You guys are amazing. Thank you.

Has anyone used speech/debate as an English credit? I'm in a pinch for my dd's senior year. She already has enough credit (5), but I don't want any eyebrows raised because she has no English scheduled during 12th grade. (bad planning on my part...she's my first one through) She is already scheduled to be in a debate/speech class this year with a group of students. Someone mentioned Hewett's speech yesterday as a possible course...that made me wonder if I could use this rather than listing it as an extracurricular. They'll use Shipp's Introduction to Argumentation and Debate. Any experience? Thank you all so much for your help and patience with me. For some reason, this senior year planning has been full of ups and downs.

Could speech/debate be considered an English credit? I never considered that. She'll be participating in a group this year that will use Shipps (?) book Introduction to Argumentation and Debate. I had just planned to list that as an extracurricular activity. They'll have to research, write and prepare speeches. Thank you for helping me.

I like the idea of renaming some of the courses; however, I just wonder if it will be strange that I have two English credits in 9th year, two English credits in 10th year, 1 English credit in 11th year, and no English credits in the senior year. I am totally comfortable with claiming every credit....just wondering if I need to give her another English class this year (horrors) for appearances sake. Her English/writing ACT and SAT scores are nearly perfect...I'm just freaking out because I don't have this neat little English in each year's slot. Has anyone else submitted a transcript without an English during one year? Thanks so much.

Working on transcript....ahhhhh. My dd has done 5 english credits. 9th grade American Literature (2 semesters of Lightning Lit) English 1 (Rod & Staff 9/10 Grammar and Comp, Wordly Wise, and Writing Strands 7) 10th Grade British Literature (2 semesters of Lightning Literature) English 2 (Completion of R&S 9/10, Writer's Workshop) 11th Grade English 3 (Great Books Study ala WTM ) Will it look weird on her transcript to not list English I,II,III,IV? I have seen that some put English and Lit together as one course, but not giving her credit for all of these would be criminal. She put in every minute and MORE. Her transcript is grouped according to year. Should I list two English courses in one year? Any advice? TIA

ATTENTION, ATTENTION, EVERYONE!!! I don't want to spread bad info and may already have done so. Today my dd called and talked to a person in admissions(NOT the one I talked to) concerning English 1302. Creekland was exactly right. The 'AND' on the chart means you have to have at least a 4 on an English AP exam AND a minimum ACT of 29 or SAT Verbal of 670+. Sooooo.......to reiterate. You must have both conditions (AP of 4, high ACT or SAT) to get credit for English 1302 at Baylor. The college search may be what finally does me in, guys. Sorry for any confusion I caused. :blush5:

Thanks for the great info...we're Methodist-flavored Christians but we like Baptists too. :001_smile: My dd really liked the atmosphere. We picked up a campus newspaper and she commented that it actually sounded like ADULTS had published it. She's been a little disillusioned with some of the cultural issues observed at our local universities. She's quite conservative. Hope that continues! I'll pass your comments on...especially the writing one :D. Thank you all so much!

My daughter called today about other questions and I forgot to ask her to find out about this. I'll write it down for her to ask next call! Did you check out the link with the AP chart?

My dd didn't do well with AP Calculus last year. Lots of reasons...many lessons learned....before college. She's talking about repeating it. Is that possible? Would it look bad or show initiative on her part? She's very capable (did great on her other two AP's), just had too many irons in the fire and time management skills needed refining. She took BC (she always takes on a lot). She missed all the cut-offs by a point. What say you, Hive? Any experience?

Thanks for the responses everyone. I talked to an advisor Friday who told me "you're exactly right, she doesn't need to take that AP". However, I'll get dd to call Monday and make sure exactly what that means. Because it has English 1302 on the AP/course correlation chart and because that course was listed under her required classes within her major, I thought that meant she has credit. I'll get dd to nail it down Monday. Here is the link to the AP exam chart. http://www.baylor.edu/irt/index.php?id=34758 You can also pull up "major academic planners" (somewhere) to see a suggested sequence of required courses within a particular major.

