Yes, I'm a tutor, and so many students fit your son's description, I think AoPS has created a little niche for me. I'm like a human discussion board, but I answer questions in real time, and with a sense of humor thrown in. I also model skills like organized and clear mathematical writing. I help newbie students gets started with LaTex. In the example you provided with the line and parabola, if we find an solution or two, then before we enter the solution, I suggest we check it against the two original equations to show that it satisfies both. This last step serves 2 purposes: (1) Reminding us after all that algebra, of what we are actually trying to solve and why and what the geometric interpretation might be, and (2) reinforcing the importance of checking our work. I also conspicuously cross my fingers whenever a student enters her answer and clicks Submit. You can't be too careful when homework points are on the line. If it helps, the reading assignments are at the top of the weekly homework: I think the most committed students actually work through the textbook before lecture. They do all the problems and exercises, which enables them to participate more easily, and polish off the online homework. If it sounds like overkill, my daughters only did the textbook problems, and didn't do the AoPS online classes.

Parents call me for just this reason. 😉 I've seen discussion board threads about the writing problems that were a nightmare to parse. Multiple students posting to the same thread along with multiple TAs responding. Sometimes variables get changed in the process leading to more confusion, not less. Students post their solutions only to be redacted later. I think a lot of the TA hints are scripts as well, so I don't think the responses are very personal. I do exactly what you describe. I remind the students of what they learned that week. "Lecture this week was about similar triangles. Do you think similar triangles might be helpful here?" I know the transcript is available, but for younger students it can be a big ask to get them to reread the transcript. So I'll sometimes review the transcript with the student, or just make up my own practice problems. I agree I think using the textbook is a better option for most students.

I think transparency is illegal. https://theconversation.com/what-the-california-vote-to-keep-the-ban-on-affirmative-action-means-for-higher-education-149508

I agree with @Lori D. that awards in middle school aren't supposed to be included on a college app, but there are ways to sneak it in. I also like her idea of calling the classes Honors and then including something in the course description about honors designation awarded to students who achieve High Honors on the NGE. Another thing your student can if Greek or ancient languages or similar will continue to be a topic of interest in high school: he can mention his middle school awards in an essay or short answer part of his college app. Something along the lines of, "I was so pleased to be among the 5 people out of 2 million Greek students who earned High Honors on the NGE, that I was inspired to continue my studies in high school..." or something like that.

I write LoRs for my online students all the time. Even before the pandemic when I was meeting kids in person, I didn't really know them outside of class. I think teacher LoRs are speaking to a student's academic performance and interactions with the student. I think the Counselor Letter is really more about a student's personality and integrity and other soft characteristics.

^^^This this this. Exceptions are made for exceptional students, but one doesn't know if a student is exceptional until they apply. If it is truly onerous, I would write that the required info is in the Course Descriptions and School Profile. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I might also take a stab at approximating the information that was required, along the lines of @Farrar's suggestion. I can imagine some gal on the admissions committee looking over the homeschooling requirements and thinking to herself, "Wow, those requirements are really out of line and not helpful anyway." But if you've ever been part of a large org, you know that to get a front facing website changed requires meetings and approvals and TIME. Probably not worth the effort just to be nice to homeschoolers.

My memory is hazy, but I thought the divisibility rules were adequately taught in PreA, and they get tedious and belabored in intro NT. I will defend the second half of the book on mods, which is a terrific introduction, but then it fails again when it stops... right... before... Chinese Remainder Theorem. Why leave out CRT, when it flows so naturally from the previous material and the book is short enough as it is? AoPS needs to either update this book or publish an intermediate NT. @Not_a_Number, I nominate you for the job!

I did it this way just for simplicity. Also, I considered AoPS to be honors which in many cases was way more challenging than her AP classes, which were kinda easy by comparison. Or just objectively easy.

See if you can find this book at the local library. He offers some strategies that could be helpful, but we didn't personally use them, and the auditory processing is the confounding factor. Is getting testing accommodations an option?

