This is the first time I have heard about students who have priority registration or better registration spots registering for popular classes then selling them to students trying to add the class when the class is full. Here is an article on the subject. https://stack.dailybruin.com/2024/02/04/course-selling/ A co-worker was telling me about it because her daughter was frustrated she couldn't get into the classes she wanted. Some of the popular courses that students are selling include: Physics 5A, 5B, and 5C (physics for life science majors) and several Psychology classes, math classes, and others. Has anyone heard of this at other colleges?

Thanks for the info. NOLS seems really interesting and they have summer programs for 14-15 year olds. Maybe he is interested in boarding schools because he went to a swim meet at a boarding school and ended up talking to a boarder who really liked it. He is easy going, gets along well with others, is outgoing and is an adventurous eater so I think he actually would do fine with a host family. On the other hand he likes to be active and doesn't like being cooped up at home, so sometimes it is 9 at night and he says he wants to take a walk around the neighborhood which is fine with us. Sometimes he will go out with a friend and ask us to pick him up after a movie or concert at 8 somewhere and then call and say he and his friend prefer to walk 2-3 miles home or to go eat something instead of getting picked up. So I can picture a host family might not be so tolerant of this. I hadn't really thought of the academic expectations if you go to a non-English speaking country- he might actually like the option of taking "only the occasional academic class".

My son is currently in 9th grade and is interested in dong a study abroad in New Zealand or Australia or anywhere else that is English speaking. He doesn't really want to stay with a family and prefers a boarding school type environment or outdoor type school. I found "semester schools" that are primarily for students who are already at boarding schools or private schools to study in interesting places for a semester. He would love doing something like Maine Coast Semester (https://mainecoastsemester.chewonki.org) but it is $36,000 for the semester. There are other "semester school" programs in Colorado, North Carolina, Chile but they are all really expensive. Anyone know of any boarding schools in Australia/New Zealand that take students for a semester or year? I thought I had read there were outdoor type semester or maybe it was year long type programs but maybe it is only for students from certain schools or maybe it was somewhere else.

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Yes he is a junior and is NOT taking math this year. Thanks for this info. I had never heard of Schaums workbooks but they look promising. The only issue is that when I read the reviews of Calculus book someone commented that it doesn't exactly line up with AP calculus since most of the workbook is based on solving problems without calculators and some of the topics are different. Not sure if it matters or not for dual enrollment Calculus Yes he took geometry. He has taken: 1. Algebra 1 (year long) 2. Geometry (year long) 3. Intermediate Alg (Community College semester which the UC's/Cal states consider a year long high school course equivalent) 4. Trigonometry (semester Community College) 5. College Algebra (semester community college) 6. Statistics (semester community college) He finished statistics in 10th grade. If he choses a non STEM-major then there is a chance he will not have to take another math class to graduate college. However, I think 10th grade is too young to never have to take another math class again in your life. He needs a refresher if he is gong to take Calculus next year. I am wonder if it is better just to have him start studying Calculus this summer and then go back and review anything that he missed as he is taking Calculus or would it be better to review pre-calculus topics this summer. Note: I tried to post this a few days ago but my post never went through. Not sure what happened.

I would like my son to take Calculus senior year even though he doesn't really want to take any more math. By the end of the first semester of 10th grade at our community college, he had taken Intermediate Algebra, Trigonometry, and College Algebra. Then took Statistics his second semester of 10th grade. He realizes if he doesn't major in anything STEM that he won't have to take any more math classes if he goes to a Cal State or UC. I would really like him to take Calculus either at the community college or online but by the time he takes the class it will have been a while since he studied math. Is there a workbook or worksheet with an answer key that has worked out problems to review for Calculus? Or something online that would be good to review and has practice problems? The other option is that he studies for the digital math SAT. He wasn't planning on taking the SAT since he is looking at applying to Cal State/UC, which doesn't look at test scores, but now he is thinking it might be a good idea.

My husband teachers 7th grade in a public junior high school. He just got a new student this week who was homeschooling and had been in public school pre-pandemic. It wasn't a big deal at all. Kids move and enter the school all the time. He got a student who just arrived from another country last month. I think it is absolutely a great idea to try it now. Teachers and other students will know she is new and be more understanding. At the start of 8th grade teachers might not know she hasn't been in school besides homeschool and not be understanding if she doesn't understand some procedure or way of doing things. The only time my husband really dislikes getting a new student is when they are a massive behavior problem and are getting transferred into his classroom from another class or school due to a disciplinary event. I really don't understand why some people are being so negative. It would be so much better for you guys to figure out this spring what you will do next school year.

