TY for posting the links, it is always helpful to have these sorts of snapshots and so forth. It adds to the wealth of info these boards tend to be. So many hoops, so little time.

My understanding (and others may wind up correcting it) is the PSAT is designed to where they should be at the time they typical take it and is meant to be an indicator to give them the opportunity to practice before taking the SAT. As such, the math doesn't go as far and the vocabulary is not as challenging. Kids SAT scores often vary in a 100 point range from one sitting for the test to another.

I pasted the TOC to the 6th Edition above. There is a newer edition as well, we just chose the 6th because at the time I was able to find it, the Student Study Guide, and instructors CD for an amazingly good price (just one of those lucky finds). The Mastering Biology access can be purchased own its own. We did not opt to go with the lab manuals because we had access to labs otherwise that aligned well.

Table of Contents Concepts and Connections 6th Edition ISBN 0-321-48984-5 1. Biology: Exploring Life I. THE LIFE OF THE CELL 2. The Chemical Basis of Life 3. The Molecules of Cells 4. A Tour of the Cell 5. The Working Cell 6. How Cells Harvest Chemical Energy 7. Photosynthesis: Using Light to Make Food II. CELLULAR REPRODUCTION AND GENETICS 8. The Cellular Basis of Reproduction and Inheritance 9. Patterns of Inheritance 10. Molecular Biology of the Gene 11. How Genes Are Controlled 12. DNA Technology and Genomics III. CONCEPTS OF EVOLUTION 13. How Populations Evolve 14. The Origin of Species 15. Tracing Evolutionary History IV. THE EVOLUTION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY 16. The Origin and Evolution of Microbial Life: Prokaryotes and Protists 17. Plants, Fungi, and the Colonization of Land 18. The Evolution of Invertebrate Diversity 19. The Evolution of Vertebrate Diversity V. ANIMALS: FORM AND FUNCTION 20. Unifying Concepts of Animal Structure and Function 21. Nutrition and Digestion 22. Gas Exchange 23. Circulation 24. The Immune System 25. Control of Body Temperature and Water Balance 26. Hormones and the Endocrine System 27. Reproduction and Embryonic Development 28. Nervous Systems 29. The Senses 30. How Animals Move VI. PLANTS: FORM AND FUNCTION 31. Plant Structure, Reproduction, and Development 32. Plant Nutrition and Transport 33. Control Systems in Plants VII. ECOLOGY 34. The Biosphere: An Introduction to Earth's Diverse Environments 35. Behavioral Adaptations to the Environment 36. Population Ecology 37. Communities and Ecosystems 38. Conservation Biology

Sometimes when you read quickly, words mix up, I read..."I don't know you if you get stripped" :lol: It all works, right?

It would be nice if more schools were listed.

Also check if your library takes donations of books. Some do and then use some and sell others for library funding.

Regentrude: I am curious when you clicked the article link by chance did you then click the article "Great Colleges to Work For"? It leads you to a list you can scroll over and see how faculty rated their schools on various items. Apologize for the sidebar, just was curious?

What they talked about in the forum that left me a little :glare: was a bunch of stuff about advances in artificial intelligence grading for essays, math (with various solutions patterns). It was a bit creepy and cold sounding, but then I get a little creeped by med tech advances too. Apparently there is a substantial bit of research on using AI to grade. Lots of studies about dwell time kids spend on problems being weighted into assessments along with correct vs incorrect answers. I do remember someone saying (I think in another forum/panel) teachers may shift more to evaluator roles and an audience full of teachers grumbling. I wouldn't imagine people who choose to teach want to become full time graders. Isn't College Board always on the hunt for more readers? I have talked to a few teachers who are not thrilled about the flipped classroom ideas and some who are excited. Who would have thought colleges would ever give away their product? I love the access and see how it not only helps us but could be a pathway to hope for people worldwide. But, it does make for a lot of asking/answering how.

