DANTES Subject Standardized Tests
DSST Exams are exam series that are college subject specific. They are very similar to the final exams offered by the course subjects should you choose to take the course.
Preparing For College: Studying to Get Accepted
August 24, 2010
- Accredited colleges will have a set ACT and/or SAT score required for entrance as an undergraduate freshman. The requirements are different for graduate and other professional degrees. What this means is, in order to get into their school you have to score high enough on the ACT (American College Test). The highest score is a 36. Many schools change their admission requirements periodically, so you need to check your individual school choice, but many schools require a 25 or higher to get into the school, and a 27 or higher to qualify for academic scholarships.
If you have decided to go to Paris – now you look at the options for getting there. And – there is more than one. So it is for college – you are NOT to be focused on college YET. That comes later still. Right now we focus on learning from people who have already gone there before – who is living your dream? Who has already gone to Paris – start by asking them before you listen to the travel agencies – learn from the pros.
- For more information about the ACT, where to take it, how to take it, how to study, and facts about the exam itself, you can check out their website:
http://www.act.org/news/aapfacts.html
- Most college websites provide information about their college’s entrance requirements. Check under “Admissions” or “Admission Requirements” some college websites hide this information under “Academics” as well, so just poke around the website see what you find.
- Another way to find out what is required to get into a college is to ask people who attended the college you are interested in. With Facebook and other social media, it isn’t hard to connect with people.
- You can also email the professors. Most universities have a faculty page where you can get in touch with them and ask questions. Just locate their email and ask—they don’t mind answering questions. They are teachers, answering questions is what they do for a living .
Getting to Know the CLEP test
August 10, 2010
A CLEP test is an examination you can take which, if you pass, will allow you to receive credit for a class—without having to take the class. And the cost of taking the exam is $72 (plus a few bucks assuming you buy a study book) That is substantially less than the $2-300 per class fee, not the mention—once you get a good grade on the CLEP test, you’re finished. You don’t have to go to class, take notes, pass exams, or write papers for that subject. You are walking away with an entire course’s credit hours under your belt and you didn’t even put in half the time, money, and effort that it would have cost to take the course. SMART move.
Most of the freshman level courses are called “Gen Eds” which stands for “General Education”—it is the courses colleges designate as the courses everyone at their university needs to take as a part of their college educational experience. Much of the material covered in these courses is review from high school material. Therefore, a lot of students will find it easy to CLEP out of their freshman 101/102 courses. We had a student once that CLEP-ed out of two years worth of college courses. So he ended up only have to pay tuition for 2 years, and he received a 4-year degree.
Now, every college has its own rules and regulations surrounding CLEP exams, how many you can take, etc, so be sure you check into those when considering the CLEP test, but DEFINITELY a good way to cut down on expenses (and hey, if you don’t HAVE to take the class, why take it?)
When you are headed to college there are other options besides scholarships to help you cut down the costs of college (of course, combined WITH scholarships and you could potentially create yourself an almost free college experience)
Consider taking the CLEP tests. Most schools will allow you to CLEP out of as many as 45 credit hours of school – and that is over one whole year.
For military personnel, there is the DANTES program—which helps you take many CLEP, DANTE, and ECS (called “Credit-by-examination” tests) for free. Some options are available to civilians as well, but you will need to check.
http://www.military.com/timesaving-programs/dantes-college-credit-by-examination-program
The website above is a great resource for testing information for military personnel and options open to civilians as well.
Preparing for College: Scholarships for Everybody
August 2, 2010
So many scholarships are missed out on because students do not put forth the time and effort to apply. Sure, some require you to write an essay or to fill out forms, but do you realize how many papers you are signing up to write when you go to college? One essay on the front end to save you thousands of dollars is completely worth it.
You will never know what you might receive unless you apply.
I had a friend in college who won a minority scholarship—full ride to an accredited private university—and he wasn’t a minority member. He had just applied for the scholarship and no one else had won.
Don’t overburden yourself with the competition factor, either. There are many people who apply for college scholarships, sure—but think about it: how many people do you know who actually received scholarships? Interested to know why?
