I am hoping that by posting here a community administrator, moderator, or someone else with some knowledge will see this. I have been a member of the forums since 2008 with a 10 rating in my profile and have posted many times on the forums and on the sale and swap board. However, now that I try to add a for sale ad to the board, I get a screen that says I can't access this feature and I must post at least once in the community. It automatically logs me out. I log back in. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Same results. I hit the link to contact the community administrator and it would only let me do so under my old email address which I no longer have access to. So I hit contact us on the main page, described the problem as I am doing here, said it was for classified help, and included a valid email address and have heard nothing. Filled out the contact form Friday. HELP. Does anyone know how I can resolve this?

I wish I knew. I have one like that and she wears us all out, though I love her like no other. Tabitha

I hear ya. All of the following is word-of-mouth reported, mostly on the part of students and at least one parent. I have no direct knowledge or verification, but I've been told (from various parties): *"My son is having trouble in his regular classes in middle school and needs extra help. But yet, when he gets to high school next year, they want him to take AP?!?!" *"Our school doesn't have any advanced classes, only regular ones, and I'm so bored." *"Our school doesn't really have very many regular classes. There is a big push for EVERYONE to be in AP. It seems like everyone is either in AP or remedial." Now of course word of mouth can be inaccurate, and as I said, I have no direct knowledge of these things--just things I've been told in passing and have not verified. But if true, these comments would exhibit the vast differences between one school/school system and another which can exist. Tabitha

OK I see what you mean and I agree to a large extent. So much of this whole college and scholarship thing can come under the generic but appropriate answer, "It depends what college you want to go/apply to." Tabitha

I'm sorry but I must have missed something somewhere. AoPS? What is that please? I can speak to weighting of classes directly. I took an AP English class back in the day, got an A in it, and it was given a 5 on a 4 point scale, both from my PS and at all the colleges to which I applied. As to what is done now, my dd has friends in PS (some of whom have parents who work for PS) who say the same--APs are 5, Honors are 4.5, and regular classes are 4 (for an A) when calculating GPA. I have always known this to be the case. If something is different, I would be more than happy to be informed. I am as human as anyone walking the planet, and am always open to new information, especially when said information affects the direction I am guiding my child in. Tabitha

See my comment about weighting for gpa in post 15. Tabitha

At the public high schools in my area (and this was true when I was in high school a zillion years ago too--same area) regular classes are given 4 points in the GPA if an A is earned for the course. AP classes are given a 5, and Honors classes are given a 4.5, for A's, respecitvely. So yes, I would assume that makes a difference. Tabitha

OK there are two different things that I meant here, and the 2 are getting mixed up. Credit. Credit is by EXAM. But SCHOLARSHIP CONSIDERATION....I was given to understand that when being considered for scholarships, UA looks for AP CLASSES and AP EXAMS on the transcript, along with a mixture of other things, depending on the student's intended major and the size and type of scholarship. Tabitha

In the town we live in, there are only 2 possibilities for dual enrollment that I'm aware of. One is the local CC and one is the local university. For the CC, you have to be 10th grade AND 16. For the university, you must be 11th grade AND 16. When I say "and 16" I mean that age or older. I talked to them directly and no exceptions will be made from my understanding. Tabitha

My info came directly from one of my known contacts on campus. Of course I may have misunderstood, and I will keep researching. You may be right. I will file away your comments and keep researching. There is a brochure they handed out to all the kids when dd was on campus for a function that basically said, "Also, list ALL the math and science you can, even if you are NOT going into a math/science major." UA has its OWN philosophy about ALMOST everything. As a parent I talked to whose child is currently on campus said, "The thing is, everything about UA has gotten extremely competitive in almost every department. In my impression, they are trying to be #1 in the country in everything they can." Maybe not the parent's exact words, but that was the sentiment. Even the director of our homeschool umbrella, whose own daughter went to UA, agrees that UA has its own philosophy about almost everything. Things that will work at one university will NOT necessarily work at UA. For example, they accept almost every CLEP, AP , IB, dual enrollment, etc. etc., but NOT AP Music Theory or any transfer music theory credits. I was recently on campus and one of the kids was telling another potential student a story that she had transferred from XXXXX (very prestigious school with an outstanding music program) because she wanted to major in a particular thing in the music department at UA and study under a particular person. When she went to transfer, if I understood her correctly, she lost a ton of her credits because they wanted her to take those classes IN HOUSE, so it added quite a bit of time to her education that she hadn't anticipated--at least that was my understanding and impression. My point is--in my research, I'm finding that what is "typically done" at most universities is not necessarily what is done at UA. So do your research so you don't get surprised. My daughter is only a freshman and does not qualify for dual enrollemnt in our state yet anyway. I contacted the local community college, and though they will let her dual enroll in the 10th grade, they will NOT let her dual enroll until she is 16. She will be 16 a year from now (I need to change my siggy) and they will not make ANY exceptions to this, even for online classes for which she will not be stepping foot on campus, even though she's been in DUKE TIP, away from home, on many different college campuses for different reasons. I don't want to put off accruing her college credits just because of a technicality, and as you stated, CLEP doesn't seem to be very highly regarded, so AP is the only avenue left open to me at the moment. Tabitha

