13, so on the high end of the age range for the class. I really wanted to build confidence for him in being able to learn a language this year after a bad experience last year, and it is working well so far!

Oldest – taking a gap year and enjoying it (yay!) Middle – This is his most rigorous year of academics thus far, and he’s keeping his head above water for the moment. Hits: AP Calculus AB with Regina London at HSML – My ds LOVES Mrs. London. She has clever little ways of helping students remember not to make common mistakes (doing the chain rule and telling the kids to “don’t ya dare touch it,” (in her awesome North Carolina accent) when taking the outside part of the composite function derivative… or cute ways of remembering the quotient rule). Her method of teaching is a great fit for this kid! First DE class – Precalculus – It’s kind of awesome how often the calc class and the DE class are covering similar types of functions/topics simultaneously at different levels of complexity. Adding a DE class was a last-minute schedule change but doing these two math classes simultaneously has been amazing (I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried). This prof. loves math and manages zoom lectures really well. He’s getting a great foundation at a higher level than a high school-level precalc class, so a big win. Clover Valley Honors Chemistry – My ds has learned more in a short time in this class than I ever could have imagined. His older brother (who took chem all the way through orgo) keeps telling him how fast this class is going compared to how his DE classes went. It is RIGOROUS and moves at a blazing pace. He’s having to debug a lot of his study processes and really figure out how things stick best for him. I’m happy that he’s doing this during high school, and this will be an amazing foundation in the sciences if he can keep up with it. Expository Writing and Grammar at WTMA – We have not been strong with our writing and grammar foundation, so this year is a lot of catch up. ALL of my sons are very reluctant writers, and this child in particular would have tears when trying to figure out “but what do I write about.” I am stunned at how well he’s doing with the WWS materials and how having a little bit of a framework with a very clear explanation of what is expected on assignments is producing some great writing. I hope it continues. Youngest – Hits: FundaFunda Spanish 4-8 – I am pretty surprised how well this is going, and I just got lucky that this method of learning is a great fit for this particular kid. This class would have been a total bomb for my other two boys. It’s not very structured, is asynchronous for the most part, and doesn’t have a text. It’s a combination of quizlets, online games, videos, and assignment sheets. All of the students in the class use the same quizlet sets and can compete against one another. My competitive kid (youngest of 3 boys, lol!) loves trying to get the fastest time on the games and, in so doing, is learning a ton of vocabulary. He is not good at memorizing and hated an in-person Spanish class we tried last year, so this “stealth learning” method is helping him get his confidence back. There is only one live meeting every several weeks, so not a good fit for students who want interaction. Just a quirky good fit for us for this year! Derek Owens Algebra I – Discovered this after we had already signed up for a live Mr. D class for the year. The videos are very clear and make sense to my ds. The problems are thorough, and he likes the way things are laid out on the homework pages. Meh: Mr. D Math Algebra I – Mr. H is funny and fabulous. Ds loves his humor and he really makes the class. That said, ds is not a fan of the presentation style with lots of focus on “tricks.” He doesn’t like the ways that they try to show the basic concepts with little, memorable “phrases.” That is driving him up the wall. It was worse at the very beginning of the class when they covered basic arithmetic with their “special way” of doing the problems, which did not mesh with the way my ds wanted to do the problems. They have moved on to more traditional algebra topics, which is better, but I’m letting him switch over to Derek Owens for content coverage and just having him take the quizzes and attend the live sessions. We will be doing a mish mash of these two programs for the rest of the year. This ds is my least mathy kid, so I thought it would be a nice presentation method for him, but, no, he prefers the DO content and explanation style. Miss: WTMA Reading for the Logic Stage and Story of the Ancient World – This ds is not a big reader, and the reading pace in this class is brutal. I probably should have looked at how many books are covered in the reading list and known this wouldn’t work great. Oh well, we are getting some reading done during the pandemic. The resources they use for the history are good, but ds is not a fan of the live class presentation. We signed up for a few too many “live” classes this year (trying to avoid pandemic motivation slump), and he’s losing patience. Nothing terrible, but he’s not a history fan to start with. At least it is getting done.

My son is currently taking a gap year and has STILL not been to the university he will be attending next year! Hooray for youtube and virtual tours. It was the only way for us to get an idea of things during the pandemic. Enjoy the ease of your last kid! I've got two more to go who are likely to be more difficult than my first 😂

Congratulations! What a wonderful connection your son has made. That all sounds so exciting, and all in the middle of a pandemic!

