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HodgesSchool

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Everything posted by HodgesSchool

  1. Yep, we thought the same thing before this year. We know of another homeschooler in our area admitted to Yale this year as well!
  2. Thanks, Attolia and Gr8lander! As is probably clear from my son's college list, he is a city boy. All three schools are financially possible for us--given the colleges' commitments to meet demonstrated need. Although I know the formula does not work out for everyone, we're set as far as money goes. H, Y, or C would be more expensive than UNC with scholarship--but all three are choices we can live with. We feel very fortunate for that. We'll keep you informed. Thanks for all the support!
  3. Thank you. We were a bit stunned by all of this. I want to underline what 8FillTheHeart says: "Kids who take ownership over their future and seek out every opportunity they can find will know their professors; their professors will know them; they will be fine." Homeschooling is such perfect training for students to expect real relationships with the people who guide them--and that will allow them to take full advantage of whatever college choices they make. .
  4. Although I was hesitant to post since I have not participated in any real way on this forum for quite a while, I've enjoyed reading the posts here since my son was in kindergarten and I've learned very much from y'all along the way. Now as I poke around this list anonymously yet again, I realize I would love to chat with other parents whose children are considering the same colleges my son is considering. He was very lucky in the admissions game this year, garnering acceptances to Harvard early action, Yale, Columbia as a John Jay Scholar, Berklee college of music with merit aid, and UNC with a full-ride scholarship. His dream is the new Harvard-Berklee dual degree program (BA from Harvard and Master's from Berklee), but he won't hear about the joint program until next Friday. If any of your kids are considering these schools or attending these schools, I'd love to hear from you!
  5. Philadelphia is a wonderful city! Penn and Princeton have very different feels. Personally, I like Penn's open, more urban campus--but my husband prefers Princeton's quieter gated-off feel. Let your son see both and see how he feels. Both schools, of course, have amazing students and resources. Haverford, right outside of Philadelphia and near Swarthmore, is another fabulous LAC to consider. Good luck!
  6. That is my gut reaction (and my son's thinking) as well--but what can the College Board (and National Merit) do at this point?
  7. The College Board has announced an update for score release: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt-psat-10/k12-educators/psat-nmsqt-dates
  8. Many people will, I suspect, recommend the free online Khan Academy preparation that the College Board supports. My son found the prep there very useful for understanding the structure of the exams, but he thought the questions were considerably easier than the actual exam and therefore not particular good for reviewing the actual material. YMMV. The new PSAT and the new SAT will be very similar, aside from the presence of slightly harder questions as well as an optional essay on the new SAT. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any of the new practice books--but there is something to be said, I think, for looking through PWN the SAT math as well as Metzger's review book on grammar IF you can find copies in your library or as hand-me-downs. Both books are targeted to the old PSAT/SAT exams--and the kinds of questions will be different--but we found both books to be extremely useful for multiple choice tests in general. (My son took the PSAT in the new format this fall, and the SAT in the old format last month.)
  9. The PSAT has always weighted verbal twice as much as math. That is nothing new. When I was a kid in the 80s , the National Merit number was calculated as double the verbal score plus the math. Then, when they went to the 3-section, it was reading plus writing plus math. Now that we're back to 2 sections, we're back to double the verbal and add the math. Supposedly this is about gender. Girls do better on verbal and boys on math. The 1/3 2/3 score more-or-less balances the numbers of male and female scholars.
  10. On Nov 19, the College Board said on Twitter (in response to one of the zillion people asking), "Most PSAT scores will be available in December. Keep an eye out, we'll send an email with your PSAT Score Access Code." No other information, though.
  11. Your approach to this story does not sound like what academic literary scholars would call a deconstructionist reading. The differ/defer connection (embodied in differance) is at the core of Decontructionist thought, showing how power relationships are embedded in and replicated by our everyday language and rhetoric. I would agree with the above posters who suggest deconstructionism is an extremely complex topic--one not generally appropriate for even upper-level college students until they have learned a great deal of advanced literary analysis. What one winds up with at the end is not a persuasive argument (such as "I show that all the characters in the story are stereotypes, and argue that he is coming from a left wing position") but instead the DECONSTRUCTION of a text's apparent meanings. What is "decentered" or undone is the entire idea of meaning. Instead, we're left with a shifting ground of ambiguity. In addition to its complexity (and perhaps its lack of usefulness, as one of the above comments argues), deconstruction is also kind of behind the times. It was definitely cutting edge 30 years ago, but not anymore. Is it possible that Australian educators are referring to something else? Do they possibly just mean looking beyond the obvious words on the page? It seems to me that a broader term like "literary analysis" might be much more appropriate for what you are doing/teaching. The term "literary analysis" includes deconstruction as well as New Criticism, New Historicism, reader response theory, structuralism, etc. etc. It can also be used in a broad way to mean the identification of formal elements in a text. I'll add my strong recommendation to teach "close reading" as the main element of literary training. Teach it deeply and intensely. It is by far the most important tool in a literary scholar's bag of tricks, but it is also extremely useful to students and professionals in almost every discipline and career.
