how to enroll in AP courses

[workingmom]

How do homeschooling kids have access to AP classes if not enrolled in a virtual school? I recently found out that they can take AP exams without having taking an "AP course" however I would like to know are there other resources besides K12 for taking AP courses.

[Murphy101]

It's probably too late to do it this year bc I think they are only happening next week.

 

I called the AP center and asked what facilities near me will allow home schoolers to sit the test with their school.

 

Then I called those schools until I found one that is giving the AP exam(s) we are wanting to take and registered with them for it.

[TeaTotaler]

My ds has not taken any yet but I called the local school and got the name of the AP co-ordinator. I emailed her and asked for what timeline they follow for registration etc. I will have to find a private school for AP Latin which I haven't pursued yet.

[Jen in NY]

Yes... a heads up for the OP --- around here the registration deadline is *really* early... like February! It is easy to miss if I'm not paying attention. In fact... I'm going to go put a reminder on my Jan2014 calendar right now.

[snowbeltmom]

How do homeschooling kids have access to AP classes if not enrolled in a virtual school? I recently found out that they can take AP exams without having taking an "AP course" however I would like to know are there other resources besides K12 for taking AP courses.

 

 

There are many different online AP providers available to homeschoolers. PA Homeschoolers offers a variety of AP classes online, but there are many other providers as well.

 

If you let us know what specific AP courses your child is interested in, the Hive could give you some suggestions.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Another option is to construct you own syllabus and send it in to college board for AP designation. There are folks here who have done this successfully.

 

Many of the various state "virtual" schools offer AP classes and these are open to homeschoolers who pay the tuition. A couple of the programs like Johns Hopkins CTY offer AP classes.

 

You can also buy AP texts and teacher materials direct from the publishers for a DIY class. The texts are often available via major retailers such as Amazon but the teacher materials are mostly direct from the publisher.

[workingmom]

So besides Hopkins and virtual schools what other AP providers (specifically for AP Eng, World History, Bio, Chem). How do you know which materials are AP from Amazon, unless you already have the book names? Could you expand on teacher materials from publishers. Is there a standard publisher that does many AP courses?

[snowbeltmom]

So besides Hopkins and virtual schools what other AP providers (specifically for AP Eng, World History, Bio, Chem).

I have first-hand experience with AP Chemistry from those courses that you listed. My son used ChemAdvantage. The course and instructor were outstanding.

 

http://www.chemadvantage.com/

[workingmom]

I have first-hand experience with AP Chemistry from those courses that you listed. My son used ChemAdvantage. The course and instructor were outstanding.

 

http://www.chemadvantage.com/

 

 

thanks this is the sort of thing i was looking for.

were they live classes or pre-recorded. how did the labs get handled?

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

One approach would be to look at the sample AP syllabi on the college board website and glean text book information from those. Then go to the publisher sites and see what is available. Pearson/Prentice Hall is certainly one of the major publishers for a variety of texts. The publishers websites tend to indicate AP editions pretty clearly. Amazon doesn't always carry the most recent AP edition in my experience or sells them only from 3rd party vendors/used. Of course there may be little difference between a regular and AP edition of a text. Teacher materials may only be available directly from the publisher. They do much with online materials controlled by the publisher and if you do want both teacher and student access you need to be careful how you acquire the books to guarantee you will be granted access-for example a used book with used access code won't allow any access.

[snowbeltmom]

were they live classes or pre-recorded. how did the labs get handled?

 

They are not live classes. The instructor would post the weekly assignments every Monday, and the assignments were due at the end of the week. The instructor was very prompt in answering any questions via email. There was also an online component for the students to ask questions and help each other. The instructor also participated in these discussions.

 

The students had to purchase a lab kit. The lab instructions were very easy to comprehend. My son usually saved the labs for the weekends because some of the labs could be time consuming. This class prepared my son extremely well for the AP exam and the SAT II. He also advanced to the national round of the Chemistry Olympiad thanks to this class.

[plansrme]

If you Google "Ap text" and the subject, you will quickly find the same texts being cited repeatedly. I found our AP texts for econ and world history that way, and I picked them all up for a few bucks each from half.com. I used old college texts because that is what popped up in my searches, and old (by which I mean "cheap") editions were more than fine for these courses. Add in a couple of AP review books, and you're good to go. The texts for the texts also had study guides to go with them (also cheap) that we found very useful.

 

Second the recommendation for ChemAdvantage. Nothing but good things to say about that.

 

My daughter used ChalkDust Calc for Calc AB, though there was one topic not covered by CD that is on the exam. She just covered that in her review books and did fine on the exam.

 

Of the 5 APs my daughter has taken, only one (Chem) has an official AP designation, but she made 5s on all. It is entirely doable to self-study many AP exams. We didn't even know what we were doing, and she did well on some of the biggies.