<p>I am a homeschooled and wonder if I should take a subject course at Houston Community college. Just so that I would have something from outside my own grading system. Any homeschoolers who would recommend this?</p>
<p>Yes, I would highly recommend this. You will be asked for teacher recommendations--pretty hard to do when all you can hand them is from mom (and I'm a mom!). My two oldest found that taking classes whilst still in high school was a good transition. They did not know about how to keep other students from cheating off of them during tests--it's not something that I thought to cover... ;-) Many highly selective schools would like to see some traditional classwork from hs students.</p>
<p>btw--we didn't have a problem with recommendations with dd#1--she had plenty of profs to write them. But, when it came time for dd#2, her academies wanted English, math and science profs. THAT was a problem. We ended up using her swim coach--she's a journalism major that would periodically help her with some papers. They also wanted a school administrator--and that was a problem. We used the head of our local college's music department. My dd has taken piano from her for years. The woman has a PhD, and is certainly an administrator, but the Congressmen's office was NOT happy. She ended up getting a nomination from that office, but it wasn't pretty for a bit... So, think about a class in a core area. If you want to go into a scientific field, you might choose math or science with lab.</p>
<p>My sons also took some outside classes, and I think it was very helpful. As heartcross says, it is a good transition, as well as being a way to get letters of recommendation. Having some college courses already under your belt when you start fulltime is a good confidence booster. And you don't worry whether you will manage in a classroom because you have already done so.</p>
<p>Right now the only option i can think of is taking an honors course at the Houston Community College during the spring. Is that the sort of thing you are talking about, or do you suggest that I take a spring program somewhere else, like a private institution?</p>
<p>where you take a course doesn't matter. Just go for a good educational experience that will also let you get to know potential letter writers. It can be a CC course, a high school course, a homeschooler course, a university course, for credit, not for credit, an internship, work with a tutor, summer programs. It doesn't really matter too much what you do. But you have to do SOMETHING outside your home that will generate some people other than your family who know you in an academic way and can potentially write you rec letters.</p>
<p>Your recommendations don't <em>have</em> to come from instructors in the traditional sense.</p>
<p>My daughter has coaches, volunteer coordinators, church leaders, and other members of the community that will gladly write recommendations for her, even though she's never taken any outside classes, nor does she plan to (the "local" community college is 45 minutes away, one way, so taking classes there is just not feasible).</p>
<p>She's also taking eight AP exams to 'verify' that the grades given in her classes are accurate. And, from what I've been told by several colleges, that's what they're looking for: "outside verification that the 'A' she received in Biology, for example, is really an 'A'."</p>
<p>And, she'll receive college credit for high AP scores, just as she would if she'd taken classes at the community college.</p>
<p>Kelly</p>
<p>Right, so by taking exams I am also veryifying the validity of my scores and abilities. Thanks for all the info</p>
<p>Well, many engineering schools DO want specific math/science recommendations. If you did say, Science Olympiad, that teacher would probably count, but if they say science teacher, they do NOT want your youth group leader's recommendation. That non-core leader might be a great one for another area (we used coaches and music professors) but not for math/science/English. The APs are a great idea, but again, not a recommendation writer. As always, check with the college to verify what they want.</p>
<p>at various times for various programs my son has gotten letters from two coaches of academic competitions he competed in, two profs at the local univ. who had s. in a class, a mentor from a summer math program, a math grad student who tutored him, and a homeschooling mom who taught a couple of homeschooler classes which included my s. I also coach a homeschooler math team and write letters for kids on my team (although not my son).</p>
<p>CRbomber - you cannot be certain that signing up for one class will be enough. Go to the apps of colleges you are interested in and see what their specific requirements are on recommenders. If you take an English class, and they want a letter from a math/science teacher, you still need to figure out how you're going to get that. Also, if you are taking a class primarily for the purpose of getting a rec letter, it isn't enough to simply get a good grade. You have to make sure that the instructor knows who you are. This does not always happen naturally in a CC class. Speak up in class, go to office hours and talk to the instructor, or whatever else you can think of so that he recognizes you when you have to ask for letters.</p>
<p>On grades - don't rely on parent assigned grades as having any weight at all with colleges. Some threshold number of key courses need to be backed up with some outside documentation. That can be with scores on standardized tests, letters from an instructor, grades in actual courses (distance learning, CC, or whatever), performance in academic competitions, or a portfolio. Not all colleges have the resources or inclination to evaluate a portfolio, so if you plan to go that route you should talk to the admissions offices of colleges you think you'll apply to.</p>