He really, really needs to learn how to use Desmos before the test. Here is the link: https://www.desmos.com/calculator Try plugging those problems above in and see how easy they are to solve with desmos. Then watch YouTube videos on digital SAT and desmos. How you study for the math SAT is going to tremendously change. My 9th grader is finishing algebra 2. Even though I discourage it he uses desmos and other online problem solvers as a shortcut to finishing homework instead of working out problems. He also makes careless mistakes. I was thinking he wasn’t going to take the SAT and just apply to no test schools like the UC’s but now I am going to have him study for the psat. I had him do some sample problems by hand, using only a calculator, then also using desmos. He did great on all the problems you can solve using desmos. Any system of equations, inequalities are graphed for you in desmos,etc. Some if those problems solving even with a calculator take a lot of time but took him seconds with desmos.

I can see how intuitively knowing the answer saves time, but if you don't then Desmos still lets you solve the problems really quickly. Here are sample problems from the college board: (x − 1)2 = −4 How many distinct real solutions does the given equation have? A) Exactly one B) Exactly two C) Infinitely many D) Zero So intuitively it is quicker to know the explanation (from College Board) Any quantity that is positive or negative in value has a positive value when squared. Therefore, the left-hand side of the given equation is either positive or zero for any value of x. Since the right-hand side of the given equation is negative, there is no value of x for which the given equation is true. Thus, the number of distinct real solutions for the given equation is zero. But if you don't it only takes about 10 seconds to plug in the equation too see there are zero solutions. Here is another easy problems using Desmos: In the xy-plane, a line with equation 2y = 4.5 intersects a parabola at exactly one point. If the parabola has equation y = −4x2 + bx, where b is a positive constant, what is the value of b ? The College Board explanation is: The correct answer is 6. It’s given that a line with equation 2y = 4.5 intersects a parabola with equation y = −4x2 + bx, where b is a positive constant, at exactly one point in the xy-plane. It follows that the system of equations consisting of 2y = 4.5 and y = −4x2+ bx has exactly one solution. Dividing both sides of the equation of the line by 2 yields y = 2.25. Substituting 2.25 for y in the equation of the parabola yields 2.25 = −4x2 + bx. Adding 4x2 and subtracting bxfrom both sides of this equation yields 4x2 – bx + 2.25 = 0. A quadratic equation in the form of ax2 + bx + c = 0, where a, b, and c are constants, has exactly one solution when the discriminant, b2 − 4ac, is equal to zero. Substituting 4 for a and 2.25 for c in the expression b2 − 4ac and setting this expression equal to 0 yields But using Desmos it takes less than 30 seconds (and if you type quickly less than 20 seconds) to figure out it is 6 using a Desmos slider tool. You just move it up and down until you can see the answer. This seems like such a huge change. Am I missing something? There is no restriction on using Desmos?

Being able to use Desmos on the ENTIRE Digital Sat Math section seems like such a big change. So many problems can easily be solved by plugging equations into Desmos. It will be interesting how students who are using the Desmos math curriculum end up doing on the Digital SAT. Right now Desmos Math is only available for grades 6-8 and Algebra with plans to expand to higher levels of math.

I had to quickly decide whether or not to take it Thursday night when I tested positive. Quickly researching I found it is effective in reducing serious complications and might be beneficial against long Covid and might lead to testing negative sooner. Last time I got Covid it took a month until the brain fog went completely away. Another consideration is that since it is currently free in the US I decided there was no downside so I called my doctor's office first thing Friday morning and they squeezed me in for a televisit. My doctor recommended and sent in the prescription right away (so glad my 16 now drives and could pick up the prescription at lunchtime!!!!). However, Paxlovid is NO longer going to be free in the coming weeks or months for everyone in the US as the stockpile the government bought dwindles. It looks like if you have Medicare or are uninsured you will still be able to get it but it is going to go into the commercial marketplace so I predict if you have insurance it will be harder to get since Pfizer is pricing their five-day course of Paxlovid at around $1,400. So the copay hopefully will be reasonable but I think insurance is going to make it harder to get so easily. Overall, I am so glad I took it because I am feeling better (besides the absolutely disgusting aftertaste that doesn't go away). I am curious when I will start to test negative. Last time it took until around day 14 or 15. I am hoping by taking Paxlovid I might be somehow less contagious sooner so no one else in my family gets Covid.

