Thank you, RootAnn!!

Can I change my user name w/out losing my post history?

Had to look up what exactly a "quality point" was! This page has a pretty good explanation of "quality points" & how to calculate gpa. Bottom line: ( point value of the grade for the course) x (the number of credits for the course) = (number of "quality points") (Total number of "quality points" for the year) divided by (total number of credits for the year) = gpa Assuming A=4.0, for each of the 0.5 credit courses, 4.0 (A grade) x 0.5 credits = 2.0 quality points. So 8.0 "quality points" for all four half-credit classes. for the 1.0 credit courses, the "quality points" = 4.0 x 1.0 = 4.0 quality points, for a total of 12 quality points for all three full-credit courses. GPA = 20.0 quality points divided by 5 credit total = 4.0

Exactly. I have relatives in another state with a daughter who is a high school junior. I'm afraid they may be heading for the same situation. She and her parents fully expect that she'll be choosing between Ivies, MIT, UC Berkeley, and Stanford for college. Those are the schools they've visited and the ones to which she plans to apply. She is a bright girl, but NONE of those are a slam dunk for ANYone , no matter what their academic stats & ECs are. She has no hooks, other than being a female interested in math/engineering, if that counts. Even for kids with real hooks, though, I doubt that any of those schools would be a given. (Finances are not an issue for her family, so those aren't a consideration that might cause them to apply to other colleges.) One hour reading threads about applications/admissions to those colleges on College Confidential would be a sobering, enlightening experience. The posts are all anecdotal, of course, but they definitely provide a hefty dose of reality.

I haven't used this myself, so I hesitate to suggest it, but Kolbe has a high school astronomy course (and here) for which you can also get course plans so you don't have to map it out yourself. An acquaintance used it and liked it. I flipped through the text very briefly once and thought I'd take a closer look at it as an option if my kids were ever interested in astronomy. I don't know how heavy on theology it is. I have a non-Christian friend who has used Kolbe for a couple of courses because she liked the texts and the ready-to-go lesson plans. She said it has been easy for them to skip over the theology in the courses they've done.

Saying that one could do so would be an absurd contention. I hope you are not suggesting that that is what I’m saying simply because I disagree that spring of senior year is the best time to visit colleges. You did what worked for your family & I agree that it might be the best approach for other families or in other situations. That was not the best choice for mine. I put our experience out there because, for us, it was a mistake to follow the advice to just wait until we got admissions decisions.

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I think this was the case in our situation.

I did not claim to have sources showing a connection between visiting and merit aid; I only provided my experience & thoughts. Similarly, I do not think it is possible to show that most colleges don't care if one has visited, or that only selective colleges care if a student has visited. Regarding merit aid... at the colleges where my sons received merit aid, a range was given, from as low as a couple of thousand dollars to full tuition. That's a big range and there was no clear cut list of exactly how much aid one could expect for exactly which achievements/qualifications. Sure, some schools (Univ of Oklahoma, Alabama, Arizona,...) guarantee a specific, huge amount of merit aid for NMF's, and some schools specifically state that they'll provide x amount of aid for certain test scores, but I don't know if that's the norm or if specific scores/gpa is the basis for most merit aid? Maybe a wide range of merit aid offered is more typical of smaller LACs? Bottom line, I've come to think that the college application and admission process is not at all a clear cut process. It's impossible to know what factors might tip the balance for admission in a qualified student's favor. (Perhaps your dd's visit to UChicago tipped the balance a tiny bit for her? Is there any way to know for sure that it didn't?) I also don't know what factors resulted in my sons receiving the highest end of the range of merit aid at the colleges to which they were accepted. So, for us, we will do what we can to tip the balance in my dd's favor when it's time for her to apply to colleges. We will visit colleges in which my dd is interested before the application process. I do believe it made a difference for my sons, but I'll never know for sure. I do know I feel badly for one of my sons who was waitlisted for a college in which he was really interested but which we did not visit bec. we figured we'd visit if he got in. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered if we had visited, but if we had & he'd been waitlisted, at least I'd feel we'd done everything we could.

