The ultimate goal of grammar instruction is not to be corrective or descriptive, but, to be constructive. It is not enough to merely be able to write correctly. High school age students should be learning to write forcefully and convincingly. This requires them to use all the tools of language, and to be able to reason about the language. The grammatical rules are the starting points for those tools.

For all of this kid's preparatory failures, he did have the gumption to realize what he didn't know, that he didn't know how to learn in college, and he went and figured out how to learn himself. Someone, perhaps his parents, perhaps his teachers, did instill in him these important meta-lessons. I do have to give the student a lot of credit for standing up for himself, when it would have been easy for him to think himself stupid, and just quit.

This is called lucid dreaming, and can be a very powerful and enjoyable way to get rid of recurring bad dreams -- there's plenty of information on the internet about creating lucid dreams.

Indeed. It would be really interesting to know what percentage of the incoming class has more than the minimum -- I wonder how much of a "minimum" this really is? A little bit of googling reveals this web page, I have no idea how valid it is, or where they get their data, but this page says that 2 years are "required", but 4 are "recommended".

I would humbly point out that doing the absolute minimal required doesn't guarantee admission in these days of very competitive college applications.

:iagree: And property taxes. And insurance (of various kinds). And all the weird contingencies you don't need to worry about paying for when you are renting. (i.e. termites, bad plumbing, leaky roofs, etc. etc. etc.)

Ditto for foreign language.

They can be hit or miss, pricewise, but I bet there are fantastic farmers' markets in NC with fresh fruit and veg.

So, a few years down the road, when yours are in college, would you solicit this family for funds? Would they contribute?

BTW, I could not possibly agree with the above more.

Hmm. This doesn't pass this sniff test. If there's one thing we learn around here, it is that homeschoolers are all over the place. I don't even know how you'd go about measuring this, given that many (most?) locales don't require standardized testing for homeschoolers. I can't believe that _all_ 18 year old homeschooled high school senior are doing PhD or post-graduate work. I'm sure some are, and I'm sure a bunch are ahead of their peers, 5 to 10 years consistently across the board? Are _any_ six year olds doing AP classes, as many 16 year olds do? That just strikes me as really doubtful. Wasn't there a popular story about some Scandinavian country (Finland?) that didn't teach reading until 3rd grade and had great results? Also, I think that this depends someone on the language in question. I would imagine is it much easier to learn to read a very phonetic language like Spanish or Italian, than a phonetically tricky one like English.

Kind of an out-there idea, but can you rent boys suits that aren't tuxes?

Again, I don't think this is true, but so what if the unnamed University is discriminating based on religion? It wouldn't be illegal, and BJU does the exact same thing. BJU believes that non-Baptist Christians aren't smart enough to understand the True Word of God, therefore they too discriminate on the basis of religion. Neither position is illegal or worth blood-boiling over. Believing that one of these is OK, but the other isn't, is just a logical contradiction.

Let me try to be clearer here. No, there is no time. Let me try to sum up. I believe that the original poster whose DH summarily dismissed applicants from BJU wasn't doing it from religious prejudice, but because of the academic reputation of the institution. This reputation mainly stems from the kerfluffle around inter-racial dating. Now, I have no idea what the academic qualities of BJU really are, but as I try to teach my kids, reputations are delicate things to cultivate, and once destroyed, take a long time to repair. I pointed out that BJU clearly won't accept applicants from all kinds of religious faiths, including most Christian denominations. As danestress correctly commented, this is perfectly legal, and I don't have a problem with it. Nonetheless, if you do believe (as I don't) that the med school applicants at the unnamed university were rejected for religious reason, it is completely hypocritical to complain that this unnamed university is illegally discriminating against all Christians, and to have this discrimination cause your blood to boil. If you believe that BJU can legally accept only certain kinds of Baptists, you shouldn't have any problem allowing some other school to only allow non-Baptists. (Again, I don't believe that's actually what's happening, but just for the sake of the argument.) That's just consistent.

Am I the only person here who sees the irony in complaining about religious discrimination against graduates of a university that won't accept Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Unitarians, Jews, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, followers of Billy Graham, and who knows what else?

Thanks for the reply. It is reassuring to know there are some bits of sanity left in our medical system.

Presumably the wife isn't the dr.'s patient, though.

Ok, you can't just leave us hanging here! What's the "correct" answer, from the Medical Ethics point of view? Seems like there's a conflict between patient confidentiality (HIPPA?) and public health concerns, especially if the wife isn't the dr.'s patient. I know what _I_ think is right, but I'm not sure that is what the profession thinks.

This is a great question. Too often, we get caught up in which textbook to use, and clearly the teacher matters more than the text. I'd rather give a student a great teacher with a poor text than vice versa. I think being a great Latin teacher is pretty straightforward and exactly like any other subject, you just need to be two things: 1) A subject matter expert. 2) A teaching expert. With Latin, there's a lot of memorization, what with the declensions and conjugations and vocabulary, and there isn't enough "class time" to memorize everything the student needs to. Especially in high school, I think it is important for a teacher to present several different techniques to memorization and help the student learn which way works best for them. Early on in the course of study, the teacher needs to set expectations about the amount and quality of memorization, and ensure the student has the right tools and discipline to accomplish this. Even though Latin grammar is somewhat different than English grammar, you really need to know your English grammar cold to teach Latin well, and to explain the difference between the two. I think pronunciation of Latin is often overlooked. Like textbooks, I think we too often get caught up in selecting ecclesiastical vs. restored classical pronunciation, when we should just pick with one and focus on getting it right (though I do have my preference...). You don't need to be speaking it all the time, but if you are confident about pronunciation, spelling Latin words should be trivial.

No one on this thread has said or even implied that all Christian colleges are anti-scientific. In fact, though I don't have numbers, I bet most Christian affiliated schools in the United States teach some form of evolution.

Most of the Jesuit colleges have stellar reputations in the secular world, assuming they fit your definition of "Christian".

Best thing about our library system is that there are no overdue fines for children's books, so I haven't been hit too hard. For folks with $100+ fines, I'm curious how many books they checkout a year. For the whole family, we're well over 300 books/year checked out, so even if I bought each of those books used for $1, or had $100 a year in library fines, I'm way ahead by using the library.

Perhaps you know this, but the 3rd one just came out.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place is a similar read.

One of the many surprising unintended consequences of the Internet and the common app, is that it is now much easier to apply to college than it was when we went to school. As a result, kids are applying to a lot more colleges. I've heard of students applying to 18-20 colleges. If a strong student applies to so many colleges, and is accepted to most, clearly, the use of wait lists has to go up. I've heard of several kids around here who made it into the college of their choice after being wait-listed, it is kind of harrowing. So, I don't think being put on a wait list means the same thing that it did 20 years ago. Depending on the school, you may be able to ask where exactly on the wait list the student is at any particular time, to get a better feel for the odds. Good luck!