Public High Schools are a fairly recent invention, and many colleges date back to times when a lot of students were tutored at home.
Home schooling is, in a sense, a return to an old tradition that colleges are quite familiar with.
How Is Getting Into College/Universities Using A Homeschooling Diploma and Transcript Honestly Fair?
Great point, @scholarme.
@albert69 and @scholarme: Neither of you saw me mention that there are online private highschool options then? What I’m saying is, what will stop someone from claiming to be homeschooled and committing fraud with how colleges work right now today?
Also, @albert69: I never said any of that about homeschooled kids…So why would you say that when I’ve been saying the opposite this entire discussion???
Because that is clearly what physical high schools are all about. It’s hilarious how angry you are about this question.
Okay, I admit I was using some straw men there. But I still have a problem with your implication that public or private programs, in a building or online, are the only way that someone can be ready for college.
@albert69: No, I’m saying that a physical or online highschool should be used to stop fraud and cheating, not prove whether someone is ready for college or not.
How can you prove that this fraud and cheating exist?
@albert69 Because it would be so easy to do! Printing transcripts from your home computer, saying that you were homeschooled, and then attending CC and eventually going on to University…It would all be so effortless…Why wouldn’t anyone do it? It sounds terrible, but I almost wish that I had thought to do that!
Homeschooled students who graduate from a community college don’t have to provide SAT or ACT test scores to get admitted to a university, but neither do private or public school students who graduate from a cc. How is following the guidelines set by the universities committing fraud?
@austinmshauri Because attending CC wouldn’t require them to submit any proof. Like I’ve been saying, anyone could literally print a transcript from their home computer, say that they were homeschooled and then go on to CC. They could put whatever they wanted to on the transcript, and everyone would have to take their word that everything was legitimate and real even if it wasn’t.
On the other hand (it just occurred to me), people who didn’t graduate highschool and start attending a CC will usually have to take the GED to be able to go on to University…The GED can have a really negative stigma attached to it…Why should those people be forced to have to use the GED to go to University, when someone could very easily lie just say that they have a homeschool diploma and transcripts?
How is that not fraud?
@TsunadePrimroses I think you should run an experiment. Try doing exactly what you claim would be so easy and report back.
If they could do the work, I don’t see what’s wrong with that scenario. Not the lying part, I agree that’s not right, but the point that someone could gasp be ready for college without attending 10-12 years of school beforehand. Your own argument admits that verification is not needed - the student knew their abilities and handled the college coursework, albeit not ethically. Now, what would be more likely if very little education had actually taken place during their home school is that they would flunk out of college. Who are you trying to protect - the students or the myth that public school is the best way to prepare any student for college?
College would not be effortless if your education was a lie. Also, you could not have done it unless you were actually being homeschooled - something the state would have checked to make sure of.
What makes you think homeschooled students don’t already have to show high school equivalence? States, not colleges, create homeschool regulations. Colleges don’t need to ask for what states have already required and they can’t ask for what states forbid (degrees from online programs) or forbid those states require (GED/TASC).
I thought your problem WASN’T with homeschoolers. Yet your solutions don’t address people who may be fraudulently presenting themselves as homeschoolers. You seem to want to effectively outlaw homeschooling. Why?
@LKnomad How would it not be easy? What would honestly stop someone from doing that?
@albert69 It could be effortless, if you started off at CC first. Also, I do know that homeschool laws vary by state; not all states require homeschoolers to notify them of the homeschooling. But anyway, I’ve read responses from homeschooling parents on here, that said that the colleges never bothered to ask for any proof of the homeschooling. They just wanted the transcripts and test scores. Anyway, I said there should be something to stop someone from pretending to be a homeschooler, not that public school was the best for college prep.
@TsunadePrimroses easy yes. Successful? Maybe not. I think it world be an intesting experiment.
@austinmshauri No, I’m not saying that homeschooled kids can’t be brilliant. I’ve seen them post on here before about what they’ve accomplished and the test scores that they’ve gotten, and they can obviously be very intelligent kids. What I’m saying is that if someone can print a transcript form their own computer and legitimately use that to apply to colleges and no one questions anything…Then I think that there needs to be something in place that doesn’t not allow potential fraud to happen so easily, especially when applying to colleges. No one is saying to outlaw homeschooling at all; that’s an extreme way to put everything.
@LKnomad Why not successful? If they started off at CC, they would have plenty of time to prepare for Uni.
Transferring from a CC is a totally different thing. Your are seen as a transfer student and many of the top colleges dont look favorable at transfers. You would or yourself at a disadvantage. I am taking about a high schooled high school student to a 4 year. I think many college have checks and balances. I know one of the schools my S is interested in states that interviews are optional EXCEPT for home schooled students. Colleges admissions are not entirely gullible.
@TsunadePrimroses Let me start out by saying that my daughter was homeschooled, and she is attending a top tier university, so I know a little about how it works. In her case, she had 56 dual enrollment credit hours at a local university with a near-perfect GPA in courses certainly more rigorous than the highly touted AP courses in our local high schools. But she is not an exception. In fact, many homeschoolers are even more accomplished and have extensive dual enrollment credits with a high GPA, maybe not from a university, but at least from a community college, so they have already proven themselves adequately.
Because of constantly being challenged and fearing the state will try to take away the right to homeschool, many homeschoolers are very defensive about any suggestion of impropriety, but I see no need not to be objective. Yes, the fact is that some homeschoolers do lie on transcripts. I know because I know some of them and because I know human nature. Normal activities can be presented creatively as a course for credit, one that no public school student would get away with. A few visits to the Y might become a PE course. A visit to some historical sites on vacation might become a US history course. Courses can be written in with very little time or effort actually being spent on the subject. In my experience, these homeschoolers are often applying to low-level state or religious schools, so it doesn’t really matter much. Core courses, especially math and science, are not so easy to fake though because most good schools require testing to help assure the applicants preparedness.
So, I agree, it’s not fair, but while the concept of fairness can be used to tame the baser natures of kindergartners, it is best abandoned in adulthood because most everything is unfair in some way or another. It would also be unfair to not let homeschoolers complete their transcripts. It would be unfair to for the state to follow its natural inclinations and take over in a totalitarian manner also.
In most cases, “fair” is simply meaningless.
OP, it’s interesting that you would believe the accomplishments of home schoolers on an anonymous online forum, but not on a written transcript.