<p>I am completely stuck on the School Form. My kids are going to have references, mailed, but not from teachers (and yes, this has been cleared by the schools they are applying to). In the school form, you only have the choice of teacher or counselor, and if you select teacher you get the drop down menu for subject. All these fields need to be used, and since the references will not be teachers, per se, I don't want to say something that is not true - and could be misleading. It appears these fields need to be completed in order to submit the common app, so I am stuck.</p>
<p>Do the schools want the letters of recommendation to be sent electronically through the Common App? If they will take a paper copy then you can skip the entire problem. If it needs to go through the Common App, then, as a fellow homeschool mom, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the references “teachers” and choose a very broad subject. It will be clear in the letter that is written that these people are not teachers, though they will be confronted with a grid where they have to check boxes indicating what kind of student your child has been.</p>
<p>After writing all this, I’m going to say that your best bet is to contact the college admissions office and see what they want. You aren’t the first homeschool family that doesn’t fit neatly into the Common App box. </p>
<p>I’m glad to see this posted here – the homeschool forum doesn’t get much traffic, and I haven’t seen any practical questions about the Common App there. I’m in the midst of trying to figure out some of it out too, and would love to have a thread for questions like this.</p>
<p>Have the student the schools’ AOs and ask how they would like the student to deal with this aspect of the CA. The others are right, the colleges receive apps from other homeschoolers & this must come up every year. </p>
<p>I would also email the CA people and not ask, but tell, them that you are a homeschooler with this issue, and nicely say they need to create another category in their drop down for homeschoolers to use. Even “Other” if they can’t think of anything else. There are plenty of homeschoolers using the CA.</p>
<p>Colleges will accept paper recommendations; they get them all the time. High schools have access to the Common App account on behalf of their students, but many applicants choose to ask for letters written by employers, supervisors of their volunteer activities, and other people who are not privy to the CA site.</p>
<p>There is a Common App forum here and I know one or two folks who are Common App support people who post there. I’m going going to out them, but you’ll notice a few very helpful users there. :)</p>
<p>I believe there are instructions for home schooled students on the Common App’s website. Every page also has a “help” link where you can submit a request.</p>
<p>I did email the CA help, and they just emailed back to mail those references. Nobody seems to understand that CA website says those fields NEED to be filled in to submit the CA. I am very frustrated.</p>