Thank you, Julie! I agree--there are probably numerous ways to do it. I always tend to get mired in the options until I'm down to the wire and have to just decide on a starting point. :)

Julie, I'm working on this today. So, did you use the transcript you submitted initially on the Common App (w/ grades through end of junior year), retitle it "Mid-Year Report", and then put the first semester grade in the spot where the final grade would eventually go? Or did you only submit the separate page, "Mid-Year Report", and only list the senior year classes and the first semester grade for those classes? Did you update your student's GPA, based on the first semester grades? Or did you make no mention of the GPA (other than whatever was on the original transcript) since the grades were only first semester grades? One school wants our mid-year report by 1/1 for scholarship consideration. I assume I could just send them the grades and let them re-calculate the gpa, incorporating the first semester grades, if they want, but I don't want to miss doing anything I'm supposed to be doing. Thank you!

Thanks, Janet. I figured it was a long shot.

We haven't used Lone Pine ourselves, but it's sad to hear of a quality provider closing. :(

I'm completely new to this, too, so I have no clue, but maybe someone knows.... Is it possible to create a completely new Common App account and use that for the Jan 1 submissions? Probably not, but that's the first thing I would try. Hope you can find the easiest workaround for the situation.

One nice plus to Lukeion is that you can sign up for only one semester, if you want. If your son is interested in learning ancient Greek, you could let him try it for a semester and then decide how to proceed. He wouldn't be risking much. If it goes well, great! Keep going! My son loved Greek with Mr. Barr and continued for four years! If your son decides it's not for him, that's good, too, because then he can cross it off his list and focus his energy on another interest. My son had been asking to take Greek for two years before I realized how serious he was. (Bad mama! Bad!) If he'd never tried it, he'd always be wondering & wishing he had. If your son gets a grade he/you don't want on his transcript, don't report the class at all. Consider it an interest-based EC, like cooking, or canoeing, or whatever. You don't have to report all those. I don't think there's any way you're going to be able to know ahead of time how it will work out for your son. If he really wants to try it, just do it! All he risks is losing one semester of high school credit if it doesn't work out. That's nothing compared to the risk of regretting not having pursued a genuine interest at the time and never knowing if it might have been something your son would have loved. ETA: I guess another potential risk is that the Greek displaces one semester of some other subject. As a pp mentioned, language learning is time-intensive. The first semester of Greek may be especially so. But if it's a self-initiated interest/study, it is probably worth that minor risk.

My boys saw a similar large increase between their sophomore year PSAT & junior year PSAT, after they had finished Algebra 2 in 10th grade.

One factor to consider with AP Eng Lang & Comp or with AP Eng Lit is that, even if a student is capable of succeeding in the class, keeping up with the level and pace of the reading and writing, a 9th or 10th grader is going to be two years less mature and less broadly read than an 11th or 12th grader. The 9th grader can be brilliant, well-read, solid at writing, and just all around wonderful, but that 9th grader will write differently at the end of 9th grade than she will at the end of 11th or 12th grade. She will have had two more years experience and exposure to books and writing if she waits till 11th or 12th. That may or may not make a difference in her AP exam score, and the difference may or may not be important to her.

I've never changed a grade from an outside provider. If I were teaching the course myself, I would be responsible for assigning the final grade, even if I outsourced some strand of the course. I would be clear in my school profile (where it asks how grades were assigned) and/or in my course description that I, as the primary teacher, had assigned the grade. I think an ethical issue comes into play when a parent changes a final grade and makes it _look like_ the outside instructor gave the student that new/changed grade when, in fact, it was the parent.

We tried to work w a-g in 9th grade and soon realized there was no point in home schooling if we were going to do that. The hoops were too onerous, even w a homeschooling charter. The exam route is much, much better for us. Wish I’d known that up front.

My boys took Omni I/GC1 w/ Bruce Etter when he was at VPSA and when they were in 7th grade. I am very glad they did for several reasons..... 1) Bruce Etter was a great instructor. The reading load was heavy, but they enjoyed the classes. Bruce definitely brought the material within their reach as 7th graders, and he omitted the sections that were most objectionable. Sure, there's a lot that a 7th grader is not going to pick up that a 9th grader, or a 12th grader, or a college student, or an adult might pick up, but there is a lot that a 7th grader CAN pick up. And, some experience with the texts is better than no experience with the texts, imo. If they re-read the texts later, great! They'll have a step up and be in position to get more out of them the second time through. If they never re-read the texts, they'll at least have experienced them once. 2) They had much more time in 7th grade than they did once they started high school, so, I think, they spent more time on the reading than they do now for the GC6 course in 12th. More time in the sense of being able to slow down & absorb rather than whip through. 3) I had a crisis of confidence when we hit high school & I bailed on Great Books for 9th & 10th. Stupid, stupid, but there it is. We're in CA &, never having taken a student all the way through graduation to college admission, I wasn't positive what we needed to do. I didn't know what colleges my oldest would apply to, nor what fields of study they would want to pursue in college. I succumbed to the idea that I needed to fulfill all these a-g requirements or at least standard high school requirements. ("American History", "World History," "US Gov,"....) Great Books didn't fit neatly inside those boxes, and I wasn't confident to do what some had done to show how they could fit. Now I know that was a mistake. 4) In high school, time and flexibility was much more constrained for us, not only because we wanted to hit the standard high school subjects, but also because the boys got interested in other, outside activities (speech & debate primarily) in which they wanted to spend more time. Having done GB 1&2 in 7th & 8th allowed us to at least get those in. This year, 12th, my boys are doing GC6, to sort of round off the GB sequence. YMMV, obviously!