FuzzyCatz, do you think the amount of music merit aid you’re offered could be affected by how much interest your student shows in the various colleges? My boys were offered a ton of merit aid from the colleges we visited and significantly less from those we didn’t. I guess that’s why I wonder if we weren’t penny wise (saved those travel expenses if they didn’t get in!) and pound foolish (didn’t get much/any merit aid from colleges we did not visit.) I’d heard about the whole “demonstrated interest” thing, but I’m beginnng to think it’s more significant than I’d thought.

Regentrude, At what point in the process did your kids first visit the colleges they’re at?

Saving a few dollars on an app fee was not my point. Travel cost and time (having waited till fall of senior year) were the reasons I didn’t push visiting colleges further east. I figured we’d just wait and see what colleges the boys got into and only visit those. For us, that was a mistake. Penny wise, pound foolish. Four years of college is a huge cost. A $300 rt plane ticket is a drop in the bucket in comparison and well worth the investment imo Visiting colleges before the application process has many advantages beyond saving a few dollars on an app fee. It can affect whether the student gets admitted to some colleges at all. I think it can affect if/how much merit aid the student gets. It can shape the list of colleges the student applies to and how much time and energy he puts into his app for certain colleges. If one has the option of visiting during junior year, even knowing that the student may not get in, I would surely advise doing so. I wish I had, esp for one of my sons.

I'm in CA. I did a transcript by subject and included math and foreign language in a "prior to 9th grade" column. I did not include any of those in the credit or gpa calculations. My sons had plenty of other credits during high school.

We visited Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Pitzer, & UCSD in CA. Having been through this with my boys, I am definitely planning to visit colleges with my dd during her junior year. It was a huge mistake to postpone college visits for my boys. Huge. We waited until summer of junior year to visit colleges with the boys. We had planned to see a number of colleges on the east coast in August, but the trip fell through because of car problems. We did see colleges in the Pacific Northwest in late August, and then Lawrence, Univ. of Chicago, and Hillsdale in October, and the CA colleges in November. I had thought we would wait to see what, if any, other colleges they were admitted to on the east coast and then visit those this spring. I could kick myself.... 1) Time is extremely limited in the fall of senior year, with all the college application writing & interviewing. Time is even more limited in the four weeks between the time all admission decisions are out (April 1) and the deadline for accepting (May 1). April is the time for follow-up visits to one's top two or three colleges, if one is still deciding at that point, NOT for leisurely, first-time visits! 2) Seeing colleges in session _before_ filling out applications makes way more sense. There were two colleges that my sons originally planned to apply to that they crossed off the list after visiting. Saved time and fees not to apply to colleges they knew they wouldn't want to attend. Knowing what they didn't like helped articulate what they did want. 3) Seeing colleges in session and being able to sit in on classes was much more informative than the simple campus building tours. We were mostly interested in LACs. We visited two LACs in the same region that I would have thought would be fairly similar. After my kids sat in classes at both and after I'd hung out in various student areas (cafeteria, library, campus coffee shop, bookstore,...) bec. parents couldn't sit in on classes, we were struck by how different the student vibe was between the two colleges. At one, students were really engaged in classes--participating in discussions, asking questions--and we saw students all over campus reading books, talking in small groups, working together.... At the other, my kids said only one or two students said anything in the classes they visited. In the classrooms we passed while on the tour, kids looked pretty uninterested. We didn't see anywhere near the level of student interest/engagement that we'd seen at the other college. Sure, it was only a snapshot of both colleges, but those irl snapshots might be more useful than simply reading a snapshot written by some random person with their own preferences and biases. 4) "Demonstrated interest" seems like a much bigger factor in admission than I'd realized. Nothing "demonstrates interest" better than visiting colleges in person, talking to the admissions officer, & talking to department/program people who might support your student's application. And "demonstrated interest" only matters BEFORE the colleges read the student's application. That means BEFORE Jan. 1 of senior year, at the latest. 5) Applying Early Decision can increase one's chances of admission at some colleges. If a student decides early on that X college is his/her first choice, and the family knows that it is financially feasible, the student can apply ED and have a decision way before April 1, saving all that time and angst of multiple college apps. Seeing colleges in session during junior year might enable the student to do this. So, yes, I absolutely think that visiting during the junior year is preferable to waiting till summer of junior year or, even worse, fall of senior year.