JHU definitely did NOT require them all (we applied there). They are a score select school and do super scoring. Be sure that you MUST send rather than "it's recommended." Talk with multiple people if you are really worried, but, again, you should be just fine either way!

Oh, that is no fun. It's hard enough to stay focused for the duration of the test without other stressors thrown into the mix. My oldest son went through the ringer with competitive college admissions last year, and it was a tough process for us (I was not the most organized with our records, so I had a lot of work to do when getting all of my counselor paperwork ducks in a row!). He would relate to your son's pain about the frustration with the math section. He missed one question in the math section during his first taking of the SAT, and the curve for that administration date was such that missing one question got you a 770 on math. No way to get 780 or 790 on that testing date because of the curve model. He was not happy and got salty every time he read recommendations like "have a 780 or 790 on the math section," because those scores were impossible to achieve for his test date. He eventually got over it, lol, but I think we probably should have tried the ACT at some point because I've heard of less curve frustration with that exam. Oh well, lesson learned for the next kid! Regarding the score differential, I'd be really surprised if it mattered that much, even for the most competitive colleges. As long as you are in the general good score range, they don't really analyze a few points here and there. I would imagine that it would matter even less during a pandemic, but who knows. The reason my son really tried to get the best score he could was for scholarship applications. Those are far less forgiving with regards to score ranges, and you can often qualify for consideration with a score of let's say 1550, but not with a 1540. There are arbitrary fenceposts regarding the score that are just so silly (10 points means absolutely nothing, of course, but that's just how it is). As far as schools wanting every test score to be sent, we honestly found VERY few schools had that policy. Yale and Georgetown are two that I know require all scores be sent (we didn't apply to either one of those), but most of them do NOT absolutely require all test scores to be sent. Because many try to encourage students to send multiple test date scores for the benefit of super scoring, we sometimes found the language a bit confusing (made it sound like you should send all scores when it wasn't required). I would call your schools to make sure that they really do absolutely require all scores if you are concerned. Regarding averaging scores, I've never heard of that. Schools that "super score" will consider your highest subsection score from multiple testing dates (i.e. if you got a 1510 at one sitting with an 800 math and 710 ebrw and a 1520 another time with a 780 math and 740 ebrw, they will consider your sat score to be a 1540 by taking your best subscores). Schools that don't super score will just look at your best single test date score. It sounds like you will be just fine, and I hope your son gets over his disappointment. The application process was a roller coaster ride, but my son looks back and feels like he learned a lot just from going through it and was happy that he tried for lots of reach schools. Good luck to you!

Yikes. I'm sorry to hear that they are not doing well. I cannot believe that professors are implementing attendance policies like that during a pandemic. I can imagine that lots of students who might have "mild" illness would be incentivized to attend classes despite not feeling well to avoid penalties. That will just make the whole problem worse. *sigh* I hope your kids stay healthy!

This is great to hear! I often felt like the whole college admissions process was forcing us into more traditional pathways than we wanted. I think I just didn't have the vision/confidence to really commit to a more nontraditional path like we had in the earlier years of homeschooling. My son was also interested in competitive schools, so I repressed my rebel impulses (I thought I had to) 😂 It sounds like I should have contacted the nontraditional admissions officer directly. It might have saved me some angst about having messed up this whole homeschool thing. I have two more kids to go, so I'm taking notes and learning more for them. I appreciate hearing about your experiences and how well your kids have done in the process without going insane on the testing roller coaster!

We didn't actually apply to Washington and Lee, and I was just going off of a list of schools and what subject tests they recommend or consider. Five is crazy! It's funny, because W&L sent my son several emails about waiving the application fee near the deadline time. We were slightly tempted to just chuck another application if it was free, but I'm glad we didn't because we surely didn't have 5 tests! I bet they get lots of last-minute applicants with those fee waivers to bump up their numbers 😂 Regarding schools not wanting more tests from homeschoolers, I find that interesting. We got some definite feedback from at least two admissions presenters about homeschoolers needing more testing. Of course, the admissions session presenters are not usually "high up" in the admissions department and may be giving the wrong impression. The university that he ended up choosing actually told him directly that interviews are usually optional, but not for homeschoolers, and that the same was true with subject tests. Additionally, my son had an admissions interview where the interviewer had him list all of his testing experience (from APs, to SATs, to subject tests!) to make sure that he had taken tests in his life. He was bemused (this was a competitive university that I cannot imagine is getting many homeschool applicants who have never had an outside class or never taken the SAT or a test of any kind!). It's heartening to hear that our experiences were likely not representative of general policies regarding testing and homeschoolers!

