Indiana...Core 40 Honors question

[Holly IN]

We are on the honors track for now. My 15 yr old is not good at math so not sure if he will be able to get the 1200 composite score on the SAT in Spring of Junior year. If he didn't then we will be taking the AP route. However....How in the world am I supposed to do that in Indiana??? Esp when I do not want to go through the Public school system???

 

I know there is an option for the dual credit but in what?? What would be best without him re-taking a course. He already had Biology 1 and Biology 2(Human body).

 

HELP!!

 

Holly

[DebbS]

I'm from Indiana and my son is 15 (rising to 10th) also.

 

You can do it a few different ways. IU Highschool is a correspondence school that offers a few AP courses. We used it exclusively last year for my son. On the plus side, it's fairy rigorous and it's accredited. On the down side, it takes a long time to get back grades and feedback and is totally text book based. We won't be using it next year.

 

There are some other on-line AP courses - Pennsylvania Homeschoolers to name one. A few other places offer various AP courses for homeschoolers. Just search for the course you want to take and see what pops up.

 

Another option - one that we are using - is to create an AP class at home. You can submit it to the college board and they will decide if you can call it 'AP'. If you go to the website, you can get information about that. If we don't do that, we'll still do the course and prepare for the AP test. You can take an AP test without having taken an AP course. When you put the fact that you passed the AP test on your transcript, colleges will know that you did AP level work. They can count it anyway that they want to for admissions.

 

Just another question. Why is the honors track important to you? I ask because we had been holding that as the holy grail before I stepped back and re-evaluated what we are doing and why. My son will still take something like the honors track and we may even be able to call it an honors diploma. It just stopped being the goal. We have changed our focus to finding and working with my son's passions. He is now much more excited about his schooling and quite honestly, the curriculum that I'm preparing for him for 10th grade looks much more impressive even on paper than what he did last year.

[Holly IN]

Several colleges we looked at really want the honors diploma. It also gives you a better chance of getting your foot in the door in the admissions process.

 

I believe he is capable of honors work. He took a very rigourious Worldview course (4 credits= 1 lit, 1 comp, 2 Bible) and got a B in the class. She graded as if he was a Senior in high school.

 

How did you come up with information to create an AP course via approval from college board?

 

Holly

[DebbS]

This is the main page that you'd use to plan an AP Biology Course. You'll want to get familiar with the AP site. It contains a lot of resources.

 

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/2117.html

Edited June 13, 2010 by DebbS

[DebbS]

We were on the Core 48 Honors track though IUHS and will probably achieve either that or Core 40 honors even though it isn't the goal. The information that I had been using to determine Core 48 was the IUHS curriculum and there the course selection were pretty limited. We're basically doing enough credits in enough areas, but we aren't doing it with accredited schools. The reason for my change in focus is because the IUHS classes weren't very interesting to my son. But after reviewing the requirements on the Indiana web site, we're still definitely on track.

 

Can you actually grant something called an Indiana Core 40 Honors diploma if you're homeschooling? I was under the impression that you would just have to grant a homeschool diploma and colleges would then have to look at the details to figure out how you stand compared to other students who are applying.

[Holly IN]

 

Can you actually grant something called an Indiana Core 40 Honors diploma if you're homeschooling? I was under the impression that you would just have to grant a homeschool diploma and colleges would then have to look at the details to figure out how you stand compared to other students who are applying.

 

Absolutely!! There are no homeschool diploma. All you need is a transcript and course descriptions if the college admissions requests it. Colleges do not even look at the public school diploma. All they look at is the transcript. Basically the transcript will show the colleges that the student did Honors work or regular Core 40 work especially the colleges in Indiana. At the rate my son is going will have more than 40 credits. His credits right now will meet the Honors diploma credits but only if he has a 1200 SAT combined score or AP classes or so on....

 

If the student did the work of Honors program then YES you can grant that. It will show this through the transcript you give out to the colleges.

 

Holly

[DebbS]

Okay...that's what I thought...it's just making the transcript cover all of the core 40 honors requirements - based on the work done of course. What I was really asking is if there was some way to apply to Indiana to make an honors diploma official....but I didn't think so.

 

Where in Indiana are you from...We're in the Michiana area.

[Holly IN]

I am in Boone County which is Northwest of Indianapolis.

 

Holly