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Renaissance Mom

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  1. What would you like to know? My oldest dc used TT from algebra 1 up through pre-calculus. My younger two are on the same path. My oldest is a non-math kid, but did well with TT. Her math SAT score was very respectable for a liberal arts major. She did statistics her senior year in high school instead of calculus, so I can't speak to whether or not TT prepared her for calc. I guess I will find that out with my son, who is currently giving me vague hints that he may want to go into engineering. You will receive opinions on TT from one extreme to the other. I found it impossible to come to any solid conclusions based on what I read on forums. The deciding factor for me 6-7 years ago was that I had two early elementary kids who needed lots of my time for their schooling. I knew my oldest was quite capable of independent learning even in subjects that were not her strong ones. With TT every single problem had a completely worked out solution. If that wasn't enough, she came to me and we worked through it together. If I couldn't figure it out with her, we called TT since they offer free live tutor calls. (We only had to do that once or twice, but what a benefit that was!) The other benefit to my oldest was how much spiral review is built in. Without that, everything would have leaked out of her head. (That's another debate--spiral vs. mastery, aka drill and kill, IMHO.) Having said all that, your goals may be entirely different from mine.
  2. About religion? No. Will the professor pray for his or her class and the students at the beginning of class? Many do. Will the prof model and expect Christian speech and behavior? Yes. Attending a Christian university is not about delivering "religious" content, but it is about modeling Christian attributes and living in a manner pleasing to God and being both encouraged in that and being held accountable for it in the best ways. If a family desires this for their child, it is belittling to reduce the situation to "religion" in an accounting course. Remember that the OP is concerned about helping her son finish his degree on campus as a residential student with the necessary accommodations he deserves. If she were only concerned with the content of the class, she might be able to find a way to make an online option work. Her son's individual needs make an online option less workable.
  3. This is only part of it. Honors students are allowed to register earlier than the general populace. Students registered with ODAS as allowed to register beginning a few days after honors students but certainly before general registration. Keep in mind that class registration for the fall semester began in late March/early April. By the end of April all existing students were able to register. It is not surprising that in May or June there would be full classes. However, college students change their minds... A lot. Last summer my dd couldn't get into an honors section of a class she wanted during registration. She registered for the standard section of the class (it could have been any course, it wouldn't have mattered) but kept checking throughout the summer to see if a spot had opened up in the honors section. It eventually did, she grabbed it, and she then dropped the other placeholder course. That way all of her scholarship money stayed on her account, and she got the course she wanted. I'm so sorry that the OP is having so much trouble getting everything to line up. It sounds like her son is a fabulous student with a strong desire to finish his degree well...and do so on a Christian campus. What a blessing he must be to his family! I would encourage you, his mom, to persist in finding a way to make something work. Transferring into any university has challenges and is rarely seamless. Even schools with guaranteed acceptance programs with community colleges require students to meet their overall requirements. Liberty is no different. That DCP drives everything since they would be the degree-granting institution and therefore get to decide what the requirements for that degree are. Also, this sort of scheduling issue is common everywhere if students have taken all of their gen eds elsewhere and are only left with all the required courses in their majors to cram seamlessly into 4 semesters. It would be nice if that worked perfectly every time, but I don't think it is up to every university to plan course availability not only for the students who are following their DCPs for 12-16 semesters but to also have to figure out what that would look like to accomodate students who need to start elsewhere and want to finish at another school. Liberty does tend to be more generous than other institutions in accepting transfer credit. That is the payoff that may balance out frustration in having no wiggle room in force-fitting the last 2, 3, or 4 semesters since many other institutions may not accept all of the AA degree courses. I know that the junior and senior years tend to be less flexible in course selection, but surely all four semesters are not locked in concrete. Can a course planned for another semester be substituted in fall semester? Then he could take the course that is causing scheduling issues now in a later semester. If this course is a pre req to all other courses needed, that might mean that he would need to see if he could take it as a co-requistite in another semester. Edited to add: Sorry, posted at the same time as another poster and doubled up. Just wanted to add that I would caution anyone from making a blanket statement about Liberty being in this business just to make money. They have roughly 80,000 online students and roughly 10,000 residential students. No, everything is not perfect for each and every one of them. I doubt very many of those students have parents who do not wish to get the most bang for their buck either. The hearts of each and every one of my dd's professors has been to see every student grow in his or her relationship with Christ first and then to thrive in their classes. There are less expensive options elsewhere but ones that may not so strongly support a student's faith. Since that is a priority at Liberty, I'd say that no, they aren't in it only to make money.