According to scholarships.com,
“…so many of [the students] applying don’t take the time to properly read or follow the rules and answer the questions thoughtfully, or even correctly. Do everything correctly and you could be one of a small percentage of applicants who even gets considered. Here’s another way to look at it. What if you spent a total of 50 hours searching and applying for scholarships? And, after all that time and effort, you win two or three scholarships, totaling about $2,000. That’s $40 per hour, which is at least 4 to 5 times more than you can expect to get paid for doing pretty much any other activity or “job”. And that doesn’t even include the interest you’d be paying on that money, had you been forced to borrow it from a lender. Apply for as many scholarships as you can and you are bound to win something, provided you make sure to do everything you are asked and follow all of each scholarship provider’s instructions.”
There are scholarships for everybody, not just high school students. You can get scholarships for entering freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, transfer students, undergraduate students, graduate students and even adults who have long since been out of college. Scholarships are EVERYWHERE, for EVERYBODY.
Not all scholarships are for athletes, academics, and minorities. There are many scholarships for students with a GPA minimum of 2.5 (a totally achievable GPA, I might add).
If you don’t want to do the all of the searching to find the scholarships right for you, you might consider using a service like scholarships.com to pair you up with scholarship options right for you. (Scholarships.com is totally free, whereas many others charge a fee for the same service)
Some scholarships only offer $1000 to the winner, and many students balk at the idea of putting forth a lot of effort just to get a $1000 scholarship because they consider $1000 to be a drop in a huge bucket when it comes to college expenses.
But I wouldn’t be too hasty. If you get several $1000 scholarships, you can put a nice dent in your college education, PLUS consider all of the textbooks and supplies you will have to buy–$1000 interest free would be fantastic, and it beats the socks off a bank loan—a debt most students carry on after college.
I just thought you guys might like this article. Click Here to Read.
The article was published in Psychology Today and it takes a look at not only how the adult mindset towards education has evolved over the years, but also makes some suggestions about what we should really be valuing in our kids’ education. Personally, I was surprised to learn that math teaching across the board (whether in affluent sections of town or the poorest ghettos) was equally pathetic. The article attributes the higher scores of affluent kids on standardized test to the “home schooling” parents provided for them. Interesting read, but do you agree with their findings? What are your thoughts about “modern” education?
Kind of sad, really, that parents think extra education is needed, when really if we would just put home school standards in the classroom to start with, students could be well educated AND have fun evenings instead of extra work.
AskDrCallahan Scholarship Program: Making Sure Every Student is Well Prepared for College and For Life
July 9, 2010
When you want to give your kids a quality, college preparatory education, you shouldn’t have to cut corners just because money is too tight to swing the cost of good materials. Yet, several times a year we are contacted by families that are in just that situation. They want to give their kids the quality education we offer at AskDrCallahan, but for various reasons they cannot afford the cost of buying our materials.
To try and help out, we have opened the
AskDrCallahan Scholarship Program
This program exists to help parents provide a quality, college-preparatory education to their kids no matter what their income, financial situation, or hardship situation might be. In these economically difficult times, the need is especially great and as stewards of our gifts and talents here at AskDrCallahan, we feel that we need to do what we can to make sure all kids get a solid academic preparation for their futures.
We have several options available to families who need the scholarship program from discounted materials, to free stuff, and more.
To find out what options are available for your family, please contact us. support@askdrcallahan.com
If you’re not in need of a scholarship program, you can still help. Consider spreading the word, selling back your textbooks, or donating to the program.
For more details on how you can help, please contact us. Support@askdrcallahan.com.
We will be glad to talk with you.
Many parents ask us about our curriculum and specifically our method of testing. They wonder at how we don’t teach our students to memorize formulas, nor do we drill them over and over on how to work the problems that will appear on the test.
We do ask our students to study the concepts that will be addressed on an exam, but the difference is just that: we focus on concepts.
The overall goal of any education is to learn. We want to be smarter at the end of things, knowing how to do something better than we did before because we went through an edcuational process to be more academically astute.
In the case of mathematics, we study math so that we can function in society as educated individuals, being able to accurately pump gas, buy groceries, build bridges, measure medication, and so on.
