Getting into college is already tough enough; acceptances are often left to the discretion of admissions officers, who may be looking for a reason to reject an applicant. Some may be hesitant to attend an online private school because of the worry that a college admissions officer may not view the school as a “real” school.
There’s a misconception that passing the General Education Development (GED) exam and earning a high school diploma are the same thing. But they’re worlds apart. The average GED-holder earns only $18,776 a year, and 95 percent of them will drop out of four-year college programs. Three-quarters of GED holders don’t make it through a career training program. Most employers and the military prefer applicants with an actual high school diploma. To make it very clear how GEDs aren’t enough, two economists have found that, essentially, earning a GED is almost the same as dropping out of high school altogether.
One question we get all the time from parents is how to transfer credits to and from our online high school. It comes up when students transfer in, when students are looking to take electives not offered in their brick and mortar schools, and when students are attending our online high school with plans to transfer to another high school in the next year. The simple answer is, it’s actually pretty easy to transfer credits back and forth.
Sterling Academy offers online Latin courses for both middle school and high school students. In this article, Emily Cassello, Sterling Academy's Latin teacher, discusses the advantages of studying Latin.
Submitted by Robert Strodtbeck, Social Studies Teacher At Sterling.Academy
The great thing about studying history at this time is that, due to the easy access that the Internet allows to documents and references, we can gain access to the complete historical record of the world with a few keystrokes. We only need to develop our focus and purpose so that our keystrokes have meaning.
Submitted by Nicole Gerace, Mathematics teacher at Sterling Academy
One of the best ways to become a writer is to thoroughly immerse yourself in the style of a writer you admire. Serious writing students have been known to copy out in longhand their favorite poems as well as selections from their favorite books and stories. Like walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, these copying experiences figuratively help you walk in someone else’s mind. You start to understand the ebb and flow of that writer’s style, right down to the use of commas and colons.
Submitted by Robert Strodtbeck, Learner High School Social Studies Teacher
Throughout my years in foreign language education, I’ve had the privilege of teaching many types of students, some more eager to learn the Spanish language than others. Because two years of foreign language is required in some programs in order to graduate from high school, I understand that I will come across many students who are only taking Spanish simply because they have to fulfill a requirement. For these students, Spanish class is an obligation and nothing more -- and that’s okay. However, I want to address and encourage the students who are enrolled in Spanish courses and who are eager to learn, not only because it’s a requirement, but because they are truly interested in communicating in another language.