Creekland, I thought Baylor was beautiful. The life sciences building is gorgeous. Check around on the youtube videos and I think you'll see pics that might help. Waco is kind of in the middle of nowhere but is between Dallas and Austin. The campus size was ideal to me..no more than a 15 minute walk anywhere. Everything looked safe..good security with real police. If you go you can arrange a meeting with a prehealth advisor. We met with a music professor as well who said the school is unabashedly Christian. Everyone was quite nice. The admissions dept. said they typically admitted from the top quarter of classes. They'd received 34,000 aps and admitted 3300 freshmen...more competitive than I originally thought. Eighty percent come from TX. Over half the grads pursue post-grad study. Oh yeah...major plus...they have no limit to hours you can bring in from college courses taken in high school. They even let you go back home the summer before moving in and accumulate MORE hours to transfer to Baylor. We've been trying to be so careful to not let our dd get too many college credits because it could affect her freshman status at some universities. (scholarships!) I think the cut-off is usually around 24. But at Baylor, they said it doesn't matter if you have 50! That's a big help. T.M. Thanks so much for the Youtube link! I watched it and several others. You asked about credit...an ACT score of 29+ or SAT Verbal of 670+ OR an AP English score of 4 earns credit for English 1302 at Baylor. I had planned for her to take the AP English class but it would make more sense to take a different AP class that would earn her additional credit since she already places out of it. There's SO much info to process to make intelligent decisions in this college search process. Oh, one more thing..they have a 'major academic planner' on their website. You might check it out to see the courses your student will be taking so you can choose what to take in high school. Hope that's clear.

DD and I visited Baylor yesterday. Along the way I realized that one of the AP classes she'd planned to work on this year would be redundant. She already has college credit based on her ACT and SAT scores. The AP class wouldn't earn her any credit. Therefore all the planning I've done is out the window. That's assuming most colleges do something similar. HOWEVER. It was a huge goal of mine to 'mature' her writing this year. While she writes quite well, she needs more depth, eloquence, maturity. I also recognize that she needs to learn about citing references, bibliographies, etc. SO. Should I ditch English altogether (she has enough credits) and just consider the zillion essays she'll write this year for college aps and scholarship tries enough? Or should I do something like the IEW Elegant Essay? Anybody been there? A small aside. They didn't show us a dorm room or dormitory. It has bugged me all day. We drove 5 hours. One way. The guide didn't have his access card with him. Annoyed. :001_huh: Thanks for listening.

Wow, $30 looks great! Glad you had an easy fix and is wasn't expensive. I went through major hassle last year to try to buy access to Zumdahl's Chemistry and finally gave up after talking to the third 'area representative'. As I recall, the company was in transition or something. Best wishes on the biology.

My dd used this text. She used the website to take quizzes at the end of each chapter and said that occasionally demonstrations were helpful to better understand concepts like cellular respiration, etc. I think you can buy online access from the company..but it's probably expensive...have heard others talking about this. We had a silmilar situation with a chemistry text last year and finally wound up not using the online component.

Any experience with this Greenleaf guide to share? I have a 10th grader who will be (at her request) using History Odyssey as a spine for her history study. We covered ancients last year and used WTM recommendations for our reading list to correspond with the time period. THIS year we need a solid, no-fuss plan to incorporate medieval literature into her history study. This is my perfect plan: reading complete works, some exercises to maintain grammar skills, vocabulary work, concise literary lessons, and worthwhile composition assignments. And at a reasonable price. Am I asking for too much? :001_smile: I REALLY wanted Lightning Literature but the description of British Medieval scared me. It said the only one more difficult was the Shakespeare. So.....after looking most of the afternoon at Smarr, IEW, and a bunch that would require my constructing a plan, this is the only one that I see that looks concise and affordable. What do you think? Any advice? Thanks in advance!

