Here is a promising two-week professional camp run by Epicenter Pictures. They host 6 specialty tracks, including screenwriting, producing, directing, cinematography, acting, and editing. Each track learns independently and then all collaborate to produce several short films by the end of the camp.  The experience culminates in a mini-film festival on the final day.  Here is what Epicenter Pictures says:

The tracks are taught by peer mentors who, have already been working in film for at least five years and are eager to help you hone your art, develop your leadership potential and break into the film business. Additionally, guest speakers provide you with an opportunity to mingle with more established professionals.

What will you take away?

• A dynamic hands-on experience on your own live set, with the latest in indie-filmmaking equipment
• A short film that can be submitted to festivals across the country or incorporated into your professional reel
• A professional network to get you started in an industry where it’s all about who you know

Most film camps put a heavy emphasis on classroom work. Epicenter believes that you learn best by doing

If you are at all interested in film, this is a great program to check out. Registration is now open!

Instant access to the extensive information in the print Guide at a fraction of the cost! Download only the chapter you need or the whole guide.  Each segment just $6.50! All five segments only $25.00

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Countdown to College part 1: 5! Assess Your Starting Point

Explore God’s workmanship in crafting your student for a specific calling.  Consider the different vocations of men and women.  Learn to help your student find a vision for his or her life. Try the world’s oldest personality assessment.

Countdown to College part 2: 4! Aim for Success

The future is a moving target.  Plan to be where you want to be when it arrives.  Evaluate various post-high school destinations and the most advantageous paths to them.  Discuss how to position your school and to describe your educational aims to best display your high school work.

Countdown to College part 3: 3! Acquire Credentials

Do you know when to say “No”? Learn how to invest your limited time in achievements in four areas critical for winning scholarships, job opportunities, internships and more.

Countdown to College part 4: 2! Account Assets

Learn to create a complete school counselor’s pack that educational professionals will envy.  Structure transcripts and resumes to showcase your student’s achievements to best advantage.

Countdown to College part 5: 1! Apply for Awards

Don’t be intimidated by the college application process.  Walk through the process of admission and financial aid/scholarship acquisition from research to recommendation letters.

Countdown to College Guidebook Digital Edition

All five Countdown to College segments

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According to Dawn Boyer, director of marketing, sales and public relations for government contracts and human resources director for MonsterClean Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning,  the keys to business acceptance of an online degree are:

1) Are the exams given in a proctored setting or totally online without standards?

“if the degree is high level and testing is done at proctoring centers or within a cooperative (nearby) universities, where the students must report to a controlled testing room or site, then the college/university degree is valid and there should be no question to it’s credentials.” (read Ms Boyer’s full article here: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/education-schools/CAR_BUE/474896-44930680 )

2) Is the degree-granting college accredited?

Note that Ms Boyer handles government contracts for a private company. She reports that some employers don’t check the validity of degrees reported on prospective employees’ resumes.  However, government contracts are very specific about which jobs must be performed by a degreed employee – even if that job is being handled by a private contractor.  The status of the entire contract could be jeopardized by one employee who is not properly credentialed, so her company does check up on the degree and the university awarding it.

In a climate of increasing government control of businesses across the spectrum of the economy, it makes sense to check with any online degree program you are considering to see if it measures up to these guidelines.

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Get answers to all your college and post-high school questions at the Idaho Countdown to College Workshop, May 16th in Coeur d’Alene.  Register here.

Community organizations which have been invited to participate in the after-lunch round table and networking times are:

• Congressional Award Council of Idaho
• Boy Scouts of America
• Communicators for Christ
• New St. Andrews College

The deepest discounts for the workshop expire April 30th, so be sure to reserve your place by registering here.  And don’t forget that you can earn even greater discounts by inviting your friends to come as well.  Families who invite 5 or more other families by April 30th can win a free personal consultation with Kim!

