jplain
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Posts posted by jplain
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I'm fine with the grammar if you think it's necessary. It shouldn't be too time-consuming. But for a STEM-focused high school student, I'd do either a lit class or a comp class, not both. A standard college prep course of study suggests one credit of language arts per year; two is IMO unnecessary unless the student insists on taking both. (I get that you're hoping to shore up writing skills, but sometimes more is just . . . more.)
Edit to add: WTM's grammar is totally doable at home on your own. It's open and go. I didn't put it on my older daughter's transcript as a separate class. I just included it as one of the texts for that year's language arts credit in my course descriptions.
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Agreeing with Farrar above, the vast majority of admissions offices don't see or care about AP scores. All they notice is whether the courses themselves were College Board approved. When my older daughter applied to several selective schools, AP scores weren't asked about in the applications. When scores were eventually sent, after she was accepted, they went not to admissions but to the office that does transfer credit analysis.
My older one did take Calc 1 at the community college, and then when the pandemic started she chose AOPS AP-approved Calculus instead of online Calc 2 at the CC. There was some overlap, since AOPS Calc includes Calc 1 material, but there was plenty of new material too.
In the situation posted here, I'd advise my student to roll the dice with APUSH. If the good teacher, yay! If not, it's a great opportunity to learn how to learn in spite of a lackluster instructor. That experience will almost certainly come in handy in college.
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34 minutes ago, kokotg said:
They certainly could require it. They're their tests; they can require whatever they want. They could be administered like the SAT, where you sign up to take exams at a certain location and anyone can sign up until it's full. Sorry--the College Board gets no sympathy from me on this; I hold them way more accountable for making it so hard for homeschoolers to test than I do individual schools, who have absolutely no incentive to allow homeschoolers.
I am displeased as well, but I also understand the problem.
The difference between AP and Saturday SAT is that AP exams are administered by the school over several days while school is still in session. Schools typically have security requirements that govern who can and cannot be on campus during school hours. College Board cannot dictate what happens on a school campus during a regular school day, especially when AP exams are only taken by a small segment of the school population. (Note that non-students typically cannot sign up for "School Day" SAT testing either, as that is also administered while school is in session.)
What happens on Saturdays is completely different, because school is not in session. In that case the school is technically just a site that has been approved to proctor the exam. That is why SAT is open to the public, while AP is not.
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Certain states might require public schools to offer exam seats to homeschoolers, but many (like mine) do not. I've corresponded by email with the head of AP testing about how difficult it is for us to find seats. He says College Board does ask schools to consider hosting outside students, but they do not (and cannot) require it.
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I thought there would be hugs here! My AP prepping kid could use some hugs. Endless practice FRQs and MCQs are wearing her out.
In your shoes I'd look into getting a month of access to albert.io's prep materials. Unfortunately you do need to create an account to see pricing. Don't be stubborn like me last year and try to make them give you prices by email. It'll waste too much time. I can't recall the cost, but it was reasonable.
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I could have sworn that when I first read the course description it acknowledged his lack of background in the topic and mentioned he would be seeking outside/expert opinions. Was that just my imagination, or has the course description been modified?
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20 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
Exams are different 🙂 Materials for AP Physics won’t work as well for preparing for IB physics exams for example. The AP physics C contents are inadequate for the Cambridge A levels physics exams I took to apply for engineering school in SE Asia.
Good to know! I can't be sure how Malam thought the original poster might utilize these materials, but I'm guessing the thought was that AP Classroom might be a good free source of additional practice. If anything, based on the original post, AP C materials might be too challenging at this point.
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7 minutes ago, Arcadia said:
OP is in Australia and likely aiming for college requirements in her country.
Yeah, I saw that. But I figure physics works the same Down Under, right? 😜
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1 hour ago, El... said:
Is it worth it to do an AP course without testing?
Sorry to hear of your troubles accessing AP tests! It is a struggle for us every year too.
Because my daughter will be chasing merit aid, yes, it is often worth it to us even if I cannot find an exam seat. Approved AP courses will often be weighted more than Honors courses when colleges recalculate GPAs. Although one would hope homeschool GPAs are not being directly compared to non-homeschoolers' (who may have access to many more AP courses), any boost of GPA could be a deciding factor for scholarships. Note that many schools are going test optional not just for admissions, but also for merit aid.
On the other hand, I wouldn't foist an AP on my kid if there was a higher quality DE or Honors option available.
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16 minutes ago, Malam said:
Also see if you can get access to AP classroom as a homeschooler (there are threads on the board for this).
Signing up as a homeschool educator today will only give access to AP Classroom starting July 1. The deadline to get current academic year access is January 31.
