It has been over a year since I have spoken to an NCAA homeschooling rep, but at the time, I was told that the NCAA will count a high school level course regardless of when it was taken - even if it was taken in 6th grade. The NCAA requires that worksheets are completed for each course. My son took AP Chemistry with ChemAdvantage in 9th grade. I was told that if I listed ChemAdvantage as the online provider and teacher of record, the class would not be approved because ChemAdvantage is not in the NCAA database as an approved online provider. I then asked if I sent in his 800 Chemistry SAT II score or his 5 on the AP Chemistry exam, if the course would be approved. I was then told the NCAA does not care about the educational outcome - the NCAA only cares about whether the online provider is approved in the NCAA database. My oldest is playing Div III, but I think there is a good chance my younger son will play Div I. Keep good records, use material that is at least at the high school level, and list yourself as the teacher of record on the NCAA worksheets and you will be fine.

In my opinion, this is more of a "stupid story " than a "sad story." Why did this girl choose a private college with a yearly tuition price tag of over $40K when she could have gone to a state school for way less than that? Maybe this girl didn't understand debt, but I find it hard to believe her parents were also as naive and didn't understand the documents they were signing. More than likely, they didn't want to have to say "no" to their daughter when she begged them to sign. My son just last month turned down the opportunity to attend the university ranked number one in the country in his major, and one of the contributing factors was the yearly tuition of $47K. Many kids every year turn down offers of admission at schools because the price is beyond their families' abilities to pay. That is the reality. I don't feel sorry for this girl. She had way less expensive options. She is not a victim - she chose to take on this massive amount of debt.

No, she won't need her social security number. When my kids have filled out testing forms that ask for their social security number, they leave the field blank. I don't want the College Board having that information. Good luck on the test!

I didn't read the original post in time to catch the school's name. Do people frequently misspell the first name? If that is the school we are referring to, my son was offered admission to the biomedical engineering program this fall. He has very high stats, research published in the American Heart Association Journal and other journals that I can't remember the name of, and he was a recruited athlete. He declined the offer because he feels another school on his list is a better fit, but homeschooling was not a problem. However, having said that, recruited athletes have a completely different admissions path than a typical applicant at the vast majority of schools. Many of my boys' peers commit to their Ivy or Ivy peer as early as the winter of their junior year. I have never seen one of these kids that declared at that point not matriculate.

The bolded has been true for our family and for every other family we know competing at an elite level. My kids are highly ranked nationally in their sport. College recruiting (with exception of football) does not happen at the high school level - recruiting takes place via club teams and non-school related competitions (U.S.T.A. for tennis). My oldest was being recruited by top Div I schools, but decided the time commitment was going to be too great. Even the Ivy League, which has less of a time commitment than other Div I programs, would have required 4 hours per weekday time commitment, plus travel on weekends. Also, it is very difficult to major in science/engineering and play at the Div I level because many times practices conflict with afternoon labs - and practices are mandatory. I personally know of more than one student who had to change majors once he got to college because of the conflict between his sport and his lab. If your daughter wants to play in college, but doesn't want to devote as much time per day to the sport, you should check out the Div III schools. Many of the Div III schools are top academic schools and usually only require a 2 hour/day time commitment. An added bonus is that you don't have to worry about the NCAA hoops. The negative is that Div III does not offer athletic scholarships.

You can expose your kids to a lot of different things without requiring the "exposure" to be in the form of electives or a formal class. Fwiw, my kids have a core curriculum that they have to complete. The core curriculum is based on their interests as much as possible, so none of my kids will have a transcript that looks much like his/her siblings (except for foreign language). The electives are completely up to them to choose. I think it is great that your daughter has two activities that she is really excited about. I would let her devote as much time as she wants to those activities even though that means she won't have time to explore other avenues. Just speaking for myself, but when my oldest began high school, I felt like I was running out of time and only had 4 more years to fit everything in. I had to stop and remember that high school is only 4 years and learning will continue beyond that point. Good luck in your planning.

A "lottery school" is a school that has a very low acceptance rate. Not everyone has access to AP classes and SAT II's are available to everyone. SAT II's also do a little better job of distinuishing the top scorers than AP tests do since it is easier to get a 5 on an AP exam than it is to get an 800 on a SAT II. The SAT Math Level II Subject Test tests higher level math concepts than those tested on the SAT or ACT.

No, Harvard does not require SAT Subject Tests. However, if your daughter is considering a lottery school, she should take SAT II tests even if the college states that SAT II's are recommended but not required. Some schools are "relaxing" their testing requirements because they don't want to discourage students from backgrounds with guidance counselors that have never heard of SAT II's from applying. Subject Test scores carry more weight with admissions than SAT or ACT scores.

You can only list the class as an AP class if you went through the approval process with the College Board and obtained their permission to list the class as an AP class. You can, however, list the class on your transcript as, "English Language and Composition with AP exam." You cannot list the class as "AP English Language and Composition."

