I’d love some advice (or creative suggestions?) on what S24 should do for classes next year.
The tl;dr is we’re trying to decide between in-person dual enrollment classes through a community college or online AP classes.
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Background: S24 has always been homeschooled. We realized in MS he thrives in a more social environment so were working on a few options for HS in person when the pandemic hit. Because of family conditions we knew he’d need to be 100% at home during the worst of the pandemic. We found some decent quality online classes for homeschoolers and he has done well. We debated about what to do for this year, but various considerations meant he ended up doing another year of online school (although this year we found a program that does many AP classes).
His classes have been challenging all through high school, and he has done well (3 semester Bs/34 grades). He got a 1470 on PSAT and 1440 (750 Eng/690 math) on SAT (has taken once early fall).
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Options:
I feel like he should do in-person DE classes because he really doesn’t have any in-person class experience. (I don’t count the homeschool co-op programs and classes he took in middle school, because they were not very like traditional classes.) However, the community college classes we have experienced through S23 have been extremely poor quality and/or pretty low rigor compared to the online classes he is taking. The CC S23 is at wouldn’t let him pass out of more than the intro class of Eng and Calc I, and even the next course in those sequences (which are required before moving on to more interesting upper level classes) were really easy and low expectations of students.
On the other hand, I don’t love the online format for him. 75% of the teachers don’t actually teach; they plan a really thorough and high-quality curriculum, but expect him to learn it all on his own. Many don’t even have once a week class meetings, or office hours, or answer questions by email. He is doing well and learning the material, but I can see the lack of interaction with other people drains his energy. OTOH the classes cover more advanced material and expect more out of the students than the CC classes. Also, I’ve read colleges prefer to see AP classes to DE classes (although that might be different for a homeschooled student).
I haven’t been able to find any in-person homeschool classes that are at his academic level and accessible for us.
He isn’t aiming for any T20 schools. We just want to find a college where he will be able to grow and find what he is passionate about (or at least can tolerate ). Maybe in that case what we do isn’t a big deal?
Anyway, I’d love to hear some ideas and opinions from you all.
Are there any 4 year colleges near you? Some of them will allow homeschoolers (or public schoolers) to take classes there just like community colleges will.
Otherwise, I’d sign up for a couple of CC classes even if they’re subpar because grades in those will be useful on a transcript for college even if the classes don’t transfer. I know what you mean about classes being subpar. Ours often are too. My high stat student was still able to take Microbiology and Public Speaking there. Both were worthwhile for applications and for his future.
If there’s any chance of heading pre-med, be wary of pre-reqs at a community college. Many med schools don’t like them. Note too, all grades will count toward med school admissions even if they don’t count at his college. Both of those applied for my guy, but they might not for yours.
Mine used DE for courses and took APs exams at the end of those courses. If you have quality DE options, there is so much online prep available for AP, you can easily devote couple of weeks to study for the exam.
Are a not-great CC or online DE the only two options? Are there any local public schools that could be viable for a year? is there an independent school option? as @Creekland suggested, a local college that will let him enroll as a non-degree student? Our state has a tuition-free online k-12 option that has both synchronous & asynchronous classes, so there is some real time peer and teacher interaction - does yours? (there are also some similar paid online k-12 options)
Checking out dual enrollment at nearby four-year colleges is a good idea. I originally tried that for S23 and ran into dead ends, but I should check on it again.
S24 has no interest in any medical field, so dual enrollment grades being counted for med school should not be an issue for him. But that is something I didn’t know, so I’m glad to have the information.
Public schools in our state, both in person and online, have testing requirements that are difficult to meet if you come in as a senior (most highschoolers pass the tests as a freshman or a sophomore, and I believe they are only offered in the spring but results aren’t released until the fall). It might not be impossible, but it would be a hassle.
We are very fortunate in CA with free and often quality DE. I realized if I did enough research, there were some incredible teachers out there. But mostly it can be hit and miss here as well.
The way my child approach it is he took the course in the first semester and studied for the exam in the second half. So the year he did physics, he took mechanics in the Fall, and another science course in the spring, but prepped for mechanics on his own. The year after he took E&M in the Fall again and self studied for the test in the spring. Taking Spring courses with exam could be more problematic due to timing. We decided to take this approach because relying on just the exam was risky. He could easily wake up with a massive allergy that day and do poorly on the exam. Having CC credits was a sort of a way to hedge for that risk. If the test didn’t work out, he had credits, but if it did work out, he had good scores to support his grades. Luckily he had a lot of success.
He did however take some AP courses online through PA homeschoolers as well and enjoyed them.
Seems like the answer for this situation is some of both.
