She has decided to stick with her original plan: Bio Concepts, Chem 101, PreCalc, Seminar, Chinese. She feels most confident taking Chinese over other classes, because some of it will be review. She already has a firm understanding of pinyin, tone marks, basic grammar, and basic vocabulary. The drop period is 3 weeks, so she said she is going to be very vigilant of keeping track of her schedule, free time, etc during those three weeks to see if her course load is feasible for the entire semester. :-)

Dd took some chinese in HS, so she already understands pinyin, basic grammar, etc (she would try and test out of beginning chinese but we never focused on character writing). Thanks for those questions! They were good to go through and think about :-)

:laugh: Dd is very introverted and has never been too interested in having one million social activities. She enjoys quiet time in her room, so I am sure she will have some more time to devote to studying... I guess I big determiner on how much time she will have will depend on whether or not she gets the scholarship she has applied for (she should find out within a week). If she gets it, she doesn't need to have a job her first semester, so that would greatly increase her chances of being able to handle 17 credits.

Thank you for sharing your dds experience! My Dd has decided to try and contact the advisor she met with, and if "intro to enviro science" does not need to be taken as a freshman for enviro science majors, she is going to keep chinese as her "extra" class, and be well aware of the drop period. :)

That is what I was thinking, too. Do you think it would be wiser to stick with Chinese as her extra course, or would enviro science be okay? They are both 3 credits.

She has been leaning towards this, the only problem now is trying to decide if it would be a horrible idea to take three science classes (adding in intro to enviro science) during her first semester at college. She was trying to decide between that class and chinese.

The classes are introductory chem and bio (chem 101 and "bio concepts", both are lab and are a part of a 2 semester sequence) and Precalculus. Dd has chosen to retake PreCalc this year because a health issue over the winter distracted her from focusing on math. And I don't think the labs count for any of the credit hours (both science classes are 4 credits)

Dd is in the process of signing up for her fall classes. She will be a freshman. From the beginning, she has been planning to major in biology. She wants to do something involving wildlife or environment conservation. I think she has been leaning towards graduate school in zoology/biology/etc. One of the "kinks" in the signing up process has been a required seminar. It is a freshman seminar that is a 3 credit class. When you add that class along with 3 other classes she needs to be taking in the fall for her bio major (Bio, chem, math), she has 14 credits. When she met with her advisor, she said she was going to try and take an additional class, even though it would be 17 vs 16 credits, because she didn't want to fall behind and she was also planning to double major (she is leaning towards environmental science, but has also considered world religion) ... He advised her to heavily consider staying at 14 credits, because she was a freshman and would be adjusting to college life in the fall. Any opinions? Dd says she would be much more comfortable not adding any additional credits if she was atleast at 15 credits, but 14 sounds like too little. She doesn't want to end up overloading herself, but she also wonders if it is smart to not take intro to environmental science if she is considering majoring in it. She had also considered taking Chinese, since that is the language she took in High School and she will need a language to graduate anyway.... Opinions? How much more work would that one additional credit be in comparison to the average 16 credits? Did anyones child take 17 credits as a freshman?

Yep - we're in the same situation! DD's got the ec's, I'm a single parent, dd is first generation college student, etc etc etc.... So frustrating. Sorry to hear your going through the same stuff, though... Does you son have good backups or is he in a situation like my dd is?

The worst part is dd's comment of " I thought the hard part was getting in! I never thought i'd work hard, get in, and STILL not be able to go." She's worked her butt off hsing these past 5 years - through health issues and everything.... And of course, once again it is finances that get in the way. Blah.

The only good news is that dd did not plan to stay there all 4 years - the best schools for what she wants to study are schools that had extra requirements for hsers that she did not want to meet (SAT 2;s etc, also would have had to retake ACT to include writing) Her first choice is a really good school to study science @ (she wants to major in bio), but it is more focused on human bio than animal, and she is animal/wildlife focused and specifically wants to go to a college that has lots of opportunities for ocean-related courses or research/volunteer opportunities... So because of that, starting out at this school was a great choice and then transferring to one that better fit long term goals (while avoiding extra homeschooling requirements) was the best option... So very disappointed, but thankfully she isn't losing a 4-year dream, just a one year one..... :/ The only worry now is that the less selective school that gave her a full ride (seriously, how cruel is the world? full ride at safety, horrible aid at first choice!) will lower her chances of transferring as a sophomore to a more selective college... because it is much more lower ranked than her first choice.

Right now i'm feeling disappointed because DD worked really hard and got in to all the schools she applied to, including her first choice which was pretty selective and was her "reach." Then we heard back from Financial Aid - after grants her first choice still would have been more than 8x my EFC. :( She can't bring herself to reject it, but we really cannot afford 39,000 per year!

