Are online/distance high schools worthwhile?
When I was in high school, I took an online economics course with the Florida High School, which I think is now called Florida Virtual School, although it doesn’t appear to service my district anymore. It was totally cake (all assignments were done online, including the final), and I was glad to be able to get out of the required in-person economics class with Mr. Creepy Stare At Your Boobs and free up my schedule for more edifying subjects.
Hi Anoxs! Congrats on having such a motivated kid! One way I found around this was to take a course at my local community college concurrent with material tested on the AP test I wanted to receive credit for, which I judged by e-mailing the professor and checking the AP website to see what areas would be tested. In my case with AP Art History, I chose an class that basically covered Western art from the beginning of the Renaissance to the present which started in January and ended a week or two after the date of the test; I ended up getting a 4 on the test and an A+ in the class. I had to ask for a recommendation from my high school principal to enroll in the class while I was still in high school, but that was just a form issued by the college’s admission office that I had to turn in. The test itself was administered one afternoon by my principal, who I’d approached around the time I was ordering the test to see if she’d be cool invigilating, which she was. One last thing – what subje
I’d second mdonley’s suggestion of dual-enrollment at a state university (my experience) or a community college. I did this in high school when I ran out of AP classes. If your son has the means to get to campus for all of the days of class, usually high schools will give some leeway for scheduling. There’s a lot of other benefits of this approach. Your son will be taught at the college-level, which usually means it is better-taught than by a high school teacher (this can depend on the teaching arrangements re: teaching assistants). This will give him a HUGE headstart on other kids come time for college, both socially and academically. Since I had taken classes at the local university for three semesters prior to visiting campuses between junior/senior year, it was a bit easier to figure out what I wanted as far as academic and social experience. Instead of being distracted by the useless admissions people and their tours, I could see the people that blended into the campus, and think
Well, the College Board is now requiring an audit of all AP syllabi at all schools, regardless of whether they are online/distance ed or brick and mortar, so any school that is offering the AP courses has presumably passed the AP audit. You might want to look at the Virtual High School in addition to the Florida program. I worked with some of the folks behind VHS in grad school and they’re pretty sharp.
