Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

<p>I do not think so. Unless school will cover it somehow.</p>

<p>@dragonflygarden, German resource for high school credit: <a href=“http://germanonline.okstate.edu/”>German Online Closing | Oklahoma State University;

<p>@petrichor11, we have never gotten any AP test refunds, and D16 has gotten “5” on three now. Perhaps it is an incentive through your school though?</p>

<p>@AKFirefly: I wouldn’t think so. I think I have a kid who isn’t hearing properly.</p>

<p>@AKFirefly‌ Thank you. I’ll look into it.</p>

<p>@petrichor11 - never heard of a refund on the AP test fees. Sounds like wishful thinking :)</p>

<p>I know that kids who qualify for a free meal get the first AP test free and the rest of them with the large discount.</p>

<p>Yeah, I have no idea even what could have been misinterpreted into that!
Our district pays the fees for any AP attached to a class taken at your school. If you self-study or do virtual school, you’re on your own. We’ll be on the hook for one, possibly two-- and my son is as tight as they come, so he was hoping he was bringing me good news. Who knows what really was said!</p>

<p>It is nice that your district pays for all AP attached to the class. In California, you only get discount if you get free meal. At the end of the year I will have to pay a nice bill for 6 APs.</p>

<p>Ugh! D16 just announced that she wants to change one of her choices for summer reading for AP English because she says the instructions were to pick “challenging” books and one of the ones she picked off the list wasn’t challenging enough <sigh>. She doesn’t think she’ll have a problem reading the new choice book and doing the required report in the two days before school starts. I’m thinking this is her way of getting out of church and chores!</sigh></p>

<p>As for test prep she has been following through on her 5 hour a week commitment to the Prep Scholar program and to the practice tests assigned by her local tutor. It looks like she is about a third of the way through the Prep Scholar program (excluding the essay part) already. It’s still going well and as a nice surprise they sent D a new copy of the CB Blue Book, guess it’s included in the cost of the course but I must have missed that. D also finished her prescribed lessons before her time commitment and was given the offer of additional assignments so that’s good but I’m a bit concerned she’ll hit the mastery level of each section well before the PSAT in 8 weeks. She’s decided to add independent vocab study to her test prep time. She just got the Direct Hits Hard vocab (I think this used to be volume 2?) and I sent her a list vocab words I saw posted on CC. I don’t think vocab is really an issue for her but more study can’t hurt and it was something she chose
 </p>

<p>She had her second appointment with the private PSAT/SAT tutor and felt that she could have got the answers to the questions she missed on her own and felt it was a waste of time to do a section of the CB Blue book while she was with him. I asked her to give it one more shot since she stepped to every other week and if she still doesn’t feel it is helping her she can drop the tutor altogether.</p>

<p>Anyone have any experience with PrepMe within Naviance? My DS is not concerned about achieving NM but does need a refresher on some ACT math. </p>

<p>@Cheeringsection, Our school has Naviance but this is the first I’ve heard of PrepMe. I looked through my d’s Naviance account and couldn’t find it. I Googled it and think it’s an option of Naviance that our school doesn’t provide. It looks like the same idea as the PrepScholar program. I’d encourage your daughter to give it try since she has access to it. Our school provides no help in test prep</p>

<p>I’ve also been looking at a site called majortest.com for additional practice tests. The site appears to be free but it doesn’t look like they offer anything for the ACT. Is ACT math much different from ACT math?</p>

<p>just signed up our D16 for SAT prep in classroom using Princeton Review. com. She needs to physically go somewhere to get the job done rather than do online study. We’ll see how it goes!</p>

<p>@3scoutsmom‌, does prepscholar send assignments for kids to do or do they just work at their own pace? In other words, when S went for his drivers license he did it online. The company sent him a link to a website and just told him to get the work done before he took the test. He waited almost until the last minute to study. If prepscholar tells him what to complete each week then he will do it. So do they give assignments with due dates or do they just send everything and tell you to get it done by the SAT date? I am curious to how it works. Also, are you doing the $400 course?</p>

<p>Yes @Mysonsdad It’s the $400 course and yes they assign weekly lessons. Every week the student has to fill out a schedule stating when they plan to work on the program (parents get forwarded a copy of the students study plan;-) ) There are three tabs on the program, the Dash Board, Strategies, and Progress. On the Dashboard page it lists the students lessons for the week. When the student passes the quiz at the end of the lesson that lesson is complete and the progress bar on the progress pager for that skill is updated. In the upper right corner of the Dashboard it tracks how much time the student has actually spent working on the program that week and tracks their progress toward their goal based on the weekly schedule the student submitted. Parents are also sent a weekly progress report, of course if you have the log on info you can always go in and check for yourself when ever you want:-) </p>

<p>PrepScholar sending a copy of CB Blue Book makes sense now. One of her assignments this week was to take a SAT practice test. Since she did the placement test and all the other work she was assigned on line, I thought the practice tests would be on-line but I just saw her at the kitchen table taking a test out of the Blue Book. I wonder if they will ask her to report her score to them? She told me earlier that she was doing a timed full length practice test so I’ll have to wait a few hours before I can ask her.</p>

<p>^^^ She was taking the test out of the book and inputting each answer into the program (didn’t notice the iPad on the table). The program scores it once she’s done (she only did half of it today) and the score will show on her progress page. Since she’s prepping for the PSAT at the moment she just submitted a blank essay. She’ll work on her essay writing from mid Oct to January. I’m not exactly sure how she’ll be able to go back and do the essay sections later, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but I was told that the essays are graded by real people - it’s not automated, I’m interested in seeing how that works when she gets there.</p>

<p>Wow that sounds like an awesome program @3scoutsmom‌. How did you find out about it? Do you know anyone else who has used it?</p>

<p>@Mysonsdad I heard it mentioned here on CC, where else! Frankly some of the reviews sounded planted but other seemed genuine. I did some Google searching too. I don’t know anyone else that has personally used the program but it really sounded like just what I was looking for and my D certainly has no problem telling me what works for her and what doesn’t for her! Between the 5 day free trial and money back guarantee I figured it I didn’t have anything to risk. If she can get a 2300+ after this for the SAT (hopefully a 230+ on the PSAT) she’ll certainly get more than $400 in merit money and if she scores under 2300 I get my money back, not just some offer of “extra instruction” like other programs. </p>

<p>Being a homeschool mom I have had a lot of experience with various on-line programs. There are a few things I like to see done differently but all in all, so far, I have been very, very pleased with PrepScholar. I have been obsessed with test prep and have done a lot of research on various test prep programs, D jokes that I won’t know what to do with myself after she takes the PSAT but I just remind her she has two younger brothers <insert evil="" grin=""></insert></p>

<p>Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions @3scoutsmom‌ </p>