Dd was accepted to her first choice college yesterday! Bennington College in Vermont. She is THRILLED.

Yes... Unless I am mistaken, it does (sorry have not looked at it in a while & I don't have it with me... Dd has been checking her answers!) But I cannot imagine that I would be incorrect- their syllabi always include all the answers to the questions they assign.

My DD is using Oak Meadow Physics this year and she enjoys it. I would only NOT recommend it if your dc does not want to do a lot of reading from a novel- about half of the questions come from Coming of Age in the Milky Way and the other half from the textbook...

Thank you both!! DD is a fast reader, though I am not sure if she is exceptionally fast or not... As an example, we did Beowulf in one week. Sir Gawain took just over a week (I think maybe 6 or so days- but DD did not like this one very much) On the other hand, she is reading The Importance of Being Earnest over three days, lol. Today she read Act 1 scene 2 and 3 of Hamlet with no trouble (took her just under an hour, including 9 after reading questions). Re another Arthurian story- i'll keep that in mind! We have "til we have faces" by C.S. Lewis as an option, we've considered the hobbit, so maybe that should be an option, too. Oh, and she already read Animal Farm- hated it, would probably not like me if I assigned 1984. Ha, ha. Kind of interesting- I think i've heard of a lot of people cutting Wuthering Heights! I always assumed that was a good title (i've never read it). Thank you both for your responses, and to the first poster- i'll keep your list in mind in case we need to cut a few selections!

DD is a few weeks in to British Literature. This is our first homeschool year where we are basically designing our own english class- before we either used a pre-made curriculum or used an online school. I'm not sure about how many books, on average, we need for a full year, so I wanted to see if people thought our selections were enough, too much, or not enough. Also want to know if the books we have considered adding are worth being added... So, we have: Beowulf Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Hamlet Importance of Being Earnest Canterbury Tales (will only read 1-3 of them) Paradise Lost (not all of it) Rime of the Ancient Mariner and other poems Gullivers Travels Three Men in a Boat Frankenstein Emma Wuthering Heights A Tale of Two Cities Pygmalion A Passage to India The Secret Sharer and other stories Dubliners and as a sort of "fun read", Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. We have considered adding in: Grendel (John Gardner) an additional shakespeare (either Romeo & Juliet, Tempest, or Twelfth Night) + some others that I cannot remember off the top of my head. :) Do you think the list we have is sufficient? Or should 1-3 books be added? If so, is adding an additional shakespeare overkill? We considered doing this only because DD has had very little exposure to Shakespeare- she was assigned Romeo and Juliet in 9th but it did not go very well... If you think we should add, do you have any specific recommendations?

THank you both for your responses! I passed them on to DD, and I do appreciate it! :-)

Hi :) My senior is doing the following- British Literature AP Calc AP American Government AP Biology European History Khmer (foreign Lang) Physics

....

DD is not taking the exams because she doesn't want to. This is not a hard and fast rule. If she decides she wants to take them, she absolutely can. DD is a senior so these scores do not matter to the admissions process. Some of the schools DD is applying to does not accept the scores, and DD has no desire to test out of Calculus 1 or Biology - she wants to take both, from the beginning, once she is in college. She wants to use these courses as a way to prepare herself for the ones she'll take in college. Government is AP simply because it was the only curriculum she liked. Even if someone had said I should label government as advanced, I wouldn't have necessarily done it because there is a chance that DD will edit out some of the stuff to make it more basic. January start date related question? It is quite simple- DD is going to be finished by August. She'll officially begin senior year in September. It wasn't the most ideal of situations, but she has worked very hard and is finished with most of her courses for Junior year. The only course she may not finish by end of August/very beginning of September is PreCalc, and that is OK- she can work it until she is done and then move on to Calc.

Ok, that makes complete sense! I had planned to label them 'regularly', but I wanted to make sure that was the right option. ;)

regentrude- would you recommend we do the same thing we DD's other AP level courses that she won't take the exam for? We have Government and Calculus that are AP level - should we label them as "Advanced Calculus" and "Advanced American Government"? I knew we couldn't label them as AP, even if she was planning on the exam, but I also knew that honors is a useless term with hs'ing, so I wasn't sure what to call them.

My main worry was about raising flags. Calling it advanced Biology sounds good. :)

DD took biology W/LAB in 9th grade. On top of that she has environmental science and Chemistry. She will take Physics as a senior (and one semester of Oceanography). She is interested in Thinkwell's AP Bio because she really loves bio, wants to be prepared for college biology, and wants to refresh her memory on 9th grade stuff- she doesn't remember much of it! Since she has no intention of taking the exam, should I even give her HS credit for it? Would it be weird to have a random second biology on her transcript?