Yay! I'm totally with you. Ds finishes a week from today. Dd next Friday. Ds is looking forward to coming home. Dd who has a serious boyfriend is happy to come home but very sad to be away from him for so long. I'll love having them home for the summer and they'll love going back in the fall :lol:

There were no limits on DE credits at either school my kids attended (State U and CC). Ds only had 9 credits. Dd had 21, but graduated a year early. If she had stayed for her senior year, she'd probably have had over 40.

You - not your kids. This was mentioned in the tour thread and I was curious. I didn't do any traditional tours, but I did go to the college I ended up attending for a scholarship weekend. The scholarship was based on a test given at the college and invitations were based on ACT scores. I took a bus (charter from the school sent to the large city near me) on Friday evening (4 hour drive), stayed in a dorm, we spent most of Saturday testing, then did some activities together, back to the dorm for the night and they bussed us home Sunday. It was a great introduction to the campus. I remember a friend going to tour the school she attended that was a few states away. I don't think it was common though in my public high school in the 80s.

Realize that living at home does not mean $0. Commuters pay in gas and car expenses, or public transportation expenses. They don't stop eating when they live at home and my grocery bill went down nearly $100/week when both kids moved out. If they have much commuting time, it can take away from possible work time as well as decrease the opportunities to be involved on campus. Living at home is cheaper, but it is no where near free.

This was especially true for my first. He did DE at the local State U which is large. Touring a smaller state U and a very small LAC let him feel the difference. I think the thing about tours is you never know what you will turn up. At the college where dd is, the dorms have high ceilings, so high that you can stand on the top bunk and barely reach the ceiling. It made the space feel so much bigger! . The descriptions of the dorm gave dimensions, but not height. It didn't make or break any decisions, but the nearly new dorm with high ceilings has been a happy place for her and she did think of it when it came time to make a final decision. OTOH, ds talked to department heads at two campuses in the same town with the same major but opposite focuses. One lectured him, the other one engaged him (he is ASD and this isn't always easy). Can you guess where he is? He has found the faculty to be consistently engaging, helpful, and really invested in the students. I don't think tours are critical, but once we were down to a short-list, the tours did become tipping points. When we toured, we always did more than just the student-led tour, but we did find value even in those. There were a campus where ether tour guide was constantly stopping to hug friends along the way and a campus where people seemed very standoff-ish. We met with department heads & admissions counselors, and ate in the cafeteria (especially important for my vegetarian). Seeing the dorm, the campus, the town, the vibe, made an impact for us.

As long as the courses he takes are DE or taken while he is in high school, he will still be considered a freshman at most colleges. Some such as dd's college work harder at maintaining freshman status. There any student with less than 24 hours of transfer credit is also treated as a freshman - freshman dorm, freshman scholarships, etc. You could consider giving him a super-senior year as suggested by Janeway. That seems to be becoming increasingly popular. You could also check with the schools he is considering and find out if taking a year off and just retaking those classes would make him a transfer or not. This is a school by school thing. There are no hard and fast rules.

I think this varies a lot with the area you are in. In my low-COL area, I would say base at $8/hr for 1-2 kids and add about $1/hr for every two kids added. Dd had a regular part-time nanny thing where she watched 7-8 kids (the baby usually went with her mom) and did it for $10/hr since it was a scheduled and reliable income. It was great! She would be happy to nanny full time for that in the summer if she could find it. In higher COL areas, those numbers probably sound like a travesty, but here part-time or summer jobs for teens/college students pay minimum wage, $7.70/hr. $10/hr feels like a lot and most parents just don't make enough to pay a much more.

How good is your child's writing? AP Lit generally assumes AP Lang or the equivalent is already done. They will be expected to do a lot of writing, but with less focus on writing instruction. If the child's writing level is prepared for Lit, then you can let your student choose, consider which might get college credit, or which might help them avoid a class they won't like in college. If your student isn't going to be a senior next year, you can do both. In that case, start with Lang.

We did the SL course with the Meyers book and I really liked it and so did my kids. Ds passed the CLEP at the end. Dd who doesn't like big tests, took the Psych again in college for an easy A. The SL guide is really worth the money. It is a great addition to the text. It is like having a psych teacher take you through the topics. I should add my kids were in either 9th & 11th or 10th & 12th when we did Psych. I don't remember for sure, but it was no issue at all for dd to keep up with it.

Was there a question in there or just a need for a :grouphug:

This. I have one kid at a small private LAC and one at a medium size state U. The state U has given almost all MC exams with just a few essays tagged on. The LAC kid has had every type of evaluation. He has had MC tests, all essay tests, projects, and presentations. I think this is in part because of his majors and in part because class sizes are small enough to allow teachers the time to grade alternative evaluations. I don't believe for a moment that there is a standard.

