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daijobu

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Everything posted by daijobu

  1. If your student wants to return to his same age peers in math, he could spend time doing other AoPS courses: year 1: Intro C&P + Intro NT year 2: Intermediate C&P year 2-3: Intermediate NT
  2. I guess I'm confused about your son not wanting to be ahead a grade level, when he already is, taking geometry in grade 7. Typically, students take geometry in grades 9 or 10. If you think he's weak in algebra, it may be worth a rerun, and AoPS is a good source of more challenging problems. He can work through the Review and Challenge Problems at the end of each chapter.
  3. I'm not familiar with 42e, but I looked at their website and it does look impressive, though expensive. For a cheaper alternative, I can recommend books published by Maker Media, specifically Make: Electronics by Charles Platt in 2 volumes. Volume 1 also does not assume any prior knowledge of electronics. There is at least one supporting blog and a youtube channel. You can buy all the materials in the kit, but I also recommend sourcing the materials yourself as a learning exercise. When you have completed both volumes you can move on to more advanced projects according to your interests. IMO, electronics projects books get caught in 2 traps: 1. Lots of recipes to make cool stuff, but the user doesn't understand why things work. 2. Too much theory, without much hands on which gets boring. I thought M:E did a great job of balancing both goals. Still, that 42e website looks very cool indeed!
  4. I'm not familiar with Stritch, but it reminds me of another small Catholic college, Notre Dame de Namur, which shut down it's undergraduate school and sold much of its land to Stanford. In contrast, Santa Clara University, another larger Catholic college, is doing pretty well, I think because they offer several engineering and CS degrees.
  5. This may not be as terrible as it seems. A score of 5 does not equate to 100% or even 90% correct. It's difficult to pinpoint with certainty, and will require some research, but this quora thread claims 57% correct to earn a 5. I know the cutoffs are low, but even I'm skeptical of 57%. Here's another quora thread on the topic. If you have access to the College Board materials (i.e., you have a syllabus approved and passed the audit), then you should have access to the AP Calculus Teacher Community, basically their online discussion board. There are several experienced AP calc teachers and graders who can give you some insight.
  6. I agree with @teachermom2834. High school GPAs are rising while ACT scores are static or even declining. Grade inflation is rampant now without test scores. You only need to briefly read the subreddit of teachers to hear what's going on. Teachers who dare give a student anything less than a B are often pressured/threatened by parents and school admin. They aren't paid enough to hold the line on grades and will acquiesce just so they can get on with their lives. Students are arriving at their junior year with low SAT scores and parents think they are just bad test-takers, otherwise why would their valedictorians score so poorly? Colleges like to crow about how stellar their admitted students are, possibly to compensate for an otherwise poor reputation. Even Stanford does this. Shaw said the 745 students who received acceptance letters come from 48 states and 34 countries. More than 80 percent of them have a high school grade point average of 4.0 or above and have demonstrated excellence in fields ranging from the arts and humanities to Earth sciences, natural sciences, social sciences and engineering.
  7. Coincidentally, a podcast I really like, Tests and the Rest, is dropping a week's worth of AP content and interviews.
  8. I'm not familiar with Khan and their AP prep. If this your first time with AP I might start with something easy like AP CS A or HUG. Bio is an ambitious first AP, especially with a younger student, because it is very dense with content and there is sometimes a chemistry prereq. My kid started APs in 8th grade with AP CS A. It's super-easy and grabbing an early 5 demystifies APs in general. I think it's a good idea to set up your student for success with a first AP win. I think if you 13 year old has strong EF skills and is self-aware enough to be able to seek help, you can DIY it with Khan. Be sure to get a College Board audit so you can access their AP classroom and Question Bank for more practice problems and other resources. There is another active thread on the High School board on this topic now.
  9. Totally agree with this. There is a Question Bank for AP calculus where you can create PDF worksheets based on parameters you set up. Like, I want my student to practice volumes without using a calculator, you can set up those filters and create a worksheet of a bunch of practice problems. But yeah, the learning curve. oy.
  10. This. And with all due respect to @Lori D. (who is 100% correct) there is no College Board police reading your transcript either. However, there really isn't a good reason NOT to get approval since it's so easy. I've read posts on this board about AP teachers in regular schools whose syllabus really only guarantees a score of 3 (and in reality lower scores) from the students. No one is checking up on them, to be sure.
