I'm curious, is this common? I have avoided liberal arts courses when possible (for the reasons discussed here...too much subjective grading). But I wasn't aware that college students were required to have their old high school teachers edit their papers (for free?) before then submitting them to their professor.

National Geographic NY Times New Yorker Magazine Atlantic Monthly Magazine

OMG, I forgot about fine arts! Is it okay if my dd participates in youth musical theater?

Congratuations to your dd! And can we drill down on those female drop outs? Any possibility they received lucrative offers outside of academia that lured them away from their PhD program? Or is there something going on (misogynist on the faculty), that your own dd escaped? What sort of women thrives in a high male environment, while others feel isolated? Or is Vi Hart right about gender segregation?

Wow, that is quite sobering. Thank you for sharing this important lesson.

Let me ask this: If your student takes geometry prior to 9th grade and you self-report on a transcript, does that 8th grade geometry class necessarily need to be an a-g approved course?

But if geometry is taken prior to 9th grade, you can just self-report it on your transcript? I think?

I've done this one and Edvotek's DNA electrophoresis lab. They have several youtube videos that describe how to complete all the steps in the lab. I still run through the protocol myself before the kids to work out the kinks. For example, in the bacterial transformation, I was nearly finished, just about ready to put my transformed bacterial colonies into the incubator overnight...when I dropped a plate. Of course, it wasn't one of my many controls. It was the plate that would actually transform and produce colorful proteins. Ugh. I incubated it anyway, though a lot of the bacteria had spilled out. And I still got reasonable results. Not as awesome looking as on their website, but good enough.

This is certainly good news, but I wonder how significant this really is for mathy kids who will likely need to take a math SAT subject test anyway for college admissions. Still, it's good news.

Wow, this thread should really be pinned. Or at least Janet's post.

Do the stuff that looks like fun! I'm not sure about why folks think labs associated with science classes need to be hypothesis driven. Why can't you just study the theory, follow a commonly accepted protocol and see the cool results? My dd was learning about bacterial transformation, so I purchased this bacterial transformation kit from Edvotek. In the process of completing this lab, my dd learns how to plate agar using a pipetter using a reasonable approximation of sterile technique. (More or less.) She'll actually use antibiotics to select for transformed cells. She will learn how to streak bacteria onto said plates. She'll use a micropipetter to draw out plasmid DNA and other reagents. She'll be using a water bath and incubator. And she'll get the sights (and smells) of working in a real lab. And at the end of it all...cute little bacterial colonies in pink, purple, and blue! How cool is that? These are great memories, and if she ever does decide to do some biology research, maybe, maybe she will be using these skills...or she'll need to learn something else altogether. But I doubt she will ever forget about how bacteria can sometimes pick up DNA from their surroundings.

I'm glad she got in to Stanford. Humor writing is so difficult and I think she really pulled it off. I hope she goes into journalism and writes a column, a la Dave Barry. I would read it.

ProPublica has a number of articles about the Red Cross including this one about their financial difficulties. I think it's time to stay away from them until they get their act together again.

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to be so negative. I just want to make sure everyone gets in somewhere, and of course you have so many safeties on your list, she should be fine. It's just so crazy these days for name schools. I think you have the process well in hand.

I would caution against defining a reach versus non-reach solely by stats. (I'm not familiar with parchment.) I agree with a PP, I would also consider Duke a reach for any student, even if their stats were above average for the school. A person with a perfect SAT and GPA is unlikely to get in to Harvard unless they have something else amazing going for them. And for that matter Duke. There are just too many kids with nearly perfect SAT and perfect GPA.

Yoku dekimashita!! (looked it up on google)

My dd is finishing up WTM biology and wants to prep for the SAT subject test in bio. (We aren't 100% sure everything on the test was covered in the course.) Does anyone have recommendations for resources?

The folks who administer the scholarships make the rules. Your only ethical obligation is to be honest and follow their rules.

It looks like according to this article that the RC is having trouble drumming up blood donations, which is how it generates revenue for it's other work. I hope you son has a quick recovery! (After donating blood in college, I nearly fainted in the shower the next morning.)

I'm joining this late, but it's just so darn ironic that a student at his elite level would score a zero on anything. Even though we all know how brilliant and hard working you have to be to reach his level of achievement. I get it, the problems are hard, it's an achievement to even solve a single one. But it's just plain wrong to give anyone a zero when they've accomplished so much. They may be elite, but they are still--well--children after all, aren't they? (Even the AMC 12's have a few softballs at the start to make everyone feel like they belong.)

Python is a great first language. Do you like learning from books? Try Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, and go about halfway through the book, through the intro to object oriented programming. You can take your time and go at your own pace. Good luck!

I have heard the same as hornblower. Low pay won't even be an issue if she can't find a job as a vet. If she is interested in research, wildlife biology might be a good field. The kind of person who goes out into the world and studies animal physiology or behavior or some such as a university professor. But apart from interacting with and observing animals, these folks also write grant applications, write research papers, and teach. We have a lovely humane society that has a large staff of vets, VTs, dog trainers, and all sorts of people who run their adoption, foster care, and other community programs like summer camps. (We have been known to occasionally foster a kitten or two until they are ready to be adopted.) They even have someone who does their social media.

I'm not sure how to describe this trait, except as being a type-A planner, who is always looking ahead. I think it helps if you make it a habit of thinking about what your student will be doing tomorrow, next week, and next year, and considering what needs to be done now to prepare. (Speaking of which, I need to get dd's lesson plan up for next week, lol!) Also, it really helps if you have a deep abiding belief in homeschooling as the best thing for your student, if not all students, lol. I came into homeschooling by falling in love with it. I remember telling my mom friends at our preschool about my plans to homeschool, and sincerely sincerely believing they would follow me down this yellow brick road of happiness. No one did, lol! But I still respond to people's questions with the attitude of "I homeschool my kids! I know, isn't it great!" I say it as if I'd just won the lottery. "Yeah, I won 30 million dollars! Is it great!" Because that's what I truly believe.

But isn't doing labs just plain fun? I'm planning to supplement my dd's bio class with some labs. We'll be using a bacterial transformation kit to create colonies that produce colorful proteins. In the process, she'll learn how to create agar plates, use pipettes to add antibiotics and other reagents to promote and impede colony growth, use a water bath to heat shock the bacteria, and use an incubator. No, we aren't doing actual science. It's all from a kit that I ordered online. But she'll be in an actual lab, using actual lab equipment, replicating a cool demonstration. We also plan to do a gram stain just because of it's significance in medical diagnosis, and also stain some fungus samples. Just for fun and well, to create memories, and give her a familiarity with how labs work.

My rule is if you get the problem wrong, then you need to write it out. If you are correctly solving the problems without using a pencil, then I don't worry. We had one math coach who recommended using more mental math to get more efficient in competition math. But I'd rather be correct than fast. Do you go through the exercises together? I do the bulk of the writing as the kids dictate to me the solutions to the problems. (They do the exercises on their own.) Model good behavior and make sure you also write out each step, even if it's the area of triangle and you've already written A = 1/2 bh a million times already, and everyone already knows the formula.