PSAT

Widely thought to be a practice for the SAT, the PSAT actually focuses on a completely different set of skills.  Given in the fall of the Junior year, this test is the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship.  Although the National Merit Scholarship itself is a small monetary value, it recognizes the top percentage of the top 1% of American students.  Colleges often try to attract this top-tier of students by plus-ing the scholarship with a full ride plus extras. So if academics are your strength this test is definitely worth taking.

SAT

This reasoning test is the most widely accepted exam for college entrance.  Generally it is taken in the fall of the Senior year, however, taking it for practice is recommended.

ACT

This is a another well-respected test for college entrance.  ACT focuses more on subject areas.  Since it tests achievement from a different vector, it is worth taking both SAT and ACT, to give the student maximum opportunity to demonstrate excellence.

SAT Subject Tests

Tests high school level achievement in specific subject areas.  These are offered only in a two-week window every May.  Each school determines which SAT subject exams it will offer.  It can be challenging to find a school that will be giving the test your student wants to take.  Research test centers well in advance.  Don’t wait until the Senior year to take these; take them the year your student completes the course.  Ivy League schools often ask homeschoolers to validate their transcripts by taking SAT subject exams.

AP (Advanced Placement)

These tests are designed to verify college-level achievement in high school.  They are subject specific, and are also only offered in a short window during the spring.  However, getting a terrific grade on an AP exam is no guarantee that college credit will be awarded. Each college has its own scale for awarding college credit or advanced standing based on AP exams. A good score on an AP exam may boost your chances for attracting scholarships.

CLEP

CLEP tests were developed to evaluate returning military personnel in order to award college credit for experience during active duty.  CLEP tests are subject specific. Colleges are required to award college credit to military personnel, but not to everyone.  Originally, CLEP tests were scored on a pass/fail basis, so that the only thing they could certify was that a student wouldn’t fail a given college course. Because of this scoring method, the exams didn’t command much respect.  Recently, CLEP has instituted a grading scale that allows colleges to correlate CLEP scores with A to F grades in a college course.  CLEP tests are available throughout the year.

*Grade-weighting is the practice of awarding more than 4 points for an A in an honors, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate class, so that it is possible for a student to have a GPA higher than 4.0.

This month, several of my devotionals about time management are being featured on CBN.com so I thought you might appreciate a practical follow up specifically about how to structure your time during high school for maximum effect.

Paradoxically, the first thing on the list needs to be: remaining flexible and available to God as He brings unexpected opportunities into our lives. Our second daughter, Anne, was knocking down the academic benchmarks almost as fast as we could put them out there, but she wasn’t sure of a post-high school direction. Then she was asked to compose, conduct and engineer the music for a short film. Composing hadn’t been the favorite aspect of her musical training. However, she made it her policy to “just say yes” when God brought her opportunities that wouldn’t detract from things she already had on her plate. So she decided to give it a try. She finished the composing aspect within two breathless weeks, discovering in the process, that when she had an actual reason beyond the “assignment for the week”, she truly loved composing. Remaining available to God may be vital to discovering His calling on a young person’s life.

So here is the general outline:

Freshman Year

• Pray specifically for direction and begin to consider what the student is called to become.
• Agree as a family about graduation requirements: include goals in academics, entrepreneurship, apprenticeship, and public service. (See especially the section on School Profiles in the Countdown to College Guide)
• Plot them out over the four years on your planning pages from the Guide or the e-Forms disk
• Plan the costs of your activities and academics.  Plan how you will cover them and which costs the student will bear himself.
• Begin to develop friendships with adults who can become mentors and recommenders by the end of the high school period.
• Register on FastWeb and other search engines, so that you can begin to apply for early scholarship money.
• If entrepreneurship is one of the things you plan to pursue, start your first business now.

Sophomore Year

• Take a practice PSAT exam, if your student is academically gifted. (PSATs won’t prepare you for the SAT, but they will qualify you for National Merit Scholarships, if you score high enough)
• Take practice SAT and ACT exams even if you don’t plan to go to college.  Often students discover they want to go to college later.  Standard exams like these will help to validate their transcripts later on, and are often considered more reliable measures of what the student has achieved than her GPA is.
• Adjust your 4-year plan to accommodate new opportunities and set-backs.
• Continue to pray, to develop adult friendships and to monitor scholarship search engines.
• Dream about colleges. Research programs that interest the student. (Try the ISI Guide to Choosing the Right College)
• Plan to visit colleges, if at all possible.
  