  11. I just started a History of Persia podcast that is very interesting. It's hard to keep all the Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, Medes and everyone else straight, but this does a good job.
  12. When going through the College Board audit, I made the mistake of submitting some sort of hybrid where I used a College Board sample syllabus with another textbook that I wanted to use instead. I can't remember exactly, but it either took weeks or months for the syllabus to be approved. It was approved, but it just takes longer. Much longer than the few minutes required for using one of their syllabi. It shouldn't matter much unless you are eager to access their Question Bank and old exams for exercises and assessments. From the College Board website: If you’re demonstrating awareness of course scope and any exam changes by adopting a pre-approved course plan or syllabus, we’ll confirm your course authorization within two weeks. If you’re submitting an original syllabus, we’ll let you know whether your course is authorized within 60 days after you submit the materials. More information: What does it mean to “adopt” the AP unit guides or a pre-approved syllabus? This simply means that the teacher has reviewed the material, is aware of the content and skills colleges expected to see in any course labeled “AP,” and will use the document as the starting point for their own course plan, adapting and modifying it over time as the teacher determines what will best enable their students to develop the knowledge and skills required for college credit and placement. If you aren't in a hurry and are okay with a potentially receiving no approval after 2 months (unlikely but possible), then go ahead. I personally would make my life easier and use one of their syllabi and then "adapt and modify it" as needed.
  13. I have a student who seems to do well with the WTM Academy AoPS math classes. He's a freshman finishing geometry this year and looking at next year. I believe he's completed the whole AoPS Intro to Algebra textbook already. Is there a sequence of math classes at WTMA that students follow? What WTMA class follows geometry? What are other alternatives for the class after geometry by other vendors? (AoPS will probably be too much for this student.)
  14. I like the textbook idea. To find a tutor, you could contact the math department at this expensive university and ask if they can recommend students who might want the job.
  15. This thread about colleges turning to vocational training for lucrative careers reminds me of the classic scenes in Community where the wealth of the HVAC department exceeds the rest of the college.
  16. The 3Blue1Brown youtube channel is pretty good.
  17. I've lost it now, but there was a funny FB thread a while back on ways to tell colleges you have a high SAT score without telling them you have a high SAT score. Something along the lines of: "When I SAT at my desk in room 1510..."
  18. Is this surprising because there are many students who are studying calculus but not taking the exam? Or there are a lot of students applying to UC but not interested in APs generally? (Also: very cool about the accommodations!!!)
  19. My kids' scores were very high and we viewed it as a positive for her admissions, so we wanted them front and center. So we included it on the transcript. I suspect brick and mortar schools don't do this, but we cared less about what schools do and more about presenting our student in the best possible light. This includes PSAT, SAT, SAT subject tests (which were a thing back then) and AP scores. I am an official at my kid's school, so if I view the scores and deem then official, then the scores are official. We also included other unofficial documents like transcripts from PAH and CC. HTH.
  20. Another source of revenue for colleges in need is international students. These guys are paying full freight.
  21. I vote for any of the AoPS classes, especially NT and CP. You can definitely put WOOT on his transcript; I think it's very impressive if he can keep up with that class. Is he close to solving 10 problems on the AIME? If he can grab an USAMO, he's in an elite group. The other options are also solid if that's what he prefers.
  22. I like these explanations of the value of mode and median over the mean. Mode (this was taught to me by my teacher...in high school!) Imagine you run a shoe store in a community with 2 types of people: those with very small shoe sizes (say size 3) and those with very large shoe sizes (like size 11). Say you are placing an order for new shoes for your inventory. If you order based on the average shoe size, you will end up with a bunch of shoes of size 7, and no one to buy them. Median (this is just what we see from the local realtors) Median home prices are used a lot in our area because while most of the homes will be within a tight range of sales prices, there may be 1-2 homes that are way more massive and more expensive than is typical. Those sales (maybe 100x the typical price) will skew the average home price and suggest that the average house has a higher value than the reality.
  23. It's a good question and as others have mentioned, non-consumables are the property of the school and must be returned. I'm not sure how they'd enforce that if a family just made off with it. Call the police? They could make re-enrollment contingent on returning the stolen stuff or reimbursement. In our case, our ES was another local homeschooling parent, and everyone knows everyone in the homeschooling community, so word would probably get around if you stole stuff. In actual practice I don't think this happens much, but you do raise a good point.
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