Actually, I can fill you in. My daughter wants to go to University of Alabama, and UA has its own ways of thinking about things, rules, etc., for EVERYTHING. In talking with some contacts, my understanding is the greatest scholarship considerations are given for kids who have actually taken AP exams WITH AP-approved classes. In the world of competitive scholarship consideration at that particular school, 1st is AP, 2nd is CLEP, and 3rd is dual enrollment when they look at your high school stuff. Couple AP classes and exams with SERIOUS SAT or ACT scores, and you have the recipe for good scholarship consideration. My understanding also is (and someone may correct me if I am wrong) that the penalty for listing a class as AP without getting it approved is potential jail time and a fine, because AP is a registered trademark of the College Board. Tabitha

Has anybody with a high-school-age (or high school work level) child written an AP course description and/or syllabus and had the college board approve it? If you have, can you walk me through the process? I am specifically looking for AP Biology, AP Spanish Language, and AP English Lit for my daughter's transcript. Thanks, Tabitha

Has anybody with a high-school-age (or high school work level) child written an AP course description and/or syllabus and had the college board approve it? If you have, can you walk me through the process? I am specifically looking for AP Biology, AP Spanish Language, and AP English Lit for my daughter's transcript. Thanks, Tabitha

Has anybody with a high-school-age (or high school work level) gifted child written an AP course description and/or syllabus and had the college board approve it? If you have, can you walk me through the process? I am specifically looking for AP Biology, AP Spanish Language, and AP English Lit for my daughter's transcript. Thanks, Tabitha

AMEN AMEN and AMEN. Grueling. Expensive. And no room for "I have no idea what I'm doing."

My principal instrument was voice. That's the one I gave my recital on and I had 2 one hour lessons a week. My secondary was piano and I had ONE one hour lesson a week. But also I had to pass proficiencies on guitar, omnichord, autoharp, and a "working knowledge" proficiency for at least one instrument in each orchestra family. If you aren't taking private lessons on an instrument NOW and never have, you ARE GOING TO HAVE A HARD TIME MAJORING IN MUSIC ANYTHING. I don't know if that's your situation but I have posted that here for others who may be reading this thread. I had ten years of private piano and six years of private voice with choir before I was in college and it was STILL hard. Everyone must have a principal and a secondary instrument when majoring in music therapy. And if one of those isn't piano, you have to have class piano until you can pass the required piano proficiency exam. And everyone (except majors whose principal instrument is piano) has to pass a piano proficiency exam before graduation. You can't graduate without it.

Just because you major in composition DOES NOT mean you don't also have to take lessons. I majored in music therapy and EVERY music major had to have both a principal and a secondary instrument even if they weren't majoring in performance. My principal was voice, my secondary was piano. I wasn't majoring in performance but I still had to give an hour long recital on my principal instrument my senior year. Performance majors just have a whole lot more performing to do than others. But even with that said, I had to take 8 semesters of choir, 8 semesters of another group performance thing was optional; 8 semesters of a principal instrument; give a recital on said principal instrument; 8 semesters of a secondary instrument; pass a piano proficiency exam; pass a guitar proficiency exam; pass a "working knowledge" exam on at least one instrument in each orchestra family (percussion and strings in group class, and then because one of my music therapy classes met at the same time as the required class in brass and woodwinds, I got to take saxophone and trumpet lessons for a semester each) pass a guitar proficiency exam; basic conducting skills class; and five semesters of music convocation class which basically consisted of attending twenty concerts a semester plus performing in a weekly class and several other concerts each semester besides just concert attendance. Oh and then there was performance in master classes and repertoire classes. So you get plenty of performance even if there isn't a performance major involved. Performance majors just get MORE. Oh, and as to specializing too early? I was told it was a good thing I came to school KNOWING which specialization I wanted to do because it made for a shorter time there. My scholarship money was for four years and four years only. I had to go to school 2 summers even with that (2 summers that my scholarship did not pay for) to get out in four and a half, the final six months being my internship out of state. If I hadn't gone in knowing what I wanted to major in, it probably would have taken me six years to get out of school, because every music major I met, no matter what they were majoring in in the department, their degree was at the limit of the number of hours allowed for a bachelor's degree which back then was 150. Music majors are some of the most expensive, most grueling, most time consuming, and HARDEST majors ever. Most people I knew were taking at least 5 years to get out of school and if they changed their major whether in or out of department even once then they were taking 5 1/2 or 6. But I have a passion for music and wouldn't do anything else. Hope you find something there that's helpful to you. I would say that the hardest thing when I got out of school with my music degree was finding a job because the on-campus career center really didn't know which way to steer me. The business majors and accountants and typical people they KNEW which way to go with, but music majors just made them look puzzled, no matter which area of music they specialized in.

