PA Homeschoolers
AP Online
Test Preparation Classes for 2013-2014—Will be open
for registration on February 28th, 2013!
Registration will open for the 2013-2014 school year by the end of
February 2013—we will then have everything updated and ‘ready for registering’ —
and we should have a new website ‘look’ then too! This will
be our 18th year of offering AP test preparation classes online to homeschoolers all over the country (and even
homeschoolers living abroad). You do not have
to live in Pennsylvania to take part. We hope your family will find courses
here that meet your goals for the coming school year. All of our courses are
full-year courses, and all start in early fall.
PA Homeschoolers Online will again offer a wide range of Advanced Placement (AP)
test preparation classes for homeschooled high school students from all across
the country for the 2013-2014 school year. It looks
now like all of our current teachers will continue with their excellent courses
from last year— and feel welcome right now to email any teachers directly to
let them know of your interest in their course and to ask any questions you
might have.
All of
our course descriptions will be updated by the end of February—right now we
still have up *this* year’s course descriptions, and these will still give you
a good sense of what to expect. Each description will specify the application
procedure required for that particular class—this will vary for each course. Once the teacher has verified to the family
that a student is accepted to a class, the family can then pay tuition either
online at www.pahomeschoolers.com
or by sending a check to PA
Homeschoolers AP Online, 105 Richman LN, Kittanning PA 16201-5737 (being
sure to include all needed info on the student, family, and course/teacher
chosen, including your choice of student and parent password). We will continue
to offer an Early Bird Tuition Fee—this discount only applies until June 30,
2013… after that the fee goes to the regular
tuition fee.
If families need to
consider a tuition payment plan option, here
is our procedure: the family mails in a
*packet* of checks, totaling the whole tuition fee (early bird fee applies if
payment is mailed before July 1, 2013) — one check should be dated for the
current date, and the rest can be postdated over the following several months,
with no check dated later than December 15, 2013. There is a $10 handling fee per course added when payments are
made, to be included with the first check to be deposited. We plan to have a PDF
form you can print out and use to make sure we have all the needed info.
These
classes, as in the past, will only be available to homeschooled students – full-time public and private ‘brick and mortar’ school
students, as well as Pennsylvania public cyber-charter school students, are not
eligible to participate. We fully realize that a growing number of homeschool
students may take part-time coursework at a local public or private school or
college, or have oversight from a homeschool program such as Mother of Divine
Grace School, Clonlara School, or a private school
set up to help homeschoolers (this option is often used in California).
Who
recommends our courses? Many college
admissions consultants working with bright homeschool students, such as
Jeannette Webb of Aiming Higher www.aimhigherconsultants.com
and Denise Boiko, author of Homeschooled
and Headed for College www.homeschoolroadmap.com
, regularly recommend our AP Online classes.
Our classes are also often discussed frequently on high school at home
email lists and online forums— and the parents and students involved are the
best ‘promoters’ of our classes! Probably the best way to see what others have
thought of our courses is to be sure to read the student reviews after each course description.
We also
encourage you right now to check out our Pennsylvania Homeschoolers website, as our fully online magazine there is regularly featuring
articles about our AP online classes. You’ll hear from parents whose teens
have taken part in a wide range of AP classes, and see what benefits these families
have found. Our teachers will share ideas on how to tell if your teen is ready
for this level of work—and what
to do at home to bring them up to speed. Many of our teachers also write
about their own work related to their field—such as Dr. Gary Welton (AP
Psychology) writing about his recent research on
homeschoolers’ socialization opportunities. Bonnie Gonzalez
relates how her AP Psychology students truly formed a caring community last
year, showing real compassion for one another. You’ll learn more about some of
the special projects students complete in AP courses, giving you a better sense
of what to expect, as in Meghan Paher’s article
giving a simulated diary
of an AP European History student, or in Dianne Settino’s
simulated journal of an
AP Art Studio: Drawing student (completed with photos of actual artwork!),
or in Susan Gilleran’s ‘Day in the Life of an AP
Calculus Student’. You’ll read how Maya Inspektor’s
AP English Language students have won a dazzling number of $1000
scholarships through the National Peace Essay Contest, a research project
the class completes each year. Ray Leven shares about learning AP Spanish
online, Daniel Burns tells about the benefits his strong AP US History students
have gained by serving the next year as Teaching Assistants
(TA’s), and Carole Matheny’s relates how a past AP Statistics student was
encouraged to take part in the national Statistics Competition—winning
first place awards last year! Many more articles will be coming this spring and
summer—keep taking a look! There are also regular articles on other topics
related to the high school years at home—learning about college admissions,
scholarships, academic and arts contests, community service ideas, changing
family life as our kids grow up, and much more. Check
in regularly—a new article goes up most weeks!