We aimed for 1 math, 1 science, and 1 humanities SAT subject exam, at a minimum. I think the only subject exam specifically required was Math 1 or 2 for Claremont McKenna. We're in CA, and subject exams can be used to satisfy UC a-g requirements. If we were targeting UC schools, we'd have done two or three more.

True. Since I can't squeeze in 6 more lines to list the second semester of the courses, a separate document might be the clearest way to handle this and not modify the transcript.

I was thinking I could add the second half of the courses in another line, listed as IP in the grade column and 0.5 credits. That might not work, though, because I don't have enough space to add 6 courses. Drat. Maybe I'll go with Janet's suggestion of a written mid-year report stating no changes to course load, etc. and either list grades to date on that written report or state that I've listed first semester grades on the transcript and will replace them with final, end-of-year grades on the final report

One of my sons just found out he was accepted to Willamette w/ a merit scholarship! Neither son has any other EA apps, so we won't know anything else until whenever regular decisions come out. Thank you to kewb who mentioned looking at the college portal. We hadn't realized that we needed to keep checking it. Thought we'd hear by email. The acceptance has been sitting there! Yay!

All of my sons' are full year courses. I think I'll put the first semester grade on the transcript and change the credit from 1.0 to 0.5. Then, at the end of the year, I'll replace the mid-year grade with the final grade for the year and update the credit to 1.0. If anyone thinks that's a bad idea, please let me know!

Thanks, regentrude. So, to be sure I understand..... Your transcripts also only had a single, end-of-year grade for 9th, 10th, 11th, and you put the mid-year grade in the 12th grade end-of-year grade spot? Then changed the grade (if necessary) at the end of 12th to be whatever the final end of year grades were for those classes? Thanks, again. I'm sure all these questions seem so trivial, but I feel so much responsibility for getting it right. Times 2.

How do you handle the Mid Year Report if your "Official Transcript" only gives end of year grades? Temporarily squeeze in a second column on the "Official Transcript" for senior year first semester grades? Issue a separate document stating that it is the "Mid Year Grade Report"? Thanks!

Whether the college is interested in the student’s transcript and (for the homeschooler) course description probably also depends on size of the college. The SLACs we visited either asked for, or were glad to be offered,my sons’ transcripts and course descriptions. The larger, more anonymous universities (UCs, Univ of Chicago,...) couldn’t have cared less about having them until we actually applied. Makes sense—hundreds of kids probably tour. No point in loooking at all that paperwork until/unless the student applies.

Yes!

We brought small notebooks to our first couple of college visits, just in case, but didn't really take many notes after the first two or three colleges. Take pictures to help jog your memory later. I jotted some brief notes on my phone. We did not take a transcript or course descriptions to the first three colleges, but I wish we had. We did take them to the next three colleges. Hillsdale, for example, was very interested in both when we visited (even though the boys didn't formally interview at that time.) The other two colleges were also interested in both. I think the fact that the boys had them with them, ready to give the adcom, made a favorable impression. My boys are seniors & maybe it would not matter as much for a junior. Can't imagine that it could be anything but a positive to bring them, though, if you have them.

:iagree: Establishing a relationship with the person in charge of test registration at our public school went a long way for us. I always leave her office feeling amazed that someone like that still exists in our large, pretty anonymous school district. ETA: The assistant principal in charge of the actual test administration last year was a completely different story, but the test registration person has always been helpful, friendly, and competent.

Doesn't it feel great to have it in!? :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: :party:

My 10th grade/15 yo dd is taking WTMA's first semester Creative Writing class. She really likes it. I wasn't sure about the workshop approach initially, but I can see where it is a great way to approach a CW class. She hasn't found it to be time consuming at all, but she loves writing. She usually thinks about the assignment during the week and actually writes it the day before it's due. Next semester, she'll be taking a lit/writing Eng class w/ TPS, but she also wants to continue with WTMA's second semester CW class. The TPS class will be a lot of work, but I think she'll be ok.

I'll have to see if I can find that poll. Lack of better west coast class times has been an issue for us in the past.