Whatever BS degree he gets, I recommend that he gets a job with a company that helps pay for Master's degrees if that is the desired path. That's what I did and I don't regret it.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ftc-files-deceptive-advertising-lawsuit-against-devry-1453916905 Although I am fiscally conservative, I am not a big fan of "for-profit" colleges. Especially with the government involvement with student loans. I feel like we taxpayers are just enriching the owners/stockholders of these institutions. (Not saying that the other colleges are doing a good job fiscally, which they aren't)

if you use Tablet class for Algebra 1 - the first four chapters are in really in 8th Grade/PreAlgebra these days. Look at Eureka Grade 8 for the rest of the year: http://greatminds.net/maps/math/grade-8/ http://greatminds.net/maps/math/module-pdfs free if you register includes teacher manual

http://www.macmillanhighered.com/Catalog/discipline/History/ValueOptions Did not see any "free". Looks pretty expensive to me versus the library.

Just curious - what is a ballpark figure for "shoestring"? $100 per course ? $ x for the year ? The key item is as the HS years progress, the knowledge factor increases for a home school parent to properly execute the course becomes greater. This assumes typical student independence/self discipline. I for one could not run a proper HS level English class.

It sounds like narrow first is order! Here in AZ we have fewer choices within driving distance (6-7 hours max one way - one of my criteria, welcome to the west) so we could possibly visit first before even applying.

The real question is "Do you narrow down your college choices by visiting first before you apply?" or "Narrow first then visit?" - if the 2nd one I would try to visit all of them.

1 - 2 hours with doing around 20 out of 30 problems. If you know the lesson topics and the student, it is fairly easy to select the "20" but of course it is time-consuming for the parent.

see this College Board post (typically a better place for this type of thread) http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/584963-article-on-potential-change-of-emphasis-in-college-admissions-nyt/

More Harvard is the center of the collegiate universe crap. "specifically, a survey of more than 10,000 middle- and high-school students that asked them what mattered most: high individual achievement, happiness or caring for others. Only 22 percent said caring for others. " These are teenagers why would you expect a different outcome? It is a fairly self-centered time in one's life. Most of them will mature eventually. Our job as parents is to help keep them grounded. some favorite comments: ================================================== They are not doing our young people any favor by misleading them into believe their feelings and concerns will matter more than performance in a globally competitive workplace. ================================================== Let me get this straight. For the top kids applying to college, grade inflation has rendered grades fairly irrelevant. Now they are recommending getting rid of standardized test scores too (which, btw, were invented to put kids from lesser known schools on equal footing with kids from fancy schools)? And they want to limit the number of extracurricular you can put on your application? On what basis do they think colleges are now going to chose to admit kids? The reality is that the number of spots at the top colleges is in short supply, which creates a competitive frenzy. No amount of well meaning, but silly tweaks to the application process is going to change that. And even if you get rid of standardized test scores, who do you think is going to figure out how to work the process to get their kid in? Hint: it's not the kids that the this report is trying to help. ================================================== As long as there are 35,000 kids applying for 2500 spots at elite institutions, the admissions process is going to be stressful and maddeningly arbitrary. No amount of tweaking, and re-weighting of parameters, will change that. The "fixes" described here, to my mind, just open the door to new varieties of gaming: focus on making your community contributions look sincere, snare those positive recommendations - all easily achievable by the privileged private school crowd. When it comes down to it, the standardized tests remain the fairest and most objective criteria - yet the call here is to downgrade those as factors. The association of SAT scores with higher income families merely reflects the higher education level of the parents, and access to better k-12 education (which shows that the tests are actually measuring something real - don't shoot the messenger). No one has shown that these "expensive tutors" really impact scores any more positively than simply retaking practice tests on one's own. And stories from NYC and Silicon Valley notwithstanding, I believe the prevalence of these tutors is highly exaggerated. Any kid with 20 bucks can buy a review book and get equally effective preparation. What needs to change is not the admissions process, which is reasonably holistic as it stands. It's the culture wherein you are deemed a failure if you don't attend one of a tiny number of colleges. It's the parents and communities that are at fault, not the admissions offices. ================================================== University Education in the US is a complex phenomena. With half of the resources you find in an american university, people in the third world acquire and develop deep intellects. You cant have a national/general quality student body at Universities if you don't have a solid elementary/middle/high school programs. After finishing High School in Cuba and taking University Entrance exams I migrated to US. I was shocked to see student quality of admitted students to community colleges in NYC. Those people in Cuba would have struggled to graduate from High School, and yet they were there. There had been a serious dumbing down of the curriculum in order to meet political/social agenda here. You are not doing any favors to the poor/minorities by doing that. What you gotta do is step up the elementary/middle/high school level; but don't dumb down College. My brother told me that at City College, cheating level was alarming. This is a Science/Tech/Engineering School. Used to be Public MIT in this country. A joke now.

some free books to look at as supplements: http://www.ck12.org/physics/ https://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/college-physics

STEMPrep derived from http://www.physics-prep.com/index.php/how-these-courses-work Still not sure what you get but the price seems reasonable. The other ones seem quite high.

What ACT scores are they looking for? For CC this is probably fairly low.

AP Physics 1 focuses on the Physics and the thinking about Physics from an experimental view. The math is very minimal. I think that the CB actually did something right. For my son, this would drive home this process since it is too easy for him to just memorize stuff and "puke it out" for tests. I agree that the actual AP exam part of the class/course is not very interesting except to test how well you learned to the desired outcome. For top-top students this would probably be a waste of time. Greg Jacobs has a blog that is interesting: http://jacobsphysics.blogspot.com/

Due to my current health issues I had to abandon my plans for AP Physics 1 this school year for my son. I did read and can recommend this study guide: AP Physics 1: Algebra Based by Greg Jacobs 2016 edition comes with downloadable extra practice. This is a study guide for the AP test but it does have a whole year study plan. The author has taught AP Physics for many years. I also found this offering: http://aplusphysics.com/courses/ap-1/AP1_Physics.html

wait listed at public library so it will be a while before I read it

If your student has nailed down Algebra 1 (shown by comprehensive exam or other means) then move on slowly to Geometry this year. If not then continue with Algebra 1. No huge rush - better to be solid in the math you have taken then race ahead.

CA should just allow all students to take the high school level (Algebra 1, 2, Geometry, etc) state EOC exams (at their home school district) as appropriate for material studied. New York state allows this for home-schoolers which helps them get into public colleges. AZ does not do this but there probably is little demand since we don't have A-G requirements.

What about Derek Owens? By the way this usually gets covered under the High School forum look there for previous discussions.

Adobe supports up to Mac OS 10.11 here https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/

SIL is a progressive, independent, college-preparatory school for students grades 8-12. SIL serves families throughout Silicon Valley, primarily those in the Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties. http://www.sileducation.org/ap2016 open to outsiders for AP exams. (thank Arcadia)

Why don't they just use the same EOC exam as the state does? In AZ that is required for regular PS and charters which are public!!

can you trade your new Mac for a Windows box? contact Apple for support they don't like Flash at all so good luck I know iPhones and iPads do NOT support Flash at all not sure about Mac

try use Google Chrome browser with Flash installed OR you may have to an older version of Flash FYI for the future - don't buy a new computer - it is the SW that really counts you could try it with Ubuntu Linux on the older computer since you have that one also if new computer has Windows 8.x - update NOW to Windows 10

If this is at the high school level (Algebra 1?) you should try to give them comprehensive semester exams to ensure retention. You can locate some on the internet and modify as needed.