My son took 3 SAT subject tests for admissions purposes: Biology E (August after 9th grade), , Chemistry (June after 11th grade), and Math Level 2 (October of 12th grade) From our recent college admissions adventure in this area: William and Mary says the following for homeschool applicants: "Some homeschool students who have not taken any—or very few—Advanced Placement or dual-enrollment college courses would likely benefit from providing test scores. This may include any SAT/ACT scores, SAT subject scores, Advanced Placement exam scores or a combination of the above." So, basically, if your kids have lots of AP tests and DE coursework (outside validation stuff), then you are likely fine without SAT subject test scores. If you don't have so much of AP/DE, probably a good idea to give them more test scores. UVA - They consider SAT subject test scores as a part of the application if submitted. We were advised in-person that as a homeschooled applicant (particularly interested in a STEM field), my son should definitely submit them. Probably a case of talk to a different counselor, maybe get a different answer. This is our state school, so we made really sure to check all the boxes for him to have it as an option, even if it was just a "strongly recommended" box! Georgetown - Strongly recommended. We learned from quite a few admissions presentations that when they say "strongly recommended" about SAT subject tests, they really mean "required unless you have financial need that makes the registration fee prohibitive." Washington and Lee - They consider SAT subject test scores as a pat of the application. Probably similar to UVA: "if you are a homeschooler, we want as much test stuff as you can give us." George Washington University - Two SAT Subject Tests are required in science and mathematics for the Seven Year BA/MD program. For other programs, it's considered. Out of state, we encountered a few schools that made these required for homeschoolers, but not for general applicants. Generally speaking, it's really the more competitive schools that want these. Every school is quite different with what they do about homeschoolers, though, so always good to ask!

Do you have written confirmation from the school that they are going to accept all of these homeschooling credits that you will be completing this year? I ask because, where I live, the schools do not give credit for any homeschool classes. When we decided to continue homeschooling in 9th grade, it was like jumping off a cliff, because we knew that there would be no going back or changing our minds and enrolling in public school later without losing at least a year of credits. Here, they give students testing for placement, but will not give credits for graduation for homeschool coursework. Since you are sounding definite about going back, I would want to make really sure that the school will accept your credits (with written proof from them that they will!) to allow her to graduate on time.

We just made a similar decision with my middle son to have him "repeat" 9th grade to have some more space for maturing and working on weak areas (writing/LA stuff). I'm so excited to have another year with him, and he's excited to have more time to learn things before going off to college. He's not the kind of kid who is itching to fly the coop, so more time at home will be good (actually, my oldest son who just graduated is doing a gap year, so maybe none of my kids are itching to leave, lol! I'll take it as a compliment to our homeschool). One thing that I think a lot of people do is carry up certain kinds of classes from 8th grade. I've seen people put foreign language study (i.e. a Spanish I course taken in 8th grade), a science (doing high school biology in 8th grade is popular in some circles), and any math classes including and beyond Algebra I (i.e. Algebra I and Geometry if those occurred in 7th and 8th grade) to a high school transcript. For my older son, we only had math to "carry up" and I made a superscript that indicated his Algebra I and Geometry were taken prior to 9th grade. A subject-based transcript worked really well for us, because his studies were a little lopsided in some semesters because of dual enrollment coursework. One semester, he took the entire university chemistry sequence as accelerated classes at the community college. This meant that the rest of that semester was a little bit lighter with other subjects. Then, in the following semester, things were a little bit skewed in the other direction. Having a subject-based transcript was awesome, because all of those quirks were "evened out" on paper, and he really liked being able to have all of his science, math, and technology class sections at the top of his transcript to emphasize his focus. For my son that we are "holding back," I'm planning on carrying up his Biology (which will now be considered his 8th grade year) and a ton of math (because he's very mathy and will now have Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and Precalculus as classes taken prior to his new 9th grade year). Other than that, I'm going to just consider 4 years of high school. Since you have an outside public school transcript, things may be harder for you on paper, but hopefully you can even things out with a subject-based transcript. Good luck!

This is what my son did. He applied as a senior and did his SAT, APs, and other standardized testing on the normal schedule for his grade. When he was accepted to his university, he applied for a gap year through them (as an accepted student) and was approved to start the following year.