We got much more out of visits we did while classes were in session. I kind of screwed things up with my oldest by waiting till summer of junior year. With my rising junior dd, we will visit during the school year, hopefully during her breaks.

:smilielol5:

My dd took WTMA's Creative Writing for Rhetoric Stage 1 with Mr. Hummel this past fall. She loved it. I wasn't too sure about a creative writing class, and I wasn't too sure about the "workshop" approach, but my dd loves writing so we gave it a try. I thought it was very well done--some interesting/fun assignments, but not silly or anything goes. Mr. Hummel was a great instructor. My dd wanted to continue with the second semester, but the class time for the second semester was different and conflicted with her yearlong Chem class. (I did suggest to WTMA that they change the schedule for next year, so that classes that can be taken for two semesters keep the same time slot from one semester to the next to allow students to continue with the class, if they want.)

Personally, I'd prefer to see reviews of online classes in the online classes thread. The threads by subject are great for listing what's out there as far as classes, curriculum, etc, but they're just too long to weed through looking for posts specifically reviewing classes. And, if one is considering a certain provider regardless of subject, one has to weed through multiple endless lists.

Has anyone tried Excelsior's upper level, "Independent Study" English classes? It looks like the student has a lot of leeway in deciding which texts he studies and like the main service provided by the Excelsior teacher is reading & providing feedback on the student's essays on those texts. Is that correct? Sounds like a great option for a mature, self-driven student.

I'm also interested in feedback on English courses from HSLDA Academy. :bigear:

Hadn't thought of that, but I bet that's a likely possibility. I was thinking that maybe the higher end/more academic providers were getting fed up with whatever hoops they were having to jump to get a-g approval. Ultimately, for our kids, we concluded that keeping the doors open to UC schools by taking a-g approved courses was likely to have the unintended consequence of making the student less attractive to other colleges. UC Scout, Rosetta Stone, and many of the other a-g approved courses/providers I saw when I looked into a-g courses for my kids were pretty weak compared to some of the courses & providers available to homeschoolers. I had thought things were looking up when AoPS was approved. Should have known it was too good to last.

Does anyone know -- Can the Student Pages (available in the WTM store) be copied for children within the same family? Thanks!

My daughter took Journey to Narnia at TPS in 7th grade. It was the best middle school English course we've had. It was perfect for my dd.... good lit, beginnings of lit analysis, some vocab each week, reading questions every week (some comprehension, but mostly they went a little beyond simple comprehension), writing of some sort every week (usually two paragraphs, one related to the text, one more of a creative writing assignment), .... She did not have Mrs. Talbert, but I don't remember right now who she had.

My dd took Alg 1 in 8th. Second semester was hard for her. I was afraid she'd slog through the rest of high school math if she didn't have algebra 1 down well, so she did a second year of algebra 1 in 9th along with Jetta's Physics course. She still doesn't like math and it still doesn't come easily to her, but she did fine in both Alg 1 and Physics. The first unit was a real stretch for her, and we almost pulled out, but she found her footing and did fine in the course overall. Best of all, she thinks she loves physics! Who'd have thought?

I think the key is to have some policy, explicitly stated in the syllabus, available up front when the student registers for the class. Then be conscious of how much flexibility you can allow so that you, as the instructor, don't go crazy. If you're going to allow extensions, state up front how far ahead the student needs to ask. We've taken a number of classes with a number of providers. Lukeion's extension policy is the most severe. There are no extensions unless the student died that week. My kids are afraid to even ask. I guess that's one way to handle it. LOL We work with it, but we've only been able to do so because none of our other classes have as severe a policy on extensions. My kids are very active in speech & debate. From Feb to April, they have a couple of three to four day, all-day (7:15am - 8:30 or 9pm) tournaments each month, plus several single or two-day tournaments over the season. Before registering for classes, I explain the situation to the instructor and ask if s/he has any flexibility around due dates. Most instructors have been willing to work with my students. Our WHA & PAHS instructors have been fantastic. I very much appreciate instructors who are able to be flexible with due dates. I also appreciate instructors who set out a clear policy, whatever that policy is, so that we can factor that into which classes we take. A clear policy also ensures that my students don't just take it for granted that they can get an extension whenever they want. They know extensions impose a burden on the instructor, so they only ask when there's a real scheduling problem with debate that we can't avoid.