Yet, despite all these examples of how math will be essential to students once they leave their K-12 educational haven, parents are still approaching the teaching process as if memorizing and garnering an “A”, will be all their students need for their futures.
My apologies to all of the nice old ladies who taught me 5th, 6th, and 7th grade math, but I just can’t accept the memorization philosophy at the high school level. Not meaning to step on any toes, but that is just a mediocre way to look at things. The bigger goals need to be teaching students HOW to do something, WHY to do something, and checking to be sure they understand. And the way to do this is not to drill students, and certainly not rote memorization. I’ve seen too many students come through my tutoring center who are able to work problems, and get the right answer, but they have no idea what they are doing and if you gave them a real world example (Begrudgingly known as “word problems” among the student population), they will be lost and confused. Even though the “math” they are doing is exactly the same in both situations.
So I encourage you, as you approach your next exam in math, make sure your students understand the concepts behind what they are doing. If you have to let them re-take the test and correct their mistakes, great! That is a learning process. Don’t be afraid to take the time to learn well the first time. Everyone will be grateful for your efforts–and better educated— in the end.
Explore DVDs For Teaching Home School Math
June 14, 2010
When you sit down to teach math to your home school student, you probably reach for all the helps and resources you can get.
To help things run smoothly, many parents turn to DVDs. But what are you really getting with a DVD education? Well, let’s take a brief look at teaching homeschool math with DVDs.
DVD instruction is essentially where a teacher is filmed teaching each lesson from a textbook. All of this information is recorded onto a DVD which parents can show to their students before their students study their lessons for that day.
A typical day with a DVD education system might look like this:
- Open DVD
- put DVD in player
- navigate to section being studied that day
- watch clip, following along in the textbook
- Read textbook section
- work practice problems
- work homework problems as assigned
- Review DVD as needed.
Click Here to view some sample video clips of DVD lessons by AskDrCallahan
Parents/Students who might want to use a DVD course include (but certainly isn’t limited to) those who:
- haven’t studied math in a while and need some help remembering the concepts
- independent/ teach themselves
- want a classroom experience, but who want to customize the pace for what makes sense for them
- enjoy/require visual preparation and review resource
- things just make more sense when you can watch someone else work the problems on a board before attempting them yourself
There are many reasons and benefits to getting a DVD course. You can probably think of others that I didn’t list above. If you have a DVD course, why did you decide to go that route? Would you recommend DVD courses to other homeschooling families? Why?Why not?
Now Taking Registration For Fall Math Classes
June 7, 2010
AskDrCallahan will be offering Algebra 1, Algebra II With Trig, and Geometry as cooperative and online classes this Fall to all home schooling students.
Mrs. Cassidy Cash will be teaching Algebra 1, Algebra II With Trig, and Geometry this Fall. Famous for introducing random facts, teaching with hands-on activities, and getting students out of the classroom and into the real world when teaching math. Armed with 5+ years of education experience teaching in the homeschool and private school arenas, plus 8+ years experience as a math tutor to all ages, Cassidy goes out of her way to make learning math–even college level math–a great experience. Using the AskDrCallahan college level textbooks and dvd material is just the beginning with this course. Cassidy integrates homework and example problems with subjects students already enjoy by starting the class with a survey of what they like, then she spends the rest of the year trying to use those subjects as jumping off points for teaching the math concepts. From horses and NASA to movie production, art, and music, this class teaches math like you’ve never seen before. Your students will get a great college level education and have fun doing it.
For Start Dates and Pricing, click here.
To Register for Algebra 1 Click Here
To Register For Geometry Click Here
To Register for Algebra II With Trig Click Here.
Please note: All AskDrCallahan Cooperative Classes will charge a $30 registration fee to sign up.
Classes have a 5 student minimum to make. If a class does not make, your registration will be refunded.
Registration holds your spot in the class and lets us know how many people to plan for when notifying the facilities of our classes.
If you have any Questions, please Contact Cassidy Cash at support@askdrcallahan.com. She will be glad to answer any questions you might have about these and other courses the cooperative will be offering.