I tried to find it, but I couldn't figure out what type of person she is referring to?

How about a basic probability course? It will be useful, and intuitive and fun.

You can run python using Google CoLab.

Paying full tuition for the year is typical...unless you've also paid tuition insurance. Our private school requires students pay tuition insurance at least for the first reason. We pulled our dd out of private after 6 weeks, and got a bunch of our money refunded. (We would have received more money if she had been expelled, so we briefly considered commiting a bit of vandalism for the cause.) You might want to double check on the insurance situation. On the bright side, this is a great real life lesson in sunk costs. As others have noted, filing a PSA once a year is all that's required of you. No testing, no oversight, no nothing. If you want to recoup some of your tax dollars, you can enroll in one of charter schools that are specifically designed to serve homeschooling students. You can learn more about homeschooling legally in California at this site. I used to be a big believer in seeing things through to the end, until I signed myself up for ice skating lessons. On the first day I fell and nearly injured my wrist. I knew then ice skating was a bad idea at that point in my life. With homeschooling, I just couldn't afford an injury. Then my thinking on sticking with stuff became more nuanced. If your dd is otherwise a dependable person, then she's earned the freedom to make her own life choices. (Also, see the sunk costs link above.)

When your spouse reads with exasperation at some article reporting that a statistic has declined by 300%, and you share his frustration. (This just happened a couple of days ago.)

First, you are in a rough place right now having to pick up the pieces, but you've totally got this. Take it one step at a time. Don't sweat the APs or anything else in his academics. As PPs have said, you can't change the past, only present it in the best possible light. Also, many high schools do not offer APs and no colleges require them. Now you need to focus on his strengths and present that to the admission committees. I will say that if your student has his heart set on a college, and you haven't quite dotted all the I's and crossed every single T, submit your application anyway. It's hard to tell which so-called requirements are rock solid which are bendable for the right applicant. Even if you call and ask, you may not get a straight or accurate answer. Just submit your application and see what happens. Re: low math test score, I wonder if he will have a recommendation letter from a math teacher that can vouch for him? Is he even interested in a STEM field? Will he even need to prove strong math skills anyway? I also don't see mention of SAT subject tests, and I wonder if those will be necessary for his application.

As long as I have the tutors in this thread, can I ask: Do you ever meet with new students first, to determine if it will be a good fit for you? Do you ever reject students, simply because of personality differences?

How about a child-led deep dive into a meaty rabbit hole? To have a rigorous dialectic conversation.

I think the only thing I've specifically heard is that Reed College (if I remember correctly) offers preferential housing to students who are admitted ED. This was the kind of thing that was banned in the past. I think Reed is generally being more aggressive with this new freedom, to recruit students to its campus.

I haven't heard anything but it is an interesting change. When I first heard about this ruling, it was on a FB group run by a college admissions counselor who was very much opposed to the change. She suggested it would be bad for students and confusing to navigate the offers without some sort of orderly process. But your anecdote tells the other side, the side taken by the Justice Department in this case. I am on the fence, but I'm thinking this will be better for students. I am open to hearing other opinions. Or maybe time will tell.

It's funny how often ppl here "follow rabbit trails" and then "dive deep." That's more metaphorical than actual vocabulary, but still not often heard outside of homeschooling.

I vote for Epic Road Trip. 🚙🚙🚙

Alcumus at AoPS?

How about non-f Is he open to non-fiction? I'm enjoying The Goodness Paradox by Richard Wrangham. It explains so much about human social behavior, and I'm learning so much about domestication syndrome, and reactive versus collaborative violence.

Totally agree with the PPs, though I myself didn't believe it when my kids were younger I do now. My dd took AP chemistry her freshman year of homeschooled high school. I taught her the octet rule and other chemistry topics from BFSU, but honestly I don't think anything really stuck. And besides, here is the prerequisite for AP chemistry at PAH: Who Should Apply: This class is open to 9th through 12th-grade students who have completed one year of high-school chemistry and Algebra II. Students must be self-disciplined, well- organized, and able to schedule a minimum of 10 – 12 hours a week for the course, not including lab work. Note: The first-year chemistry requirement can be waived for students who have exceptionally strong math skills and the ability to apply math to solve complex problems. Fortunately I emphasized strong math skills in elementary and middle and I think that served her well. Also, I think strong reading skills are very helpful, though I don't see that discussed much. Since your student enjoys reading, I might also recommend National Geographic and Scientific American. Lots of really interesting stuff there, and he'll be well prepared for high school. Enjoy!

I feel ya. If an interior designer or a baseball coach can charge 200/hour, why shouldn't I ask for $150? (Answer: people's priorities.) Also, this guy charges $300, but I think he's more qualified than me.