Self study for AP language... Michelle in AL

Darwin's Black Box is one of the books that came in today...I've wanted to read that forever! My dd likes C. S. Lewis too. Both of my dd's and I read Screwtape Letters together recently. Till We Have Faces is on my mind too. She would probably enjoy that. I'm reading the Grapes of Wrath again now too....I saw it in several plans on the web and thought it would come in handy. Wow, I so appreciate your help. You've helped me to get moving in a positive direction. Bless you!

Oh, GardenMom, you are the BEST! Thanks so much for the encouragement, and I WILL take you up on the offer to pm you with more specific questions when I'm better informed. The books came today (Literary Devices, Cliff's, etc.) and I'm feeling a little less helpless. My dd seems confident that she can do this...she told me this morning that what you said about sticking to the topic sounded very much like what she just worked on in her AP world history essays. Her prep book told her how many points she got for this or that and she just had to remain mindful of that when writing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your past posts and your encouragement. Thanks again!

My dd wants to self study for the AP English Lang and Comp exam next May. She's done this with a number of courses before but this one has me really worried..primarily about MY ability to coach her in improving essays. I've read about Momsinthegarden's success (many thanks!) and have books she suggested on the way. However, some posts have mentioned the great difficulty of the course. The syllabi I have seen (there are a LOT) take the teacher's ability to critique for granted (of course). Do the prep guides provide enough information for me to educate MYSELF to be able to critique essays well? How many have been successful with this AP course without a formal course? I'd love to sign her up with PA homeschoolers but just can't spend that kind of money right now on one course. Please help with any advice, warnings, information, or encouragement. Thanks in advance!

:bigear:

My dd is feeling a bit lost in the college search process and was nearly in tears today. She has devoted MANY MANY hours of blood, sweat, and tears in developing her level of music. (violin) In a perfect world, she would throw caution to the wind and major in music. However, the music world is so competitive, and she knows that she doesn't want to struggle as she sees so many of her teachers and friends doing. She's a super student, has very high test scores, and wants to pursue a career in neuroscience or something related. Ultimately, she wants to go to med school. Here's the question: How can you keep music in your life while pursuing your degree? She's interested in pursuing a minor in music and possibly even double-majoring. When trying to get her to nail down her objectives, the most important thing is that she wants a good teacher to help her continue to grow musically and the opportunity to play with others in an orchestra, chamber ensemble, something. She made one phone call to Rice and the woman she talked to (bless her heart:glare:) said they didn't want people that minored or were non-music majors in the program. I find it hard to believe there are NO opportunities...have a feeling she wasn't plugged in to the right person. Anyway, have any of you found great colleges (selfish mom...any in the South, esp?) where your very musically involved kids have been able to plug in? Thanks in advance.

My junior dd got a 5 on World History. She used the AP edition of World Civilizations, The Global Experience by Stearns as her base text. She supplemented with AP World History: An Essential Coursebook by Ethel Wood. Her study guide was 5 Steps To A 5, McGraw Hill. She read, made notes, and practiced writing essays rapidly. She was surprised by the 5 because there was a fire drill mid test and she said it blew her concentration. :tongue_smilie:Hope that helps.

Thanks so much, Gwen. Your experience sounds just like what I envisioned. The high school years have been tough and felt so 'scattered' with my kids doing different classes for the most part. They seemed pleased with the idea...they get kind of lonely in their courses too. Thanks again for sharing...you really helped.

I'm kicking around the idea of having both my dd's take the same AP course with PA Homeschoolers this year. One is a very strong student and the other struggles....I'm actually thinking taking them at the same time will help the younger. When my kids were younger, I loved having the same 'conversation' going on with both girls....that was one of the major strengths of the WTM method for my family. What do you think? BTW...the course I'm considering is AP US Government. My girls will be in 12th and 10th grades. Any experience with this course? Or with doing it with multiple students?

Today we got AP results....two great and one terrible. As we expected. According to the CB site, it is possible to withhold AP scores from being sent to colleges. Anyone have any experience with this? This is my dd first 'negative' during high school. All other grades have been stellar. Is it better to report every ap grade, good or bad, or is it common practice to pick and choose what is sent? Thanks in advance for any thoughts/experience.