<p>I enjoyed reading your answer Danas. And l loved “stepping back from the AP arms race…”
I did something similar with my kids in high school (I’ve graduated 2, have one in hs and one who will soon be in hs). I did not want their high school experience to be full of standardized testing. That would take the joy out of anyone! And I focused on letting them persue their passions - something that would be very hard to do while attending a traditional school. As a result, they loved being homeschooled.</p>
<p>My daughter was a successful IE speaker in NCFCA, but I think the determining factor in her admissions to a top flight public liberal arts college (and to the honors program at a USNWR top-50 national research university, which she rejected of which her mother is an alumnus) was her perfect and near perfect SAT scores.</p>
<p>If you make in the 700-800 range on individual tests on the SAT, homeschoolers shouldn’t have trouble getting in schools anywhere. That is the case even if the student is an avowed evangelical Christian who listens to Rush Limbaugh (Glenn Beck may be a different story!).</p>
<p>There are several services available to homeschool families that will assist students’ in attaining excellent SAT scores. Oxford Tutorial Services with Dr. Normand Lund is one of them.</p>
<p>This site has been REALLY helpful. I’ve just decided to homeschool my fourth child, after what I call the tyranny of grades–the very low level drudge do-exactly-as-I-say school of thought - has sort of beaten down my other children. I work full time and am a single mom, so I don’t have the luxury of staying home, which has been an impediment. But my 19 year old is home this year and my son is almost 15, so we’ll try it. You’ve given me a lot of confidence.</p>
<p>I tutor SATs - several quite prestigious clients - and I can tell you the formula is pretty simple:</p>
<ol>
<li> Read a lot. I’m not talking about dutiful reading for high school. I’m talking immersing yourself in books for the joy of it. Read challenging books that stretch you, just above your level but not too far. Books from the 1700 & 1800s are the best for vocab, syntax and complex ideas, but of course you don’t have to confine yourself to that. You should be reading actively for at least a year before the SAT, if not much more.</li>
<li> Practice the SATs. The math is not nearly as difficult as the ENglish, comparitively (I speak as an English geek). Target your weaknesses and keep going. You may need some help with some English or Math core concepts, but you can usually tutor yourself. There are some fine math books out there for Algebra, Geometry and Trig. Practice a lot. Keep practicing 6 months to a year.</li>
<li> The test tests analytical intelligence above all. It treats reading like algebra. It is very logical and literal and there is no room for nuance. It’s designed to be like that. Once you see the reading is like algebra, you’ll ‘get it’ much more. </li>
<li>Vocab cards are a complete waste of time for most people. INstead, figure out how to analyze the questions. You can usually logically deduce a word even when you don’t know many of the words.</li>
</ol>
<p>I wish I could sit down and help all of you; my friend once taught me how to make home made bread by just SHOWING me how once–I didn’t get it until I was actually with her. But trust me, it’s not above your reach to get high scores if you’re reasonably intelligent (if you’re not, you can boost your scores too). You don’t need a very expensive tutor or class. </p>
<p>But the wealthy people I client have children who are NOT that smart, trust me, and yet they end up earning in the 700s on both (and usually 600s if they are classified with a learning disability such as Aspergers). Good luck. But prepare long in advance (at least a year), like my clients do.</p>
<p>My kids were homeschooled and studied at home for the SATs with just prep books. But like you said, hoveringmom, they “prepared” for those test over a long period of time, and they had been reading high level literature for years… motivated by nothing by pure pleasure. They are both happily in college now. 
I miss them. :(</p>
<p>I forgot to ask you all another question!
My son wants to supplement his homeschooling education with college math; he’s a math geek. He doesn’t need credits, necessarily, but just wants to learn and probably get a grade as a way of measuring his performance. Say he starts at Calc. How do you work this? Has anyone done this?<br>
We live very close to Philadelphia, so are fortunate in having many fine colleges to choose from. Here are my questions specifically:
- Is there an inexpensive way to do this? We’re not well off. It usually costs a great deal per credit around here in four year colleges, in the $1000 range. We certainly don’t have $2-3000 to throw at a class. Are there reputable but cheaper options? Or are there ways of perhaps sitting in on a class and then getting some documentation that you did the whole course? But I’m sure the professor doesn’t want to do extra work for a non-paying student. Help!