With all due respect lewelma, I didn't have really the same issues she did, but I took a different approach. I charge a lot more, like $90 minimum, depending on how busy I am. As a consequence, I work fewer hours, but so be it. I have enough free time in my schedule that rescheduling due to cancellations are doable. I only work with homeschooled students because I don't like to work in the evenings and on weekends. I don't do test prep, except for MathCounts and AMC. I don't have a cancellation policy; hopefully you can shoot me a text before I show up at your front door. (Kids don't always get sick 24 hours in advance, and realistically I'm not going fill that time with another student. If I don't teach for any reason, then I don't charge, and that includes student vacation, I have something come up, whatever. My parents pay a lot of money for my time, so it seems unfair otherwise. The exception to this is when a group of parents hires me for a semester long class, and I charge tuition up front. I don't cancel those classes, and if your student is sick/on vacation, then I don't refund. My parents are great and I only ever had one parents who was late paying me, and that required frequent emailing, and she's paid up. (She was the one paying me $120/hour.) Although sometimes I forget, I try to cc parents on all communications with the students. Even if I forget to cc, all my communications are above board. I have no problem with my parents reading any of my communications with students. (Which leads me to wonder what exactly is lewlma texting her students that she fears will be discovered by the parents?) My non-contact hours are free. Again, I figure for the price they pay, I put in prep ahead of time in order to be most efficient for my busy students. I think the services I provide are highly specialized, and not widely available. (Until now, there are quite a few AoPS Academies opening up in my neighborhood, but not everyone wants to be at the AoPS Academy.) Still, I consider myself more of a "concierge tutor." I want parents to use my price as a mental shortcut to gauge my quality. And I think I'm really really good at what I do.

Last year I kept track of everything I earned in a spreadsheet. After the end of the year I just provided my tax preparer with how much I earned that year and she threw that into her forms. I plan to do that again this year; we'll see how it goes.

Here are a couple of problem sets for practice with rates. You do the first half of the activity sheet (Warm Up) and then the First Problem and Second Problem. Then you watch the video for the solution to those problems. Then the student does the Follow Up Problems. The solution guide is also linked there. Algebra Rates Rate x Time = Distance

If anyone uses an online whiteboard remotely with their students, which one do you use?

You know, I didn't get a "class" approved, in the sense that I never told them which students or how many were enrolled. All I needed to tell them was that I was planning to use a particular syllabus, but with the stipulation that I was free to change my mind at any point during the school year. I remember when they made a minor adjustment to the AP CS A class, where they replaced one recommended lab with another. They sent an email to all the "teachers" (in quotes because it included me), notifying us of the change, but then going to say that even though that lab was no longer part of the course, we did not need to update our syllabus filed with them. I got the sense that they really don't want to deal with the paperwork. In fact, now that my kids are nearly done with AP classes, I have so many pdfs of old exams on my google drive that I no longer need but are taking up my allotted space. I wonder if anyone here wants them before I delete them? PM me if you are interested.

@Farrar FTW with her detailed informative reply. I will only reiterate that if you have a student who enjoys taking tests, AP is a great choice. We celebrate by going online and reading the humorous memes posted by other students. (Don't miss them, the are pretty hilarious.) On the flip side, an illness on the wrong week of May can potentially derail an entire year of preparation. Another advantage to becoming an official AP teacher is that the College Board makes available lots of resources such as old exams, graded papers and rubrics for practice. If you select one of their pre-approved syllabi, then your approval is automatic within a few seconds. And they will even tell you that you are not obligated to follow an approved syllabus. It's weird that way. I never actually taught my dd an AP class, she always took them online. But I would go through the motions of getting CB approval and then download all the old exams for her to use as practice. I'm not very familiar with IB, but my sense is that you need to get good at every subject. With AP you can choose the exams that match your student's strengths or interests. If you have a future doctor, then AP bio and AP chem will be good choices. A future poet might enjoy AP English. It's an easy way to show a particular interest in addition to ECs, without busting your butt on subjects that are less interesting. Another big negative to APs is finding a school that will host the exam. You can't just sign up online like with the SAT. You need to contact schools local to you and see if they will allow outside students to test there. You'll need to call them directly and ask specifically about a particular exam because they may not offer for example AP physics to their own students, and so won't host the exam for anyone. To make matters worse, the deadline to sign up for the exam is earlier now than in the past so you really need to have your ducks in a row and get a testing location finalized not long after the school year starts. For more information, see this thread. This is also a fraught issue for less popular exams like some foreign languages and for students who require accommodations.

Edvotek! Someone just reminded of the amazing, but expensive, kits they sell. You can run DNA gels and transform bacteria, and I see now they have some sort of CRISPR simulation. I was especially impressed by the stuff they include for free, like full color PDFs of worksheets and instructions and youtube videos so you can see exactly how to do everything. I was just super impressed with how thoughtful they were. I suppose if you are paying Cadillac prices, you should expect Cadillac quality.

I include the name of the course provider (We called them "Educational Partners.") right below the course description, so they know the source of the text: Differential Equations 18.03 This course focuses on linear differential equations and their applications in science and engineering. Topics include: modeling physical systems to obtain a first order differential equation, visualizing direction fields and approximating them using Euler’s method, using known DE types to model and understand situations involving exponential growth or decay, modeling spring-mass systems or LRC circuits, solving DEs using the characteristic equation, exponential response formula, Laplace transform, Fourier series, convolution integrals, and matrix eigenvalue method, linearizing an autonomous non-linear 2x2 system around its critical points and using this to sketch its phase portrait and the stability behavior. Partner: MIT OpenCourseWare Instructor: Arthur Mattuck, PhD Text: Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems by Henry Edwards and David Penney

All this talk about American "salad" culture reminded me of the first half of this old SNL video with Lin Manuel Miranda: "Yeah, the Americans eat something called "Marshmallow Salad." Marshmallow Salad! No vegetables, just marshmallow! "