• If college is not your destination, dream about the opportunities you would like to pursue.  Begin to look for ways to try things out: apprenticeships, shadowing professionals in your field of interest, etc.  Negotiate an apprenticeship for next fall.
• Try a community college class or online distance college or AP classes.
• Take a slightly heavier load academically this year in order to have plenty of time next year for applying for scholarships and colleges.  Make sure you have core academics on track so that you won’t be blindsided by the standard college entrance exams next year.

Junior Year (Fall)

• Take PSAT, SAT and ACT exams.
• Pray and adjust your 4-year plan.
• Take a slightly heavier academic load now, in order to leave time next semester for scholarship application.
• If you are a bit behind, you can halve your time in class by taking the subject at community college.
• If you are doing a Junior year apprenticeship, start now, so that by spring, you have hit your stride.
• Visit colleges.
• Prepare School Profile, Course Descriptions, and update transcript and resume.
• Recruit recommenders for scholarships, college applications and job applications.

Junior Year (Spring)

• Set aside 15 – 20 hours/week to apply for colleges & scholarships.
• Take a slightly lighter academic schedule.
• Re-take SAT and/or ACT if you want to improve your scores.

Senior Year (Fall)

• Continue to spend 15-20 hours/week applying for scholarships, etc. This is the last big push for this.  Most major scholarships have deadlines November to January of the senior year.
• Final opportunity to improve SAT and ACT scores.
• Plan graduation celebrations.  Send notices to close friends & relations to save the date.
• Practice interview skills.  Major scholarships, jobs and colleges all require interviews.

Senior Year (Spring)

• Prepare for interviews.
• Apply for college financial aid.  College-based financial aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. So you’ll need tax forms, FAFSA and CSS Profiles completed as soon as possible in January and February.
• Resume normal academic load.
• Prepare the mid-year report for colleges, as soon as fall grades have been calculated.
• Complete graduation plans.
• Develop strategies for maintaining relationships and providing support if the student is going away after graduation.
• Give thanks for what God brings and for what He has done!

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Learn to  acquire the credentials you’ll need for launching into life, and to prepare the paperwork that will validate your achievements in Countdown to College: the Homeschoolers’ Guide to Winning Scholarships.

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The reputation of today’s youth – deserved or not – is that this generation is more apathetic and less engaged with life in general than previous generations. My eldest daughter’s experience of secular youth in college bears that out. “Nobody has any idea what they want to do or what’s even possible. It’s maddening!” she says. Young people who have begun to explore what they can do in society and what they might become passionate about are youth whom older adults want to promote.

There are a number of ways to show this kind of initiative. One of the most unexplored is political action. Many are reluctant to include political action on a resume for fear that officials will disagree with the position their action supported. However, given the current policy of the vast majority of colleges and businesses to include as many viewpoints as possible, and given the perception that a student who is willing to engage his world is a rare commodity, this fear may be unfounded.

The current multi-trillion dollar bailout provides unique opportunity for youth political action. Deficit spending on this scale imposes a slave-load of tax liabilities on children, even on children not yet born. They have had no voice in this bailout debate or in the elections that made it possible. That is taxation without representation. That is tyranny. This generation of youth and the children who follow them will have been born into slavery.

We should not let this go unremarked. But the youth themselves can be the most effective advocates against this kind of retroactive slavery and tax tyranny.

Michelle Malkin, Smart Girl Politics, New American Tea Party, Tax Day Tea Party, and a host of other bloggers and pundits are calling for the organization of hundreds of latter day Boston Tea Parties to protest this ridiculous taxation. Already, dozens of cities across the nation are organizing protests for Tax Day, April 15th and for Independence Day, July 4.  The prototype Tea Party was held on Feb 27th, with good news coverage and hundreds of people begging for more opportunities to express their disgust and outrage.