I went through this with my parents, except that they didn't pressure me to do anything specific with their stuff. I have some things of my mom's that I kept only because they had meaning to her and I have a ton of old picture that I can't identify. I know they are family history, but I don't think I have any family left that can recognize them. In general, we had a sale and got rid of tons of stuff. We had a charity come out and pick up everything left from the sale. Then we cleaned and sold the house. As for me, I have every intention of moving at least one more time before I die and only taking with me what I need plus a few sentimental treasures, but not a ton of extra junk. I want it to be as easy as possible for my kids when I die. They'll probably still think we have too much stuff lol.

AG is very easy to jump into. It is designed to teach grammar from the beginning and requires no prior knowledge.

:lol: Only in my dreams. I want to say the EFC was slightly lower for #2 than it was for #1, but it didn't approach zero.

I completely agree with this. We use CC classes for subjects the kids wanted to get done but didn't care about. We used the local state U and online providers for classes the kids wanted deeper coverage in - or I taught them supplying resources at their interest level. I would NOT put him in a coop where he is being asked not to participate.

Please report back. I haven't seen many comparisons yet. I enjoyed his 2nd edition too, but the topic order was odd and I know he changed that in his new program. I won't be teaching it again, but I'd still like to know so I can share with friends when they ask.

Pineapple fried rice left over from yesterday which is appropriate since that was when you asked :).

I live in a rural area. I grew up in a rural area. There are no intersections (well not for miles at at time) and there are no crosswalks. I didn't learn about the idea of jaywalking until I went to college. The university educated students thoroughly on jaywalking and with so many people crossing the streets to and from campus it really was a big deal for traffic and safety. That was a long time ago and I have understood the reality of jaywalking laws ever since, but I will admit I spent my youth blissfully unaware.

"Students generally like to prop doors open so that they dont need to use their keys to get back in, but that provides the perfect opportunity for someone to slip in and grab the iPod, computer, or jewelry that is lying in plain sight on the desk, Chadbourne says." I just wondered if any kids actually do this? My kids both agree that doors are open when you are in and close when you leave. Their dorms require their student ID's to get in the building an into their own wing. They do have a key for the door, but they both carry it on the same key ring/lanyard with their ID, so they never leave without it or they can't even get back in the building. (sorry that was just an aside) ​Both of my kids new how to do laundry when the left and if either of them had a hard time figuring out the machines in the dorm, they never admitted to it. Dd prefers to do her laundry at school than bring it home because they have nicer machines! The only issue my dd did have was that because she was 17 she couldn't easily get medical care outside of the college clinic. She was still doing PT recovering from hip surgery when she went and we had to go to the hospital with her the day before she moved in to setup the PT. There can be some issues with being under age, but otherwise, there isn't anything a quick text question hasn't been able to cover.

I agree with Heather too. Dd is a BSN major and took Biology (M/L w DIVE), Chemistry (BJU w/DIVE) and Anatomy (Apologia) at home, then Biology DE. When she got to college she took the nursing Chem class and got an A, but she is struggling in Anatomy this semester. She'll pass it, but she won't get an A. Less than half the class passes anatomy at her University each semester and probably half of those that pass are retaking it after dropping or failing it the semester before. Chemistry isn't the challenge for nursing students. Anatomy is!

Missouri State is almost as large with almost as many undergraduate degrees as Mizzou and has benefitted from the declines at Mizzou.

Add my kids to the list who don't tell unless it is directly asked. Dd in particular found it awkward because of the assumptions. Ds actually fits some of the homeschool stereotypes (he is autistic spectrum and socially awkward) and he is far less shy about admitting his homeschool status. I don't think either one of them have found it to be an issue at all. It just isn't something they bring up right away. There are some pretty strange ideas about homeschoolers out there!

I would not go from MUS to Saxon, particularly not if the student learned well with MUS. They are about as opposite in teaching method as you can possibly achieve and I think any student would struggle with the polar shift in methodology. Jann in TX has math classes using Lial's which is mastery based and easy to transition to from MUS. and Derik Owens classes are also well reviewed and mastery based. Both have excellent reputations and links can be found for both in the math thread pinned at the top of the page. If you're considering an online provider, I'd start my search with those two.

A couple comments on Lial's. First I think their explanations are really good up through Algebra 2 (Intermediate Algebra), but not nearly so good at the pre-calc or college algebra level. Second, I completely agree that the pages are too busy and the layout too overwhelming for an ADD kid, or many younger kids. They are designed for college age students. We used them and liked them, but I thought I'd throw out those caveats.

We used OM too. I really liked it, but if you use it as open and go, I would warn there are some of what I consider "busy work" assignments. If I were going to use it again, I'd make sure I checked each week and removed the assignments I thought were a waste of time. It isn't the majority of assignments or anything. That sounds so negative. I really did like it :).