<p>Taking outside courses provide at least three things that will help on your application. First, you will have objective grades from an outside source. Second, you will get classroom experience and demonstrate that you can hold your own in that setting. And third, they give you a chance to show how passionate you are about your interests and that you have initiative to pursue them outside the home.</p>
<p>If you know where you will be applying it's a good idea to contact their admissions office and find out what they would like to see from homeschoolers. </p>
<p>We dropped in and chatted with an admissions officer at my daughter's first choice university when she was a homeschooled h.s. sophmore. He told her she would need grades from outside and when she told him she was taking University of Nebraska Independent Study High School courses, he was very happy. He said it was a highly respected program, and they did in fact admit her when she applied. (ISHS now offers AP couses, which were not available at that time.)</p>
<p>We have no colleges within commuting distance, so the distance learning courses worked out well for her. Had there been a college or university within reach, she would have gone that route. To get classroom experience, she took two classes at the local high school.</p>
<p>Today at 8:30 AM I went to HCC to apply for the Dual Credit Challenge Program. So far everything is going well. I took the THEA/COMPASS test (are they the same?) for placement, and according to the counsellors, I did pretty well. Thank y'all for all the help. (I really needed the drive to apply.) :)</p>
<p>Tommorow I will pick my courses.(You have no idea how excited I am since this is the only outside course i have taken since elementary school.)</p>
<p>CRbomber650, congratulations on getting that all worked out! Let us know how it goes.</p>
<p>yes, keep us posted on what you decide to take and how it all goes. If you take courses that correspond to AP subjects, considering doing a little extra prep for the exam so that you have both the course grade and the exam score for your college apps. </p>
<p>There are some Yahoo group lists that might be useful to you, including homeschool2college, hs2coll, and giftedivyprephomeschoolers. There are also some books and websites for homeschoolers figuring out how to present what they have done to prospective colleges. Do some googling.</p>
<p>I will check into that texas137. Today I found out that I can enter in any college course that I want. But things are a little complicated since I registered for their 'second start' term, since i missed the first start. All the seats for general biology were taken, but after talking to a "'special case' counselor" she managed to get me in it! The same went for US history. </p>
<pre><code> Unfortunately, though, they don't offer a second start for either calculus, precalc, or trig. I am a junior, and as i said before, i haven't done much outside academic work. all they have is either finite math or college algebra. Do you recemmend that I should take either one instead of nothing?
</code></pre>
<p>Or will colleges see that i took an easy course in my junior year and think that i did not challenge myself?</p>
<p>if you're doing bio and hx at the CC, that's probably enough. Go ahead and continue math on your own or through a distance learning program like EPGY or <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/cee/dec/%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/cee/dec/</a> If you continue on your own, it would be nice if you could do the calc AP exam in the spring for documentation purposes but you may not have time to get through enough of it. </p>
<p>I don't know about finite math, but "college algebra" is really just algebra II. If you're doing pre-calc now, you're probably past that. There should be an advisor at the CC who could give you some guidance if you wanted to do math at the CC. But like I said, 2 courses seems like enough to start out.</p>
<p>Honestly, I have been following a very "untraditional" method for learning math. I looked at some books on precalculus, and I saw that it is something like Algebra II at an extremely advanced level. I have covered most of the content in my algebra II book in depth, except for some trig, logarithmic functions, and combinations/permutations.
I dont think I will be ready for the AP CALC test in May, but I sure will take the SAT Math Level II exam once I get the stuff I previously mentioned out the way.</p>
<p>I also dont want to take the risk of being considered a transfer student if I take too many courses. Is this option good or bad? (I think bad, because thats what I have heard most people tell me.</p>
<p>One last thing. What is EPGY?</p>
<p>my son also followed a very "untraditional" path for math. He never used a math textbook until calculus. We did not both to document any high school math courses below calculus. But he had documentation from the calculus AP exam, performance on math contests, and grades in college courses beyond calculus. </p>
<p>EPGY is a distance learning program thru Stanford with college level math courses. <a href="http://epgy.stanford.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://epgy.stanford.edu/</a></p>
<p>As long as you are taking courses as a dual enrolled high school student, not as a degree-seeking college student, you will not be considered a transfer student when you apply to 4 year colleges. It has to do with how you are classified when you register at the community college, not with the number of courses you take. You're starting so late, that you aren't going to have more than a few courses between now and when you apply next fall anyway.</p>
<p>would it be a good idea to take the EPGY course during the summer (instead of spring)? I just dont know if doing an additional course could be an overload of work.
Now that I have the spring semester out of the way, I am thinking about the summer. So far, I have considered COSMOS, Mathcamp, PROMYS and RSI (sent my application yesterday). What else would anyone recommend?</p>