AP on-line classes and AP exams.

Pre-College Issues Home Schooling and College
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<p>Hello all!</p>

<p>I am hoping you could give me some good suggestions about AP classes and AP exams.
I have 2 children, they are 8th and 9th graders.
We just started homeschooling this year. They were in public school K - 8th, but I gave up on public school, too much time is wasted...
Kids are enrolled in private on-line school (Laurel Springs) now. We live in CA and we like that LS school has approved a-g courses for UC, however we wanted to be able to accelerate our kids, who are very capable and bright, with more AP classes and exams. Kids want to try for Ivy League schools and places like Stanford or Berkley in the future...
LS offers AP's, but they are offered later, in 11 and 12th grades mostly and have a bunch of prerequisites.
I wonder if I can just sign them up for additional online AP classes next year and have them take their AP exams at the end of the school year?
Did anybody have experience doing it? If so, could you please share this experience and recommend a good on-line place to do it?
Another option is to take some AP courses or even do a dual enrollment in local college and take an AP exam after that, but I do not know if this a better option.
Please share your opinion/experience, </p>

<p>thanks again,
Lana</p>

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<p>Typically, in ps, AP subjects are for grades 10 and up. If you are enrolled in a private homeschool, their rules will dictate. You need to work with the LS counselor to create an academic plan. FYI, courses are not actually required to take the AP Exam. </p>

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<p>I’m a homeschooler in CA (10th grade) and doing both self-study for AP testing and dual enrollment. Last year I took AP English Language (and could have taken BC Calc, which I did at a community college). This year I’ll be doing literature, physics C, US history, CS, and possibly BC calc (not sure about placement yet).</p>

<p>My experience is sort of mixed:
AP self-study / online
Motivation and current level is key to doing well through self-study. For me, the AP test gives me a reason to focus and helps me do better. However I also put it off because of other dual enrollment classes / other things at home / robotics. </p>

<p>Amplify has a MOOC (online, free course) for AP CS, and it’s working pretty well for me. However, math/science have come easier to me, and I’ve had prior experience with coding (not Java though).
I’m doing physics with a mix of Princeton Review prep books and online stuff. Khanacademy is generally really good, and MIT has an opencourseware. Again, I can’t really say how easy it’d be to completely learn it from books/online since I’ve done a lot of it in calc / differential equations.</p>

<p>I sort of enjoy reading AP prep books, which is good because it’s how I prepare. :slight_smile: I go to the library and browse through a few different brands for the subject I need it for, and pick the one that I’d actually read. I like Princeton Review best in general. I’ll either borrow or buy that one, and just work through practice problems to prepare. I also use them to actually learn the subject, which may or may not work depending on how easily you can learn theory from limited explanation.</p>

<p>Dual Enrollment
Completely depends on the quality of your community college (if that’s what your looking at). I got lucky, and the one near our house is really good. The classes I’ve taken are at least as challenging as regular HS classes (compared with friends), and a lot of classes are pretty close to AP subjects.</p>

<p>I also enjoy the environment, both the freedom and my classmates/teachers. Being ~4 years younger than almost all the students I know is annoying though, but I get along pretty well (I think I was passing for being a regular student for a while, so that may help)</p>

<p>The biggest benefit to me is having someone to keep me on track, as well as having teachers other than myself / my mom. She also said she wouldn’t teach calculus when I said I wanted to do it in 9th grade, which was how I got started.</p>

<p>General
My general experience has been good; without AP or SAT testing I probably wouldn’t have gotten through half as much material. I think it worked well for me because I decided which tests I would take, not my parents. In fact it was the opposite; my mom tried to dissuade me from taking them because she thought it wasn’t necessary / too stressful for me.
I don’t think it’s bad to slowly ease into AP tests (1 or 2 for 9/10 grade, then a few more later). Placement sort of levels out after a few, and I’ve heard after 6-9 the benefits aren’t as great. It really boiled down to the fact that I wanted to take them for me, rather than placement / advantages when applying to college.</p>

<p>Wow, that was really long…hopefully something in there was helpful. If you have any other questions I’d be happy to try to answer them!</p>

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<p>You may want explore Stanford Online High School. Kids take classes according to ability there.</p>

<p><a href=“https://ohs.stanford.edu/[/url]”>https://ohs.stanford.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also your kids can take AP classes from EPGY, CTY, AoPS:</p>

<p><a href=“http://giftedandtalented.com%5B/url%5D”>http://giftedandtalented.com</a></p>

<p><a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/[/url]”>http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/[/url]”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Thank you so much for the replies! Andr01d - I am very impressed! You took some AP’s in 9th Grade, I think it is great! My children are not anywhere near of your level of maturity hopefully, it will change soon…</p>

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<p>Actually, Andro1d I do have a question, since you are in CA as well , I waned to ask you about lab science and UC-approved high school courses. UC states that online laboratory science (“d”) courses will be approved by UC if they include a teacher-supervised, hands-on lab component that accounts for at least 20 percent of class time. Computer-simulated labs and lab kits are not an acceptable alternative to the required wet labs. My older daughter is taking science with labs on-line right now, but it is not going to be considered satisfactory by UC. What is the best alternative? To take courses in local college? They seem to be reluctant to admit a kid who is only a freshman. How did you get them to admit you so early? </p>

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<p>@Lanaana‌: The community college I take classes at has a K-12 program. In K-9 there are a few (~10?) courses I could pick from, and in 10-12 I can pick any UC or USC transferable course (most academic courses). I honestly quite confused about lab requirements too. Last year I did an informal microbiology data collection/analysis with a few other students and a microbiologist, but the charter school I was in recorded it as “community service.” This year I tried to do physics at the community college, but it was completely full. </p>

<p>That is a common issue with CCs–I have lower priority than all regular students, so almost all classes are full by the time I can register. I try to talk to the teacher beforehand, but for physics, because of lab space/safety, I didn’t get in. For 9th grade the priority is even lower (I could register on the day of class only, now I get 2 weeks </p>

<p>I was doing labs at a private school where you can schedule labs by the hour, but because of timing I’ll be doing them at home next semester. I believe (my mom has said) that she can supervise them, and I’ll type up lab reports to have some “proof” I did them. </p>

<p>If you are interested, the Yahoo group hs2coll is homeschool specific, and there may have been a discussion on this. I can’t seem to search it properly, but there is one discussion (Honors/AP Chemistry & Physics Labs) on science labs and where some people did them. </p>