Homeschooling toward college: how do we do it?

HappytoHS

Mon, Jul 22 2013, 2:54 am

DD15 has decided that she wants to be a psychologist and will need to earn advanced degrees. We need to build a program for her to get from here to there. Where do we start? What will she need? Is a GED enough to get into a good college program or does she need an actual diploma? Or are HS transcripts enough? How do colleges evaluate homeschoolers? What subjects are required for a GED/diploma? Our style is eclectic but what do unschoolers do? Can anyone walk us through this or point us in the right direction?

bamamama

Mon, Jul 22 2013, 3:03 am

HappytoHS wrote:

You might get a better response on jewishorthodoxandhomeschooling - I think there are families there who have navigated the transition to university.

Fox

Mon, Jul 22 2013, 10:56 am

Based on my investigations of competitive colleges, home-schooled kids often have a significant advantage. When we were investigating home-schooling/online schooling for my DD, I spoke to admission representatives at an Ivy League school and two Big Ten schools. I got almost identical responses from all three (after shmoozing with them long enough to get them to drop the legal-speak): home-schooled kids are generally just as qualified and far more interesting than traditionally-schooled kids.

My advice is to contact a handful of colleges of the type your DD might be interested in attending. It helps if you, your DH, or some other relative is an alumna/us -- they're more willing to spend time talking to you and will likely be frank in their remarks.

Get an idea for what particular skills, competencies, test scores, and experiences they're seeking in their applicants. This will vary tremendously from private to state schools. For example, my research included University of Illinois and Northwestern University. U of I admission is largely based on an algorithm factoring SAT/ACT scores and grades. "Being an interesting person" is a not terribly high on the list of a big state school. Northwestern, however, cares deeply about such things and, as long as they feel a student can handle the academic work, is less rigid about the numbers.

If your findings are similar to mine, you'll discover that the big issues for college admission are (1) writing; (2) math; and (3) demonstrable ability to handle advanced or demanding coursework. Make sure your home-school curriculum ensures that your DD can handle herself in these areas, and she'll probably have no difficulty.

Since homeschooling typically focuses less on standardized testing, you may also want to plan a test preparation course starting a year or more in advance of her taking SATs, etc. Solid test scores will ensure that even the least progressive admissions committee won't doubt her qualifications.

4Sisters

Sun, Apr 27 2014, 7:43 am

If I could do it over again, I would have hired someone with experience to be like a guidance counselor and guide us through the process. My friends who have kids in school have had a much easier time in finding what were good matches for their child in terms of college, and knowing the ins and outs of applying (we thought it was a straight-forward process. meh. Not so much).

The big thing we found out is that you should apply "early action", which is non-binding. The state school where my dd will likely end up says she likely would have gotten 100% tuition scholarship if she had applied early action, rather than regular decision. She got a "homeopathic" scholarship by applying regular ;(

I also joined a Yahoo group called "homeschool to college". Some good ideas there.

btw, my dd did not do GED, as there seemed to be enough cons to that. We just said "mazal tov. You graduated" and left it at that. No school has asked for a diploma, etc. We just said that she hs'ed and graduated last spring.

Hatlzacha to you and your daughter.

SplitPea

Sun, Apr 27 2014, 8:10 am

Gotta say I agree with the whole hating yahoo group thing. Wish it was a Facebook group or maybe even another free form. I find myself never reading it Sad

Many of my friends were home schooled growing up. One thing that was very common was when they were 15/16 was to start a local JR collage for basic classes. English, history, math, biology etc, sociology, etc. many basic 100 level collage courses are totally fine for a dedicated high school student. Once you have 24 college credits colleges don't even LOOK at high school. Most of my friends had 24 credits by the time they were out of high school and were able to use the collage guidance counselors to help them transfer from the local jr college to a good university.

We plan on homeschooling our own kids and this is how we hope to handle it.

I know that at The home schooling conference coming up homeschooling twords college is one of the topics.

Minnesota Mom

Sun, Nov 16 2014, 3:15 am

echinuch.org is a resource. Saxon math is excellent for math education. I 11th and 12th grade in junior college and/or SAT is also good. The block method is also helpful. If your family travels or lives in a city there are great museums. Once we spent a month at Walter Reed where my husband attended a course and my very young children wrote advanced reports on medical topiics we visited a museum of pathology each day. They are all scientists today. Just remember Edison was called "adled" by his 1st grade teacher and his mom homeschooled him and Einstein quit school at 16 - ran back to Italy to be with his family the year he wrote his first paper. His major papers were written at age 23. He was taught math by a student who his family hosted for dinner once a week. And Issac Newton invented calculus himself.