Choose some community college courses to give the student a preview of what college is like and experience with in-person classes. Community college courses may be the only options for some subjects for which there is no AP course, or where the student is at a more advanced level than the AP course.
Choose some on-line AP courses in situations where the AP course is better in terms of material coverage than the community college course for similar material.
I was going to ask about a combo.of both. Perhaps DE for the not as important to you/rigorous classes, and AP online for the others.
We ran into a bit of that years ago with my S16. He ran out of math at age 12 in our small private K-8 school. Public wouldn’t let him attend unless he was full-time. So he took pre-calc/applied calc in our not very good CC. He was one of 2 students in applied Calc. Then he went to our local not very selective and never mentioned on CC uni for calc and on. Fortunately, he had a couple of great profs there. One taught him one on one for a semester since his class didn’t work with his school schedule.
And also fortunate that the private school principal did all of the leg work to make it happen in the beginning. It was a pain when I had to do it in HS since he didn’t fit their cookie cutter financial system. I always had to get an upper level person to override the system.
We also ran into pesky testing issues with the public. Our kids did attend the bottom of the barrel HS. We don’t have many options here. But you have to pass standardized tests for math. But you can’t take the test until you’re enrolled. So S had to take tests for classes he had had in 4th grade and the syllabus had changed - added stats stuff. But since it had just changed, there weren’t any practice tests to be had, and he didn’t know beforehand. Fortunately, he just had to pass but still. Ugh
For D17 who was homeschooled the whole way and also had/has some significant atypical neurology about social interaction, we did a combination of both.
We had online for some AP classes in junior and senior year (Am History, Envior Sci) and some non-AP courses. She did DE at a very not-advanced community college for some other courses (Psych, Biology 1, Chem 1, comp sci) and took the APs in Bio and Psych. She did some other AP work and other courses at home with me and took the exams (Latin, Euro History)
Some major advantages for at least a few classes DE even at a lackluster school:
She needed two letters of rec for some colleges. Since I was already writing the counselor letter, DE provided better interaction for that.
More direct interaction in classes with peers which D17 really needed to practice. Others might not need this.
Because I attended a program there myself, we were able to have her take a 200 level DE in a field- Anthropology- with his permission and her ACT scores. She had also audited one of his courses in 9th grade. He was her main letter writer.
Our state at the time paid the DE tuition but not for online AP.
Is it possible to approach a professor and get permission for a higher level course? Especially in non-math fields, this might be an idea.
I will check on this! The dual enrollment counselor at the CC S23 attends for DE is friendly but not very helpful. I had not thought to ask the professor directly.
OP- I attended a huge urban HS where the goal was to avoid any unnecessary interactions with an adult. I was pretty successful at that.
I got to college and quickly saw that the kids from prep schools actually reached out to and engaged adults whenever possible- they went to professor’s office hours and got suggestions for reading lists or movies or recent articles that the professor thought might interest them. They didn’t put up with something broken in the dorm- they met with the housing Dean, presented the list of problems and got it fixed. When the salad bar in the dining hall became a sad and soggy mess of canned corn and wilted green stuff, they asked for an appointment with food services AND the nutritionist and before you knew it- actual fresh, green salad appeared.
In retrospect, I see this as a core skill that I eventually developed in college (watching friends and dormmates) but it really is a survival skill with immediate pay off once you get to college. The first C I got on a paper wasn’t because I was dumb- it was because I picked a topic and never thought to show up at the professor’s office to ask, “I’m thinking about Topic A- can we talk about it?” So I ended up with a dead end topic with limited primary sources and I spent a year after that working harder- not smarter- to overcompensate for my C.
You know your kid. If online school has effectively taught the importance of being able to ask for help, getting interventions, relying on professionals to get stuff done- then terrific. But if not- figuring out an in-person option, even if the DE class isn’t as intellectually rigorous as an online option- might be the better payout in the long term.
I know it sounds crazy in retrospect- but at my HS it was really an “us vs. them” mentality. (we were only a few years past the seniors burning LBJ’s effigy on the front lawn to protest the Viet Nam war and the draft). But “us vs. them” or even “I can get an education without calling attention to myself” isn’t the way to maximize the college experience. The first time a professor invited me to tea I panicked-- how had I messed up? But it was seriously just tea. In his office, chatting about that week’s reading. No agenda. Just a friendly way to let me know that if I ever got stuck on anything, he’d be happy to help. (and I did need him later on- two final exams scheduled back to back, not enough time to get from one to the other, let alone time to go to the bathroom. And he picked up the phone, called his colleague from another department and said “Let’s help Blossom do her best this semester. Shall I give the exam at another time or do you want to?”
Anything that maximizes the personal interactions between teacher and student in this final year of HS is likely a great payout!
