College Courses for High School Students

Photo credit: Maranatha Advantage

Maranatha is offering a 50% off scholarship for juniors and seniors. Classes will run for eight weeks and are taught from a Christian worldview, these classes are transferable. Students can choose from over fifty subjects including basic classes such as English or Biblical studies.

While this is a great opportunity be aware that some colleges will treat students as transfer students if they have to many credits. Students also may not qualify for other scholarships due to, to many credits. If your student already knows where they want to attend college I would urge you to talk to them concerning this topic

The up point is that you can save a lot money utilizing this opportunity. Even if your student is not sure about their major kicking out the basics such as English, which can also be used as a high school credit. I mean really 50% off of online classes to count as either a single credit or dual credit, wish mine qualified.

Earn College Credit with CLEP Exams

Students can earn college credit by gaining a specific score on 33 different CLEP exams. This differs from college to college and some may not even accept the CLEP exams as a full credit course.

By studying for the exam students can earn a full credit instead of spending hours in a classroom. Tests cover material that is normally taught within the first two years of college. Colleges look to see what material is covered in the CLEP taken and colleges may even issue two credits for a single exam.

There are no regulations regarding how students gain knowledge for the exams however, you can view some products here which may help. The College Board also offers some study recommendations which can aid in helping students gain higher scores. Other resources the College Board offers include the Official Study Guide for $24.95 and individual exam guides for $10.00.

The CLEP exam is $77.00 however, an additional $10.00 may be required if the student wishes to complete the optional essay offered by certain exams.

Students may retake a test after a six month waiting period. However, some exceptions may be made, read more here. One individual mentioned that a student could only take the test once, I recommend checking with your testing facility for mohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifre information. This may vary from state to state or even from testing facility to testing facility.

You may also be interested to read about students with special needs and military and veterans.

Home link for the CLEP exam at College Board.

Search for a local testing facility in your area here.

Look We're Doing It!!

So, I have decided I need to spend more time on Lee's site figuring out this whole high school thing and plan the years ahead. I dreaded this fall and felt like this whole high school thing was going to be boring years of text books with no fun. I was so wrong, I am already having fun playing with subjects and how to use them for credit both during the current year and previous years as well.

Brandon wants to go into game design, I have spent hours researching for classes and resources. There a few "schools" that offer this class for a couple of hundred dollars and a mere 1/2 credit with no follow up classes. OK so one school had one follow up class, yeah that would give him 1 credit and then what?

Well, I found this web site from a man who knows this world and what Brandon will need to do to break into it. So, by this I am planning his 4 years of high school with Lee's help. I highly recommend at least doing the silver program for beginners because she has a wealth of information.


Today I learned about "Delight Directed Learning" which allows students to earn credits either in one subject area or as an elective. I also learned that public speaking is considered English, I found "Say What You Mean" by Art of Eloquence while cleaning the homeschool shelves yesterday. This is worth 1/2 a credit in either English or an elective. Because Brandon will need to earn an extra credit in math and science to look good for the colleges we decided to incorporate the program into his Freshman year, but use the credit for his sophmore year.

Hey, I am having fun. Because all reading can also be utilized as English I am creating a reading list form for all four years. This will include books read during his leasure time along with those for school. I will need a lot of these because Brandon is a reader.

Curriculum

I love high school curriculum, well a few of the things I looked at anyway. First I looked at Trisms, Discovering the Ancient World. The part that I loved was that through this curriculum various credits can be earned, if you chose. Below are the credits which can be received if you were to use this curriculum.

Credits earned in one year

Ancient History (1 credit)
Literature & Composition or English I (1 credit)
World or Ancient Geography (1/2 credit)
Cartography (1/2 credit)
Survey of Science History (1/4 credit)
Humanities (1 credit
Writing Structure & Style(if IEW is included with Literature assignments) (1/2 credit Speech (1/4 credit)
Biblical History (1/2 credit)
Multi-cultural studies (1/4 credit)
Anthropology (1/4 credit)
Economics (1/4 credit)
Advanced Critical Thinking I (1/2 credit)
Research Writing (1/2 credit)
Special Interest (student selected topic) ½ credit
or more depending on the student.


After looking at the way this was set up I realized my daughter had chosen Konos History of the World year 1 The Ancient World. It was never used, so I had Brandon look at it and he decided he liked it. So, we will be using Konos for his freshman year which will give him the following credits.

World History 1 credit
English 1 credit
Art 1 credit

While it is not as impressive as the credits which can be obtained through Trisms I would rather not mess with 1/4 credits.

Credits and Scholarships

One of the first things I did was do a search for the high school graduation requirements for our state. I feel it is wise to make sure students have the credits they need to attend college. They may not want to go now, but if they decide in the future, as I did, that they do they will be covered.

I was also told that Donna Young's check list for high school credits can be used. Now comparing my state requirements to the check list they are the same. However, you can never be sure so make sure to do your homework. Also talk with others in your state who have homeschooled during the high school years. If you do not belong to a support group you might consider doing a search for local e-groups.

Another area, I did not think to consider, is scholarships your state offers. Louisiana has two options for homeschooling, private and public. In order for Brandon to qualify for the state scholarship we will need to school under the public option for his last two years of high school. You will also want to research the credits and subjects which are needed in order to obtain the scholarship. I found out that there are at least two additional subjects which are not required by the state, but are required for the scholarship.