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7 hours ago, TrustAndLove said:
I am not too sure of the difference among the three. Let’s start with the simplest: physics 1
Physics 1 and 2 tests do not use calculus. Physics C has two different tests; both require calculus.
I have read that in AP Physics 1 and 2, some types of problems are significantly harder to solve without calculus than with it, so we never considered it. My older one took Clover Creek Physics as a sophomore (lots of younger kids in that class, BTW). Spring semester junior year she took Calc 1 at the community college. Then she took Physics C senior year.
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7 hours ago, wendyroo said:
That is very helpful. What should I enter for the second question: What is your primary job function? The instructions made me think "Home School Provider" would be an option. But I don't see that.
Mine says "K-12: AP Teacher."
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Coordinators and Administrators are only relevant for schools, not homeschools. Perhaps you're seeing those links temporarily because your approved course isn't yet active. But just in case, it might be worthwhile to check your profile page to make sure you're properly registered as a homeschool educator.
To do that, navigate to this link and log in:
https://cbaccount.collegeboard.org/professional/viewProfile#
Scroll down to the section called Professional Information. In answer to the question "Where do you work?" the answer should be "[State Name] Home School." If so, I suspect everything is fine, and on or around July 1 you should be able to see the link to AP Classroom for AP Art History.
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On 4/3/2023 at 11:46 AM, Rafa11 said:
Hey there! I know this post is old, but I just wanted to chime in with my 2 cents. When it comes to filing taxes for a REU, the most important thing to remember is that the stipend is considered taxable income and should be reported on Form 1040. Since your daughter is a dependent, the income will be reported on your return. You'll also need to include the 1099 form for the 529 payments, and the two 1098-T forms for the tuition payments.
Edit to add: the post I'm replying to was deleted because the author later edited it to include a spam link. Also the quoted info is incorrect.
Dependent student income does not always end up on the parent 1040. Dependents can file taxes too. If parents are eligible for AOTC or LLC (education tax credits), then yes, it could make sense to report it as parent income. But if not, the student's tax rate will likely be significantly lower than the parent's highest marginal tax rate. As suggested before, IRS pub 970 is required reading, and reserves of patience will be required.
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6 hours ago, CAtoVA said:
I have an account and I have an approved AP Art History course. What I can't seem to do is get inside the AP Classroom. Is this where I will get exams and practice documents? I am being asked for an access code which I don't seem to have anywhere.
There was a tab for Practice Exams and Secure documents where I think I should be able to get exams (?). All I get is a download of the AP logo : (
How do I access the AP Classroom? Thanks!
Yeah, this is part of that learning curve. It can be difficult to get to AP Classroom from other CB webpages. Try logging in at https://apcentral.collegeboard.org. That should get you to a dashboard that has links to each courses's AP Classroom. In my experience, after the page appears, it can take 5-10 seconds to fully populate with my info and classes.
However, if next year will be your first year with an approved course, or if you didn't renew any courses for 2022-2023, you won't see anything yet. Right now, AP Classroom is only open for the current year, 2022-2023. AP Classroom for 2023-2024 should open on July 1, 2023.
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1 minute ago, Dmmetler said:
Is this what you'd do to offer an AP course for a homeschool group as well? I'm planning to offer a high school music theory class to prepare for college placement exams, and if I can make it AP in 5 minutes, that might be worth doing.
Unfortunately, no. For College Board purposes, you can only serve as a homeschool educator for your own kids, not anyone else's.
To teach a group, you'd have to be officially affiliated with an online or brick & mortar school. In that case your educator account is tied to the school and can only be created by the person designated the school's AP Coordinator.
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In addition to being able to list your course as AP on a transcript, access to AP Classroom can be very useful if your student plans to take the exam. Going through Course Audit is the only way to get access to this very large stash of practice MCQs and other types of exam activities, including full practice tests that are not available anywhere else. The AP Classroom interface has a learning curve, but overall I think it is worth it, especially if you aren't interested in shelling out for albert.io or one of the other paid prep options.
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Once your homeschool account is set up, getting through Course Audit takes less than 5 minutes.
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-course-audit/faqs/homeschool-educators
After your account is set up, from within Course Audit click on the Add Course button. Definitely adopt the sample syllabus. You'll need to download it for your records to get the submit button to become active. When prompted, I suggest selecting the Smarthistory text, unless your chosen text is on the list. You need not use the text. It only needs to be available. Smarthistory is the web-based version of the textbook. It is an excellent resource. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
After the course is approved, generally within 5 minutes, you'll have access to AP Classroom. From within your classroom you can send a join code to your student. After that you'll be able to assign official practice activities and practice exams.
