American School ...

[Luanne]

Has anyone had any experience with them? What can you tell me about them? ... negative or positive experience?

Thanks.

[Martha in GA]

I'm not quite sure what to say about American School. It depends on what you are looking for. The classes are probably fine for an average kind of student who just needs to plug along to finish high school. I would not consider the courses "rigorous". I thought AS would be a little more challenging, based on the Doliciani Alg. I and II books and the geometry books. I think the math courses were very good and Biology was o.k. But some of the other courses seemed kind of light -- as in, my ds could finish most of the year long courses in less than a semester. I have supplemented heavily, and, of course, added extra courses to the courses provided by AS. I went with AS because, being in GA, I felt I needed an accredited diploma and my ds could use some outside accountability. However, it has really just added to his workload because I am having him do a second U.S. History (Notgrass), and a second World History (BJU), etc. My ds has four classes to finish (he started when you were only required to have 16 credits) and he is a junior this year. He will finish American Lit. and World History this year, and British Lit. and Civics next year.
As far as customer service, I haven't had any problems. Some people complain about lost tests, etc. I've never had any problems getting them to send more books when we were ready for them or anything like that. Grading of tests gets slow near the end of the school year (April and May).
I hope something in this book I've written is helpful.

Martha

[Pamela H in Texas]

American school is a bit boring. Most of the texts are pretty traditional and then there are study guides. It requires too few credits and needs filling out, imo. But it fills a need for some people. Also, they guarantee that you'll be college level when you finish. If you don't pass into college level classes in college, they will supplement until you can (so you don't have to pay for remedial classes). And the price is right.

We considered this option because of radical acceleration. We decided to go a different route.

HTHs,

[Luanne]

I'm not quite sure what to say about American School. It depends on what you are looking for. The classes are probably fine for an average kind of student who just needs to plug along to finish high school. I felt I needed an accredited diploma and my ds could use some outside accountability.

As far as customer service, I haven't had any problems. Some people complain about lost tests, etc. I've never had any problems getting them to send more books when we were ready for them or anything like that. Grading of tests gets slow near the end of the school year (April and May).
I hope something in this book I've written is helpful.

Martha


I am looking for something with accountabiltiy for my average to a bit struggling student. I was curious if they are required to take Psychology ... I had heard they would substitute for that class if you didn't want your student taking it (or your student doesn't want to take it). Is that true?

[Luanne]

American school is a bit boring. Most of the texts are pretty traditional and then there are study guides. It requires too few credits and needs filling out, imo. But it fills a need for some people. Also, they guarantee that you'll be college level when you finish. If you don't pass into college level classes in college, they will supplement until you can (so you don't have to pay for remedial classes). And the price is right.

We considered this option because of radical acceleration. We decided to go a different route.

HTHs,


What "different route" you took for acceleration?

[Pamela H in Texas]

Luanne,

Kinda hard to explain. We did some work with some college professors privately using the same syllabi as the adults, but she did it fairly independently though we had a mentor. She also went broad and deep with high school. She also added some volunteer work and such. The year during which she turned 15 was actually a light year due to health issues. She started college for credit at 15.

Our concern was her starting much earlier. The college (a community college) we originally tried to work with wasn't particularly easy regarding her age as a pre-teen/young teen.

[rwalizer]

I have no personal experience with it, but my ds has a friend in 9th grade using AS and he has told ds "it's so easy". My sister tutored a girl who used AS through high school and she told me when I was looking into it that it didn't seem very challenging.

[Luanne]

I have no personal experience with it, but my ds has a friend in 9th grade using AS and he has told ds "it's so easy". My sister tutored a girl who used AS through high school and she told me when I was looking into it that it didn't seem very challenging.


I appreciate your input. I think we will figure something else out.