She visited MIT with her son within the last two weeks. And that is what she was told…in person, by admissions. Take that with a grain of salt if you want. Don’t believe it if you want. it’s up to you.
I’m not claiming to be all knowing on this topic. I’m simply saying…my friend was surprised…it sounds like some of you would be surprised as well. I was attempting to give a heads up to people in the same position as my friend…
If you have a kid hoping to go into STEM at a very selective school, their home school lab policy is worth checking into at his/her target schools.
From others in the thread, it sounds like she’s not the only person who has run into this.
Since we’re talking about science, maybe we should approach this scientifically. We can accept internet rumors and anecdotes or we can consult individual college websites for their admission requirements. I tend to think the websites will provide more reliable information.
Which schools have said they’re worried about the labs homeschoolers are doing and how they’re doing them? So far we have one school that requires an affidavit. That hardly signifies a growing problem.
If homeschooled students aren’t forced to take science labs with other students they won’t understand how to share, be considerate, or learn to stand up for themselves? How did we go from one family not having their science labs accepted by MIT and a couple of state schools to homeschoolers being incapable of playing nicely in the sandbox?
You haven’t actually shown this to be true. You have a sample size of one, and that person only has 3 data points (and one of them appears to be incorrect). That’s hardly indicative of a substantive change in policy.
Hm, well my independently homeschooled son did his biology and chemistry labs in my garage at home, and he actually only did a half a year of chemistry labs. He really disliked chemistry and biology, tbh. He did take a bunch of college physics classes, though. He just graduated from MIT last year, and got into 10 out of 10 colleges including Princeton, Penn, and Caltech.
I’ll be happy to talk with your friend about MIT. I actually work as a college consultant now, and work with a lot of STEM independent homeschoolers.Feel free to have her connect with me if she has questions.
Actually no one in this thread confirmed similar issues. ASU and UF don’t say anything about collaboration required for labs and both are quite clear on their websites about what they expect from homeschoolers. Requiring subject test scores is often stated as a requirement, but as was pointed out, those are tending to be loosening requirements, not increasing. In 2013 GT required 4 cross subject subject test scores from homeschoolers. They dropped the requirement in 2014. (My ds applied and was accepted in 2014 without them.) Here is their current homeschool page: http://admission.gatech.edu/freshman/home-school
Fwiw, I asked and a friend whose kids went to MIT and Stanford and completed all their sciences at home says she has not heard anything about changes in policy and that it would counter to what she knows about how the schools view homeschooling educational opportunities.
MIT’s admission process for homeschoolers is very transparent and makes no mention of requiring collaborative labs. What other colleges did your friend say are also not accepting non-collaborative labs?
My homeschooled son is at MIT. They accepted the labs he did at our kitchen table.
When were all these kids accepted to MIT with kitchen table labs? It could be that policy is changing. I’m talking about a student who is applying this fall for the 18-19 school year.
Obviously none of them are accepted for the upcoming application season. Seems like that is the only answer you are going to believe.
MIT is not going to just randomly change their policy after decades of openness of what they are looking for and posting it clearly on their website. I think most homeschoolers are going to accept MIT’s website and the homeschoolers currently attending who state they did not have problems with their labs being accepted over someone who spoke to someone who spoke to someone who said it was an issue.
@MaryGJ There are a number of us who have homeschooled our own kids and have helped others do the same. As a group, we are pretty well versed in this stuff.
I believe that you are trying to be helpful, but I don’t think you know as much as you think you do. If this were truly an admissions trend someone else in this group would have heard of it. We would be able to find confirmation from our “usual sources” outside CC. Either you are misunderstanding something or your friend is. But the family should come and post about their issues with science credits directly, so we can get the story straight from the source.
As an FYI, my son started AP Physics 2 in an online course. He quickly saw that it was all self-teaching and the labs would not be “real labs”. So we switched him to a course at a local university. Worlds of difference. He is learning so much (and he already was exposed to much of the material in online Honors Physics). His professors are educated at MIT and Berkeley. From a learning perspective, it was a great decision to take Physics in a university setting.
Definitely no one is saying taking labs at a college or university isn’t a good idea. Folks are just saying it’s not a death knell on selective admissions if some labs are done at home. My kids totally enjoyed their labs at the community college and university during high school (my guys both took physics at several colleges) , but they also were ok with doing bio and chem in our garage cause that’s what was available to us at the time.
And yes, policy does change, but one lab done at a kitchen table/home/garage won’t disqualify an otherwise qualified applicant from a top school, I am pretty sure.
I saw this thread last night, and then I did a search and found a thread on another forum from 2014 which brought up the same collaborative lab potential issue. I therefore wrote every Ivy plus MIT plus U of Michigan plus Wellesley last night about this, asking if AP lab science courses through PA Homeschoolers and/or CTY Online would fulfill a homeschoolers’ lab science admissions requirement/recommendation. I emphasized the labs would be done at home with kits, and that the PA Homeschooler courses and the CTY Online courses are taught by teachers and the students are given grades by those teachers. I also stated that my kids would take the AP exams after the classes. So far (it’s early in the morning still), MIT and U of Michigan have answered. I will edit this post as the answers from the other schools come in. I will also write other schools about this but am running out of time right now … those emails will have to be written later.
MIT – “We only have recommended courses, not required courses. Whatever you believe will help your daughters succeed and that they will enjoy.” 9:33am on 6/7/2017
U of Michigan – “the course itself does not cause any issue with lab requirements” - (I asked specifically about AP Chem through PA Homeschoolers since my 9th grader will take that next year, and then said I planned on having my kids take all AP sciences through PA Homeschoolers and/or CTY Online – again, emphasizing the labs would be done at home). The admissions officer stated the AP course and exam would be very helpful to U of Mich for evaluating the applicant, and that they would also suggest having the applicant take the corresponding SAT2 exam. 9:15am on 6/7/2017
Oops – did not realize one cannot edit one’s post after four minutes, or some such rule. I will wait a day or two before I post again with other responses, just so I don’t publish ten different posts. Will try to put all responses in one post.
Must say, by the way, that I am grateful for and impressed with the kind and speedy responses from the admissions folks thus far. I just sent them my question late last night and a few have already gotten back to me.
@JanieWalker The responses you received reflect what others have posted. Read the schools’ websites for what they require from homeschoolers. They are usually straightforward about what they expect. The OP’s comments about what MIT supposedly said did not mesh at all with their statements on their website. Your posted response does.
FWIW, subject tests are pretty much the standard across a plethora of schools. You’ll find that asking for 2 is fairly normal. Some don’t require any. A handful ask for 4.
“Collaborative labs,” otoh, are not an issue I would be concerned about at all.