Tested positive Thursday night started Paxlovid Friday morning. Felt awful Friday but so much better Saturday. The only drawback (and I don't think that everyone gets this reaction) is the incredibly awful taste in my mouth that won't go away. No amount of brushing my teeth, gargling with mouthwash, or chewing gum makes it go away. It temporary gets better for about five minutes after I do that but then it comes back.

That is really surprising to hear. Perhaps it depends on the dual enrollment class. My older son has around 30 units of dual enrollment and he says that none of those classes are as hard as his AP high school classes. Besides being easier the dual enrollment classes are more straightforward that the AP classes. In dual enrollment you get a syllabus at the beginning of the semester, so know exactly when the tests are, what all the assignments are for the semester, how many points everything will be worth, where to submit assignments, etc. so it is really easy to figure out what to do and when it is due. AP classes at his high school have many more assignments, surprise quizzes, surprise essay tests, homework assignments that need to be submitted different ways (sometimes you hand them in, sometimes you submit them on canvas, sometimes you have to go into a blog and submit them, sometimes you have to go to google docs and share the doc with your teacher), group projects, etc. It requires vastly more executive functioning than dual enrollment college class. On top of being harder, AP classes at his high school do not have grade inflation. It is hard to earn an A and even though the top students are in AP classes at his high school (the school discourages students who haven't been on the honor track from enrolling) many students earn C's. In dual enrollment classes my son has all A's and has easily gotten final grades of over 100% in a few classes from easy extra credit.

He was hired at Spelman first then went back to UC Irvine (I think he might have gotten Ph.D from there.

THIS!!!!! It is so incredibly helpful that the CB and so many other outside sources have prep material. It makes it easy to figure out what you are supposed to be learning. My son took an honors Chemistry class. Neither my husband nor I could help him at all. His teacher was known as being a very nice teacher but a hard grader. Around three weeks into the class my son had a homework assignment he couldn't figure out on a Friday night that was due Monday morning. He tried watching YouTube videos, reading the book, etc. The friends he asked didn't really understand it either. So I found an online tutoring company (Wyzant). The first tutor majored in Chemistry and had just graduated. My son sent her the homework and she responded he needed to send her the other handouts that he was given to solve the homework. But my son wasn't given anything else and there was nothing online. Thinking maybe this tutor wasn't very good, I contacted another tutor who had a Ph.D in Chemistry and was a retired AP Chemistry teacher. My son met with him and they guy said you cannot solve this homework with what you were given (I think he needed a solubility table- I don't know much at all about Chemistry). My son showed me the recording (the tutoring sessions are recorded) after the session. The tutor also was confused at the order he was presenting material. He didn't come out and say anything negative about the teacher to stay professional but reading between the lines it was obvious. Later I asked a mother with a very strong chemistry background whose child was in the class how it was going and asked her about this homework. She said she had to help her because there was missing information. A couple of weeks later my son asked about getting review material for an upcoming test. The teacher handed him another copy of the homework he had already completed. That was it. The teacher did not post anything online that students could refer to and did not hand out any notes or study guides.I signed my son up with another tutor and he basically was puzzled at how little was being explained. So maybe I just don't know enough about Chemistry to know what was going on. Perhaps the teacher is brilliant and there is a method to his way of teaching. I told son we were willing to pay for weekly tutoring, but my son decided that since there is no AP chemistry at his school and students who were straight A students were getting D's and C's, were studying for hours, and were still confused that he didn't want to stay in the class. He said he thought some of the kids who were doing well had parents who could help with chemistry (the parents are doctors, pharmacist, chemical engineer, etc). So he dropped down to regular Chemistry where there were so many disruptive students which was unfortunate. On the upside he had time to take three dual enrollment classes over the school year instead of spending time doing honors chemistry (and his GPA ended higher as well). This is why I think AP classes are so great. Students have more resources when parents can't help them.

Sometimes it is hard to know what really happened. While I agree that students are going to rate professors who are easy graders higher and students might be more motivated to post negative reviews if they don't do well in the call often there is something when all the reviews are negative on rate my professor reviews. Out of curiosity I just looked at his reviews and the students at Spelman all rated him a 1 and wrote comments like: I would never take this class again. He was one of the worst professors I ever experienced. He would make his classes virtual when it was closer to testing time and would end class when he was overwhelmed with questions. He would laugh when we wouldnt understand the material and never answered questions with a helpful response. The worst professor I've ever had, avoid at all cost. He poorly planned the semester so during the last week and a half of school he assigned 400 homework questions and an essay to make up for it. Professor doesn't teach, doesn't respond to emails, and just reads from his textbook. He is condescending and a snooze fest, save yourself the trouble So then I looked at the most recent ratings from UC Irvine and two out of three were 1's Attendance isn't mandatory but if you don't go you'll fail the lecture check-in quizzes. This class is incredibly boring! I had to force myself to stay awake! All he ever did was read from slides, and doesn't always respond to emails. Despite being an in person class, he'd change to zoom for non-COVID reasons. This Professor had little care for his students. When students were confused he would ask questions and laugh at them. He does not address or says hello to his students. He offers little time in office hours and assigns homework with up to 200 questions that are graded. He is the worst professor I have ever had.