You may well find you organize yourself one way and each of your kids another. While I like checklists and forms, Dd prefers to keep a journal and set reminders on her phone. How do your kids schedule now? Do they use a planner at school that you sign off on? One of the first things Dd wanted to do was burn the planner. I let her, we toasted with sparkling cider, catharsis can be good. Years later she chose a planner, but in the interim she just wanted a daily list and a wall calendar. It helped to let her own what she was doing. Plan more weeks, plan breaks, and be ready to adjust, adapt and improvise. Dogs die, bathrooms flood, the flu hits....shucks aliens may land...things happen. Homeschool offers flexibility and our experience is it gets used.

I see it this way. Public schools (or privates for that matter) have no monopoly on quality. I have literally seen two schools, housed on the same campus be vastly different in terms of quality. Even within a school, quality varies. The same teacher can be better one year than the next. If colleges don't know that then good grief! The thing is they do know that. A balance on the transcript that reflects a big picture is the goal. If a student sports three AP test results of 5 in three different areas, solid SAT/ACT and maybe an online class or CC class, don't you think it says something about the transcript generally and the standards/expectations of the school? That is just one example, but the transcript reflects a snapshot of the student and it with all that surrounds it tells a story. The story may say that the student was a go getter or it may say they did what they had to, you really can tell from the whole thing overall.

I am having images of you gals being under investigation by the Dept. of Homeland Security. :gnorsi:

I took proctored exams at a testing center on campus. I know our local library does certified proctoring. The article mentioned a proctoring service used by the MOOC's up for accredidation. When I listened to either that forum or maybe one on You Tube at MIT with an online curriculum provider and a bunch of ed reform folks they talked about keyboard detection. Apparently just as we each have unique fingerprints/iris, we apparently have unique keyboarding signatures that can be identified. They talked about remote proctoring using webcam and these unique typing sigs. It was fascinating stuff. I agree about wanting to maintain rigor and integrity. It is kinda like the homeschool high school transcript, I care what others do because it could wind up making what I do harder. If enough homeschoolers sport transcripts that indicate rigor that isn't there and colleges start to doubt the legitmacy, I wind up having to jump through more hoops to prove what we did was worthy.

School schedules and demands can make it feel like a whirlwind and leave you wanting to hold on to your kids/family. Homeschooling also is impactful on the family. Whether it is tripping over the books you told them to put away (tangible impact) or husband wondering why there is a functional volcano on the kitchen counter but dinner is out of a can (tangible/intangible impacts). We had extended family assume that since we homeschool we were suddenly available to be anywhere/anytime on their whim (intangible but impactful). The bottom line, it is a family change. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, inlaws will have opinions/thoughts/suggestions. Unless there is a real reason to need to otherwise (ex:you live in inlaws house and they don't want kids around all day), these are all not something you can be occupied with changing. You will just have to hope it works out that they see and eventually support your family's decision. What is critical is how your spouse and kids feel about it and what their vision is. Many husbands that have doubts, but are not adamantly against it, do come to have fewer doubts once they enter the community of homeschoolers and see it work and generally come to know more. But, it is really important to know what those doubts are and communicate because the spouse needs to be part of it. It is also important to really have a grasp on what vision and concerns the kids have. At 11 and 13 most kids I meet have opinions and a need to have them recognized. Homeschool is a team effort and especially with teens it can make all the difference in the world about whether it works if they are on board with a shared vision.

How to say this...hmmm... A couple of years ago I went to a meeting of homeschool moms who had kids in college to answer questions from those considering homeschooling high school. I was lucky to have stumbled onto it and gone. The moms were great in that they brought exactly what they used, the transcripts, sample aps and all sorts of real stuff they as real people used. They were "LoriD style prepared/organized" (bows to LoriD). I was comforted....shocked...amazed...encouraged. Honestly, when I had my hands on the transcripts, saw the photos of their kids at X schools...it just became real and doable. These kids were at some fine schools. The transcripts and such were not fancy. I knew the families, knew it was legit and it really just gave me a giant chill pill that has made me realize it is doable and I can do it. If you are able to link with local folks and meet families who btdt, it will help. edited to correct a spelling

You might look at Campbell's Concepts and Connections. Same Campbell as Exploring Life, but the support materials may be more available. We found them a year ago and have enjoyed the book and extras.

