<p>When my older D did AP US History and AP Lit she had quite a bit of summer reading. I remember her reading Grapes of Wrath and having to write notes on each page. Plus another book. They had to be turned into the school office 2 weeks before school started.
2012 D is finally taking some interest in college. She is not the typical student that is represented on this thread so far. She is a B+ student who up till now has always taken the easier way out. She recently picked up the booklet University of Ca- Introducing the University. She is realizing now that she should have stepped it up a bit. Many of her B+ grades were 89.5 with little effort.
Her first schedule for fall had her in AP Eng Language and AP US History. In the last few months she decided to make a change of schools and her new program does not offer an AP option. She can take up to 9 units of CC classes. This will have to be her arena to show she can handle college work.
We haven’t even started to discuss SAT prep and testing. She did take the PSAT and did okay in reading and the writing but the math was low.
She is still undecided if she even wants to go away to college or attend the CC and later transfer. Like showmom858’s D she is focusing on her riding. I think she has lost the incentive to ride in college on a team. She just wants a school that she can ride nearby or on some sort of team.
She is spending her summer doing tons of riding. This summer she is the oldest rider at her barn. She is exercising 2 or 3 horses a day plus doing all the grunt work. Earning lesson time.</p>
<p>mom60 - My D told me recently that one of the reasons she wants to ride for a team in college is that she thinks it will help her be a better student. Since she has many friends from her barn that ride on D1 teams they have told her about the mandatory study halls and the help they receive from tutors. D knows that she is not the most organized kid and although her grades are very good she does not always budget time wisely. She feels that riding will keep her focused on her studies since she will not be able to waste time. I thought it was wonderful that at 16 she has come to the realization of what she needs to help her succeed with her studies.</p>
<p>Any recommendations for AP classes as distant learning? Self Study? How does that work in terms of getting the credit?</p>
<p>CherryHillMomTo2 –</p>
<p>Anyone can take an AP exam, although you have to find a school who will administer it. So, if by credit you mean an exam score, that’s taken care of.</p>
<p>Students usually don’t get credit on a transcript and a grade for exams they self-study because they haven’t taken a course. High school credit is for courses you’ve taken (unless your high school has a program that gives credit by exam).</p>
<p>If your high school will accept transfer credit, you can get credit for things you take by distance learning.</p>
<p>What courses are you interested in? Here are some places that teach some AP courses:
Johns Hopkins CTY (cty.jhu.edu)
Northwestern’s CTD’s Gifted LearningLinks (ctd.northwestern.edu)
Nebraska’s Online High School (highschool.unl.edu)
Center for Distant & Independent Studies at Missouri (cdis.missouri.edu)
BYU’s Independent Study (cd.byu.edu)
Florida Virtual School. (flvs.net)
EPGY (epgy.stanford.edu)
Apex Learning ([Apex</a> Learning](<a href=“http://www.apexlearning.com%5DApex”>http://www.apexlearning.com)) (they sell to parents/students as well as to schools)
For AP Spanish, spanishonline.okstate.edu
For AP German, germanonline.okstate.edu</p>
<p>For homeschooling, many like PA Homeschoolers. They’re pretty strict about only having homeschool students, though. ([Pennsylvania</a> Homeschoolers](<a href=“http://www.pahomeschoolers.com%5DPennsylvania”>http://www.pahomeschoolers.com))</p>
<p>These are just some that I know of. I’m sure there are lots more, depending on which exams you’re interested in (for example, the Art of Problem Solving Calculus course will prepare you for AP Calculus, but it’s not <em>called</em> AP Calculus).</p>
<p>My kids have taken online courses through BYU, Northwestern’s Gifted Learning Links and the Indiana Online Academy. My recommendation is to sample the course, see how it is set up and read the fine print to find out when you may get your money back if you are not satisfied. BYU was okay. It had an online component but then you had to mail in papers (not attach them to emails) wait forever to get feedback, take quizzes and exams at a local university testing center that assessed a fee and wait to receive response in the mail. I said okay but thinking back, it was a pain. Northwestern was the worst but I am basing this on one class - not an AP class - but honors algebra II. This course was a correspondence course via email. There was no actual instruction. The teacher assigned homework from a text but did not grade it. He was available to answer questions via cell phone or email. Quizzes and tests had to be scanned and emailed to him. These were graded. My son, who loves math, was very frustrated with this course because he couldn’t tell that he didn’t understand until he got back a poor grade on a quiz. He gave up on this one and took the same course through the Indiana Online Academy and did well. The IOA, which is only available to some schools in Indiana, unfortunately, is an example of the ideal online course situation. My kids have taken 7 different courses through them. Every course provided all the instructional material online, taking advantage of video streaming, power points, and web pages that were all linked to the lessons. The lessons all had multiple choice assignments that gave instant feedback, as well as more detailed assignments that asked for students to create power points, diagrams, write stories, answer blog posts etc. These, too, received prompt responses. The teachers were also available via email or SKYPE. Online courses can be great or it can be a waste of money. Be a choosy consumer and be especially careful with choosing a provider because of reputation (ie. Northwestern).</p>
