Uh, no. :leaving: It's been so long I can't even remember what happened.

As you probably figured out, not all APs are created equal. AP CSA is a great one to start with since it's relatively easy compared with other APs. AP chemistry is a big step up in terms of the quantity of material to be learned. If your son is strong in math, then AP stats shouldn't be too difficult. But mostly you want to make sure he can stay organized and keep up with the workload in AP chemistry at PAH. Don't fall behind, and make sure to ask lots of questions on the discussion board about even the most trivial items.

MathCounts is good. I would also add MOEMS, which has a middle school level contests, but it may be too easy for your ds. They sell books of old exams for practice.

Chang is the chemistry textbook used by PAH for their AP chemistry class, if that helps.

Map out your time. Estimate how much time she spends on each section and how much is required for review and challenge problems. (Challenge problems may be skipped.) For example, my kids spend one day per section (problems and exercises) and 1-3 days each on review and challenge problems. Schooling year round helps. We do that except for vacations and camps. You may want to not do AoPS for calculus and choose a class specifically for AP prep instead. Your dd is still young and I'm not even sure 18 months is really that long for AoPS prealgebra. I'd say go on to AoPS Algebra and see how her paces goes each year and reassess.

:confused1: :confused1: :confused1: Indeed!

First, I disagree that Duke's name recognition is due to sports. While it is a sports-crazy school (and something to consider in terms of school culture), it has an academic reputation that stands alone. I will gently say that I know virtually nothing about Davidson. (I'm from the midwest and California, so it may have a more regional reputation.) OTOH I do think highly of schools like Duke especially, and I've heard of Emory and WF. So in terms of brand recognition for folks like me, Davidson loses. HOWEVER, as we all know, brand recognition to someone like me is of little value since I am not in the business of offering admission to med schools or PhD programs or offering any jobs to new grads. It sounds like Davidson is a strong school, albeit one I know little about.

For gosh sakes, don't let loyal alumni/sports fans make her important academic decisions for her, lol.

Yeah, I think basically test scores, whether your student is comfortably above the median score. Did your student just squeak in off the wait list, or were they recruited and admitted EA from the start with a sizable merit scholarship? Or somewhere in between?

I have a friend who deliberately looked for a school where his son would be roughly in the top 25% of the class. He didn't want his ds to be the #1 student, but he also didn't want him to be at the bottom of the class. I agree with the others that the distinctions in rankings are nonexistent. You need to consider all the other factors, including your student's future plans. For example, if your student is considering med school or vet school, very competitive programs, he may want to think seriously about being a big fish in a state university that enables to have in state admission to a low cost state med school. Maybe. Depending on his goals and whatnot. Maybe if he wants an academic medicine career, it would be better to attend a name school that has a medicine department already. Maybe not? Or if he has an interest in a particular department, pick the school that provides him with the best preparation or has the best reputation, or whatever. It's a tough call.

Hi: I'm looking at the answer to 13.3.1(b) and it looks like the answer is a real number, all written as one fraction. It is not a complex number with separate real and imaginary components. It looks like the solution was derived from the quadratic formula, which is a single fraction, so it just seemed logical to keep it as a fraction. I think generally if the answer is real, you keep it as a single fraction. If it's complex, you can separate the real and imaginary parts for clarity, but I don't think that's even necessary, as you see in 13.3.1 (d, f) When you get to graphing complex numbers or doing operations on them (adding, multiplying, taking the conjugate), it helps to have the real and imaginary components separate. But as you see in 13.3.1 (d,f) it's a simple thing to take one additional step. Does that help?

I don't ever remember being taught pint/ounce conversions, although now that I see it on my OXO measuring cups it makes sense, though I don't know when I've ever been asked to measure out X ounces of something. I also was never taught the relationship between fluid ounces and ounces, which caused me no end of confusion as a child. In fact, I would learn the liquid measurements and then forget them promptly as a child. It was only when I was cooking regularly--as an adult--that they stuck. (And I was never taught that there are 3 tsp in a tbsp. That's useful to know.) And I'm hoping the foot-centimeter conversion is a typo? Is it like 1.4...or 2.5 cm to an inch? I don't even know.

Yes, that's correct. So Monday we do 3.1, problems and exercises. Tuesday is 3.2, etc. Set aside what you think he needs for review problems, maybe add an extra day as a buffer, so 2 days for each chapter. Then 3 days for each chapter's challenge problems. I just brought up the PreA TOC from the AoPS website. For chapter 3 I would allocate 7 days for the sections 3.1-3.7. I lump together the Summary section with the Review Problems, so you can add 2 days for that. And maybe 3 days for challenge problems. I like to overestimate just in case. So 12 days max, and if he finishes early, that's a bonus. Good luck!

