My son is a transfer student and will be going to our state univ's flagship campus in the Fall. Due to the record-setting number of students attending, they cannot guarantee housing for transfers; only freshmen are guaranteed housing. We found out today that, although he's a sophomore and highest on priority for housing assignment, it is "unlikely" he will be able to get on-campus housing this year. Has anyone gone this route? Any advice you can give? Evidently there are many, many students who live off-campus. Nearly 10% of the student body is made of transfers, and there are many graduate students as well who do not live on campus. Yolanda

I did a pretty thorough search for SAT math prep and found this practically unknown product: http://www.videoaidedinstruction.com/1531.html. The person who recommended said it was much better than Chalk Dust, but it was unknown because it is not marketed to homeschoolers. We checked it out of the library and loved it.The teacher has a funky NY/NJ accent but he makes so much sense and is a lot more engaging than Chalk Dust. My son hasn't taken the SAT yet, so can't back it up with scores. Yolanda

Those are also my sentiments.

:iagree: Too many people dismiss the value of human interaction in the classroom, especially homeschoolers. While I see little value through high school, once a student hits college I strongly believe they should be with other students in the classroom. I know of only one person doing CollegePlus and she is not a happy camper. It's boring and isolating, but it saves lots of money and allows some parents to continue to shelter their kids/young adults. She has been given no other alternative.

My son did this through a co-op taught by a very good and experienced teacher. BJU lit, like a lot of text-based lit, is a survey course. That means that you don't read complete works, but instead read excerpts. BJU does a good job presenting authors and literary movements and trends especially from a Christian worldview perspective, but there is no literary analysis to speak of. It seems their focus is on authors & movements and not the works themselves. We were very disappointed that full works are not read, so much so that he did Amer Lit again this year. However, he read complete works, not snippets of work. Last year's lit was called a "survey" course, whereas this year it's a literature course. Lastly, even if you're happy with a survey course, it's important to know that it's teacher intensive.

Latins are very family-oriented and they're lots of fun! I had two wedding showers, a very Anglo Yankee one here in New England and another Panamanian one in NJ. Guess which one had upbeat music and great food? :D

You want to look at Latin American Spanish. I've never seen a country-specific Spanish curriculum. I'm Panamanian, and I speak the same Spanish all the other Spanish-speaking countries speak, but....I have different vocabulary for some things, have a different accent than other countries, and I don't use vosotros like they do in Spain, and other countries. Puerto Ricans are famous for blending Spanish and English, but, to tell you the truth, many of us bilingual speakers living in this country do the exact same thing. It happens a lot among Spanish speakers, it's just that the boricuas get a bad rap for it.

:iagree: Same thinking went on here when my older son was in high school, and same thinking going on now for younger son. He's going to start pounding the pavement today!

Not here either! Fast food, if you're willing to work the overnight shift at the 24-hour places close to high crime areas (hence the openings); odd jobs: did that but not enough hours, no forests around here and, besides, state has zippo money for that type of work.

Excellent suggestions. My son has done some of what your daughter did and gone to many of the places your daughter went to. In fact, my mil lives at a swanky retirement village that is hiring kitchen/wait staff like crazy (his younger brother is applying there tomorrow), but...they are not interested in hiring him for the summer. Had he been there as a high schooler, then they would be willing to bring him back later, but they're not willing to hire him for only 3 months. He leaves for college in the fall. Same goes for many places he's applied to. If anyone's willing to work the night shift at a 24-hour McD's, there's plenty of openings! Too bad most of them around here are near high crime areas. We're not that desperate yet.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. If nothing comes from his job-hunting, then I'm going to tell him to find some place to do lots of volunteer work. Yolanda

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37573330 Just saw this story about how this summer, so far, has seen the slowest growth in summer jobs for teens. It mentions the fact that, since teens are at the bottom of the jobs food chain, so to speak, they're suffering the brunt of the bad economy in terms of jobs. I was just in CVS and asked the mgr if they were hiring at all, and she said older workers are taking the jobs usually given to teens. Yolanda

Yes, you can. Just make sure the course prepares you for the AP. We didn't do it, but we know of someone who did it for many courses. She always made sure the syllabus/topics lined up with the AP exam. Yolanda

My son has been pounding the pavement looking for a job for the summer, and has come up empty so far. I'm wondering how it is in other parts of the country? He is so frustrated, and so are we since he needs $$$! Yolanda

:iagree: Having lots of money to outsource can actually work against you. I have a friend who has spent thousands on outsourcing only to have her kids say to their friends, "My mom hasn't homeschooled us in years. We just sit in front of the computer all day and do our lessons that way. Can't wait to get out of here!" The mom doesn't have to try, she has tons of money to spend on outsourcing. Very sad. Yolanda

