<p>I'm Joanna, and I live in CA. I homeschooled both my kids since birth and graduated my S a year ago. He is now happily studying at a private University. He applied to 5 schools (4 private and 1 public State school) and was accepted to all of them. I was rather surprised at how easy the process was. </p>
<p>While we have always homeschooled, we are registerd with a Private Satellite Program (PSP) in California, so technically his transcript came from a (non-accredited) Private school. Throughout high school most of his grades were determined by others because I had enrolled him in classes outside the home, either at the local CC, or through a supplemental academic program elsewhere. </p>
<p>I don't know how many of the colleges actually realized that he was "homeschooled" and how many did not. Except at one school where he asked to interview and the subject came up, I don't think there was any way for a school to have known although we were certainly not trying to hide it. But we also chose not to make a point of it, either, for fear a school might decide to impose additional requirements/testing/portfolio reviews, etc. We always answered "no" on applications (on the advice og our PSP principal) because his legal status was truly "enrolled in a private school."</p>
<p>So now I have a D who is interested in applying to an academically selective out-of-state Public University, and I notice on their website that one of their requirements is that applicants have graduated from an accredited High School. I've never seen that requirement anywhere before so I dont' know if it's just "wording" or if they are likely to look into the accreditation of every school represented by applicants. They specifically state that home schooled students are subject to additional SAT Subject tests and other additional requirements. </p>
<p>So my question is this. Because my child's legal status is not "home schooled" but "enrolled in private school," I'm not hoping to not have to subject her to the additional requirements, but how likely is a University to actually check the accreditation of the school?</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry about any of this and just have her take the SAT Subject tests except for the fact that she has SEVERE test anxiety and I'm afraid that just getting a decent score on the regular SAT is going to be a challenge enough without adding the additional pressure of 2 subject tests!</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience or advice in this area?</p>
<p>I would probably contact the college in question and ask the specifics. Since we who are in Ca. using the affidavit aren’t “accredited”, you might have to do something different for this school if your daughter wants to apply there. I would definitely find out what they want. My son doesn’t have test anxiety too badly (he does definitely get nervous) but I’m kind of tired of jumping through so many hoops. :-)</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. I’m sort of figuring that calling the college and asking, “Hey, do you check the accreditation of High Schools?” isn’t likely to be of a lot of help, you know? I assume their answer is giong to be “Of course we do!” </p>
<p>I also don’t necessarily want to put my D on their radar. I’d much rather she look as much like every other applicant as possible and be evaluated on her SAT and GPA just like everyone else without having to provide a bunch of extraneous documentation. </p>
<p>I suppose the only way to find out for sure is to apply and see what happens. I was just hoping perhaps someone here had had some experiences with big public universities. As I said, my S was accepted to a Cal State school with no questions asked (as a matter of fact was offered an opportunity to be in their Honors program), but that’s not the same situation at all. The school my D is looking at is very selective academically.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen that either – that a student must have graduated from an accredited high school. So, can you tell from the website, does this college not accept any students with a non-traditional education? Homeschoolers, students who go straight into college early without have finished high school, students from non-accredited privates, international students with a different systems than our accreditation system? It seems weird that a public university would even want to be that restrictive.</p>
<p>If they do have alternative admissions requirements, but only require traditionally schooled students to have attended an accredited high school, then you might end up better off applying as a homeschooler. It may not entail additional testing, especially if your daughter has “outside” grades. If it was me, what I would not want to do is for my child to pretend to be a traditional applicant when they weren’t if there was a piece missing – such as your situation with the accreditation of your private umbrella school.</p>
<p>They DO accept homeschoolers but they require both that you take at least 2 SAT Subject tests and also that you submit a full curriculum description for every class. Since I didn’t write the curriculum I don’t necessarily have all of that information at my fingertips.</p>
<p>My feeling is that there are many academically selective OOS universities and your daughter should become interested in another, but that probably isn’t helpful. I’d say you need to ask them, in an email for documentation, how the policy applies to your daughter. Specifically that although the school’s not accredited, you didn’t write the curriculum. If you’re paranoid about this hurting her chances, you can always create a new email account and not say her name! :D</p>
<p>University of Southern CAlifornia had those requirements - SAT 2’s and detailed course descriptions. I sent it all in (didn’t have wonderful SAT 2 scores) and I got in with the Presidential Scholar invite! It is definitely possible to do, and I would encourage your daughter to take the SAT 2’s. I’m sure you can put together the course descriptions</p>
<p>This is a good idea. I’m pretty what their response will be, but it’s worth an email, anyway. I wish my D wasn’t so darned interested in this particular school! There are SO many that don’t have this requirement!!</p>
<p>Yes, it’s looking like this will be her only option. I’m pretty sure that those test scores will knock her out of the running for this school, but there’s really nothing I can do about that. It’s just so sad that she has worked SO HARD to do well in her classes despite a pretty bad testing problem. She asks for extra credit, does extra projects and stays up all night week after week to make sure she gets all the extra work done so that she can get every possible point on homework, etc. all to make up for poor test scores. I don’t think she will EVER do well on tests. Fortunately once she gets to college there will be far fewer of them to deal with! Give her a paper to write or a project to do or a presentation to make and she’ll shine!</p>
I agree. If they’re making you do some homeschooler stuff (detailed curriculum, extra testing), go the whole way. Call her a homeschooler when she applies to that school and do her counselor letter and everything. </p>
<p>Is it a Common App school? In previous years, you could have different versions of the CA for different schools (not recommended in most cases, but this would be a good time). She could be a regular schooler for most schools, and a homeschooler for this one. It isn’t cheating - it’s their rule. The test scores are a bummer, but the other stuff, including your counselor letter, may make up for it.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for the great responses. I will definitely take some initiative and do all I can to help her! In the end I believe she’ll end up where she’s supposed to be!</p>