Another vote for orgo! Organic Chemistry tends to be a stumbling block for a lot of premed students. I've heard so many stories of kids abandoning the idea of going into medicine after getting "weeded out" with a difficult orgo class in college. Getting some exposure in high school so that he won't be intimidated when he takes it in college is a great idea. My oldest son took Organic Chemistry as a part of his dual enrollment coursework and absolutely loved it. As an additional side benefit, he feels that it helped him a lot with his spatial abilities. Clover Valley Chemistry is likely a great option. I missed the boat on these classes with my older son (I didn't discover them in time!), but my middle son is taking Honors Chemistry with her this year. Everything looks fabulous so far!

Interesting about the course descriptions. I created that massive document last year and always wondered whether anyone was reading it when we submitted it! I'm not surprised about their testing hierarchy, though. I made my son take AP exams for all DE classes that had corresponding AP exams. Early in the process, I had thought that AP and DE would be viewed similarly and was just planning on going the DE route. The more I read the more I realized that plenty of places really do give more status/value to AP classes and exams over DE. Maybe some admissions officers think that there is wide variability in the quality/content of different community college systems (probably somewhat true)? They definitely know how to consider AP, so we made sure to cover all of our bases since my son applied to competitive schools.

I'm glad you found someone you like so well! My younger two boys are actually starting Spanish this coming year and I'm trying something different with each of them (both online). I'll have to see what works. Our local community college (nova) always offers online class options for foreign languages, and we had a friend take online DE foreign language who was happy with it. This year, and for the foreseeable future I assume, there are faaar more online options than usual, of course! The nice thing for you is that Spanish is pretty much the easiest foreign language to find anywhere 😄 Even if you end up switching providers, you will have tons of online options!

At some schools, yes, definitely. We just went through the college admissions process with my oldest. We moved mountains to make sure that he got 4 years of high school German (he did some of it DE, but then that didn't work in his schedule for Junior and Senior year, so we were fortunate to find both German 3 and 4 at WTMA.). One of our state schools, William and Mary, was very picky about having 4 years of the same foreign language for homeschoolers ("We like to see students taking 4 high school years of a single foreign language (4 college semesters). So taking upper intermediate level courses (201 and 202 level) at a community college would be helpful as well." from their website regarding things they like to see in homeschool applicants). They were one of a handful that really wanted to see four years of the same language and stated that explicitly. The vast majority of the other schools where my son applied had a minimum requirement of three years of the same foreign language (i.e. 2 and 2 or 2 and 1 of different languages wouldn't fulfill the requirement) I think lots of students like the idea of switching or starting something new after a year or two, especially if languages aren't an area of particular interest. As a homeschooler it can sometimes just be difficult to find the third and fourth year of your chosen language! (I feel your pain! We got saved when WTMA was willing to run German 4 for a teeny tiny class size!) The explanation that I heard from admissions officers and college representatives was that they want to see proof that a student can "stick with" one language and achieve a high level of competence in a particular foreign language. Good luck finding classes that can work for you. Maybe dual enrollment would be an option if you can't find a class for homeschoolers?

This was me last year with my oldest! Hang in there, it will all be just fine. I honestly wonder how many of the universities even looked at my 22 page course description document 😂 Just get everything that you did on there the best that you can, and I'm sure things will go great. Good luck and feel free to pop off questions as they occur. Lots of older threads on these forums about common app issues were very helpful for me as well as I went through the process.

I can't speak to all of the other factors that you are considering, but I just wanted to say that I wouldn't make any attendance decisions based on an SAT average range for a university. As an example particular to computer science: the University of Illinois Urbana as a whole has an SAT range of 1290 - 1490. Looking at those numbers, one might feel that a student with a high 1500 is somehow "above the range," despite the fact that missing only 3 to 4 more questions, depending on the scoring curve, would be the only difference between those higher-end scores (which is of course a fairly ridiculous metric). Put that aside, and you can look at the score ranges for students accepted to study computer science at UIUC. Almost all of them score a perfect 800 on the math section of the SAT. Looking at university-wide numbers doesn't tell you much about CS students at any given university. In general, based on the current admissions climate and demand for CS, I would imagine that students in most CS programs would skew towards the higher end of the range, which, to be clear, I really don't think tells you much of anything about what studying at that university would be like.

