<p>If you want to become really enraged, read this (financial aid section)</p>
<p>As a NYS resident, we have no way to optain a diploma, short of "paying for one from an umbrella school" or the GED. Sorry, but the GED isn't an option, not when my child has already satisfied tough NYSED requirements as a homeschooled students for 12 years.</p>
<p>This is a huge double standard.</p>
<p>what's hamilton college?</p>
<p>I read this, but it just says, "obtain a diploma or GED." It doesn't say "diploma from an accredited school." Print up your own diploma for your high school graduate.
Treat your homeschool like the private school that it is.</p>
<p>I know some New York colleges do have difficult requirements for homeschoolers, but atomom is right, at least on the face of it. It doesn't say an accredited diploma, it just says a diploma. For federal aid, that may be required. However, our sons just had homemade ones.</p>
<p>Again, I can't say for sure about New York, as I have heard things are more difficult there.</p>
<p>federal financial aid requires a GED or high school diploma in order to grant aid (Pell grants, stafford loans, etc) -- there are other options, depending on the school. It is a universal requirement -- and can be easily satisfied by granting your own home school diploma.</p>
<p>here is the official link to eligibility requirements for federal financial aid: <a href="http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/funding/StudentEligibility.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/funding/StudentEligibility.pdf</a></p>
<p>Hamilton College (Clinton NY) is one of the top LAC. The point of my E-mail isn't about the College but the double standard. When homeschooled children have met the requirements set by the state, requiring them to also take a G.E.D is not equal treatment.</p>
<p>I agree with the suggestion to issue your own diploma to satisfy requirements such as these. The more homeschooler stand together, proud of the option we have provided our children, the more schools will have to listen. After all...........they want your kids, they are a great group of learners.</p>
<p>I'm probably in the minority here, but as a home-schooling parent, I recogninze that by having chosen an uncoventional path for educating my children, there will be certain additional expectations by colleges, scholarship organizations, financial institutions, etc.... </p>
<p>The GED or SAT IIs are just tests (like the thousands of other tests that public and private school students have to take over their 12 years) - as home-schoolers, I think we can handle them without a problem and although they might be a pain in the rear, it's just another hoop to jump through like so many other things in life.</p>
<p>Pearl, that's a good perspective, and one that helps keep your blood pressure in the normal range. :)</p>
<p>Basically, I guess you just have to figure out your goals and do what it takes to reach them. If a certain requirement is something you are not willing to do, then just cross that college off the list. There are plenty more.</p>
<p>Pearl, I agree with you that by chosing the our educational path, we have to be prepared to answer certain unknowns. I have no issue with students taking CAT's, Iowa's, PASS, SAT's SAT II's, AP's........... </p>
<p>But living in NYS, the facts are that we have to answer to the school district through out the year (provide a yearly IHIP for approval, report progress 4 times a school year, provide a annual assesment and beginning in 4th grade, take a standardized test every other year and every year beginning in 9th grade). Believe me, the schools should have a handle on our children's progress. To ask students to take a GED test to prove once again that we are fulfilling requirements is more than is asked of any child in school.</p>
<p>I spend a lot of time on paper work to meet these requirements. I have 3 quarterly reports for 3 of my 4 children needing to be written for this first quarter right now. By the time my oldest had graduated, I had completed over 60 reports to the district on this child.</p>
<p>I am happy to report that Hamilton College admissions and financial aid wrote me to say that they recognize that each state has different requirements,</p>