  4. When my older dd was in ninth grade, we spread WttW out over the whole year while doing a lighter version of TOG year 1 rhetoric lit. We applied the concepts she was learning in WttW to her TOG reading. Rather than the characterization essay in WttW, dd wrote one on Odysseus. It was a very, very full English credit, but dd is an Englishy kid. WttW is designed to be a half credit on its own, and I would agree with that. Using the short stories to learn the analysis terminology and how to apply them is very helpful. How much you add to it to round out a full credit depends on how deep you go in discussing the additional lit works and whether your student might need more practice with more short stories or novellas or poetry before applying it all to longer, more complex lit. Rather than set your plans in concrete now, hold them loosely and see what he needs to really get it and to be able to apply what he learns to other material before settling on additional novels now. You might end up having so much fun with excellent short stories that you want to do more O Henry stories or Stephen Crane or even some Flannery O Connor stories. THAT would certainly be worthy of a full credit! Have fun!
  5. This will be dd's third summer working as a tour guide at a living history museum based on early colonial living in the very early 1700s in PA. No fun adventures planned except a long weekend visiting family in Vermont IF she can get the time off from her job.
  6. Liberty has a wonderful office for students needing accommodations. https://www.liberty.edu/academics/casas/index.cfm?PID=12863 Students requiring any kind of accommodation "register" with this office by providing the appropriate paperwork and then meet with the head of the department to work out an accommodation plan. They are very supportive but want the student to advocate for him/herself. The plan can vary from semester to semester based on student needs and wants. It can also vary from course to course based on student wishes. I can't say enough good things about this office AND the cooperation level all the professors have regarding the extras needed to accommodate students with extra or special needs. And, yes, students working with that office are allowed to register for classes earlier than other students. To reaffirm what the OP found out about her initial concern, yes, of course they offer upper level courses on campus live. If you search their website, they even offer rolling three-year course offerings by semester to help students plan for courses that may only be offered fall semester or only spring semester. The interaction with professors and other faculty is outstanding....if that's what the student wants. I don't know why the staff with whom the OP spoke didn't direct her immediately to an advisor or to the major department. We found the admissions staff to be very helpful with admissions stuff...the financial aid department to be wonderful with, well, financial aid...and so on. Specific course offerings are controlled (mostly) by the department which offers the class. As someone else mentioned, the DCP is the guiding document for which courses are needed, and the suggested course sequence document will even indicate which course are only offered in a specific semester. On a final note, I think that Liberty is very "affordable" given that they are very, very generous with scholarships and merit aid plus the fact that they are very, very generous with what they accept as transfer/CLEP/or AP credit. When we add all those things up over the amount of time it will take to earn a degree, it is less expensive for us to send our dd to Liberty as a residential student than it would be to keep her living at home and send her to the local state univetsity. Really.
  7. Another vote for the Galore Park So You Really Want yo Learn Spanish series.
  8. I purchased the text, workbook, and teachers' guide for volume 1 of Irasshai. I found the videos, the video checklist PDFs, and the corresponding answer keys to the video checklists on the GPB website. As I look through the materials, repeated references to the Student Notebook, to Online Resources, and to i-irasshai are made, all of which the materials indicate should be found online. I can't find any of that. I did find a PDF entitled "How to Use Irasshai Components," which also refers to these online resources. I did email GPB but haven't heard back from them yet. I suspect that the online resources have been scaled back and that there should be sufficient resources within the text, workbook and teachers' guide, but I am not certain since I can't match it all up. Does anyone have any insight into this? Thanks,
  9. The colleges our oldest dd applied to told us whether they considered weighted grades or not. One specified unweighted, another recommended weighting, several didn't care. FWIW, the school that specified unweighted grades only awarded dd a full tuition scholarship based on her transcript and test scores. If the information about weighting isn't on a college's admission page on their website, call them. It saves a lot of blood, sweat, and tears when you submit what they want. :)
  10. Dr. Wile was displeased with what Apologia did in rewriting the chemistry text, so he wrote another text entirely. http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/060710 His blog explains his rationale. http://blog.drwile.com/?p=14387
  11. This course is one of our favorites! Oldest dd and I watched this, read a basic art history text, and discussed what we saw while we visited several art museums. It was easily a credit. It turned out to be one of my favorite classes of all those we did in high school.
  12. Oh, forgot to answer your original post...Tapestry of Grace year 1 does what you describe. Of course, it covers more than just history relayed in the Bible. But the teacher notes for history and for worldview really help tie everything together.
  13. Slache, The book you linked is fabulous! I highly recommend it. I send it last year as one of several books in a Christian Thought class in our co-op. The students thoroughly enjoyed the depth as well as the breadth of analysis Schaeffer offers regarding how western culture has responded to Christianity and then drifted away from it. I can't say enough good things about this book.