It's the American Music Therapy Association http://musictherapy.org and yes Florida State is on that list. I did my internship in Tallahassee.

I majored in music therapy in college and graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in music therapy. You might want to google "educational common market." If there is not a music therapy degree program in your state, my understanding is that you can be an out of state student going to school for in-state rates if your state doesn't have that major. Also check out the American Music Therapy Association http://www.musictherapy.org for a total list of schools who offer programs in music therapy that are affiliated with our professional organization. go to the University of Alabama website at http://bama.ua.edu and look up Carol Prickett and Andrea Cevasco. Andrea is the Director of the Music Therapy program and Dr. Prickett is her co-chair. She is also head of the department of Music Education. Dr. Prickett was the director of the Music Therapy Program when I was at Bama and still is VERY much a part of the music therapy program. They deal with these issues daily and would be able to tell you directly what needs to be done. The degree program is so full that you don't even have the hours left over to pursue a minor. Like I said on the other thread, the most difficult thing about majoring in music for me was not the degree, it was finding a job afterward. The career center on campus didn't know what to do with me/other music majors at the time so much as they did more "typical" majors. The accountants and business people and engineers yes, but musicians not so much. My daughter may be majoring in music (course I have 5 more years with her) and if she does, I'm going to advise a double major so she can pursue her music degree and get a job in her second major while she looks for the real music job she really WANTS to do.

Thanks for the empathy. It means a lot even though there's nothing either of us can do about it. And your previous posts were very helpful in allaying my fears of her going if she HAD gotten in. Given that all parts of her application were available to them the Thursday morning after registration opened on Monday and "all classes that you requested were filled at the time we received your application" I have to wonder if the number of people applying isn't a significant part of the equation here. Ex. dd tried out for All State Band in our state back in January. They only seat one jr. high band in the state. She tried out on percussion and the audition process was very tight and very intricate. Each district is allowed ONE percussionist and ONE alternate percussionist to take per district and our district is made up of 3 counties with tons of band programs. Some districts only have a few band programs. Public, private, and homeschooled band members can try out. I can't even begin to name how many band programs might be in our district, let alone how many kids I saw try out there that day. DD was good enough that she made it through the entire audition (many did not, so I understand from what others who have tried out before tell me.) But yet she didn't make the cut because out of all these band programs, they are only picking 2 people per district on her instruments. That doesn't mean she isn't a good musician, but it also doesn't tell me where she was in the order of audition results. I can tell you she was at least 10th in line because when you try out for all state band you also try out for all district band and they seat 8 percussionists for our all district band. That means there are at least 9 people in our 3 county radius who are better than her, but it also doesn't tell me where she ranked. Was she dead last? Could she improve on her XYZ and get a better ranking next year? That and a ton of other questions wamdered though my mind. I can tell you that trying out for ASB and ADB made her a better musician because it wasn't something that was a given. I have similar questions about Duke TIP. I would love for someone to tell me, "We had 5 bazillion kids apply, and 2.5 bazillion applied for financial aid and we only give out 1 bazillion awards. When applying for the program we look for...and when applying for financial aid we look for...and when we saw your daughter's application we thought this could be improved...OR we thought her application was fine and had no room for improvement, but we just plain ran out of spots and money because there's only so much to go around." Let's just say that they told me her essay needed improvement, for the sake of argument. OK I could look at that feedback and say, "Aha, something to work on in school time." Just like all state audition results for band and chorus and criteria/results are to a certain extent kept confidential for a lot of different reasons, I could understand if they didn't want to tell me that though. But just like band auditions and the whole process made her a better musician even though she wasn't picked, applying for Duke TIP, in my mind, is a lot similar to applying for college admissions. At least when she's applying for college it won't be her first time to go through something like this and the process won't surprise her, KWIM? So there is value in the outcome no matter what, ultimately, it turns out to be. I probably will call TIP at some point and ask them some of the questions you raised. If I get answers, great. If I don't get answers, I don't suppose I'm any worse off and I won't be upset. The only criteria that the website and the materials lister for FA was "students who demonstrate need" or some such wording, with the listed income cutoffs for each family size. Thanks for dialoging through this with me. I appreciate it really.

