EPGY university level courses

[Kathy G]

Anyone use the university level courses- specifically math? If so, did they transfer to your child's college successfully? What did you think of the quality? I wtill have one year until I will need something beyond the level of Calc BC, but he won't be old enough to drive yet so I am toying with the online idea. I work part time and won't be able to drive him to college here unless the timing happens to work out.

 

Kathy

[Kathy in Richmond]

Anyone use the university level courses- specifically math? If so, did they transfer to your child's college successfully? What did you think of the quality? I wtill have one year until I will need something beyond the level of Calc BC, but he won't be old enough to drive yet so I am toying with the online idea. I work part time and won't be able to drive him to college here unless the timing happens to work out.

 

Kathy

 

My daughter took the university level number theory course through EPGY during the 2009-10 school year. It was a mixed bag: the text was good as were the CD based lessons. The computer platform was old-fashioned but functional. The quizzes were graded automatically. Homework and exams were written out or LaTeXed and scanned in for grading by a tutor. Her tutor was fairly lazy and didn't always grade her homeworks or respond to her emails (not many, just inquiring about the grading issue). We ended up having to call the office and speak to him, and then he graded a few of the homework sets very quickly. He still ignored several of them, which were never graded. She asked a simple question about the scheduling of the final exam, and he responded that once he sent it to her, she'd have a strict 48 hour window to take it (their finals are pretty long & challenging, but well written). However, he attached the final to THAT email, forcing her to take the final immediately. She had a dance competition that same weekend, but she had no choice at that point. it wasn't pretty, but she still managed to complete the exam in the time frame, and she received an A for the course. Transferring the grade & credit from the EPGY office on one end of Stanford's campus to the registrar's office on the other end (she matriculated at Stanford) was surprisingly annoying, but it was done $50 and a few months later. I've heard that not all universities accept EPGY credits since the exams aren't officially proctored. You'd have to check with the colleges your son is interested in attending.

 

That said, dd did enjoy the course and felt that she'd learned a lot of new material (she'd taken AoPS number theory in the past). Some of her friends had better experiences with different tutors, but one friend who had the same math tutor reported exactly the same difficulties with him.