I actually took advantage of those possibilities as part of my undergrad (even pre-internet). I needed to work to support myself and I was able to lower my traditional daytime class load to allow my work hours via correspondence, intercollege agreements, independent study, credit by exam and such. However, it took really coming to know the system and there were limits in each option of credit toward my ultimate degree. I did not use CLEP, not sure why but there was a reason. It has been a while but I think what I ultimately patched together (not counting summers) would have totaled just over a year. It allowed me to work and I actually think in several cases I got a lot more out of the courses. The thing about MOOC's is they are far more accessible and comparatively straightforward procedurally.

I watched a forum a couple of months ago which featured college deans discussing MOOC's. I recall the two obstacles they noted were accredidation and finding a reliable means of quality/secure assessment. This article indicates those are being addressed. I found the following quote curious: "Any hypothesis about how MOOCs might "disrupt" the American higher-education system inevitably will turn on the willingness of colleges to grant credit for courses for which students do not pay tuition. And when it comes to inviting free online courses into the world of mainstream credentialing, institutions might prefer to act conservatively for fear of undermining their own bases of revenue." Many colleges are already granting credit for AP's (not typical tuition revenue to the admitting college) and Dual Enrollment. In both of those cases it is not as easy for an admitting college to know with much specificity what skills were taught. They may know that either skills taught were in compliance with those needed for the exam or in the case of the CC's doing Dual Enrollment they may have a sense via reputation. But with a MOOC, if they wanted they could know exactly what was taught, what was read, in what sections a student did better or worse. MOOC's do have the potential to be disruptive to traditional notions of education. I could easily envision the first two years of college being online or some hybrid very soon. Frankly, the colleges will likely change before high schools and middle schools because so many parents count on school as a sitter and will resist giving up someone having responsibility during the day if they their kids were home and there are a lot of classroom teachers with a stake in this.

For some of us, researching, learning and questioning is like therapy for anxiety that might come before a big life decision. The more we understand/know the more settled we become. If you really are troubled by it, grab a cheap spiral notebook. One the front in black Sharpie write: When I homeschool for Highschool I will remember. On the back cover write: When My Kids Go to Highschool I will Remember. Then, each day you can spend just ten minutes. If you find something that fits first the first statement, write it on the front side of notebook pages. If you find something that fits the second, write it on the back side of pages. By summer you will find your own personal resource to make your decision. You will know you thought about it, contemplated. You will have something to look back to either decision you make and consider as you go. Sometimes doing something productive takes the edge anticipatory worry.

Ditto on the Teaching Company. I have also found some of the Thinkwell stuff works for Dd as part of what she does. For foreign languages, there are some workbooks supplements that can travel well (Ex: Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses). I really put a great deal of work into creating a package of learning, culling fluff. It costs a bit more and requires a lot of time on my part, but for us at this stage it works. Dd is on the road/in the lobby/on hold in cafe between this and that seven days a week. We had a bit of the dawdles hit along the way and while I did take a hard look at ways to make accomodate her, ultimately she had to decide the work would not go away or become less by dragging heels.

:001_smile: Sounds so familiar. I strongly suggest reading Jim Delisle, Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Children. When I made the long list, I left off a couple of things. It really helped when Dd found a true peer. The two of them couldn't be more different Dd extrovert/Peer introvert and yet they are so alike, it is a great thing to watch them.

High schooler here, have used them since early middle school. Libraries often have some of them as well.

I had a friend who was in HR for a big corp that liked to look at History majors for positions involving written communications. The thinking was that they would have a background in practicing composition skills using nonfiction in an analytical manner. This goes along with a Journalism professor who once told a class that I was in they would be well advised to do History as a minor for perspective.

When I saw the topic my first thought was .....this poster can't be living with a teen in the house and asking for drama to escape to.

I am guessing you checked with the place it was donated already. No interlibrary loan options? If there is anyway you can stall and buy time to shop? Sounds like your DH is under some pressure to do some shopping and present it in a heart shaped box???