Perhaps one of the best aspects of our classes is
that in the many years that we have offered AP Online, we have developed a community of homeschool student scholars
who bring to each class the positive ways of interacting that they have learned
in previous classes. It’s not unusual for students to take one AP Online class
in 10th grade (and we’ve had some very bright 9th graders also), and then take
more in 11th and more in 12th grade— first checking with their new PA
Homeschoolers AP Online friends, so that they can plan to be in class together
once more. Many students form positive friendships that last beyond their high
school at home years—and at least a few students have opted to be college
roommates after learning together in AP Online! And even past students share
their thoughts on our PA Homeschoolers website-- Andrew Min of New
Jersey (and now a sophomore at Princeton, along with another of our AP Online
alumni!) reflects on the long-term value of taking our AP Online classes, and
homeschool 12th grader Marisa Chow (heading
to Princeton next year to join her AP scholar brother Evan!) of California
writes about homeschoolers and socialization, mentioning the positive role our
AP Online classes have played in developing a wonderful network of friends all
across the nation, and even around the world.
To get a
better idea on what the Advanced Placement program is all about, do check out the excellent College Board
website, as this will give you full background on each exam and what is
expected in an AP preparation class. The basic idea is that this exam program
enables students to bypass ‘intro’ college classes and earn college credit by
passing standardized exams given in May each year-- all while still in high
school…or in high school at home!
Many
homeschool students seeking academic scholarships also find the AP program a
real help, as AP exam scores give a
concrete way for universities and scholarship programs to gauge strong academic
preparation. AP classes are all designed to be much tougher than typical high
school classes-- more reading, more study time, and more dedication will be
required. Colleges recognize this.
All of our
AP test preparation classes are authorized through the College Board Audit
process— our teachers each have their
syllabus approved by experienced course reviewers, meeting all College Board AP
guidelines for course coverage. PA Homeschoolers AP Online now also sends out official transcripts verifying AP
course completion and course grades—we can send these on to colleges, NCAA, the
military academies, or scholarship programs as requested by the family, for a
$5 fee (AP Transcript Request Form can be found on the sidebar).
To learn
about a particular class, click on the class name on the sidebar—and be sure to
check out the ‘CLASS REVIEWS’, linked at the bottom of each course description. This will let you know what past students have felt about
their experience in the class, and you’ll also gain a stronger sense of what
the class will involve. A number of classes have a direct link to their
application form right with their course description—and a few simply will ask
you to pay your tuition fee without the need for an application or selection
process, if you have the listed pre-requisites. For some classes you need to
email the teacher for an application form – check each course description for
details. Some classes may have suggested or required summer readings or
activities to complete to help students be well-prepared and ready to go-- so
it is wise to sign up early so your student has time to be fully ready for next
fall.
Some
popular classes offer several sections—for instance, we have three different
teachers leading sections of AP US History. You
need to choose one section—each teacher
leads their class for the full school year, and each teacher has developed
unique learning activities and approaches, and use varied resources. Similarly,
we have four different teachers for both AP English Language and AP English
Literature—each has developed their own syllabus and booklist and
activities—your job is to choose the particular
section that seems to best meet your teen’s learning style. You child will
have one teacher—not all four!
In our AP
online classes, there is often the added bonus of more interaction with
fellow students and with your online teacher. As families vary on how much interactivity they are seeking in an
online course, our teachers usually have rated their classes on a 1-3 scale of
student-to-student and teacher-to-student interactivity, with 3 being the
highest level of interactivity—this will help you choose the class that will
best meet your goals.
If a
student signs up for too many AP classes at a time, especially if this is a first experience with AP level
work, you could be asking for trouble. Students with especially busy work or
extracurricular schedules are also urged to think carefully about taking more
than one class, unless they’ve already had good experiences with handling
online classes and have strong time management skills.
Many of our
AP teachers will be presenting a session about their classes at the July 12,
2013 High School at Home Conference sponsored by PHAA (PA Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency)
Got some questions, comments, or ideas?
Susan Richman, PA Homeschoolers AP Online Coordinator
105 Richman LN
Kittanning PA 16201-5737
richmans@pahomeschoolers.com.
724-783-6512