Congratulations! My dd just returned from a college tour that included a trip to CMU. (It also included a fairly hilarious interaction with a weirdly over-the-top brown nosing applicant.) Compared to the other schools she's seen, CMU seems like a really good fit for her. What school did your student apply to? What about his application do you think impressed the committee?

I was just looking through some info about the CA, including the common app 101 ppt, and down on the 20th slide, under new features, it says: ACCOUNT ROLLOVER Any account created in 2015-2016 can carry over to 2016-2017 • User name and password remain the same • What rolls over? Any answers to questions within the Common App tab: o Profile o Family o Education o Testing o Activities o Writing

There's a lot of interest in new innovative forms of education, including online learning. Maybe something to do with homeschoolers' use of online learning or tools, and how effective (or not effective) they might be?

I'm a big fan of schooling year round. Like the pp's we don't do school is dh is off work for holiday or we are on vacation or they have a camp. The great thing about schooling year round is it gives you a buffer for when you need to take the day off for a field trip or something spontaneous. Since I'm a worrier about missing academic time, I could tell myself that we more than make up for it by working during the summer. Also the kids are less bored and there's no backsliding in knowledge over the summer. Like a pp, we also plan only for the next "thing" or lesson, or possibly the next 2 "things." We always begin with the most important subjects. Less important subjects are scheduled last and are more likely to be skipped due to after activities. Spelling was something I didn't mind skipping, e.g. My older dd is in high school and schooling year round has really paid off this year. She wants to take AP physics next year which at a minimum requires concurrent enrollment in AP calculus. Since we school year round, we finished precalculus last month, and she began on calculus 7 months ahead of schedule for her junior year, giving her a head start on learning derivatives and integrals and easing her schedule at the start of next year, which her official AP calculus class begins. Good luck!

Does this mean that I can sign up now for a practice application? My dd is a sophomore, and I had figured on giving CA a spin her junior year for practice.

Also remember that you can get a full refund after something like 2 classes. (Check this.)

The online contest prep classes are less time consuming than the courses that require textbooks. There's just one problem set each week, and if she's already studied from AoPS C&P, geometry, and intermed. algebra, it will be mostly review, but still fun because, you know, AoPS. Since she's already had some experience with python she'll do fine with her weekly programming assignments. That will likely be mostly review as well. The intro class doesn't cover algorithms. (I don't think the advanced class does either.) The questions is, will she feel like doing problem sets and programming assignments in the afternoon after a hard/fun day of swimming and theater? (I suspect she'll probably be fine.)

I don't know, I rather enjoyed graphing equations, even if it is slower. Especially with polar coordinates, it was fun to see what mysterious flower would be generated by a particular equation.

My first thought was, "Oh, no! He'll lose a year of eligibility for MathCounts!" :crying: But seriously, you should consider what extracurriculars interest him, and whether there are any eligibility rules around age or grade in school.

Boy, soh-cah-toa was my crutch when learning trig for the first time in high school. I remember being skeptical when I was first taught, but boy did it come in handy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's still taught in the AoPS books. But I've never heard of PEMDAS. What does that possibly mean?

This sounds like something I would hear on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Thanks! I was wondering why proctors weren't allowing mechanicals.

I see this a fair bit. A student will explain to our MOEMS group that "the angles are the same" and I will briefly interrupt to say, "they are vertical angles and so have have the same measure" both to gently correct and mostly so the other students will be able to follow and understand. It's fun to see them improve and take pride in their explanations over the years. They start out barely able to articulate and require a lot of hand-holding, and as they gain practice and mature, all I'm doing is copying at the whiteboard what they are telling me.

Ooh, I love those exercises, creating word problems given the operations and numbers. It reminds me that many students on the AoPS message boards prepare for exams by writing their own questions.

Check out the University of Texas schools. I remember from decades back that at UT Southwestern Medical School, they charge OOS tuition only the first year. After that, you pay in state. I have no idea if that's true for undergrads now.

We use AoPS, and I believe it was in Algebra that there's a section on calculating interest rates that requires the use of a calculator. It comes up now and then in AoPS, but not often. If you think your student will be relying on a calculator in the long term, you might consider having him use one that uses RPN, reverse polish notation, aka a scientific calculator. It makes calculations much easier and faster. Once he learns RPN, he'll never go back.

It's not the end of the world, but it still hurts. My favorite take on this is this blog post, especially the part where a college rejection should feel like a swipe left on tinder since the colleges don't really know your student, and it isn't personal. But after all the effort students put into the application, it actually feels like being left at the altar after a years long courtship.

It sounds like your ds may be happier teaching in a private school. We have all sorts of private schools for every stripe of family: religious, tiger mom academic, hippie-dippie, gifted kids, play-based, waldorf, etc. Even the public schools have their own flavors depending on their neighborhood and the types of families they serve.

I'd like to add that as my kids have aged out of MOEMS (starting in 7th grade), I ask them to coach the younger students. Their first year as coach, I ask them to review the solutions at the board with me alone at home as practice before proctoring the students. After that they gain the confidence to prep without my help. I figure we check off the public speaking box and their students really love them. (They are less uptight than I am.) But I don't think that should be the expectation of all students. It just happened to be right for my own daughters.

I had to read and reread before I got the joke. Good one.

Are you referring to Math Olympiad for Elementary and Middle School (MOEMS)? Here's a post where I describe what I do (#16). I'm pretty strong in math, but my students often give me a run for my money with their unusual solutions.

I host only middle and high school students now, and I keep them in the room for the duration. Because after the exam I pass out their certificates and funny VR tattoos. And they all hang out afterward going over their problems. (I've already collected their scantrons.) We skipped photos this time because I just didn't care to do it and I wanted to count and sort the Scantrons and other paperwork. Congrats! We've really enjoyed MK and have found them to be very homeschool-friendly.

My dd loves to cook and enjoys the Food Wishes video blog with Chef John. At the very least it is entertaining, funny, and reinforces the fun of cooking.

I've been coaching a MOEMS class for some years where students spend the first half hour taking the test, and the second half we review the problems we just did. I have the students volunteer how the solved each problem, while I transcribe their solution at the white board. Some students raise their hand a lot, some prefer to listen to others. Some students are quite articulate and can roll with it when I ask them to stop a moment while I catch up or clarify some point. Some students are really excited because they know how to solve it, but then stumble because they can't always articulate their solution, so I will lead them a bit to get the ball rolling. (Sometimes in the midst of describing their solution they realize an error they've made. Usually they take it with a laugh.) I think the students who describe their solutions aloud to their peers benefit from being forced (not forced really because they are volunteering) to describe their logic step by step. (Sometimes that logic amounts to guess and check, but it's still valid and we embrace all valid approaches.) The students who don't participate still gain, I believe, because when they see their peers describe their approaches, it encourages them to see that they too can use some of those tools next time. HTH.

I'm in a punchy mood this evening, so I'm going to suggest buying 4 or 5 of these crazy expensive pens. Because homeschooling doesn't mean we have to use Bic.