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Mrs.W

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Everything posted by Mrs.W

  1. Thank you, @JanetC! All of this was so helpful. Did your daughter do study abroad? Since you mentioned many courses being offered only every other year, I'm wondering if that causes problems with those doing a study abroad program. I might have more questions for you this week as she finalizes her decision--is it okay to PM you?
  2. Yes, she's talked to both departments about that and was pleased with what they had to say. She has several areas of interest so far, so it's a little early to know what path in graduate school she'd want to take, but it does sound like she'd have plenty of support at Lawrence with whatever she decided.
  3. This has been one of our primary concerns and why it's been such a hard decision. She's had very positive interactions with the Lawrence faculty so far and she likes the course offerings and the opportunities for individualized study, but it's hard to know if a couple years down the road she would have wished there were a greater variety of courses and professors.
  4. Yes! This is a point we've talked about a lot. And she plans to go to graduate school, so she could get her big school experience then.
  5. DD is down to her final two and Lawrence has been kind of a surprise for us. We were only able to visit schools in Minnesota before Covid hit, so Lawrence was just added to her list as another school similar to St. Olaf. St. Olaf wasn't super generous with merit aid, so they are out of the running. Lawrence gave her great merit aid and she was awarded a couple more small scholarships. She's been able to meet with faculty (majoring in history and English, but possibly doing museum studies instead of one of those two) and has just loved everything she hears. But it does make us nervous that she's never visited (we cannot fit in a visit this month) and that it is so small (~1,500, about half the size of St. Olaf). The other top contender is U. of Minnesota, which she has visited and she loved it. In fact, that was her favorite when we visited schools in the state, even more than St. Olaf, although she has trouble articulating what it was she loved so much about it. It was more of a *feeling*. She'd be in the Honors program and the price is the same as Lawrence (we're OOS). Lawrence has definitely felt more personal in the whole application/admission process, and I think she is definitely swayed by that. U of MN would be easier for travel and we do have friends in the area if she needed help with anything. So, I'm not really sure what my question is, but does anyone have personal experience with Lawrence that might add to what we know or give us a little more confidence? Or maybe just weigh in on small schools vs. big schools in general?
  6. I'm a little late coming to the conversation, but my oldest is a BArch student, so feel free to PM me anytime if you have questions. The architecture forum on College Confidential doesn't get a lot of activity, but there are a couple very helpful and knowledgeable parents there that can give some guidance too.
  7. Perky: Yes and no about the transcript from the online academy--they can do a signed grade report or an official transcript but it takes 3 weeks for the transcript which won't work since most of her applications are due November 1 (I know, we should have figured this out earlier!). Plus it's $50 for an actual transcript, so I hate to spend the money when I'm just not sure it is necessary. Her current school wants her 8th grade classes included and not all of those are through TPS, so I'm also trying to avoid sending three different transcripts to colleges (especially since the 8th grade one would look light on it's own). MamaSprout: I sent you PM. Thank you both for your help! 😊
  8. My daughter will be graduating from a private school, but she was homeschooled in 8th grade and we have outsourced a few of her classes in 9th-12th grades. I need to prepare a homeschool transcript for the school counselor to submit in addition to her official school transcript that lists the classes that have been homeschooled. All her foreign language courses and one science course have been taken online at TPS. I've done a homeschool transcript for my son who was homeschooled through high school, but I'm struggling trying to figure out the best way to format this one. There won't be any supporting materials in addition to the transcript I prepare, so I feel like the transcript needs to show which schools were taken online and which ones were at home (3 of her 8th grade classes that count for high school credit were at-home classes). Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or examples they've seen?
  9. Everything went fine for my daughter being able to test, but her location had dozens of students turned away because they had been reassigned to a different location at the last minute and they received no notification. One mom told me that they had printed the ticket Thursday night, so the reassignment happened some time after that. To make matters worse, staff were angrily yelling at all the kids to sign into their accounts on their phones and check their location so they didn't hold up the lines (great way to keep the kids calm right before the test!). Most of the kids didn't know their password to be able to sign in. If they weren't on the registration list, they were just turned away and if they weren't able to sign into their account they had no idea where to go. Not that it would have mattered, one kid we talked to had been reassigned to a location an hour away and another I heard about later was four hours away. I wonder if these kids are included in the 1,400 examinees who weren't able to test or if they are just counted as no-shows. Thankfully, we're done with this craziness (she got a decent enough score last time that if even if she didn't improve we're calling it good), but for those who still need to test, check those registrations the night before and early that morning and make sure you know your login info. Sheesh!
  10. My daughter is definitely more of a humanities kid and her schedule will be packed next year, so we're going to have to pick one or the other. I'm sure it would be helpful to have both, though.
  11. She's fair with self-paced, if I force it. That's what we do with ACT prep. But I think we'd both prefer something live for something like AP Stats. We have a credit with TPS right now because of a dropped class, so that's why I was thinking of going that direction, but I'm open to other programs as well.
  12. I can't even imagine trying to do both pre-calc and AP Stats in the same year with an intense ballet schedule (mine is in ballet too, but doesn't plan to continue after high school). I guess it just depends on what other classes she's taking. Best wishes to you as well--tough decisions!
  13. Thank you! That is very encouraging! That brings up another small concern I had--what if she changes majors and needs calculus, but I guess she could always just take it at college. Not ideal to go into it cold, but I know kids who have done that.