- Do you have to be a certain age to do this, and are there any other pre-reqs?
- If any of you or your kids took a college course to supplement their homeschool education, what is your story? How did you go about it?<br>
- Has anyone had successful online experiences?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>A home school family in our neighborhood here in Chicago has arranged “classes” at their home for home schoolers taught by University of Chicago PhD students in a variety of areas. The cost is about $15 an hour one-on-one, and less per student for larger groups of maybe 3 to 5. Usually once, maybe twice, a week. This is one model. Most of the home schoolers here on the South Side of Chicago are sensitive to cost. Much depends on the availability of smart PhD students in your area, and how easy it is to access them. But in my experience, PhD students are always interested in picking up some money on a flexible schedule. And tutoring a home school student in higher math is good, clean work.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice but I should clarify–I myself have an advanced degree and am a certified teacher, both of high school & college; I"m certified to teach both English and Math (as well as Special Ed). My ex is a college professor in Biology. So we wouldn’t need to hire atutor. What I was wanting was an objective measurement for my child–if he goes to college classes and advances in math, that would be a good way for him to show he knows the math, above SAT math (which is a pretty low level).</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience in enrolling their child in college classes to supplement their learning? THanks again</p>
<p>There are many online classes that could serve your son’s needs, Stanford EPGY is one, CTY online another. Beyond AP Calc, Multivariable Calc & Linear Alg are offered. Not sure about how pricey but grades are given.</p>
<p>My son took Calculus at the state u. in our town. He took 10 classes there over the last 2 years that he was home (last 2 years of homeschool/high school). They have a reduced rate for something they call the Early Entry program. It’s specifically for high school students in their junior and senior years (including homeschoolers). They are in the same classes at the univ. with the regularly enrolled students, get grades, credits, it’s on the college’s official transcript. The cost was about $200 to $250 per class per quarter. (And books, of course.) You might check with your local colleges and ask if they have such a program.</p>
<p>I understand what you are looking for, hoveringmom.
But I have a philosophical difference. Does your son want to learn higher level math, including an area of math that interests him in some individual way, or to demonstrate that he has learned higher level math?
In my experience, the second reason is not necessary. I’ve had two kids go through the college application process happily with no courses of any kind at all, and with no academic recommendations either, except in the broadest sense. From a practical admissions point of view, getting into the bowels of some arcane area of math with an elite college graduate student is much more interesting than taking some college course. And likely to be way more personally fulfilling.
But I’m a minority even on home schooling threads, as I have learned. I think the belief in school has become a secular religion, and I’m an atheist on that one.
I also think that teaching and teaching credentials are not just unimportant to learning, but counterproductive to it. I would never have agreed to become a home school parent (at my kids insistence) if agreeing to teach were part of the bargain.</p>
<p>Dana,
Thanks for the response. Yes, I agree that teaching credentials are not relevant; I only offered my own to say that I wouldn’t need to hire a PhD student as I myself am at a higher level academically, having had stories and papers published in literary journals and magazines, as is my son’s dad (I in English and he in Bio). Also there are a couple of things I do as someone who is experienced as a working teacher & tutor-- mainly I know how to ask the questions that help the student do the work; I usually insist on students actively doing the thinking and working and resist the temptation to ‘tell’ him/her an answer even when they don’t understand at first; I nearly always give them clues that will still lead them to find the right answer themselves. Also I have a few tricks up my sleeve in helping the student use other methods of learning when they are stuck, such as drawing a picture or singing or dancing if they are stuck with getting a concept via reading. That I learned as a teacher. But you can already know that as a parent or a person. </p>
<p>But mainly I too believe you can not graduate high school and still be an excellent mentor for homeschooling–particularly if you have a certain kind of highly self-directed or focused or passionate child. It does help to have advanced knowledge in a certain area–for instance, I can direct my son to certain books and then have high level discussions with him that he wouldn’t encounter until college or grad school. But if you can’t do that - as I couldn’t with history, say - that’s ok. Again, particularly if your child is self-directed and curious and driven. THere are all sorts of resources out there.</p>