I didn't call because the instructions in the materials we were sent were very clear ie something along the lines of, "Applications will not be accepted prior to X date at X time." Financial aid students must submit {supporting documentation} and until both applications are received with all supporting documentation, they will not be processed." Or something like that. In our case, we submitted the online application (the student part) by the end of the first day registration opened. Not knowing there was an essay or "personal statement" requirement, it took her most of the day to think through that. If I'd have known that there was a requirement like that, we would have had it ready to upload at the beginning of the day rather than the afternoon/end of the day. DH came home from work with all the required financial aid documentation. In our case the financial aid application and the supporting documentation was something like 21 pages or thereabouts. First thing the next morning (by the time we finished it, our local Staples was closed for the day) I took the stuff down to Staples and attempted to fax them at the given number. I stood there for something like 3-5 hours, trying to fax them over and over again. Somewhere in that time span I did call them and say, "I just can't get through." They told me to keep trying and gave me some additional numbers to attempt to fax. They were very courteous about this. After hours of standing on my feet at the Staples Copy and Print Center with 2 of my 3 kids in tow (one of them a 3yo in the basket wondering when I was going to be done) I gave up and took dd13 to band practice. Later that evening, dh went back and attempted several times to no avail on EVERY number I was given. Lines busy, faxes faulting, kicked offline for a poor line connection, etc. So he decided to overnight the financial aid stuff via UPS and actually paid less for that than all the faxes we attempted. They delivered the paperwork by about an hour after the campus opened for business on the third day registration was open. If I understood the letter I got correctly, "all the courses you selected were filled at the time we received your application." And another paragraph states that all the financial aid is exhausted. Given that situation, a genuine question: If I can't get through on the fax lines; online application for financial aid is not an option; and overnight UPS isn't fast enough, then HOW do I get my application in early enough for her to have a chance? When I called the TIP offices, they were very courteous about my failure to get through on the fax lines but all they could advise me was to try the other numbers and keep trying. It would seem that the only thing that's faster is to submit one's application for financial aid online (similar to e-filing a tax return I would guess) but that's not an option at the moment. The instructions were very clear: Option 1: Online application for student and snail mail financial aid application; Option 2: Online application for student and fax financial aid application; Option 3: Snail mail or fax for both. I understand I need to do it faster next year but HOW to do it faster--that is the question. And I want to state that my frustration is not with Duke TIP at all. They have been nothing but courteous and helpful through the whole process and a pleasure to work with. I am just at a loss as to what else to do for next year. Cause if I'm understanding the documents correctly, "next year" for summer studies for 8th graders is sometime in the fall/toward the end of the calendar year. She was invited to do a mission trip with our church around the same time so maybe that's what she's meant to do right now.

Thank you Laura for articulating what I think is my purpose here in starting this thread but what I could never put my finger on exactly. There was a time when we were almost sure she would graduate early--and I'm not ruling that out--but she's found some friends through church who are very dear to her and I think she'd like to graduate the same time they do. Yet I want her to go to college and the only way she's going is if she gets a ton of scholarships. And the only way she's doing THAT is to stand out from the crowd. Thanks for your insight. It was really terribly helpful.

We got the letter today. She's been put on a wait list because every one of the classes she wanted was full. But even though my application was overnighted for financial aid (I never could get through on the fax lines not ever) and I completed her other application online, even if she gets off the wait list, I don't know how we would send her--unless 3400 dollars falls from the sky. The letter we got stated that all the financial aid has already been given out this year. It was a generic letter, so maybe that's their way of saying we didn't qualify? I don't know but I do know that we are so stretched right now it isn't funny. I'm bummed for her. I tried three diff fax lines and never could get through on any of them.

The lit. selections you mentioned--she's already read at least a third to half of those and more. Our lit. library you would not believe (or maybe you might.) The comment about rushing through Algebra I made me laugh--not at you but it reminded me of a conversation dd and I had regarding Duke TIP Summer Studies Applications. One of the courses she was given the option of applying for was Algebra I--a whole year of Algebra I in three weeks with the final exam. She said "Oh, no, I'm not doing that. OW, the thought of doing that makes my brain hurt." LOL.

OK, sincere request here: This is NOT a snarky comment really. Truly. Honest. Those of you who say my plan might be weak in certain areas--design me a stronger one then. I'm curious to see what others would come up with. I really am. This is a sincere request for input.