We outsourced writing for both my sons (now 16 and 19). However, even with that (Write at Home), I was still pretty involved since my involvement increased the value of the course, i.e., I did lots of editing with him so the coach could focus on the more involved aspects of writing. My younger son has done labs and a lit class with a co-op. The first was very worthwhile, the second....not so much. They both detest on-line classes, so that pretty much eliminates that medium, and neither had a burning desire to do cc classes in high school. They both like the efficiency of doing work on their own. But....I speak fluent Spanish (native speaker), so no need to outsource that, and my husband is an engineer, so no math outsourcing need there either. My older son is a sophomore/junior in college, my younger son will be a senior in high school next year. We've homeschooled from the beginning. Yolanda

Thank you for this post. My recommendation, after 14 years of homeschooling, is that there comes a time when you have to stop asking other people what they think otherwise you'll spend all your time second-guessing yourself and wasting your time instead of homeschooling. It was a lot easier to homeschool (and way less stressful or competitive) before the Internet allowed for so much discussion. There's a lot to be said about the good old days! If you like MUS, ignore the critics. There will always be critics of just about any curriculum, but something about math seems to invite more comments than any other subject, it seems. Yolanda

I agree; PE is not health. I had my son do a semester of health which included a research paper on a health-related topic. Did he love it? No, but he learned a lot of stuff he wouldn't have otherwise. Yolanda

I know that in our school district, SAT prep is incorporated into the curriculum. I also know that many school districts spend lots of time on essay writing for standardized testing as part of English, even as much as a quarter of the year. It's really in the best interest of the schools as it makes them look good when kids do well on any kind of test, and it's a priority in our high priced town. They do not, however, grant credit for this work as a separate course. In reality, they're taking away from "real English" to do test prep. Doesn't answer your question, just telling you about what happens in public schools in our area. Yolanda

Hardwood 1st floor, laminate, Pergo, 2nd floor. My husband installed the laminate himself. Looks great.

Yes, lots of good things can happen after 1 or even 2am with the right crowd. My soon-to-be 20yos hangs out with a bunch of young adults from church who rarely end the evening before 2am doing exactly the kind of things you describe.They've been know to go to 24 hour Walmarts or Dunkin Donuts (horrors!) or watch G rated movies at church just to hang out together. They do this on weekend, not during the week. We know who he's with and where he is and, therefore, do not have a curfew. Well, we draw the line at after 3am. I can't say that we would be this lenient if we didn't know the who or where, and thank God, we haven't had to deal with that. Yolanda

Wish I had known I could do that! That would have motivated to do 4 years of high school in 2. Yolanda

High school - ugh. I remember thinking in the 10th grade that at least if I were in prison, I had a chance to get out early on good behavior. No chance of that in high school. That's what school in suburban NJ was for me. I kept waiting for school to become interesting, engaging, anything but what it was - an utter and complete waste of time. I was always a "good" student, so the least amount of effort enabled me to pull decent grades. I wish I had been able to home school!

The teachers were not the problem for my son; oh yeah, there's always one or two less-than-good teacher. Most of the teachers were quite good, but the students were the main problem at his cc. Teachers can't move faster than the students allow, nor can they raise the level of discussion higher than the students are willing or capable of working to. My son said much of his time would have been better spent getting the books and the syllabus and learning the stuff on his own. I wish his experience had been like some of the others who have posted, and we had hoped it would be. I hesitated to post this negative experience, but I think it's important to be aware of the pitfalls of some cc's for some students. Just make sure that the cc will at least challenge your student. Doesn't matter how many credits your student gets for free if he comes away feeling his brain has atrophied due to non-use. Yolanda

My son just completed 3 semesters at the local cc. He did not do dual enrollment, but rather started right out of high school. He'll be going into our state u with 40 credits which will all transfer, although it remains to be seen how many gen ed credits remain and how many of these credits will be free electives. He had absolutely no difficulty with the coursework and finished off with a 3.8 GPA, in the honors program and in the international honor society for cc's. We're expecting he'll be invited to join the honors college at our state u. So far, so good. But, and this may be only our cc and my kid, it was an abysmal experience and he can't put cc behind him fast enough. The classes were appallingly easy and boring, requiring almost no effort on his part, so much so that he feels he didn't earn the credits. According to my son the vast majority of the students were lazy, apathetic, and unbelievably foul-mouthed. My son grew very despondent in this atmosphere. Yes, there are/were exceptions. This is what my son encountered at the beautifully manicured cc located in a Boston suburb which draws on relatively affluent communities. We keep reminding him that he gets 40 credits out of it for very little money. That was its only redeeming value. Wouldn't do it again. Yolanda