Homeschooling and applying...

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi all! I'm hoping from some advice regarding the application process for my daughters. They are both Juniors, and we have homeschooled all the way through.</p>

<p>They both have very good PSAT scores ( probably commended, not semifinalists) and their ACT's will most likely be in the 30-34 range. One is younger (she'll be turning 17 while she's a freshman in college) but usually is also the one that scores slightly higher on the testing.</p>

<p>They are currently taking an AP English and are at the top of that class - we think they'll do very well (4's or 5's) on the exam in May. </p>

<p>I don't know what level income we'd be considered - it's about $80k w/ a family of 6, with 2 entering college at the same time. I have heard about Questbridge but I don't think we would be eligible. The finances will be a big part of the decision-making next year!</p>

<p>We live in a very rural area without alot of opportunity, where the average ACT is a 21 and many boys go into the military and the girls go to the state school for nursing. Our girls are NOT interested in nursing, lol. They do well in all subjects, but excel in English/writing/ and their own music (they have a trio, write their own songs, perform occasionally).</p>

<p>What types of colleges should we be looking at for them? Neither one really knows what they want to pursue yet. I am feeling very overwhelmed with everything, and I would love to get some input from those that have already gone through this and/or have similar students.</p>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to help with this.</p>

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<p>My daughter is homeschooled and is going through the process now.</p>

<p>With few exceptions, I do not feel that being homeschool limited her options as far as school choice. Some schools do have special application requirements for homeschoolers such as additional Sat 2’s or required interviews. I would recommend taking any SAT 2 that your children can do well on.</p>

<p>You can get great advice on the Financial Aid board including school recommendations. Most will tell you to focus on schools that give good merit aid and also on schools that meet full need. They will need more information about where you are located and size of school.</p>

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<p>You may find some help on the Home Schooling forum:
[Home</a> Schooling and College - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/home-schooling-college/]Home”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/home-schooling-college/)</p>

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<p>First you have to to start with your daughters. What makes them tick? Any interests starting to come to the surface? Rural or Urban University? Large School, Medium, Small. Large State University and all the big sports that typically come with them or maybe private with no school spirit stuff going on? Once you have those preferences you can start digging in. If they go Large State University, they can focus on honors programs inside those schools. That way they get big school resources with small school instruction. I would think with your finances you will qualify for some need based need, although I am no expert in that area, but they can garner some serious merit aid if they target school where their stats are in the top 10% of the entering class.</p>

<p>With your younger daughter only being 16 entering college, have you considered a gap year for her? Kids that young go to college, but realize that there are challenges. There have been threads here about that before, for me and my opinion, I would want a child that young pretty close by…no greater than a 4 hour drive…that is just me and my comfort level, no scientific reason…just a mom’s heart.</p>

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<p>With an income in the $80K range and two daughters starting college at the same time, you could qualify for very substantial need-based aid at colleges that meet full need. There are, however, only a few dozen of these, and they tend to be highly competitive in admissions. (Especially so for colleges that both meet 100% of need and are need-blind in admissions, i.e., they won’t use ability-to-pay as a factor in admissions decisions). I think you should have some number of these on your daughters’ lists; do a web search to find the complete list. </p>

<p>You should also consider some schools that give a lot of merit aid; most of these skimp on need-based aid, but there are definitely some students who get great financial deals because the colleges are looking to boost the stats of their entering class. You should also consider public options in your state, which could be good, bad, or middling, depending on the state.</p>

<p>All colleges now accept homeschooled students. It sounds like your daughters’ test scores will be competitive for admission to some very good schools, but they’ll need more than that. Depending on how you’ve homeschooled, you may not have “objective” (third-party) grades, though some homeschoolers do. If you don’t, test scores take on somewhat greater importance, but so do things like extracurriculars (the boundary is often fuzzier for homeschoolers), essays, and recommendations (from more than your family, but your parental/guidance counselor recommendation/“school report” will also be important). I’d encourage you to get hold of the Common Application used by many colleges, and especially the Homeschooling Supplement, and start thinking now about how you would answer the questions–and what you can do in the next year or so to come up with stronger answers. The goal, I think, is to present your daughters and their accomplishments in a positive but realistic light that is believable to admissions officers reviewing the application. An excess of gushing superlatives will come across as self-serving and not credible; but harsh criticism can also be damning.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>My two older boys homeschooled and both got into their first choice schools (a Christian LAC for oldest and a private research U for middle). There is no limit for homeschoolers any longer as long as you can substantiate their foundation (the ACT is a great start for this).</p>

<p>Right now, start visiting any colleges near you (whether you want them to go there or not). Get a feel for the types of colleges they like (rural, urban, suburban, large, small, research, LAC - Liberal Arts College, state, private, Christian, secular). Also see what fields interest them the most for potential careers. Perhaps they can shadow some people in that field. (Our public high school requires this of juniors.) They should ask those they shadow about education requirements and potential good schools for that field.</p>

<p>Both girls are in a good position for either merit or need-based aid (pending the school - NOT all schools offer merit aid and some aren’t good with need-based).</p>

<p>I also sent you a pm… ;)</p>

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<p>turtle, my homeschooled daughter went off to college this year still 16 (turned 17 a month into the semester). She has twin brothers, a year older than her and always kept up with them - and scored higher. We never considered not sending her to college at the same time, she did the work, she was ready, and she wanted to go. She got herself into a 100% needs met school (our income is similar to yours and we had 3 going in) her tuition is about half of what we pay for the boys. Her only adjustment issue was homesickness the first semester, but I don’t think she was any more homesick than the other two, just more able to express it, being a girl. This semester she seems much happier. So I wouldn’t let your daughter’s age stop her if she is ready to go. </p>

