I agree, my son did all the middle school programs and liked them and absolutely hated the cyber ed high school program.

If she's ready for Calculus have her do calculus. My dd just started at Washington University in St. Louis and took their placement test. I noticed that you can take it even if you are not a student http://www.math.wustl.edu/placement/ Are you thinking of doing Calc. at home. My dd did it at the cc. The cc had placement tests to make sure you were ready for calc. For engineering at Wash U you need to finish your 3rd semester of calc before you begin your sophomore classes.

My dd was accepted Pre-med at Vanderbilt for next year. We got a reasonable need based offer---for our situation----but no merit aid. Her friend got accepted with a full scholarship---she is one of those absolutely phenomonal kids. One small note about their aid---If you have any outside scholarships that is the first thing that is applied to your need. In terms of money my dd did better at less competitive schools where she recieved merit aid---but this will depend on your economic situation. For instance, she got a really generous merit offer from Case Western Reserve. This is a good school if you are interested in medical/biological research. She's going to Wash U in St. Louis---my dh is employed there and we get free tuition.

For some schools you need to finish third semester calculus before you begin your sophomore classes in engingeering. This is the case at Washington University in St. Louis where my dd is attending this coming year. You can take Calc 1 in a special summer session before entering your freshman semester, or take Calc 3 during the summer between freshman or sophmore year. So placement in Calc 2 is not essential---but it might be useful. This is a school dependent issue.

Your classes have more meeting times than the co-op classes we've done. Comparing hourly rate does not sound as bad as yearly. We are in a middle school co-op where classes meet a total of 24 hours a year and a high school where they meet 32 hours. Looks like you are getting over 71 hours of instrruction. Good luck.

Thanks that looks great and just $10.00. My son's done Scratch, Lego Robotics NXT-G and then some C++ with Homeschool Programming. He's 12 and one of the challenges is getting something he can pretty much do himself. I'd also thought of having him do RobotC because you have something concrete to Program. Also my FLL team will not be competing this year. They are changing the timing of the competition, we'll have a Qualifier in Nov, I have no second coach to even help with the research project and I have to do my college applications for my oldest homeschooled dd. So Robot C might be a fun thing to do with the kids who don't decide to look for another team.

What you son using to learn Python independently?

If you have any First Robotics teams in your area they use C. My dd's team is alway desperate for programmers---their programming mentor would have taught anyone who made it to the meetings. BTW my knowledge of Fortran came in handy when my son was doing C++. Can't totally explain---but I did have some knowledge about how programming. I guess it's sort of like knowlege of two languages can help you learn a third unrelated language. So probably any language that you have resources for him to be sucessful would be useful.

It does seem a little pricey, I think part of it would depend on how much of the time was spent on lab and how often it meets. If you're busy and have other kids and they do several labs it might be worth the money. One thing you can't buy back is a lost school year, If they spent all their time going over the answers to the study guide/tests in class I would not pay for it. I guess it might be possible that the instructor wanted something the kids could use independently and then planned on adding information with lectures and such. So maybe you could discuss how the text would be used. You might actually be able to step right into the non-majors typically one semester cc course. I would suggest getting local information on the difficulty of your cc---I think they vary---Just as costs and age restrictions do by locations. You'd spend $415 in tuitition for a one semester science class where I live $830 for the two semester science major course.

It's hard to "do well" on the subject SAT's if by "well" you mean getting the same percentile ranking as you would for the general SAT. The group taking the test is selected---includes those needing SAT subject tests---mostly going to selective colleges---and on top of that the individuals pick the subject they think they will do best in. Although all the tests might be taken after one year of the subject there will be individuals taking the test who have AP'ed in the subject. Also truely dedicated individuals will take the test multiple time. I do think that Aplogia is a particularly straightforward science series. We did not use them. And in case you ask---I would not necessarily suggest you do what we did for Chem. She went straight to General Chem at the CC. She survived and got A's in both semesters, but I know it was a tough stressful situation.

My son has TeenCoder, which is a home school program for C++. When my husband asked a computer type at his work what his son should learn he suggested Python---but I found the C++ resource so I went with that. http://www.homeschoolprogramming.com/ BTW I'm old enough to have used Fortran as an engineering student and to have submitted batch jobs on hole punch cards.

We did not use NEM although I'm strong in math because I wanted to be able to move into classes in the US math sequence. My oldest did Jacob's Algebra and Geometry, Foerester's Algebra and Trig, Larson's Pre calc and will begin Cal at the local CC. My second did Jacob's Algebra and Math a Human Endeavor and then went to high school starting in their honors goemetry class as a freshman. My son just started Art of Problem Solving -- the Introduction to Algebra, so far okay

We did not use NEM although I'm strong in math because I wanted to be able to move into classes in the US math sequence. My oldest did Jacob's Algebra and Geometry, Foerester's Algebra and Trig, Larson's Pre calc and will begin Cal at the local CC. My second did Jacob's Algebra and Math a Human Endeavor and then went to high school starting in their honors goemetry class as a freshman. My son just started Art of Problem Solving -- the Introduction to Algebra, so far okay.