And this is another good reason Public Speaking is a great course for most high schoolers, homeschooled or not, who want to go to college. There are few jobs that have no speaking to groups, etc, and there’s the bonus of helping with interviews, plus just getting over the fear of speaking. A good class not only teaches prep for the content, but also human reactions/body language, etc.
For any DE class - or future college class, if your student can develop a working relationship with the professor, there are many skills that tend to be built besides academics.
Our experience was different, but we were really focused on adding socialization from courses with others to academic needs being dealt with in part from homeschooling. So, we partially homeschooled ShawSon. We did not use college courses but our public HS is highly ranked in a state that is ranked as having great school systems.
ShawSon was and is ridiculously gifted and severely dyslexic. The HS really was not teaching him how to write (or, earlier in his education, read, but he’d mastered that). Also, some courses like HS math were trivial for him (he covered junior honors math in 3 hours a week in one semester and got a perfect score on the final). But, ShawWife did not want him working solely on his own or with only a tutor.
So, he took lab science, art and social studies courses at the high school. Again, the main reasons were socialization for a math/computer/strategy/board games nerd – he wasn’t running into a lot of females in that crowd – and in the latter two, pretty good instruction. We wanted him to socialize with other kids and have some exposure to females. It worked to some extent. He competed in Moot Court and made friends there and created some clubs (one focused on games of strategy IIRC). With respect to females, much more modest success but ok.
Interestingly, he had a lot of recommendations but the Deputy Superintendent of Schools, who had suggested partial homeschooling after seeing his psychological testing and meeting with me, offered to write one of his recommendations.
I hear you on the poor quality of community college classes! This is why I think that DE classes are mostly not worth it, unless they’re AP classes taught in the high school with the teachers certified to be teaching the same curriculum as the flagship state U’s corresponding classes.
Is your local public high school any good? If it is, the best option for him would be to enroll there, taking all AP classes. This would provide him with a typical social environment, and classes that likely have high standards. But I guess that if this had been an appropriate option, he would have already been there since Sept '21, when school was pretty much back to normal.
Many private and public 4 yr colleges will allow a senior to take one class a semester for free. I suggest that you approach all the 4 yr colleges within driving distance of you. He can probably cobble together 4 or even 5 classes a semester this way. However, they won’t provide him with a normal high school social environment, just a college in-person classroom setting. Maybe he could also join some clubs at the colleges, fun social clubs, like the ping pong club or the gaming club, just to get some relaxed hang-out time with peers? After all, he’ll only be one year younger than the freshmen.
With your son’s PSAT and SAT scores, the MCAS should be incredibly easy for him to pass, without studying. You have to realize that this is a very basic competency exam that all MA high schoolers are expected to pass. Perhaps you could ask the local public school to allow him to sit for the MCAS this spring. Surely he could take it next spring if he is enrolled, and he most definitely would pass it. I wouldn’t let the MCAS keep you from enrolling him in high school.
The teaching at the HS isn’t great and the disciplinary scene is pretty rough. Overall, it doesn’t seem like the educational benefits would outweigh the drawbacks of such a dramatic change in routine and social experience for one year. (He has friends and social outlets now, but HS is its own unique thing, especially coming in as a senior. He’ll adjust to college, but that will be different from HS.)
After reading everyone’s advice, I’m looking into our closest state university to see if they will do dual enrollment. I tried to reach out to them last year for S23, and they never got back to me. But I’m starting earlier for S24 and I will be more persistent. Our closest UMass also says they do DE so I’m going to look into that (although it is more expensive and a bit further drive than either the state university or the community college).
My current thought is to have him take Engineering Physics 1 & 2 and Calc 2 & 3 in person at whichever of the schools works out. And then, depending on the schedule and what sparks his interest and the cost, have him do his ELA/SS/elective classes either DE or online (APs if appropriate).
@MAmomto4 , I think you’ve got it! I too was going to suggest a combo. If you get at all derailed, just check your revised plan against your objectives to make sure it’s getting you what you want.
My child was in the local public high school, but I found that I had to work out the DE classes on my own with the local colleges (both private and public). I called the registrars office, and got leads from there on how to proceed. Only after I had a contact and tentative verbal approval from the college did I involve the guidance office at the high school, since if I’d started with them, nothing would have ever happened.
Every school that I approached, both private and public, was willing to let the child take one class each semester there, either entirely for free, or just for the registration fee (meaning tuition was waived). If they’re willing to do it for any nearby high school, they’ll probably extend it to a home schooler. So don’t be afraid to ask! Your son could probably take the Physics at one school, and the Calc at another, and maybe even an English Comp or Lit class at a third, all at little to no cost to you, other than gas money and maybe a registration fee.
). Maybe in that case what we do isn’t a big deal?