  12. If you registered online through a Total Registration site, you can cancel through them as well. I don't think you'd get a score of any kind if you did not submit an exam, but I don't know that for sure--just an assumption on my part.
  13. My son found Mrs. Barr's specific comments necessary to understand why he was being marked down on particular translations. After comparing his translation to the sample, he would often feel that his was smoother English and clearer meaning. When she graded, she placed more emphasis on literal translation. My son prioritized conveying the meaning of a passage in an elegant way. (He is a serious writer.) He thought he was being literal enough, but she expected far less "finesse" (as she said) and far more literal translation. Just reading her sample translations was not enough since he had assumed his answers were also acceptable (and perhaps even preferable)--until he received her comments. Her explicit review of his work was necessary for him to understand what she wanted and what was appropriate for a Latin language class rather than a literature class. I am grateful he learned what he did from her comments in the early weeks, but roughly half of the semester's assignments have not yet been graded. Perhaps there are other corrections he could have received that would have made his future work match the style classics teachers would expect. It might challenge him in new ways.
  14. G5, thank you so much for the endorsement of Lukeion. Right now we're planning how to make this work...
  15. Thanks, Gratia! Definitely good to hear!
  16. My child has been somewhat frustrated with Lukeion 3 this year. Although he has loved classes from the Barrs for many years, he's felt that the grading has been extremely slow this year, to the point of disrupting his learning. He's also felt that sample translations have been done in a rushed and unedited way. (Was his experience just an aberration this year as the Barrs deal with both a family move and an expansion of Lukeion?) Have any of you had experiences with Lukeion's AP Latin? Did your child feel that he or she was learning a lot, or doing busy work? Did your child feel the class was good preparation for the exam? Have any of you had experience with other providers? Have any of you prepared via self study? (Incidentally, we have kind of an unusual schedule situation to deal with this year which may shape our immediate plans.) Thank you for any advice or input.
  17. I've heard back by return e-mail (literally less than 5 minutes) a couple of times. I've also waited 6 weeks to hear back, with no questions asked and full approval. I suspect is has a lot to do with which the time of the year you apply as well as which exam you're applying for. My guess is that if you put something in the next few weeks, before exam FRQs are being graded and before most high school teachers are applying, you'll probably have a higher chance to hear back quickly. But that is just a guess.
  18. Incidentally--you don't need to say on your syllabus which curricular requirements you are meeting where. They are marked on the sample syllabi so other teachers can follow along easily, but there is no need to write them in on your own proposed syl. Some people feel that including those codes makes it easier and perhaps quicker for the reviewers to approve the syllabus, and that might be true. I've never done it and my syls are often approved within 24 hours (although that completely depends on the subject).
  19. Luckymama's suggestions are excellent. Thank you! I'm one of those people who love putting together AP syls just for fun and have had many approved that I'm pretty sure my son will not even take. It is always an interesting challenge to balance the kinds of assignments that would challenge and fulfill my child with the kinds of assignments that will prepare a student for the exam. This is obvious, I suppose, but I would suggest you look very closely at the released FRQs for the exams just to make sure your child will be comfortable with that kind of question when test day arrives. Similarly, I would consider downloading a bunch of them and using appropriate questions as weekly homework assignments as you go along. (This approach might be more or less successful depending on the particular subject.) You can find old FRQs here for all subjects: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/exam/exam_information/index.html
  20. Here is another free class you might enjoy, from Coursera. I love the little bit I've seen! https://www.coursera.org/course/calcsing
  21. That would be great, Dicentra. I hope they're useful to others.
  22. Found it! Thank you so much. I'm so happy to have found all these new resources!
  23. Thanks for the idea. I'm afraid that while I've read this forum for quite a while, I'm still pretty new. I've never even explored the Social Groups before...
  24. Just ran across these demonstration labs from MIT that are well produced, showy, and also quite seriously academic: http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/chemistry/demonstrations/videos/ (And if you haven't seen the Chem Lab Boot Camp that I've mentioned before, you might enjoy it, too. It is much more narrative than scientific, but I found it both inspiring and reassuring. http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/chemistry/chemistry-lab-boot-camp/ )
  25. While we haven't tried it personally, I've heard very good things about the Teaching Company's Precalc class. (I have my doubts about the ability for this to be a stand-alone class, although my friend used it that way quite successfully.) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1005
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