I think young people have a special piece to add to the general protest against this violent take-over of American wallets.  Young people have the distinction of being the disenfranchised in this case.  Young people didn’t vote. Young people had no representation, yet they and their children and their grandchildren are the ones who will bear the brunt of this tax.

Young people have the standing to call it tyranny in the best American Revolutionary tradition.  They could also spearhead a movement calling on state legislatures and governors to refuse stimulus package money. Tell your state, “Don’t drink King Barak’s tea!”  The media will be all over you for sound bites and even interviews.  Teens don’t usually have coherent arguments. It should be a Carpe Diem Cadre moment.

If you decide to spearhead a Tea Party, or to add the youth dimension to an already-planned event, comment here.  I’ll post video of your event.  I’ll post your Tea Party speech, and consider you for Carpe Diem Cadre membership.  Great resume development all around!

(Hat tip to Conservative Underground for the graphic)

High school music apprentice needs college too

Many in the homeschool community present college and apprenticeship as competing models for post-graduate work. But it ain’t necessarily so.

Surely, we want our children to have work experience and deep friendships with adults outside our homes as a pre-requisite for graduation from high school. They need the things apprenticeship provides before they leave home. It’s true that some businesses and trades will take an extended period of apprenticeship, which would extend beyond high school. However, many apprenticeship experiences will be enhanced by a college education.

My daughter’s mentor offered her an apprenticeship during high school, which has extended into her college years, providing her with real-world experience, a growing professional network and a tidy income through her school years. He now recommends that she pursue an advanced degree, so that the maximum number of opportunities will be open to her in her future as a mother. An entrepreneur and innovator, he himself wishes that he had pursued advanced degrees, because now he would like to supplement his income by teaching. In fact, his experience in his field makes him an ideal candidate for teaching, however, his lack of a Masters Degree bars him from the college offers he has received. He envisions a time in my daughter’s life, when she might welcome the opportunity to teach part-time in her field when her family needs additional income.

So while the season of preparation lasts in your children’s lives, don’t back them into an either/or box. Either college or apprenticeship. Instead, look for the creative combination of educational and preparatory experiences that will open the maximum number of doors for them, that will give them the most flexibility in a future that is sure to be filled with swift and mighty changes.

Do I need to mention that this is the Christmas season of Advent? A time of extraordinary opportunity for worship and service. American Christians are beginning to suspect that their pursuit of stuff, their rush to create additional debt during this time, isn’t really what it’s all about.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Christian gifting traditions. But the gifting must grow out of worship, out of delight in that greatest of Gifts, Jesus the Messiah himself. When giving springs from contemplation and adoration of Jesus, the whole process is transformed. It begins to lead us deeper into spiritual realities rather than to trap us in shallow consumerism.

The group, Advent Conspiracy, has given this idea some thought. Their challenge is: “Give Presence”. Maybe it will give you some ideas about how to take full advantage of this special time, as well.

The first excuses us from the action that is in our hands; rules out the service that could change something right here. The second excuses us for contributing to the problems by compromising our principles “just this once.”  There’s a new movie, The Rock From Which We Were Hewn, coming out about the problems facing homeschoolers – some of which we are building for ourselves by accepting public school money for community college classes, computers and curriculum.  Note the comments by Gregg Harris.

As I wrote in Private Initiative Promotes True Public Service, real change, real service is built on the small scale first and foremost.  Accountability, accurate readings of real problems and remedies targeted to those problems all come from private intitiative and small-scale activism.  Eric Rauch of American Vision has an excellent article about the effectiveness of thinking small: Far as the Curse is Found.

We have a great King, who directs all things according to His purposes.  As we look carefully at His Word and act on its principles in our own spheres, in our own families and neighborhoods, we will find ourselves at the center of an immense throng all pressing toward Biblical principles of good government, responsibility and true charity.  Do we need another community organizer?

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Find out how doing good in your own backyard is really what works for your family.  Order Countdown to College: the Homeschoolers’ Guide to Winning Scholarships, today!

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