I really don't agree. The College Board has improved my kid's education by creating AP classes. Even if students only score a 2 on the AP test many of those students benefit from being in an AP class, particularly if they are in low income schools. I work in a low income school. The students who I think are absolutely neglected are the high performing students who catch on quickly and want to learn. These are some of the reason why AP classes absolutely helps these low income students: 1. It allows motived students not to be with student who display major behavior issues. Most public schools no longer suspend disruptive students. Instead they follow restorative justice protocols where often nothing really happens to the students who talk in class on their phones, swear at teachers in class, throw things in class, randomly walk in and out of classes, etc. In the past 20 years the rate of incarceration of juveniles has decreased by around 75%. Many continuation schools have shut down. Where are those really difficult kids? The majority of them are in low income schools sitting in the honors for all classes disrupting classes. My husband teaches middle school at a 100% low income school. When he first started if a kid assaulted a staff member they were arrested and sent to a juvenile camp then to a continuation school. Now- they don't even get suspended. A student kicked an assistant principal and beat up a crossing guard and still is in my husband's class. 2. In many low income school there is a constant turn over of new teachers. The AP curriculum allows the teacher to follow a set curriculum without having to spend hours figuring out what to do. There are so many YouTube videos, websites, resources to help the new teacher. 3. If a student doesn't understand a concept, misses class, or needs help reviewing there are so many YouTube videos they can watch exactly on the topics of the lesson since it is a set curriculum. 4. . Most AP classes REQUIRE access for the student and teacher to a college level textbook in print or online. It is ridiculous that so many classes in public schools do NOT have textbooks at public schools. Teachers use Teacher Pay Teacher sources or random materials instead of a cohesive curriculum. The only math textbooks at my son's school are for the AP math classes. The other math classes use Math Vision Project which is a collection of workbooks with NO textbook showing worked examples. If you miss a day or you don't pay attention there is nowhere readily available to find what you missed. The workbooks do not include what the purpose of the lesson is, how to solve any of the problems, or any examples. You can't attempt to solve the odd problems and look in the back of the textbook to find the answer to see if you are solving the problem correctly. Most teachers just tell students if you miss a class watch a video and provide a link. 5. The students who want to be challenged are not in class with the academically lowest students because those students aren't placed in AP classes at most low income schools. Often the lowest students academically get all the attention of the teacher. The top students at these low income schools are often not challenged. It has gotten worse as more and more districts implement "honors for all" and mix all the students into one level of classes. So a student reading at a college level, a student reading at a 9th grade level, and a student who reads at an elementary reading level are all in the same English or science, or history class. There is no way the top students are really being challenged.

Ditto! The rigorous classes at my son's school are the AP classes as well as honors classes in a bioscience academy. To get into the bioscience academy you had to have good grades and write 4 essays. The only accept 36 students each year. So all the students are motivated and it is taught at a really high level and they have wonderful opportunities to do interesting labs. I don't know much about bioscience or the labs but my son was in a Clinical Trial for allergies at UCLA and had to be monitored by a doctor for three hours. While they were waiting he took out his bioscience homework including his notes and his lab homework. The doctor told him she could help him with the assignment he was missing. She was really impressed and said she didn't have the opportunity to do these types of labs until college. So unless you are in some type of specialized program, AP classes are often your only hope in public schools, even supposedly high ranking schools, to be have high quality instruction that follows a format that requires you to write and analyze. I don't care if it is formulaic because it is so much better than what other classes are doing. My son is in 11th grade and has already taken at least 24 units at a CC. While some of the classes have been interesting to him, none are as rigorous as his AP classes and bioscience academy classes and the amount of time spent in completing the classes in no way compare to the amount of work required in a rigorous AP class. They don't offer AP world history at his school so he took honors. While it had some interesting topics it no way did it cover as much as a AP world history class or offer as much required writing.