You can call it Advance subject or Honors subject. I've actually used the Advanced designation because it implys the it is a second course. Honors course or usually of a similar level but with some more challenging or approach. So in honors Geometry you'd include a few more subjects or some problems that were of a high challenge level. One thing to keep in mind---is that AP tests are offered once a year all in a two week period. It can be quite a stressful time for kid and parent. It's a long test. They are quite a trail by fire for a kid that has not had many structured tests. We did three APs. Still I feel much calmer now that we can use CC courses---where your whole year will not be reflected by performance on one test your child took with a nasty cold. Just wanted to add this because I did AP's after AP class way back when. The stress was much less because I did have an AP class grade from a school with a solid acedemic record. I have been told by an admission councellor that AP scores are not looked at for admission for regular high school students---you need to make sure that the AP scores are noticed. SAt subject tests are another standardized method of establishing competency in a subject. There are also Cleps---I have not done these but they do have the advantage that there are more than one testing time so there is less of an all the eggs in one basket thing going on.

My son is doing Teencoder http://www.homeschoolprogramming.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=cPath=2_5 They say it is a one semester course. It is real programing. He's in seventh grade and doing the high school course. He's my computer oreinted kid and was looking for a challenge. He had to get a little help from me. I programmed in Fortran way back one and did a short non credit course in C#. I'm not sure the explanations are easy if you have no programming background. OTOH he has come close to doing it on his own and is 2 years younger than the target age. It is sometimes discounted at Homeschool buyers co-op. We will probably get the next class when released. He's waiting for the game programming course.

Well Washington University is hardly one of your mainstream schools. Its middle 50% math SAT scores are 700-780. I was pretty stunned when I heard that they do not grant credit for any math below calculus. Still I thought I'd mention it in case a selective school might be in someones future. If we had not had a special meeting with the admissions people because my husband was an employee I don't know when I would have realized that we really needed to finish College Algebra and Trig in high school if our dd wanted to attend Washington University. BTW the admissions person did say that calculus before college was not required. Even as an engineer at Wash U you don't have to do calculus before college---but you do need to finish three semesters before your sophomore year---so you do a semester either the summer before freshman year or between freshman and sophomore. I picked that up because as a former engineer myself I was curious about the engineering math requirements.

Not all schools consider College Algebra to be a college level course. In talking to an admission counselor from Washington University in St. Louis she stressed that their lowest college level math course was calculus. She said a strong applicant---and I'm not talking for the engineering program, my daughter is thinking pre-med with a science major---would take calculus and physics in high school . I don't know if this is common among more selective schools, my husband works at Wash U so we get free admission--if our children can manage to get accepted.

I'd make sure you get some local information. I know that some people out where I have live have tried to use CC science courses as high school courses for college. They wanted labs and assumed that because they were CC courses they would not be that hard. Well many of them were not sucessful. My local experience was that the science at the CC was actually more rigorous than at a small local University. I think CC can really vary in their degree of difficulty. One thing we found difficult was mixing CC course with definite deadlines, and test with mom courses----this is part of why my dd has a full load at the CC. And one more piece of info she does have high standardized test scores and she self studied AP Biology and US History as a sophomore. --so I just did not move her to CC based on age. She was sucessful as an above average 16 yo.

The policy of the schools out her is 16 years of age. We started at a local University which limited the number of classes you took to two. My dd took General Chemistry Iand Comp II. We then moved to the community college---she was unable to get the General Chem II class---she had lower priority for registration and it was full at the University. She took General Chem II and Introduction is United States Politics at the CC college in the spring. Then in the summer she took Karate and an intradisciplinary class. This fall she is registered for Physics, Calc, Honors World Lit, and Constitutional Issues. We have stayed with the community college. The local University would have limited her class selection to only 100 level. Since she had a 4.0 and more than 12 units of credit from the CC she was admitted to there honors program. Here's the biggest surprise---to me---she was awarded a 6 credit hour scholarship through the honors program although she is not a degree seeking student.

If you chose dual enrollment for Biology be careful in selecting the class. Many college science courses expect the students to have taken a year of the science in high school. Although they will start at the "beginning" they will move very fast. My dd took General Chem this semester. She really needed to work hard to begin with to get up to speed. I know two other local kids who dual enrolled at another cc who ended up dropping the class after the first test. One had even finished Apologia.

Could it be National Security Language Initiative http://www.nsliforyouth.org/

I hear "typical" increase is 10 points for the selection index.

The percentile is the percent of testers your child scored better than. The highest percentile is 99. You scored better than 99 % of the other testers. The highest selection index is 240. 80 on each of the three tests editted to add Actually for the math II subject SAT enough kids get 800 that an 800 is only the 90th percentile. This one is an odd distribution with 10 % of the kids with "perfect" scores.

Back when I was in engineering "Engineering Physics" was a three semester Physics course that was calculus based. The Physic majors took a four semester course and the Pre-meds took a two semester algebra based physics.

I don't know exactly how the mailing occurs, however I think the idea that they will be received geographically is a myth. Although Jan in Mo has received her scores, I haven't although I live in St. Louis county MO and neither has Michelle in Mo.