  14. We're trying to figure out what DD should do for math next year. She's currently taking trig/pre-calc at a private school, but we'd like for this to be her last year of taking math there and they only offer calculus after trig/pre-calc. She wants to major in history and English, so it seems like statistics would be a more applicable course to take senior year, but I don't know what colleges think about the rigor of statistics vs. calculus. I was looking at possibly having her take AP Stats through Potter's School (would love to hear anyone's experience with them for stats, or other providers). She's decent at math and would probably do fine with calculus (if she took it at her current school, I would guess she'd squeak by with a low A, but maybe not and then she'd lose her 4.0), but she wouldn't be happy about taking it. So, we're 90% convinced that stats is the way to go, but I wanted to double-check on how that looks for college applications. She will be dependent on merit aid, and I just don't know what colleges expect/prefer or what competitive students do these days, if that makes any sense.
  15. I didn't think about placement purposes--thanks for pointing that out! This is for French III, so maybe it will come in handy after all. We went ahead and signed up for credit, which in my world probably means she'll end up at a school that doesn't accept it. 😂
  16. I'm trying to figure out if it's worth doing the college credit TPS offers through Belhaven. We did something similar with DD1 (different school/university) and, of course, she ended up going to a college that wouldn't accept any of those credits, so it turned out to be a waste of money. I'm not sure how common it is for colleges not to accept these types of credits. DD2 (finishing up 10th grade) doesn't know where she wants to go to school and we really don't even have a working list yet (that's on the summer agenda!), so I'm leaning towards taking our chances again. She does know that she wants to go to graduate school, so we're trying to be a little smarter about costs and transfer of credits for undergrad. Thoughts or experience, anyone? Thanks!
  17. We used it last year. I wish I had kept notes to remember what specific issues I had, but I did find it frustrating at times. I'm not a math person, so once my son hit geometry I started buying my own student workbook and did every lesson along with him. I found everything pretty easy to understand until PreCalc. I didn't feel like the videos or text were as clear as in previous years, so for the fist time (we had been using MUS since Alpha) I had to contact MUS for help and I also had to rely on Khan and other resources occasionally. That said, my son has always been comfortable with MUS and even if we could do last year over we would not switch. In fact, even though there were frustrations, I enjoyed it so much more than when I was in high school and found myself addicted to trig identity problems. But in hindsight I probably would have started earlier than him to give me time to work things out before we got stuck. It never failed--if I got stuck, he got stuck, and then we'd get behind trying to get unstuck.
  18. Architecture schools have high drop out rates, so it is often recommended that prospective students attend some sort of summer program to get an idea of what architecture school involves. UCLA's architecture school is highly regarded, so I would think this would be a good option, but I have no personal knowledge of it. I just saw TBA listed for the costs other than the fees, so I can't really say whether it's worth the cost. I'd just search some other schools and compare the costs of their summer programs (although I think most programs will be geared toward high school students). Notre Dame's program is one I see recommended a lot and it's $1,900 for 2 weeks. My DD is a 3rd year architecture student, so feel free to message me with any questions. She didn't attend an architecture summer program, but she did do a summer engineering program which ultimately helped her find her path to architecture--so like the others who replied, I'm a big fan of summer programs in general.
  19. I never got that complicated with my grading, but I think Scholaric does that. It's not a fancy planner, but I've used it for years and have been happy with it. The owner is pretty quick to respond to emails, so you could ask him more detailed questions. www.scholaric.com http://blog.scholaric.com/scholaric-grading-formulas Scholaric has several grading formulas for calculating grades Point weighted - a lesson is weighted by the number of points possible declared when entering its grade (or 100 if entering a strict percentage). Equal weighted - a lesson is weighted equal to every other lesson in the course or subject. Time weighted - a lesson is weighted by the amount of time declared. Group-point weighted - a grade is calculated from a set of weighted lesson groups, which themselves will be graded by a point-weighted formula. Group-equal weighted - a grade is calculated from a set of weighted lesson groups, which themselves will be graded by an equal-weighted formula.
  20. Thank you! Definitely passing this on to her and I might be utilizing it for myself too! ?
  21. Thanks so much for all the suggestions! It looks like she's decided to take it in the fall and take something different this summer. Her school is very picky on transferring in classes (especially math classes) and she's already fought one battle and doesn't really want to go through that again. Some of these look like great options for high schoolers taking DiffEq, but it doesn't look like they count as college credit. The LSU one looked promising, but it's not on the approved list at her school (which would mean she would have to go through the approval process), and I think she's made up her mind to go a different direction anyway.
  22. My DD needs to take DiffEq this summer, but the local CC only offers one session in the middle of the day and she's hoping to work as well. I've been trying to find some online options and thought I'd see if anyone here has experience with this.
  23. I have no experience with these courses, but The Potter's School offers classes in Illustrator and Photoshop. https://www.pottersschool.org/course/list/#course-2841 https://www.pottersschool.org/course/list/#course-2851
  24. My daughter is an architecture student and there really aren't many Christian schools that offer the degree. If your son has a strong interest in that major, you will probably need to expand your search to include secular universities with strong campus ministries available. I'd include some of the big state universities, because it's one of those majors that can make a large school seem smaller since you spend most of your time in studio.
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