<p>I’ve been thinking, maybe if I do the IS during the year and colleges still want credit, I could possibly find someplace that gives you credit if you just write the exam. There’s a Canadian University of Phoenix thing that does something similar, but I dunno how reliable that is.</p>
<p>Avoid anything to do with University and Phoenix.</p>
<p>If your school transcripts it, then colleges shouldn’t have a problem accepting that you did math/science/whatever.</p>
<p>If you want credit for the course when you get INTO college, it <em>may</em> be easier if it’s an outside college course, but that varies incredibly. Placement is usually easier to get than credit (e.g., Oh, you need DEs, but you’ve already taken that. Why don’t you take PDE instead?)</p>
<p>If you want college credit, you’ll need to take a college class. (Though I wholeheartedly agree that Phoenix + education = a bad idea.) No college worth attending would give you credit for a high school independent study arrangement. </p>
<p>I agree with mathinokc that placement is usually easier to get than credit. If you have actually mastered the material. I helped with math course placements at my undergraduate college and we would have asked you to retake the courses you learned on your own unless you made a VERY compelling case for yourself. Most students simply wouldn’t learn the material very well with no one guiding them or holding them accountable. Think about it like this: if you were able to pick up a book and learn a new mathematical subject with all its subtleties on your own, you would have the mathematical maturity of an advanced PhD student. I would be very impressed if you could pull it of.</p>
<p>There are some schools that have their own credit-by-exam arrangements. Basically, they let you challenge courses by taking the final. Note, however, that for some courses you will have to wait until the end of the fall semester to do that challenge.</p>
<p>Interesting thoughts!</p>
<p>I will be writing a paper on what I’ve learned and combining that knowledge with Physics C/computational modeling which will be evaluated by my teacher who has a graduate degree in the area. Plus, I’ll be writing a proposal for this whole venture and submitting it to my principal and also giving her a presentation about what I did at the end of the term. So in a sense, I will be evaluated/guided. I did something similar with this on Special Relativity last year and it turned out well (as just an individual class project). </p>
<p>I don’t care at all about getting credit in college/even placing out. The class I might want to place out of would be single variable calc (and even so, some of the schools I like will not give me credit for that). If I do LA+ Calc III + DEs or anything beyond that, I’ll definitely retake the class, no questions asked. These are important concepts that I want to learn properly, and even if I do understand everything well, it’ll be an easier mark and I can do more reading if I want to. Plus, I’m pretty sure the top schools have multiple streams. </p>
<p>Thanks for the responses though! I’m between taking the EPGY course and doing the IS, which would be more stressful/costly or just doing the IS and working on math contests too.</p>
<p>Many colleges will love what you are doing. Independent projects like this show a lot of motivation, discipline and “passion.” The fact that you are already past advanced classes in your school is also impressive- but even more so is the way you are going about solving the problem.</p>
<p>I wonder if you could find a mentor on a university faculty, who would work privately with you on this independent work, every once in awhile. Just someone to touch base with and give some guidance.</p>
<p>ecouter11 --</p>
<p>I don’t know that doubling up by doing an online course and an independent study over the same materials adds anything to your application.</p>
<p>I do that think doing one of those plus math contest work DOES add something (both to the content you’re learning and to your application).</p>