<p>You raise a valid point about whether I’d want college classes for my son for his own sake or in order to ‘impress’ admissions and it set me thinking. I think the answer is both. He is very interested in high level math and I wouldn’t be able to provide that at all. It is also difficult to self-teach some of the concepts. But to be honest, yes, I want elite colleges to see he took elite math classes. I’m not sure htere’s anything wrong with this. I am not well off and need him to get a scholarship if at all possible. In that sense, the math classes serve the dual purpose of educating him and opening his horizons, as well as helping him get a scholarship or get admitted. SO I think I’d still want him to do this.</p>
<p>Thanks once again–So, anybody out there who has had their child take college classes?</p>
<p>I’ve taken many classes through Dual Enrollment, I feel it has allowed me to experience a classroom setting and is much more suited to the level of learning I enjoy.</p>
<p>Hovingmom (love your screenname, btw), LOTS of homeschoolers take college classes. I live in an area where homeschooling is very popular, and nearly all the homeschooled kids I know who’ve gone on to 4-yr universities had taken college classes while still homeschooling/high school. In fact, around here at least it is quite rare for a homeschooled college-bound student to not do so.</p>
<p>The higher-achieving kids from the public high school often do so as well under dual enrollment programs such as Corey91 mentiond. (The univ. is just blocks away from the public high school here so it’s very conveient to do so.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure what other information you’re looking for. I know the cost is an issue for you, but there’s no way to find out anything concrete about that without contacting the university/ies in your area and asking.</p>
<p>In any case, it’s nothing unusual and as you read around on College Confidential over time you will see quite a few student who do this while still in high school. Does it look good to college admissions officers? I would assume so as it’s in that same vein of “challenging” one’s self with AP, IB, and college or college-level classes. Of course, as Danas points out, there are other ways (perhaps more creative ones) to challenge one’s self. My son really enjoyed the college classes he took, including calculus. Mostly, though, it was the philosophy and political science classes that really turned him on.</p>
<p>Thanks! When your kids took the college classes, did they opt for college credit as well? Or did they not opt for it so that they could enter a college without having officially been enrolled in a college? How does that work?</p>
<p>It’s so interesting how things vary so much by region. I live in South Jersey in a prestigious school district and no one I know takes college courses while in high school, I think because the high school offers at least 15 AP classes in the school itself, including AP Music Theory, AP Art History, etc. Honors students can and do take 8 classes each year, and no lunch, and even if they were to take all the AP courses possible, they would never be able to take all offered.</p>
<p>So though I’ve heard of dual enrollment, there’s nothing here already set up to do so. I know some schools have such partnerships because when I look up U of Penn, for example, they have one set up for exceptional high school students (not ours though). </p>
<p>I think what I’m going to do is contact each college individually and see what they can offer? Any thoughts? Thanks again.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, any college classes you take before you’ve graduated from high school (or “graduated” from homeschool) will not change the fact that you apply to college as a first-time freshman. In other words, you are not a transfer student. Now, whether the college to which you’re applying will then accept any of those previously earned college credits for transfer depends on the policies of that college.</p>
<p>My son applied as a first-year freshman to Amherst. Their policy is to not accept transfer credits (this is different, of course, for bona fide transfer students who are entering as upper classmen), but they will occasionally allow a student to move on to higher level classes earlier depending on previous coursework, test scores, placement tests, etc.</p>
<p>So essentially, all my son’s early college classes were part of his college prep/high school/homeschool program… and that is all they were as far as Amherst was concerned. We knew that going in, and did not expect to transfer credits or anything like that.</p>
<p>One of his best friends (also homeschooled) went to Northwestern (but now is at Middlebury) and it was treated similarly. Another good friend goes to Carleton, and while he was admitted as a frist-year freshman, they did accept some of his early college classes for credit. So policies will vary by school, but in no case that I have heard of will it create a situation where you are applying as anything but a first-year student.</p>
<p>If you want you could check with the “early college” where your son might take calculus and make sure he’s taking it under some special program such as early entry or dual enrollment where he is not a normal, fully admitted student. (If he’s not going through the normal admissions procedures to enter that college as an incoming freshman, and is instead taking just one or a few classes as any community member might, then he’s not going to be considered an admitted student.)</p>