My son had both of these classes, so I'll mention what we did (there is surely variability in awarding credits among different families/students). Last year he did exactly what you are describing, took AP Physics C - Mechanics during the first semester (he took it with Kernion from PA Homeschoolers) and then took AP Physics C - Electricity and Magnetism during the second semester (from the same provider). I gave him 0.5 credits per class, even though I knew that AP Physics C - Mechanics had the option to be taken over an entire year. I guess I felt like there are a lot of kids in public schools who take it in the same way (Mech then E&M) in one year and get 1.0 credit for the entire year. I didn't want to give him more credit than a traditional student on a college-prep type track. When we did certain subjects as dual enrollment (university-level chemistry, for example), I did award 1.0 credit per semester. I felt that the time spent on those classes (3 hours per week for lab, 3 hours per week for lecture, then problem sets/homework on top of that) really made them more deserving of 1.0 credit per semester. AP Physics C is certainly very rigorous, don't get me wrong, but didn't seem to have quite the amount of "in-class" time as some of his DE classes. With regard to the two econ classes, I gave 0.5 credit for each. High schools in my area teach those subjects as one semester electives, and, even though my son took them at the community college (and the general consensus is that 1 semester of community college credit = 1 year of high school credit), I didn't feel like those lecture-only, 3 credit-hour classes took up the kind of time that his DE lab science classes or his DE foreign language classes did. Again, all of this was just my judgment call based on the kind of work that he put into the various courses. He did end up taking the AP exams after both of those econ classes as well, and felt prepared having done only the one semester DE classes. Good luck working on your transcript!

My son took dual enrollment courses then took the AP exam, so I can't speak to a specific online AP Chemistry program. That said "less demanding" and AP Chem don't usually go together in the same sentence 🙂 It's known as one of the more challenging AP exams. I would think you could find some sort of a MOOC (edX or coursera maybe have something?) or online university-level chemistry course to cover the material and then do self-study for the AP exam specific topics. Or perhaps you could look into an online dual-enrollment course sequence for university chemistry and follow along with an AP exam prep book on the side. My son found the exam pretty easy (but he is a big chem nerd) when he just did a little bit of practice with the Princeton Review AP prep book to firm up any topics that didn't perfectly match with his community college chemistry. He also made use of the numerous FRQ sections from previous exams that are floating around on the internet. Good luck to your daughter.

Thanks for the confirmation. I am definitely looking for easy to build confidence, and it looks like the content isn't overtly religious. The owner was very responsive to my questions, and I think we're going to try the Grammar I and Paragraph class together to start.

Congratulations! This was absolutely me last year. When we got our first acceptance it felt so exhilarating. "You mean it actually worked? Homeschooling all the way actually worked?" I somehow didn't believe it until I saw it for myself 🙂

I just discovered this site and am looking for some remediation for grammar/writing for my younger sons. I'm at the point where I'm ready to put them waaaay below grade level and just see what they can do and to try to build a better foundation (we are a big STEM/tech family, myself included, and our writing skills are lacking 😟) In looking at the instructor bios, most are written with Christian language (instructors are affiliated with Christian colleges or mention honoring the Lord). I don't care what religion the instructors are (provided that they are tolerant of other religions), but was wanting to find out if the content is secular or religious. Anyone know? I really like the idea of starting way back with the basics of Grammar and the absolute beginning of writing. I need to build confidence with easy, beginning level materials and the 8-week quarter classes look great.

Interesting that lots of homeschoolers in your area are going specifically for the A.A. Most students in my area use it exactly as you describe, as a supplement. My son ended up with 53 credits of dual enrollment and we purposely AVOIDED having him get an A.A. degree. I had heard that we may have difficulty if he ended up with an A.A. at some universities with regards to admission (and that having that degree might have put him in the "transfer" category instead of the normal first-year student category). We were very careful to not be classified as a transfer anywhere that he applied! He started taking classes in 10th grade because we wanted an in-person, secular chemistry class and couldn't find one for homeschoolers locally. We definitely used DE classes to supplement our homeschool work but not as the primary method of instruction. Lab sciences and foreign languages were great uses of the DE system because he got to have amazing labs that I couldn't have provided at home. Having access to DE also meant that he could dive deep in subjects that he liked and go beyond traditional high school level classes in those areas. We never considered transferability of credits or trying to cover some kind of "core" subjects, because he applied to so many different universities around the country. We really just used as a tool to help us in our goal of pursuing a rigorous high school experience.