If you are running out of writing topics to teach, and you think your students will enter a mathematical field, you might teach them to use Overleaf for future papers.

Ooh, are we sharing our favorite calculators now? I worked at HP one summer, and they gave me the HP 42S. (My DH is still bitter that I received a calculator for free.) The screen was wide enough to display 2 of the 4 registers, which was really nice to an RPN newbie like me. I have a similar app on my phone that mimics the HP 41CV which I use rarely, thought it does display all 4 registers, I can't actually find my IRL calculator, and I mostly use google.

This was 10 years ago, but the feedback I received on the WTM boards was that 6A&B would be redundant, either with AoPS or with the earlier Singapore Math, I don't recall which. The message I received was that either way, with our without level 6, was fine. We skipped level 6 and it was fine.

I had my main transcript that I created with all my courses. My dd took a class at CC, PAH, and Stanford OHS. I took the unofficial transcripts from those institutions and probably appended them to each other or maybe to my main transcript and uploaded them as well, just for confirmation. I'm fairly sure PAH does not send unofficial transcripts, but after my dd was admitted I had official transcripts sent from CC and OHS to the college. Take a look at the common app transcript upload fields. IIRC I had 3 spots to upload documents. You can see how you want to arrange your docs between the fields they provide.

Like @Momto6inIN we are also an "only the books" AoPS family. My kids took a handful of online AoPS classes, mostly the test prep, or if they had a friend taking one, they'd join in. But I think studying the textbooks is a superior option if you have it.

We did the US Edition. (Do ppl still use that?) We completed level 5 then switched to AoPS Prealgebra, and it was a seamless transition.

I used the US edition about 15 years ago, and we only used the Textbook and the Workbook. It was enough for us, but I've heard others recommend the Challenging Word Problems and other supplements.

Make: Electronics by Charles Platt is a terrific introduction to building electronics projects. My daughters and I learned so much working through this book and the sequel.

I also did not grade AoPS math. I had them do the Exercises at the end of each section and then the Review Problems and Challenge Problems at the end of each chapter as homework. They checked their own answers in the Key and if there was something they didn't understand we would study the solution together. I checked for mastery by monitoring their AMC and to a lesser extent MathCounts scores. If their scores were improving each year I was good with that.

Wow, is 120 hours really a thing? I never counted hours of any school work. Do movies or screenwriting count? Can he spend the year watching films and maybe writing a paper or two?

I agree the green intermediate books are a big step up in difficulty. (Putnam problems!) That is material that you will start to see on the AMC 12. You might have him take an old one every so often to see if the material is sticking. 1/3 sounds like not much, unless you are including the Challenge Problems, which I wouldn't worry to much. (Did I mention the Putnam problems?) He should be getting most of the Exercises and Review Problems correct. How well does he document his solutions? Does he use stream of consciousness math notation or is his logic clear?

Congratulations to you dd for standing up for integrity. I wonder why no other students in the room did the same? Is there any risk of retaliation? I might escalate nationally and watch out for this.

Crazy ex girlfriend, especially if you enjoy musicals and parodies of music genres.

@Not_a_Number coined the idea of "learned helplessness" in mathematics. The way many students learn math is that they are unable to logic their way out of unfamiliar territory. But math is ALL about this. I'm also not familiar with Harris, but agree with anyone who is combating this learned helplessness.

Sounds like the Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

I believe my course description was lightly edited from the textbook blurb on the AoPS website, or maybe from the textbook itself: Honors Intermediate Algebra Topics covered in Intermediate Algebra include a review of basic algebra topics, complex numbers, quadratics and conic sections, polynomials, multivariable expressions, sequences and series, identities, inequalities, exponents and logarithms, piecewise-defined functions, and functional equations. Instructor: (me!) Text: Intermediate Algebra by Richard Rusczyk and Mathew Crawford, Art of Problem Solving (AoPS)