This is what is frustrating - they have this data but most schools in my area of California absolutely do not publish pass rates by subject. At my son's school I actually called and asked the Assistant Principal who is in charge of the AP tests the pass rates for AP Language, APUSH, and AP Spanish. I explained I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $100 on each of the tests if the pass rates were worse than the national average. I think by explaining I was aware APUSH had a pass rate that was below 50% and I merely wanted to know if the school pass rate was higher, she told me the scores (they are all higher than the national average). She then quickly added that she feels that socio-economic status has a lot to do with the scores and she would expect the scores to be higher that is the population of many of the students in the school. Parents should know before forking over $100 what their child's chance is of passing each subject. CC dual enrollment classes are free and if you pass you get college credit. So far what my son has experienced the AP classes are more rigorous so many students at his school opt out of the AP classes with the teachers who are the toughest graders and take the CC dual enrollment class instead. I prefer my son take the rigorous AP classes but it is frustrating for him to see that some AP teachers at his school are really tough graders. His last APUSH test I think he said the average was 70% on the test and there were only 1 or 2 A's in each of the 3 classes (around 100 students).

It is really unfortunate that schools do not publish the results of each AP subject taken at the school. At my son's public high school they only report how many students took AP tests and what percentage of those student received at least a 3. I would like to know the pass rate of each AP subject. I can understand why a teacher might not want this to be published if you are teaching a subject with a low pass rate like APUSH that has a pass rate of around 47%, but the schools could publish the national pass rate by the school pass rate. So if 70% of students at a school are passing APUSH then that is impressive, but if 70% of students are passing Calc BC then it isn't as impressive since the pass rate is 78%. It would be really helpful to have this information before enrolling in the class. Right now how many students exactly passed at each individual test at each school is obfuscated. My son's school lists 300 students took 650 AP tests and 81% received a score of at least a three. But it isn't clear how many passes out of the 650 tests. Maybe many students received a 3 on one test but a 1 or 2 on another. Perhaps many student took AP art In many districts I think more and more students are going to get pushed into AP classes because of the "honors for all" movement. There is a movement in many districts across the country to no longer have leveled classes in high school. So instead of offering English 9 w/support, English 9, and English 9 Honors districts are offering only English 9 honors and everyone takes that class. I don't quite understand how you can call it honors but it makes it sound like the district is doing a great job. So once everyone takes Honors English then many are going to get tracked into AP classes.

Which colleges do this? If the class is in your major then I have heard you should not take the class pass/no pass but if you are exploring outside your major I have heard it is perfectly acceptable to take one class pass / no pass. I haven't heard that colleges convert P's to 2.0 when calculating GPA's, but would be interested in knowing which ones or how widespread this is. I think a 4.0 with one pass/no pass grade seems preferable to a 3.9 gpa (obviously both are fantastic, but a 4.0 stands out even more).

Is it too late to switch to pass/not pass grading for this class?

California is pretty amazing ( I live here so I am probably biased). The beauty of standing in a high Sierra meadow surrounded by wildflowers while listening to black bears munching on plants is hard to beat. Then add to that all the coastline. I love watching my boys surf as I walk on the beach as the sun sets. Utah's National Parks are stunning. Hiking down and all around Bryce Canyon early in the morning before the crowds is one of my favorite hikes ever. The glaciers in Alaska and the scenery.

I forgot to add after the AP test they read more for interest than anything super studious- The Things They Carried and then they work on college admission essays. The past three weeks or so they have been working on rhetorical essays and have looked at a couple of past AP test rhetorical prompts. Last week in English they had to write a rhetorical analysis of persuasion using Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty speech.

Not sure if it is helpful but my son is at taking AP Language and AP US History at a public school. They teach it as a semi-combined course so what they read in AP Language is during the time period they are studying for APUSH. This is his reading list: • The American Pageant Bailey and Kennedy (AP History textbook) • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne • "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards • Common Sense by Thomas Paine • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • "Federalist #10" by James Madison • "Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death" by Patrick Henry • “Declaration of Independence" by Thomas Jefferson • "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe • Poetry of Walt Whitman (Emerson, etc.) Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau • Slave Narrative of Frederick Douglass • "Chicago" Poets (Lindsay, Sandburg) • Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herbert Melville • Speeches of Abraham Lincoln • "Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair • Post WWI "Literature of Alienation" (Eliot, Pound, Stein, etc.) • The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald • The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck • "Making it Home" by Wendell Berry • "Beat," Confessional, and African American '60s Poets (various)