<p>Does anyone have any experience with the online math courses given through CTY? My daughter is feeling frustrated by the slow pace of her geometry class and would like to take algebra II before next fall so she can skip ahead to precalc. I've previously been reluctant to have her accelerate too much but she's really motivated. I'm curious to know what experiences people have had dealing with high schools and how credit and transcripts have been handled for students taking outside classes.</p>
<p>Do not have experience with math courses, but my son took two CTY distance writing courses. Wonderful experience for him. We had to request CTY assign a grade, which they normally do not do, preferring a written evaluation, but will do if requested. The grade and written evaluation were given to my son's school, which then reflected the courses on his official HS transcript.</p>
<p>As long as she is motivated, she'll love it. There's not much hand-holding though, or prodding, so she has to be a self starter.</p>
<p>My son doesn't like the online courses for math -- he needs to be able to ask for an explantion -- but we have found that the community college works great. Would that be a possibility for the summer? </p>
<p>Also -- have you thought of having her actually attend the CTY program this summer and take the class? It is a blast for the kids and there is someone to answer questions.</p>
<p>My son (currently a junior) completed honors algebra II last year in high school, but due to scheduling conflicts, could not fit precalculus into his schedule this year. He began honors precalculus through the Stanford EPGY distance learning program at the beginning of September, and completed the class in three months. He is now almost through their Calculus A course, and hope to complete Calculus B in time to take the AP test in May. He has really enjoyed the experience: the online lectures are excellent, and there are weekely live interactive computer sessions with the teacher if further explanations are needed (though he has not needed these). The student can move at his/her own pace, and quizzes and exercises are intelligently designed; if the student is not mastering the material in a particular section, more problems are generated until the student answers most correctly. I recommend the program highly for the self-motivated student. I wish we had known about the program sooner, as I think he would have enjoyed moving more quickly through algebra and geometry.</p>
<p>His high school counselor told us prior to his taking these courses that the high school will note the courses and the grades on his transcript in a special "comments" section, though the grades won't factor into his high school GPA. On college applications, he will list the courses and grades under 11th grade coursework, though he will note that the course was taken through Stanford EPGY. It will be up to the colleges to determine how they will count the grades.</p>
<p>" I've previously been reluctant to have her accelerate too much". Why?</p>
<p>Kid in this family started distance learning EPGY early. Finished Calc BC by middle of 7th Grade and got a 5 on the AP Calc BC exam. OK, that seemed to be a little too much math acceleration, so he switched to EPGY calculus-based Physics C Mechanics in 8th Grand and did well.</p>
<p>She will take a math enrichment course through CTY this summer, but not the individually paced math sequence. I don't think our local CC has algebra II and it's not close by so scheduling could be problematic.</p>
<p>Regarding why I didn't push for more acceleration earlier, I guess I feared that algebra and geometry wouldn't be too hard but that she'd hit calculus and struggle if she was too young. She's really blossomed in the past year. She did a science course through CTY last summer and came home with confidence and a positive attitude. The gap between her performance in math and that of her peers seems to be widening. </p>
<p>Another issue is course scheduling in the future. Being off grade level in a school with few honors sections and block scheduling may create problems with some of her other classes. She's really frustrated with the pace of her geometry class though and motivated to move forward so I think it's the right thing to do. I'm going to contact her guidance counselor next and see what he thinks. I don't think there are other kids at her school going this route so there may not be a policy in place regarding outside work.</p>
<p>Don't let the system beat you down. Above all, ignore all BS discussion of "age-appropriate" learning or whatever jargon they might use to hold your child back. On the other hand, you might indeed be in for scheduling and other hassles through 12th grade.</p>
<p>One aspect of distance learning that needs to be emphasized is your child's organizational style. My son registered for a math course several years ago, but never completed the course. He enjoyed the math itself, but was too much of a procrastinator and not sufficiently self-disciplined to pull himself away from other activities and spend the time needed to work on the course. When he signed up for the course, we'd promised not to nag him about time-management issues. We let him sink on this one, but made him contribute to paying the tuition that had been sent down the drain. </p>
<p>Lesson learned: kids who enroll in distance learning courses should not only be interested in acceleration and great at independent learning, but also not need the pressure of deadlines to complete assignments that in-person courses provide.</p>
<p>It will depend on the school. My son took Calculus BC in 9th grade and wanted three more years of math in high school. The public school system adamantly refused to let him do EPGY. So, for this and some other reasons, he transferred to a private school that allowed the EPGY.</p>
<p>Also, you need to check the policy about skipping subjects. My son skipped middle school math, including algebra 1, because he knew them from CTY and EPGY courses. However, the school system would not simply accept his grades for these things. I had to argue with them and finally they said he could skip anything where he took the school's final and got an A. Then he took the tests, got the A's, and again they tried to say he was too young to go to the high school for math. More argument ensued ... and then he finally got into the right math.</p>
<p>So don't assume that your school will accept outside classes.</p>