  14. Call the admissions department and ask. They are extraordinarily helpful (and patient!).
  15. Older dd did Spanish 1 at home with me then jumped into Spanish 2 with Sr. Gamche in 11th grade. She transitioned well, experienced all the disorganization, etc. but says she really learned Spanish. She did take his Spanish 3 class and afterward earned 12 credits via the Spanish CLEP test. She was the class liaison both years and gained many skills because of it. I think it helped that she was a bit older than many in the classes and figured out how to "translate" Sr. to her classmates. She worked hard but still loves Spanish. It was well worth persisting.
  16. They are generous with scholarships and are very, very helpful in helping you find every last one. Dd's scholarship package from Liberty made it less expensive to attend there as a residential student than living at home and attending the local state school. Dd raves about the professors and her classes, too. Liberty's rapid growth has in no way hampered the quality of education or student life.
  17. Thank you, everyone! A couple of hours after I posted, dd texted a picture of the soccer game she was watching at dusk and "Lovely evening..." Thank you for the virtual hugs! And thank you for letting me process the grief in writing....cathartic. :)
  18. WARNING: This is a rambling, sometimes whiny, but highly emotional vent I just returned home from dropping off dd at college yesterday. Her school is nearly 7 hours away, so we won't see her again until Thanksgiving. I had expected to be sad and miss my first baby, but was completely unprepared for how raw my grief is. I expected to miss seeing and talking with her any time I wanted to. I do. But I also am grieving an entire stage of life. Although we have two younger children at home yet (yay!), no longer will our whole family be under one roof. I feel torn in pieces. What has surprised me even more is how I am almost jealous that she is having all these new experiences and I have to go home to continue cooking, doing laundry (dd had done our entire family's laundry for five years), dealing with bickering siblings, coping with drudgery in general. How selfish does that make me?! Another surprise to me is the way others around me seem to expect me to be thrilled for dd (I am) but can't understand my grief. "She will do fine." I know she will. That's not the problem. "You knew all along that she would grow up and set out on her own one day." Yes, I did. That doesn't mean it is easy. "You've prepared her so well." I'm selfishly wishing that I hadn't so I'd still have my little girl at home with me....well, sort of. The most significant pain I am experiencing right now is because this young woman who has shared her every thought and emotion with me for all these years, often to the point where I wanted to stick my head under a pillow, hasn't sent a single text. She and I have been very, very close...or at least I thought we were. I am gritting my teeth repeating my mantra of "I will not be a helicopter mom" over and over. Does she think I am like a light switch she can just turn off? (I know she doesn't. She is busy trying to settle in, make friends, fit in, deal with dozens and dozens of new sights, sounds, experiences...at least I assume she is!) I ache to hear what she is doing/thinking/feeling. After all, wasn't I the first person she had come to with all of those things for her entire life so far? It never occurred to me that the saying "Growing up is hard to do" would apply more to me, the parent, than to her, the one growing up! It scares me that all this overwhelming emotion is only after one day! I'm sure it will get better. But I'm afraid it will get worse before it does get better. Having written this, I feel a bit better. I know there is empathy here. But I still ache with an intensity I never imagined possible.
  19. Yes, she noted any questions she had, any thoughts the reading provoked, what she wanted to investigate further, etc. Basically, her annotation is a record of her "conversation" with the reading...interaction instead of passive reading. this allowed her to look at her annotations of several readings to come up with a decent thesis statement. The science essays she did were not arguing scientific principles, but were focused on things like what scientific topic in this area is commonly misunderstood and why does it matter. Annotating allowed her to develop an arguable opinion and support it.
  20. Yup. I'm in this club, too. Oldest dd leaves in 21 days and will be a good 6 hours plus away. I tear up when I'm in the car by myself running errands. A close friend wants to come along to drop off dd so she can spray silly string everywhere while I try not to break out into loud sobs. (Everyone ought to have a friend ready to be a diversion!) Most of all, I realize how close dd and I have been...a good thing, yes. But I'm not looking forward to that close day to day relationship changing so drastically. My younger two think this is hilarious. No sympathy there!
  21. Search for how and why to annotate literature on YouTube. Also search/Google for "How to Mark a Book" by Mortimer Adler. We require in our co-op annotation on poetry, sometimes drama, short stories, critical essays written by others, etc. to be scanned and turned in several times a year. We require actual comments or questions rather than just an exclamation point or a smiley face. Dd annotated science articles frequently as prep to write essays in her DE science course.
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