<p>The high school here does not offer a ton of AP classes, but the ones that are offered are available to homeschoolers to take on a space-available basis. My son took one in when was 15 but didn’t much care for the Giant Test Prep nature of the class. He jumped over the college for his higher level classes after that and found it much more interesting.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I’m going to contact colleges. Maybe they have alternative choices for those with low income. We live just outside Philly so are blessed with many choices in colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, rentof2, you said it in a nutshell: The “Giant Test Prep” nature of the class. That’s what wrong with <em>good</em> high school classes. Bad ones are even worse-filled with random, ultimately irrelevant means to test the student so he/she can get a grade. For instance, the honors or AP English classes in my S’s school has a mandatory vocab test they give every two weeks. It’s from a book that has the words in alphabetical order. So every two weeks they learn 15 words all beginning with the same letter, plus ALL their synonyms and antonyms, and by ROTE. They are tested if they know the words by ROTE rather than in context. It’s just idiotic in my view. My older daughter got an 800 in SAT English on her first try, but gets B- on the vocab even though she studies for hours, because her mind doesn’t work by rote. So her English grade is low A, if that, just because of this vocab. It’s idiotic things like that that drive me crazy. My D just had a ‘group project’ in her AP Us History II class–supposed to be a high level class, but this assignment was a ‘group’ POwer point on Latin American immigration–and they got a D-!! I have no idea why (and I’m a teacher). And for what? What was the purpose? </p>
<p>My D is now swiftly entering crisis mode now that I’ve sort of opened the floodgates with my S. She’s a junior and badly wants to be homeschooled. SHe HATES school–not socially, just the drudgery and ultimate mindlessness of so much of it. She has a very high IQ (160) and I think that probably feeds into it. </p>
<p>Do you think it would be ok to let her homeschool for these next two years? How would that look? Help!! First my s, now my d! I’m going to call the colleges this Monday but would appreciate your thoughts. ACK!</p>
<p>My last post was pretty grumpy. I apologize for it.
Regarding home schooling for the last year or two and college admissions, I think that if a student uses some of the time to pursue activities that could not be done with a school schedule, admissions people would tend to look favorably upon it. I also think that elite college admissions folks are used to seeing applicants who have exhausted what their high school offers and are looking for something more.
I find it hard to imagine how a smart kid could be happy in high school, but of course, come application time, home schoolers should accentuate the positive benefits of the home schooling choice.
None of my kids have been interested in graduate school tutors any more than more standard classes. However, the neighborhood family that started using PhD students has had elite college admissions success. Their oldest two are now at the University of Chicago and Princeton.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My son didn’t apply to any Ivy or to any UC, but he did apply to and get accepted at several prestigious / selective schools (top quartile SATs > 2100, acceptance rate < 25%). In his case, I’m pretty sure it was because he [ul][<em>]took several dual-enrollment classes at the local community college
[</em>]used the flexibility gained by homeschooling to do a substantial project (in his case, write a program for a teacher for free)
[<em>]scored well on SATs and SAT IIs
[</em>]worked very hard on the essays (even though he really isn’t much of a writer)
[<em>]had beyond-stellar recommendations from teachers other than mom
[</em>]applied to schools that matched his interests (hence no Ivies - he wanted small) and strengths
[/ul]
My only tip on what to be careful of is to make sure you are still a “high school” student, however that is defined in your state, when you apply to college. Freshman admission is much easier than transfer admission in most of the highly selective schools.</p>
<p>And he did have a transcript (not report card) created by me. There are many templates and examples all over the web.</p>
<p>I realize that his path was more “schooley” than many homeschoolers, and I’m not saying that the “unschooley” paths don’t work just as well. I’m just showing one way someone has achieved his goal of getting into selective schools as a homeschooler.</p>
<p>I love when these threads are resurrected. When my son visited Columbia University after receiving acceptance in 05 he happened to be asked what high school he had attended. When he replied none and that he had been home schooled the admissions rep said to him “oh you’re one of the three.”
I should also ad that Columbia asks for 5 SAT II test results for admission and we only applied with 3. This proves that a strong application from an interesting candidate might counteract some missing credentials. He also got in tho Williams and Amherst but in the end decided on Princeton. That year there were 6 attending according to Princeton’s own Facebook and here is a link to a more recent article where they mention home schooled success.
[Acceptance</a> rate dips to all-time low - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2007/04/03/17914/]Acceptance”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2007/04/03/17914/)</p>
<p>nopoisonivy, thanks for the Princeton link. The report that two percent of accepted students were homeschooled is big news. Two percent of 1,791 students is a large number. Wow!</p>