly the 2nd half that covers modular arithmetic.

I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend Roget's International Thesaurus, 4th ed. This is the traditional sort of book where you look up the word in the index, then proceed to the category of words that includes related nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. So for really tricky words, where you can't even think of a synonym in the same part of speech, but you can think of, say, an adjective that is related to the verb you are looking for. I pulled my copy from the shelf, and turned randomly to the category of Travel, 273. Under 273.4 are the nouns: migration, transmigration, passage, trek and more. Under 273.38 are the adjectives: creeping, crawling, on hands and knees, on all fours, and more. 273.42 lists adverbs: on foot, afoot, by foot and more. It takes some getting used to, looking up words in the index first, then finding the correct category, sometimes exploring multiple categories and subcategories of words. But it's worth it, if only to stumble on the list of "photographic equipment" that begins with something called a burning-in tool and ends with a zoom lens. Or a list of clerical garments that begins with alb and ends with zucchetto. I would read the reviews carefully before purchasing a newer edition because I've seen Amazon reviews claiming they have been dumbed down. Good luck!

I agree with this. Here's an article about how colleges try to improve their reputations, including boosting their yield. This is probably a bigger factor with less prestigious universities that actually are concerned about their reputations. "Rejecting good students universities think are just using them as a backup While opening up early decision and early action programs is a way for colleges to force students to demonstrate that they're their top choice, schools use a variety of ways to divine the same information from regular decision students as well. This is perhaps the most common — and in some ways, common sense — method used by colleges to improve yield: simply to admit only those students who they perceive as likely to enroll. "There are so many silent electronic footprints they're leaving nowadays," said Sundar Kumarasamy, vice president for enrollment management and marketing at the University of Dayton. Kumarasamy said that his institution tracks many of these subtle signals of interest from applicants: They can tell whether individual applicants clicked to open email communications, logged into the system to check the status of an application, and not only whether they called the school, but how long that phone call lasted. If the school gets the sense that an applicant isn't interested, that's factored in. Kumarasamy calls it "recruiting for fit." The interest — or lack thereof — can ultimately mean that the school rejects some candidates who on paper are more than qualified but failed to demonstrate interest."