I’m in my early twenties and I was homeschooled through grades ten to twelve. I plan on applying to colleges next fall. I graduated from homeschool with a 3.8 GPA but I haven’t taken the ACT & SAT yet (I’m taking both next year.) I know I may be putting the horse before the cart but four of the seven schools (Georgetown, Duke, Rice and Northwestern) , I’m looking at are top schools. The other three are Texas Tech, South Florida and UT Austin and possibly University of Tulsa. I’m wondering will me not having any EC’s during my homeschool years hurt me at these four schools and any other non-Ivy League schools I may apply to? Will the fact that I’m in my early twenties and applying to college make having no EC’s more plausible? I haven’t really done anything in my life since graduating except for a full time retail job. I regret it. I really do. Like I said earlier in my post, I know I may be putting the horse before the cart talking about top schools before I even take the ACT & SAT but I was wondering about the extracurriculars situation I have. Thanks for any answers.
Have you volunteered over the years or been involved in a church? Sang in a choir? Played an instrument? You must have done something for enjoyment? Work is important too and that’s an excellent thing you can add to your applications.
HS ECs are the least of your worries.
As a ‘mature’ student your application will be read in the context of your larger story, especially what you have done most recently. What has changed since you realized that you have other goals? What else are you doing in your life to get where you want to go? To be a member of a community?
Colleges will expect you to have a clearer, more specific idea of what you want from college now than the 17/18 year olds do.
I suggest you go at it from the other end: where do you want to go in life? → what steps do you need to get there- experience? qualifications? → how /where to get those?
That’s where choosing colleges come in. Your list of colleges is hard to understand. You have 4 very fancy names. Besides a good (homeschooled) GPA, why do you see yourself in the top 15% of college applicants? Why those 4 schools in particular? (prestige? particular major? Geography? Campus culture? Etc). You also have public universities in 3 states- are you resident in any of them? And again, why those specifically? And, crucially: is your budget unlimited?
For many mature students who are working full time, working with their local community college is a good path back to school. You can knock out requirements, get back into the academic swing of things, and if you complete the AA you not only won’t have to do the SAT/ACT, you will be eligible to transfer to in-state universities automatically (assuming you meet the GPA requirement). Often it is the most affordable path as well. In many cases you can also shape your college experience much more closely to your career goals than through a traditional 4 year course (which is designed for 18 year olds who are still figuring things out).
Also, there are some universities that have pathways for non-traditional students.
It’s great that you’re figuring out what you want to do with your life and looking at pursuing your college education. I’m not sure what about your record, however, would make you a strong candidate for schools with single-digit acceptance rates, where you’d be competing in the freshman admission pool against students with extremely rigorous high school records, very high GPA’s, and extensive EC involvement in addition to high test scores.
There’s no point in regret; you have learned and grown from your experiences and you know what you want now. Expressing regret will also buy you exactly nothing in competitive college admissions. You’re not going to be admitted based on what you now wish you’d done. You can start from where you are and get an excellent education; but you need to be realistic and choose appropriate targets.
Are you a Texas resident? (Guessing based on the two TX publics on your list…) There are a number of public U’s in Texas where students in their mid-20’s or older represent a large chunk of the student population. At University of Houston, UT Arlington and U of North Texas all have larger populations of older students; and you may find that you’ll be more comfortable not feeling like your less-direct path to college is unusual.
What do you want to study? What kind of college experience do you want? What’s your budget? I agree that it’s practically impossible to infer anything from your list, as the attributes of these schools are all over the place.