<p>I agree that you should start visiting any schools you aren’t too far from, different sizes. Take the tours and walk around the area - if there is anywhere to go. My kids all had very different likes. My daughter wanted to be able to walk off campus into a reasonably sized town/city. The boys didn’t care about that at all - they both ended up on very large campuses - even though one of them thought he wanted small before he started. Definitely go while school is in session - so you can get a feel for what the students are like.</p>

<p>We used the College Boards college search engine to start us off, it gave us some good ideas on where to start.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the advice and encouragement!</p>

<p>We’ve discussed most of what was mentioned, including a gap year for the younger (so far, she’s not interested), and even visited a few schools over the past year. The advice to look at the Common App was a good one - thanks for that!</p>

<p>It seems they both want a college/university that is not in a big city, within 2 or 3 hours of home, that offers just about everything…the trouble is one likes Chemistry, the other Biology, but they both have a real interest in writing/music as well. I (and they) have no idea what they will actually major in yet. They also would both prefer a Christian school, but would be ok with secular as long as it wasn’t a big-time Greek, party, or ultra-liberal school. States within range of our location are OH, PA, NY, WV, & MD. We visited Grove City but it wasn’t love at first visit, and I think the $ may be problematic.</p>

<p>As far as outside confirmation, they have only taken choir/music theory at a nearby Christian school. The teacher loves them (he graduated from Berklee and is no slouch himself) and I’m sure he’ll give them a good rec., but it’s not a science/math course so I don’t know how much weight it will have. The online AP teacher would probably also write a great recommendation.</p>

<p>The ACT they took as Freshman gave them a composite 28, and the practice tests are steady between 30 & 34, but we’ll see what they actually end up with. </p>

<p>Thanks again, and if anyone has any other school suggestions please let me know!</p>

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<p>turtlefence,</p>

<p>You might get a copy of the book, <em>Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth About America’s Top Schools</em> (look it up on Amazon). This book is written from a decidedly conservative standpoint (you mentioned Christian schools but not conservative, so this might not be the book for you). </p>

<p>I found it very helpful when looking at colleges for my homeschooled oldest son.</p>

<p>You’re right about Christian colleges; most of them don’t have much financial aid or scholarships but I have seen a few that offer substantial merit aid: Liberty Univ. (I think it’s in Va?) and a couple in Oklahoma but that sounds too far for you. I don’t know about others. Here are a few others that might be in your area (or close):</p>

<p>Wheaton (in Illinois), Taylor (in Indiana) and Cedarville (in Ohio), Patrick Henry College (Va), and Regent Univ. (Va)</p>

<p>Since we were looking specifically at schools with strong math and physics, I don’t know how much our list of schools would help. </p>

<p>Also, some of the more “conservative” secular schools are big greek schools and party schools (like U. of Richmond, UVA, etc) but honestly, you’ll find drinking at most schools. Oh, you might check out Furman (South Carolina) and Davidson (North Carolina). Even some schools that have a lot of kids in the Greek system (MIT has almost 1/2 the student body in frats or sororities) might not seem “Greek”. (It seems to be ok at MIT if you’re not in one since the frats are off campus)</p>

<p>Re. finances: We are in your range. Last year, as a family of 5 making 77K (this year, I think it’s a little less), my oldest got a boatload of need-based aid from schools like Princeton, Vanderbilt, Penn, and MIT. I would think you would qualify for a lot of need-based aid.</p>

<p>Feel free to PM me. We are lifelong homeschoolers.</p>

<p>Oh, and my son’s good friend from church also is at MIT and she started at age 17. It seems to be working fine for her. Some students are just ready and able at a younger age. :-)</p>

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<p>I think you will be fine. When you check out schools, find out what their policies for home schoolers are. If they seem unfriendly towards them, then make note of that as you make your lists and come back to them only if necessary. </p>

<p>I know that NY state used to be a bit of an issue as they require a “diploma” or GRE certificate or something. Even Juilliard, a school that does not care about your GPA wants a final transcipt/diploma ,something and some homeschoolers have mentioned that if not taking the GRE or not haveing some system with a “diploma” makes it a pain. Don’t know if it is still the case.</p>

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<p>@ sbjdorlo - the book looks like a great resource, thanks for suggesting it. I’ll order it today!</p>

<p>I really apppreciate the encouragement. A big part of my overwhelmed-ness is that the girls just have a lot of diverse interests, which makes it hard to narrow things down. They’ll probably end up applying to a very wide range of schools because of that. I just hope the final decisions will be a little easier when the time comes, lol!</p>

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<p>That book is available online from the source (collegeguide.org) for $25/year (at least, it was $25 when I had it for a year). </p>

<p>[CollegeGuide.org</a> - What is CollegeGuide.org](<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/about_cg.aspx]CollegeGuide.org”>http://www.collegeguide.org/about_cg.aspx)</p>

<p>We used it when middle son was looking at schools and found it very helpful, though it doesn’t have ALL the schools in it. It does have some.</p>

<p>If you want to preview it, you can go to the site and pick 3 reports to look at. At checkout you can plug in 3FREE and get those for free to see if you like what they offer. (Again, this was all true a year or so ago - I have no idea if they ended that option, but you don’t pay a thing until you put in your info, so it’s worth a try.)</p>

<p>It’s not just conservative folks who use those extensive reports. I know more than a handful of solidly liberal folks who use it - as it’s useful either way.</p>

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<p>Have you visited your state flagship U.? If you look at their admissions website, you can determine pretty easily whether it is a home-school friendly place. Be sure they prepare for the SAT Subject matter tests, they will need them for many school applications. Best of luck!</p>