<p>oh yeah, i went to a local prochial highschool for a while and i have greet recs. from my teachers there. i did all honors and got the following grades there:
Fresh. - gpa:3.958 94% ave. 15/205 class rank
Soph. (first quarter after which i left for health reasons and resumed homeschoolin) gpa: 4.0 97% ave. class rank ?? probably top 2 or 3</p>
<p>i forgot to mention Fencing in the EC list. i fence at Salle du Lion fencing center as well. </p>
<p>please advise on the EC issue</p>
<p>Einsteingermany - The only thing I would recommend is some community service. I always thought if I had continued homeshooling my sons then we would have done maybe meals-on-wheels or something like that. It would be best for you to commit your service hours to one organization so that you would list it on your colleges application like this: Community Service: Meals-on-Wheels 100 hours (or whatever). My son for example has over 300+ community service hours, but not in one thing which I think looks a little weaker than 300+ in one service. If you are interested in politics you could also do something like that. One other thing that we always did - take the SAT or CAT (grade level appropriate) so that the schools can look at the scores you received. Always keep records of every class you have taken, and also keep a list of books that you have read. When I went to the high school to enter my son in 10th grade the couselor did not even want me to enroll him. She had heard all the negative aspects of homeschooling. The thing that made the most difference to her was when I brought out his test scores (thankfully he tests well and was in the top 90%). When I submitted his textbooks I also included a list of books he read for each grade. The english teachers were amazed at his choices. To make a long story short, both of my boys are very very well thought of at their schools. The couselor absolutely adores my sons along with their teachers. Some people have commented that homeschoolers may look better until 8th grade and then it goes downhill is not always true. It looks like you are doing a great job & keep it up!</p>
<p>hyp2010 - "Clearly your boys would not be in a good social position if they had continued homeschooling through HS".</p>
<p>What? How in the world did you come to that conclusion? I think it would have been a lot easier for them socially to go to college first over a public high school. Think about it, they are in high school where most (unfortunately) of the kids don't want to be there, don't want to learn, are not mature yet, etc. The list could go on and on. When you go to college you are weeding out a lot of stuff that would definately give them a clearer advantage. I am sure many of the adults on this website will tell you that your high school life can be the most difficult time of your life. If you have ever watched "Extreme Makeover" almost every single person says that in school so and so made fun of my nose, my body, etc., etc., etc. Many of the times these people look fine. Kids are very cruel. I think the reason my kids have done so well in high school is because they are very secure in who they are. Had they went to middle school they might very well be on "Extreme Makeover" too. In fact, many of my sons friends (at HS) are just fabulous kids; but are very insecure because people made fun of them for one reason or another. They are afraid to try to do things because they are afraid others will make fun of them. For that matter, there are quite a few kids at their school who have serious problems in the "social" area. Going to high school (or any school for that matter) is not going to make someone's "social" problems disappear. Everyone I know says that college was much easier socially than it was in high school so I use these opinions to make my point.</p>
<p>if you have home school, can you get your parents to write your Recs? and you'd be one of the top few they have ever seen in their career. and then give yourself all the awards lol</p>
<p>
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Some people have commented that homeschoolers may look better until 8th grade and then it goes downhill
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<p>an MIT adcom made the comment to me once that the homeschooler apps he sees are very "bimodal". He said that some of them were "absolutely outstanding", and that the rest were not competitive at all, with very few in between. This is unlike school kids' applications which are more of a Bell curve, heavy on the "in between" and light on the extremes.</p>
<p>The total number of homeschoolers is much lower for high school than for 1st-8th. There are various reasons for this. Some kids want to go to school at that age. Some parents feel less confidant about guiding their kids thru high school subjects than they were about lower level subjects. Some families feel their kids will have a better chance at college admissions with a traditional high school background. </p>
<p>The fact that there is a big drop-off for high school may mean that families who do homeschool thru 12th make represent more exteme positions than families who homeschool for 1st-8th. One extreme who will keep going with homeschooling thru high school is the highly gifted - the kids who are ready to take college courses during their high school years and would be insufficiently challenged by the local high schools. These are the "outstanding" applicants the MIT guy sees. Another extreme would be those kids with learning disabilities, health problems, personality quirks, or social attributes that would make them fit poorly into an institutional setting and who need more specialized support than a high school can provide. Another extreme might be families who are homeschooling exclusively for religious or cultural reasons and who may place a much lower priority on academics. These last two groups may fare worse than traditionally schooled students when it comes to applying to selective colleges. But the first group is going to fare extremely well!</p>
<p>
[quote]
What? How in the world did you come to that conclusion? I think it would have been a lot easier for them socially to go to college first over a public high school. Think about it, they are in high school where most (unfortunately) of the kids don't want to be there, don't want to learn, are not mature yet, etc.