Just is case anyone has an athlete and is considering Emory: Emory is a Division III school and is not permitted per the NCAA to give any type of athletic scholarships.

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I don't understand the mindset where having a day at school where kids don't have to wear their uniforms if they pay a fee is considered "kids paying for their own trips." The recipient of the money raised didn't do any actual work - the students at his school simply financed his trip for him. If it were my son, I would pay the fee for him and not give it a second thought. Congratulations again to your son!

Welcome to the boards and congratulations to your daughter and you on having such great choices! I would definitely feel comfortable with my daughter being at Case. Like any campus, I would tell my daughter not to walk alone at night, etc. Just in case you haven't had a chance to visit the campus yet, here is a link that showcases the area: :Cleveland gets high marks for thriving healthcare and biotechnology industries, its lively arts scene and four-seasons climate. And CWRU's home in Cleveland's University Circle neighborhood isn't too shabby–it's one of the country's most culturally dense square miles and has been named one of "America's Prettiest Neighborhoods." what Cleveland has to offer." ETA: the "See for yourself" link has more info

I agree. You may want to check out Derek Owens for math. Your daughter could watch the video lectures and move at her own pace. She could also email the instructor for additional help, if needed.

How much time does your daughter have to devote daily to Latin and math? How much does your daughter like studying Latin and math? The reason I ask is because the online providers you are considering for those two subjects will require a large daily time commitment. Fwiw, I tried Lukeion a few years ago after reading about the provider on these boards. The typical daily time commitment is 2 hours+ per day plus many weekends. In addition, the way the class is structured with the quizzes and tests, you won't have much flexibility with assignment deadlines i.e. - Once a test/quiz is posted - you are not given much time to complete it. I ended up dropping Lukeion after a few weeks that were way too intense for my kids' foreign language goals. AoPS is also going to require a large daily time commitment because the classes basically cover a year's worth of material in a semester. My oldest and youngest are fine with devoting 2+ hours a day to math, so they took/take the online classes. The online classes are not a good fit for my middle child. GL with your planning.

General Physics at the college level is usually calculus based. Does the college offer algebra-based physics, and if so, what is the math pre-req?

This is not true. Many public schools include foreign language, science, and math classes taken in 8th grade on the high school transcript. Not only do these public schools award high school credit, they also factor the grades obtained in these classes into the students' high school G.P.A.'s Fwiw, my oldest took Latin III in 9th grade and said he was done forever with translating Caesar and other dead people. His transcript is arranged by subject, and I listed Latin I, II, and III on his high school transcript (which included his age when it was taken). He has not had any problems getting admitted to schools that require three years of a foreign language.

Does your daughter have any idea which colleges she will be applying to? If she has some already on a list, she may want to email admissions in the spring and ask their opinion. If she is applying to "techy" colleges, I would say she would be fine stopping her foreign language studies now. Otherwise, she might want to continue her Latin studies next year but switch to another provider that isn't as intense as the one she is using now. Good luck.

Congratulations! A beautiful name for a beautiful baby!

I use the PSAT in order to fulfill the state's homeschooling requirements until my kids are ready to take the SAT "for real" later in high school.

I have not been shy over the years about dropping one of my kids' online classes when the class has required an overwhelming amount of time. (Lukeion Latin, anyone? cough, cough) My son devotes about 4 - 5 hours per week to Rhetoric I, including the 2 hours of live instruction per week. He enjoys the class and the assignments.

My son is taking Rhetoric I with Thomas Hummel. My son said it is the best class he has ever taken.

Trinominoes (not sure about the spelling) They are similar to dominoes only they are shaped like triangles and have a number at each vertex. The game consists of multiple rounds. The object of the game is to be the first player to reach a certain score. When someone has played all of his pieces in a round, the other players subtract the point total from the pieces they still have for that round and subtract it from their current game score. This game not only helps with subtraction, but in understanding negative numbers as well. I have great memories of my brother and I playing this game with my grandmother, only she referred to negative numbers as "going into the hole."

You can look at at school's Common Data Set to determine whether showing interest is factored into the admission decision. My high school senior fell into the recruited athlete category, so his college application process was different than it would have been had he not played a sport. Had he not been a recruited athlete, if the school factored in "showing interest" in the admission decision, I would have made sure that box was checked.

Harvard is well known for its great financial aid, and more families will qualify for financial aid at Harvard than they would at any other school. That being said, according to Harvard's website, only 70% of its admitted students qualify for financial aid. If you look at the Common Data Set for Harvard, you would discover that of the 1,657 students admitted in 2011-2012, 466 of those students stated on the application that they would NOT be applying for financial aid. Over 28% of the admitted student class did not apply for financial aid - that is not a tiny fraction at all. http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2011-2012.pdf Harvard states on its webpage today that 70% of students receive financial aid, and that was also true for the high school class of 2011-2012. If parent finances were not taken into account when making admission decisions, I would expect to see some variation from year to year in the amount of students who qualify for financial aid, but the percentage appears to remain unchanged from year to year.