Ooh, please share details of what happens in adcom meetings, especially those things that might surprise us. I agree with your second sentence. We can all agree that adcoms don't spend a lot of time evaluating each individual application. Does that mean they won't bother to check for plagiarism, or does that mean they won't bother to check a plagiarism flag isn't actually plagiarism? I'd err on the side of caution. What does your dd get in return to writing this essay and having it publicly posted online? It sounds like Athena's stands to benefit more than your daughter from this work.

I agree that adcoms are busy and don't spend a lot of time on any single application. I'm also paranoid: "A quick and simple method that essay evaluators and professors use to detect plagiarism is to enclose a sentence or a paragraph from the applicant’s essay in quotes and Google it. The search results will show exact matches to earlier works in which the sentence or paragraph was used." I wonder if an adcom will do this, and not bother to see that it's the same person and plagiarized. I agree it's probably unlikely, but if it were my kid I would be seriously worried. Because I'm a worrier.

I hear a lot that AoPS is only for future mathematicians, but I disagree. I think the problem solving skills are very helpful in college level engineering and science courses. And it's just good to be smart in something unrelated, even if you become an English major. Is your DS miserable or are you? I don't think this is blasphemy. I have a couple of students who want to use AoPS, but are on a tight schedule. We skip the challenge problems and anything with a star, so we can keep up the pace. Also, I think someone else linked to the "bare bones" precalculus, which will also save time. There's still plenty to enjoy.

It's been too long for me to say. I can generally say that it really helps if you've had some python experience before starting either class. The Intro class covers basic programming principles, functions, lists, tuples, dictionaries. It really helps if your student already knows the different data structures and loops. The Intermediate class covers recursion, OOP (3 weeks worth), and event driven programming. I would get familiar with recursion and OOP before starting this class. Both topics take a while to wrap your brain around. I would say the AoPS classes are great for after you've maybe already studied something briefly and want to be sure you are 100% solid on the topics.

Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Michael Dawson. It is written for adults, but the conceit is that the programming assignments all involve games, so there is a fun element to the instruction. ETA: AoPS also offers a great python course, but it is challenging and fast paced. I recommend getting some experience with python first before taking the class.

How to Win at College by Cal Newport.

OF COURSE a lizard would survive a trip inside someone's suitcase. When I was returning from Thailand, the customs officer was skeptical that I was returning with no souvenirs. I'm really not in to souvenirs. And then I had to confess that I had forgotten I had actually bought a t shirt at the airport. Another time I was asked how many languages I spoke and I totally flubbed it. See, I had sort of learned French in high school and Japanese in college, but not really well, and by that time I had forgotten most of it. So I was counting to myself, English --that's one, French--that's two, but wait, not really, does it count? I hardly remember anything, bon jour!, and then there's Japanese, but I remember even less of that--wait, how many was that? Does English count? I don't come off well under pressure.

As they say, "Teach the student, not the curriculum."

Language Arts Foreign Language (Spanish) These were the first subjects to be outsourced.

The bagpiper was interesting. Were there a lot of Scottish immigrants to NZ? Also a bit surprised to see the double decker bus. I mean I know it was a British colony, but I didn't know they could be found outside London. (Makes me wonder what sort of container ship carries double decker buses?)

If you go to the College Board and sign up to be an official AP teacher, you will have access to old exams and graded exams so you can see what a 4 or 5 response looks like. That will give a better idea of how prepared your student is. You can also use the materials there to self-study if you decide to the drop the class. Have you fished for some feedback from other students in the class?

Egg drop. With some limitations on size and weight (probably you can google some examples of rules) have them create a container for an egg and drop it from a height. You can even drop them from progressive heights and see which egg survives the greatest distance without cracking.

Take a look at U Iowa. I don't know if it meets your other requirements, but many years ago I heard they had a strong business program for undergrads. (Secondhand heresay, so you better fact-check that too.)

I'm so enjoying this thread!

It's been a few years and probably the RasPis are different now then when I used them, but my go to reference for getting started was was Raspberry Pi for Dummies by Sean McManus and Mike Cook. Have you already installed Linux? If you need to download additional libraries, you may need a wifi dongle to get an internet connection. Checking Amazon, it looks like there is a newer edition of the book you may want to try.

