I’m a homeschooler, so I have the great advantage of being able to pick and choose where I wish to take my classes. I have available options to take classes at Harvard Extension School, or to take an AP course (and hence the exam as well). I should mention that, after homeschooling and having a lot of freedom, AP courses feel very restricting and I don’t really like them. But, from a college admissions perspective, which classes are better? e.g. if a subject is being offered as both AP and as a college course at HES, and I would really prefer to take it at HES content-wise, should I go for it? Or should I take the AP stamp of certification and the brand of this-homeschooler-can-do-standardized-tests? (Note: I’ve already taken 6 AP courses).
Thanks for the input!
@Cicebro You didn’t mention what your target range of colleges will be when you apply, so that might make a difference. If you are going for top-tier schools, my theory is that doing well in an actual college class (not cc) is more impressive than doing well on an AP test. It worked well for us.
In this particular case, I’d opt for the AP course, or at least take the AP exam if you do the HES route. That way you might be more likely to get college credit. Colleges vary wildly on what college courses, if any, they accept for credit from HS students. Even current Harvard College students cannot get credit for HES courses.
@neogeezer yep, hopefully top-tier schools. And thanks for the info! Do you know specifically about HES as compared to AP courses, and how they’re considered by admissions officers?
@skieurope I don’t think many of the colleges I’m applying to accept the credit…so it would just be from a transcript/advanced courses perspective.
@Cicebro No, I have no knowledge of HES.
@Cicebro Some if not most top-tier schools accept no or minimal credit from college courses taken in high school. You might want to check the policies of schools you are interested in now while planning your curriculum.
@neogeezer yep, I’m aware of that. Right now though, my school level is either AP/college course, so that’s all I’m willing to take.
No one can really answer your question. There are so many different factors involved that there is no correct, predictable answer.
I have had kids who have taken a couple of APs and DE at a local university mixed in with courses completed at home. The university classes they took fit their educational needs and this approach was a good plan for them.
Our current 11th grader is neither DE nor taking APs. She has created her own educational path which is more challenging and more interesting to her than any of the other options. The choice is hers, but she is aware that the decision is not without unknowns. She is a determined and self-motivated young lady. She is forging her own educational path which is not traditional. BUT…she is willing to accept whatever happens in the college application process because she has made the decisions she has. Studying the subjects she has selected with freedom to pursue them independently is more important to her than checking off admissions boxes.
So what it really comes down to is your reasons for selecting the courses you do and being able to articulate why you have chosen the education you have. Homeschooling in and of itself means that you have to be willing to accept the outcomes of that decision. It isn’t the norm, so why are you homeschooling and why are the classes you have chosen important to you.
You have to be aware that unknowns from admissions perspective are unknowns. Standardized courses are going to fit more neatly into profile boxes. (At the same time, you have already checked off certain boxes b/c you have completed 6 APs,)
Ultimately the direction of your education is your choice and you are going to have to take ownership over it. No one has a crystal ball that can predict what someone at an admissions desk is going to think.
But all of the above is from a homeschooler-to-the-core perspective. Meeting educational needs is far more important to me than checking off boxes. (That may or may not be in agreement or conflict with admissions. But we are homeschoolers, so we are used to being outside the norm.)
In terms of how admissions will view them, nobody knows except admissions officers. In terms of course rigor, most of the comparable AP courses offered by HES will be as rigorous, if not more so, than the corresponding AP course.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek that really explains the homeschooler’s process well! Best of luck to your daughter in her future plans. (: But just out of curiosity: what’s she doing as a homeschooler that’s rather un-traditional?
If it was up to me, I would do math and science all day, but unfortunately for any top-tier college I think some conformity is necessary. 
But on that line of thought…Do you think it would be too radical to just do math and science as a junior and senior? Maybe think on the lines of someone who really wants to get into MIT. 
Yes. Few colleges, including MIT, are expecting, or wanting, its applicants to specialize in HS. At almost all colleges, you can’t even just take math and science courses; that’s why there’s grad school. 
@cicebro My current college junior (I almost wrote sophomore, but his grades for this past semester are posted 
) is a physics and math geek. (I started posting on CC when he was a sr. I hadn’t plann d on sticking around. Oops!) Anyway, no he did not only study math and science, but his transcript was not traditional, either. He was a very advanced student, so take this with a bucket of salt. He took multiple math and physics courses DE at our local university. He self-designed 3 independent study astronomy courses (the third focused on black holes and dark matter.)
He also studied philosophy (and the philosophy of science and religion.) He did a yr long study of the theology in multiple CS Lewis works. Etc, etc. He also took core courses like history, gov’t, Econ. But he had ample opportunity to dictate what he studied.
My 11th grader is similar but different interests. She loves languages and literature. She is doing an in-depth fairy tale study reading Perrault’s fairy tales in French, Russian folk tales in Russian, and Grimm’s (not in German 
) in English. She is currently doing a linguistics course. But, she has also taken math through cal 1, science, history etc. (Though Russian history has also been a course and French history is planned.)
Make sure you are well-rounded bc all educated people need to be. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and develop your interests to extremely high levels at the same time. My kids love learning and they definitely have fun developing courses around what they want to study.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek oh, that’s really neat!
Hmm, maybe I phrased that badly…I’m actually very into things other than math (e.g. done latin for 5 years, plan to do 7 by the time I end high school; plan to study sanskrit and japanese possibly). I’m also really into political science. I’ve also done university level english courses.
My situation is that I’ve already finished my prerequisites for college: I’m really solid on math; I’m still going with science; I’ve done adequate english and social studies; and my language studies are above and beyond what is required. So what I’m actually asking is if it would be okay to kind of start an independent study college-esque homeschooling approach where from now on I only focus on what I really enjoy to do. For example, since I don’t like history at all, I’d probably not do it again: instead, I’d focus on advanced math courses(maybe math research?), linguistics, and political science. I’m just wondering how far I can take my freedom as a homeschooler.
I would make sure that you have adequately documented what you have studied.
Fwiw, you could turn your interests into some challenging research projects. For example, what is the impact of science and technology on a country’s economy and political system? Or, to stretch yourself, how does a country’s history influence its modern political system? (History does not have to be boring. You would be challenging yourself to question your own perspective on studying history.)
I would make sure you study courses across the spectrum of subjects. You have freedom to study them in a way interests you. Require high levels of both input and output. You can always submit a portfolio of work demonstrating your achievements.
Does that make sense? You need to have a broad subject base, but you can study them in a way that appeals to you at an appropriate level of challenge.
@Cicebro, my homeschooled son is graduating from MIT this year. He was very top heavy in math and physics, taking, I think, 8 college physics courses and 7 college math courses. (He’s getting a math or math/cs degree).
He was definitely weaker in some subjects such as history, foreign language, bio and chem. He sort of had 4 years of history (I year of a bad honors online WH, a semester of US History at the community college, a self-study of Intro to Islam, which was mostly just reading books, and then an online Worldviews class). He had the equivalence of 3 years of foreign language (2 semesters of Arabic at the CC), sort of a year’s worth of bio (labs only), sort of a year’s worth of chem (1/2 year of chem labs, 1/2 year of AP chem via Thinkwell).
He did have 5 years of Language Arts since he really enjoys Lit and writing. Otherwise, he was quite lopsided. We still tried to check the boxes, but for those subjects that he had little interest, it was pretty unschoolish. My goal for him was to have 4 years of all subjects except foreign language.
I do have to say he was nationally accomplished in chess, math and physics, and was also a very accomplished musician, so he had a lot to commend him.