<p>@Apollo6</p>
<p>You just made me a lot more nervous, because I have signed up for the NW course for Physics Honors, to get ahead for the school year so I can take AP Physics. And yes we have to scan the tests…
Was the actual course hard though? I am upcoming junior by the way</p>
<p>james11223 –</p>
<p>My daughter took AP Human Geography from Northwestern’s CTY and it wasn’t bad. There were only 2 kids enrolled in her section, so there wasn’t exactly a lot of discussion, but there were online forums with occasional questions posted. The course was really textbook readings plus some short answer and short essay questions (available online) that were e-mailed to the instructor. Any tests were scanned and sent back. The response from the teacher on assignments wasn’t voluminous, but it came back quickly enough. E-mails were responded to quickly. </p>
<p>The course didn’t really make great use of the online medium, but I’ve seen it handled far more clunkily.</p>
<p>She used a study book to prepare for the AP exam – I thought the weakness of the course was actual test preparation because the content was covered.</p>
<p>Pinot Noir.</p>
<p>You have a LUCKY SON!
The rigor of his summer assignment indicates that he will be taught and prepared to excel in interpretation and score well on the exam for which he plans to sit.</p>
<p>As moms, we feel for our kids.</p>
<p>But I hope the message your sending him is that you know he can do it even though it sounds hard rather than that the assignment sounds harsh or unreasonable.</p>
<p>Encouragement is fortifying. And it’s easy to inadvertently reinforce a kid’s feeling sorry for himself.</p>
<p>Can’t you just hear your kid telling his friends how even his MOM thinks his teacher’s unfair, and he shouldn’t have to do all this work???</p>
<p>I was on the other side of this fence when my son had one (only one that goodness) teacher who did not require the extra work to prepare the kids to succeed, and barely any kids earned a 3 on that particular AP–even though those same kids earned 5s an almost all other APs. We parents were pretty disappointed in this instructor and would have much preferred a workhorse.
After all, APs are not required.</p>
<p>James11223, Whether or not Northwestern’s online physics class is right for you depends on a lot of things such as your background in the subject matter and whether you are just taking it for the information versus needing a specific grade that will go on your transcript. If you will need a grade for the course, be sure you know how the grade will be determined ie. is it based solely on quizzes and tests or are there other assignments, can you resubmit assignments if you don’t get the grade you want etc. How can you determine if you understand the material without a grade penalty? That was my son’s problem with algebra II. Because there was no way for him to check his homework assignments, he didn’t know he was struggling until he did poorly on a quiz. He opted to drop the class rather than take a B or lower in the course. When he took a different online algebra II course, he ended up with an A because the second course offered more graded assignments as well as instructional videos and power points. There were also some opportunities to resubmit assignments for a better grade. I found out later that Northwestern called its class “independent study”. That’s fine if you already have a grasp of the material and just need a stamp of approval and a grade to show that you already have the knowledge, but not so good if the material is new to you. If I were you, I would just read through the material to find out how your grade is determined, identify whether the instructional methods (if any) work for you and find out when you can drop the course and get your money back if it’s not working. I think it would be much easier to study reading based courses such as social sciences or English online. Math and sciences are a little more problematic.</p>
<p>@mom60 and showmom858</p>
<p>Both my Ds (10 & 12) are riders. My 10 D got a great understanding of the riding options in college from a program called Equestrian Talent Search run by Jim Arrigon at Beckett Farm. It helps understand the pluses and minuses of IHSA vs NCAA, and how to approach coaches. It also is a chance to take a clinic from a great college coach and compete in an IHSA style horse show. They run these clinics/showcases around the country - we did Mt Holyoke. It is particularly useful if your D does not ride IEA in high school. In the end my 10 D found a school with strong academics and strong riding to feed all of her passions.</p>
<p>Advice please…
We are doing the “college tours” and my D is starting to narrow down her search. I think it is good to start now because some of these schools have testing and curriculum requirements she needs to know going into junior year so she is sure to fulfill them. I’m a little concerned about the lack of “safety” and “likely” schools on her list and am looking for suggestions.</p>
<p>She is interested in Communications, English and French. Most likely she will end up in grad school, and is pondering a joint MBA/JD someday.