If you are including non-fiction, I just finished: Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West by Christopher Knowlton. The best part is about the Johnson County Massacre, but there's a lot of interesting history of Scottish and British investment in cattle operations, stockyards and railroads, etc. Barbed wire and Teddy Roosevelt play a role here.

Carnegie Mellon Olin College Harvey Mudd GA Tech

Are you currently in Australia? All the news here is about massive wildfires and evacuations continent wide.

Totally agree with Corraleno and other PPs to drop the course asap, and assign her a grade yourself if it makes sense to do so. One long shot possibility. Any chance the teacher is mistaking your dd for someone else? I know it seems unlikely, but it was the first thing that came to mind, and I also happen to be a bit face-blind. And congratulations to your dd for learning so many signs. I can only imagine how hard that must be, and it's terrific that she has such a useful skill for our society.

My dd found her academic peers at PAH and SOHS. She organized in person meetups with other local PAH students, and attended Susan Richman's end of year parties on her Pennsylvania farm. There are lots of SOHS students locally, and we host some who fly in for local events. Prior to that, academics were done at home and we only socialized with other homeschoolers and it was great, particularly since many of our local homeschoolers follow a Waldorf-inspired approach. While our family doesn't follow Waldorf, we were low-media and all about preserving childhood, so the social fit was perfect for us. "In all honesty, I do not understand the whole "I care not what others are doing" mentality." I'm not sure why she's so upset about this. Like I said, some of our dearest homeschooling friends were Waldorf-types, and we are not. Who am I to judge another family's homeschooling style? If it suits them, that's fine with me. We chose to hang with them even though we weren't Waldorf types because we had commonality on parenting styles, which is rare enough.

Here is the database of approved classes. Enter the name of your private school and it should be there.

Agree with this and the link to the a-g list. The problem is that California decided applicants should generally study widely in all the major subject areas: math, history, science, foreign language, etc. That's fine. The problem is that they took a huge leap and decided to approve each and every single class offered by every high school--public AND private--in California. Every single school, every single class. It's weird. There's actually an online database where you can look up your local high school and see which specific classes are a-g approved. I ask you, do you think this approval process is being made thoughtfully, taking into account the quality of the textbooks, exams, syllabus, other media? For every single class at every single high school? No, of course not. Most likely it's just a quick rubber stamp approval process. Schools check all the right boxes and it gets automatic approval. Now enter the homeschoolers. And remember, in California there is no such thing as homeschooling: all students are enrolled in a school. (That's why we have the PSA/charter weirdness here.) So where is OUR list of approved a-g classes? Are we not California students? (Also, students from out of state and out of the country do not adhere to a-g's although it's a good idea to hit all the major subject areas.) Turns out we homeschoolers (even though we aren't homeschoolers) are allowed to behave as if we were from out of state. We don't need to meet the a-g's specifically, but it is a good idea to have studied english, history, math, etc. Now, to our specific case, my dd is a good test taker. She satisfied most (but not all) of the a-g's with AP exam scores and SAT subject test scores. She didn't specifically satisfy all the a-g's but she did take classes in all the subject areas. This is where it gets confusing because I think the UC websites do not do a good job telling us homeschoolers what to do. HTH.

We did not find this to be the case in our situation. My dd applied as a PSA homeschooler and was admitted to UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego and one other I forgot. If she was compared with high school drop outs, then apparently she came out on top!

I agree with the above re: PSA. If you have a high achieving student, a PSA will allow your student to really shine. My dd was also one of those PSA to UC success stories and she also did well with private colleges. We also didn't need the money and I would have felt constrained in a charter. (I left charters when my dd's were in middle school.) I think @Farrar's assessment isn't nuanced enough. Some people think college admissions in California begins with UC Berkeley and ends with UCLA. These two campuses attract applicants from all over the world. (UCLA receives the most undergraduate applications of any college.) But there are many other UCs: UC Merced admits 75% and UC Riverside admits 66% of applicants and there are several others. Then there are all the Cal States and the CC to UC transfer route. There are a lot of options available, thought I do admit it's a steep learning curve since every single dang campus has its own policies.

Also: Python Anywhere