Heck, if your son were in kindergarten performing in a 2 bit play about dinosaurs, I would still never ask a parent to leave a concert early.

Wow, FM. Just wow. I can't even imagine asking a parent to leave her son's concert early. Singing Beethoven's 9th! When a DVD is available? For some reason I have to know if these folks are on your side of the family or your dh's? What kind of grudge do they hold against you?

Is it just the 3 of them on a team? If they are proving so unreliable, it may be time for him to take the reins of the "team" and complete the project himself. Not easy with LDs and being neuro atypical, but as PPs have said, team projects suck.

The people on this board love to discuss AoPS. Even repeated questions. I think completing Algebra by end of 8th grade is doable, especially if your student: (1) schools at least part way through the summer (excluding trips, camps, other fun summer stuff) (2) spends 1 day on each section and roughly 1-3 days each on review problems and challenge problems. (If fact, I would budget (2) above and see how the dates work out. Then see how much summer time you might need to spend on math. We school year round anyway, so it's no big deal for us.) Time can be saved by skipping challenge problems, but really, the challenge problems are sort of the special sauce of AoPS, so I would avoid skipping unless you are in a big hurry to finish. I might suggest that there be a pinned thread just about all things AoPS, but there are too many opinions to perfectly encapsulate everyone's varied experiences.

An advantage of the online versions is they have all the error corrections to date. I think this is more of an issue with the later books, and if you are (like me) really super concerned if there is a tiny error and I don't trust myself to know whether it's a typo or my own mistake. I'm not even sure they are updating the AoPS errata pages anymore. I do like the paper copy, but we keep an electronic copy so we can check for what we think are errors and also so I can do prep while one of the kids is also using the book.

Which threads do you read? There are so many and they go on for 10+ pages!

Ah yes! The other Rio Olympics!

MathCounts chapter competition is on a Saturday in February, unless there is a snow date, it may run into March. Take a look at the MC competition series part of the website. (The video competition is also fun.) You can contact your state or chapter coordinator to make sure you know which chapter you are in. (It can sometimes vary year to year.) Then next fall check back and complete you registration by the deadline which I believe in mid December. If your student has a friend who wants to join her, do it. A lot of B&M schools show up with a full 10 person team, so it's more fun to arrive knowing at least one person. The chapter competition is a lot of fun.

If you are doing any sort of prep for competition math, and you don't have a lot of time, then you can register to participate in the chapter competition. It's one Saturday in February, and that's it. Unless you qualify for state, then it's another Saturday in March. Unless you qualify for nationals... It's more fun with a team, but you can also show up as an individual competitor.

PPs have already written this, but it bears repeating. The best way to prepare for math competitions is to do them. A not so good way to prepare is to accelerate math instruction. Case in point: I had 2 students on my MathCounts team this year who were in 8th grade and studying precalculus. So they were on track to take calculus as freshmen. Wow. I assumed these two would be my high performers, but when I gave them a placement test to see who would be on the team, I had a 6th grader who out-scored them. And he wasn't even particularly gifted in math, but he had been on my MOEMS team, where the exams are much easier than MathCounts, but generally of the same variety. Even the elementary-level MOEMS exam was better preparation than training in advanced math. My 8th grade precalc students did so poorly, I was really surprised, but it drove home to me how different math competitions can be from learning an algorithm, practicing it dozens of times, taking a test and moving on, never to use it again.

I worked under a resident who used work in the diamond district before deciding to become a surgeon. Another colleague worked as an engineer before going to med school. I have another friend who only went to med school after doing some other job I can't remember now but it was definitely completely unrelated to medicine. ETA: I know another guy who trained in internal medicine, then got his MBA and became an entrepreneur.

Creekland: I wanted to reach out and encourage your ds to apply again next year. I know so many people who have taken roundabout ways to med school. I didn't apply until I was out of college for 2 years. A good friend of mine applied after she was out of college for one year. I worked with a guy who trained for 3 years to be surgeon, before dropping that and retraining as an ER doc. I'm not even sure he practices medicine now anyway. My own brother trained as a pediatrician, then decided he wanted to be a pathologist instead, so he trained again for that. Another friend (wow, I seem to know a lot of doctors) trained in an MSTP program and didn't even enter academia, just private practice. He can spend this year continuing his research, building up some more interesting experiences (as if he needs any!), and reapply, minus the bad advice he received.