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</p>
<p>I would like to add to your thread that I aided secretaries in the office of my high school senior year. I cannot even stress how many stupid kids/parents there are in the public school I was in and how tired the administration was of dealing with some of these people. Some parents assume that their kids are little angels--boy are they wrong!! One of the secretary's even quit after only one year--mostly I associate this with the crap she had to put up with from ticked off parents and whiny crybaby students over the phone and in the office. Some parents even made their way into the office cursing to defend their "innocent" kids who had "done nothing wrong". This is certainly not a profession I would want to be in if someone has to deal with stuff like this even every once in a while.</p>
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if you have home school, can you get your parents to write your Recs? and you'd be one of the top few they have ever seen in their career. and then give yourself all the awards lol
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</p>
<p>Newbyre - "homeschooling" does NOT mean "school at home" with the parents as teachers. Homeschooling kids can and do take college courses, distance learning courses, homeschooling courses, internships, participate in community activities, have tutors, take specialized classes meant for adults, play team sports, participate in church activities, volunteer, work, etc, etc. There is no limit. And many of these things put them into contact with adults who can write recs. I coach a homeschooler math team, and write lots of recs for the kids on the team. I know them much better and take much more time and effort with the letters than many of the teachers who write rec letters for school kids. My son worked with a homeschooling parent who is a research chemist, who wrote one of his letters. He got another from a college prof, and a third from a coach for a national-level academic competition unrelated to homeschooling.</p>
<p>I have not noticed homeschooled kids to have social problems per se. I would expect that it would be the case IF the you are looking at a group of kids who are being homeschooled for social problem. If you are looking at a group of kids who are being homeschooled because of learning disabilities and just not doing well at school, of course those kids will show more of that situation than a random group of kids. For the same reason, if you look at kids who are homeschooled because they are accelerated, have some phenomonal talent, EC or other situation where going to school interferes with their special abilities, I would expect these kids will be at an advantage in those areas. Hilary Hahn, Michael Phelps are a couple of very talented kids homeschooled because their special talents required more time than possible if you threw in a regular school day.</p>
<p>As in everything in life, there are risks in making these choices. I have seen homeschooling fail because the parents did not stay on top of the curriculum, chose the wrong curriculum, the kids lost momentum they had earlier, needed more instruction--this often happens when a kid looks like he has the situation under control so the parents figure he is mature enough to do it himself. Also some kids who are so spoonfed in the instruction in highschool can have difficulties in college when they transition to group instruction, particularly at some types of colleges. also kids who are homeschooling to sharpen another skill or talent, may lose interest in that area or in anything physically dependent get hurt. I would hate to see Michael Phelps not be able to swim, as I don't think that the homeschooling emphasis he received was college prep, for instance. So there are these risks.</p>
<p>For my boys, homeschooling would have been a boon. High test scores, great ECs ; their problems were with the school and teacher recs, and grades, things that are not needed if we had homeschooled.School was a great place for them to get into trouble academically, behaviorally, and they antagonized alot of people at school. The homeschooling circles I knew had people I knew well giving recs, and I could always come up with recs from various programs that were good. The problem was always the school. In fact, I did get my kids into some selective highschool by homeschooling for a period of time. My girls benefited from the great teachers recs/school recs by schools that knew the admissions offices, as their problems were the testscores, and they were not so truly outstanding in any EC where one could say they had a hook. They took the most difficult courses in rigorous school, impressed the school counselors and teachers which gave them a leg up in selective programs. I doubt if homeschooling would have helped them as much. </p>
<p>So as with all education alternatives, there are benefits and disadvantages, and they do vary from child to child, family to family, case by case.</p>