She has a 4.05 after sophomore year. (3.94 unweighted).
She hasn’t taken the SAT, but in her current practice tests, she is at 2000 with lots of prep to go before Oct., so I expect it will rise.)<br>
AP courses have/will be: AP World, AP Chem, APUSH, AP Eng. Lang, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Art History, AP Govt., AP Econ, AP Bio, and studying on her own, AP French.<br>
She is a varsity softball player (will be 4 years), on the H.S. magazine, and volunteers helping disabled kids play baseball. She has been a camp counselor for two years.</p>
<p>She would prefer not to stay in California. She does not want too big a school. I think 5 to 8 thousand students would be ideal. She doesn’t want too big a city (LA is not good; Cambridge would be good.) She wants a 50/50 ratio of guys to girls. She has to be able to go abroad in Junior year (France.) Although she loves science, it isn’t what she will study, so good liberal arts is the thing. And she loves hanging out with international students. </p>
<p>Here is her list so far, which as you can see, is heavy on the “long shots” (my concern.)
In California:</p>
<p>UCLA
UC Berkeley
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine<br>
Stanford</p>
<p>Out of California:</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Brown
Wesleyan
Northwestern
Emerson
Univ. of Chicago</p>
<p>Are there any schools, in particular back East, that are good, respectable middle to “safety” shots that any of you would recommend we look at?<br>
What about long shots?
(No, she would never agree to Columbia… They have written her numerous times, but that is NYC.) </p>
<p>Thanks for your suggestions. I’m just not that up to speed about schools outside of California (other than Drama/Theatre… what my older D did.)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the quick responses, I’ll wait for the class to start and then I’ll talk to the instructor. I will definetely keep all of you updated and thank you for your help =)</p>
<p>chrissyblu - I don’t have any vast knowledge of back East (not sure what that exactly means) schools but living in South Florida I have know something about U of Miami. UM and Coconut Grove are the right size for your D and UM has tons of international students. Lot of kids do the semester abroad programs there and for your daughter, this school is a match and possibly a safety depending upon her final SAT scores. They give great merit aid to high scoring/gpa kids too without having to fill out the FAFSA or any applications. Worth a looksee anyhow.</p>
<p>chrissyblu, I have to suggest my Son’s school, Wake Forest, as a possibility for your D.</p>
<p>For some reason, I always though U of Miami was big… Am I wrong about that? That is where my husband’s CEO went…</p>
<p>Is Wake Forest in Illinois? Would be be able to see that when we go to Chicago?</p>
<p>The U of Miami has about 9900 undergraduates and about 5000 graduate students. Here is a link to the undergraduate admissions page (and from there you can peruse the website).</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Admission | Enrollment Management | University of Miami](<a href=“http://www.miami.edu/index.php/ug]Undergraduate”>http://www.miami.edu/index.php/ug)</p>
<p>They have non binding early action where you apply by a certain date and get a non binding decision by Feb 1. Also, here is where you can read about their merit scholarships. </p>
<p>[New</a> Freshmen / First Year Students | Enrollment Management | University of Miami](<a href=“http://www.miami.edu/index.php/ug/scholarships/freshmen/]New”>http://www.miami.edu/index.php/ug/scholarships/freshmen/)</p>
<p>chrissyblu - Wake Forest isn’t in Illinois. You would need a seperate trip to the east coast. It’s in North Carolina.</p>
<p>I think maybe chrissyblu is thinking of Lake Forest… ;)</p>
<p>chrissy- bigger than your criteria, but if you are in Boston anyway you might want to check out BU as they have an excellent communications program. Although the school is big, I don’t know how they might “make it smaller” within the individual schools/programs/etc.</p>
<p>@chrissyblu</p>
<p>Midsize in a midsize town is hard to find. I suggest looking at Boston College and Tufts University (suburbs of Boston), University of Rochester, College of William and Mary (VA), and the University of Vermont (maybe a good likely/safety school). For a reach you might want to add Princeton (great college town near enough to the big city). Surprised to see Emerson on your list - really very much an arts school and very much an urban school.</p>