Adding that based on student grade level, I see you might not offer AP Art History to your younger one for a few years. Technically you are supposed to wait to go through initial Course Audit until the spring before the first year you will offer it. However, if you go through it early, it's not a big deal; it is a very simple process (a few clicks) to renew your authorization the year you will be using it.
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On 2/27/2023 at 9:48 PM, Ad astra said:
If one takes, say, DE General Chemistry at CC and retakes it for pre-med requirements at a 4-year university, would it be okay, too, or be marked as "repeated" on an application to medical school (AMCAS) and put him/her at a disadvantage in med school admission?
If I was in this situation, I'd check to see if the registrar will remove the CC credit from the 4-yr school's transcript.
A similar issue recently caused a rather serious problem for our college sophomore. Last semester, the student account interface did not alert her to the fact that she had signed up for a Spanish class that she had automatically placed out of with her AP score. Either of her two advisors could have seen the conflict had they run a credit audit before signing off on her schedule, but neither of them did. As a result, a week before this semester started she was informed that her (very large) scholarship was suspended effective immediately. Because the Spanish class was a duplicate it earned zero credits, so she hadn't earned the minimum 15 units required to retain scholarship eligibility. The solution turned out to be (1) petitioning to remove her AP Spanish score from her academic record, and (2) overloading this semester to take the more advanced Spanish class she should have taken last semester.
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4 minutes ago, cintinative said:
Unfortunately the dropbox link doesn't work. I found that also. =(
I just opened the Dropbox folder and started a couple of audio files from Lesson 1, one from the text chapter and one from the workbook. They worked fine for me. I wish I knew how to troubleshoot it for you! Maybe try from a different browser and/or device? I am currently on an iPad using Safari, but I've also accessed Tom's Dropbox from my PC (not sure which browser).
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Another Destinos audio link!
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On 2/18/2023 at 12:30 PM, Momto6inIN said:
Yes, we use one of the old used textbooks for Destinos too 🙂 If you get a chance to find/post the audio exercises, that would be wonderful! I have a set of old cds for the textbook and the first workbook, but the cd's are old enough that they don't play on every device, and I never did find a set of cds for the second workbook that didn't cost less than $200 so we've always skipped those. If there was a website I could go to reliably, that would be wonderful!
The audio files are in Tom's Destinos Files Dropbox, within each lesson's folder. It is not as convenient as having one complete file for each chapter/episode, but it is definitely better than not having the audio. Scroll down a bit for the Dropbox link.
https://destinostelenovela.wordpress.com
In your shoes I'd also try to rip the discs you already have to a computer. This is a simple task with iTunes or other music management software. I currently use an inexpensive plug-in USB CD/DVD drive for this purpose, since my current laptop doesn't have a built-in CD/DVD drive.
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Editing as things settle (most recently 3/7/24):
My second (and final) senior, likely majoring in Russian & International Something or Other:
Language Arts: Farrar's Film as Literature w/ Aim Academy + ASU UL Poetry in America: The City (completed and transcripted)
Math: Thinkwell's Calculus compatible with AP Calc AB plus exam prep, and in February we added self-paced ASU Universal Learner MAT 210 (brief/business calculus, not sure yet whether I will transcript it) (FTR, I would NOT recommend MAT 210 to anyone who has not already covered the same material elsewhere)
Art: Art History with Molly McGill (Outschool)
Social Studies: AP Comparative Govt online via University of Nebraska High School, WTMA Economics (spring), Online G3 Latin American History (spring)
Russian 4 - continuing with current teacher and iTalki tutors
Intro German - self-paced study using Sag Mal text + Supersite and an iTalki tutor
Might add 1 or 2 more self-paced ASU UL classes in March or April in order to pick up gen ed credits that would be accepted by the college she is most likely to attend.
Not for credit: keep the rust off of French & Spanish via iTalki tutoring and advanced teen conversation groups
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I bet Dreaming Spanish would be right up your alley! It can be used completely free, though there are also benefits to being a subscriber.
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Feedback on my DDs schedule...
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted · Edited by jplain
I agree that CVC Organic & Biochem is a heavy class. My older one loved it, but there's no way my younger one will be taking it, even though she's currently doing well in CVC Honors Chem.
Maybe Blue Tent Marine Biology? Not asynchronous but only meets 1 hour per week. I know Blue Tent classes can be time-consuming, but this one seems more participation-based, no exams. When we signed up there was a wait list, but we were offered a spot within a few days.
ASU Universal Learner has environmental science. It is asynchronous and expected to be available next year, but the start date(s) haven't been posted yet. I think it'll be a 16-week class, but it could be offered at the faster 8-week pace instead. Members of the HS4CC ASU FB group have said it is a solid class.