<p>If something were pithy you read at 12 or 13, I would include that.
A great advantage of home schooling is that you can read multiple Shakespeare plays at 12, if it resonates with you.
My daughter read everything Dickens had published by 16. That was her. She was into character and plot. And of course Dickens had written his stuff to be page-turners. Which of course they are. The depth of language was just absorbed as part of the ride.
Just as infants learn English because it is a path to accessing what they want. Have you ever heard of a native born two or three year old who has to be taught English? Not likely. Just something that happens to a curious mind (most everybody who isn’t maimed is that way) along the way.
My problem with the home school Common Application is that it supposes that home school kids do what kids in school do. Even more sinister, I’m guessing that the folks who created this think that home schoolers OUGHT to do what people in school do.
Regarding college admissions, I would argue that folks emphasize what they were able to do because they didn’t have to go to school rather than how they were able to fit into school categories.
Re: the narrower question above. My kids submitted what they had done with no time frames whatsoever. What does it matter? The colleges they applied to had no idea whether they they studied Geometry or Shakespeare at 12 or 18. No distinctions that Princeton, Dartmouth, Amherst and Williams gave a **** about, judging from their admissions results.</p>
<p>So, instead of including a course description which contained something like this:</p>
<p>"Advanced Chemistry</p>
<p>Primary Text: covered all of Chemistry by Zumdahl and Zumdahl</p>
<p>Length: 01 May 09 - 31 Dec 09"</p>
<p>I should just state the course length like this:</p>
<p>"Advanced Chemistry</p>
<p>Primary text: covered all of Chemistry by Zumdahl and Zumdahl</p>
<p>Length: 8 months"</p>
<p>or include something like this:</p>
<p>"Advanced Chemistry</p>
<p>Primary text: covered all of Chemistry by Zumdahl and Zumdahl"</p>
<p>where I don’t state the course length at all?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to be overly finicky, but I’m not sure how much information adcoms would want to know and how much information would be irrelevant, you see. Also, wouldn’t they be able to get an idea of when I’d studied something by exam dates? (For example, my A-level certificates are dated at least a couple of years ago, and they’ll know I took the Chemistry and Biology Subject Tests either in November or December.)</p>
<p>If there were an opportunity to work with a chemist in your community, I think that would trump the rest. A real live research chemist? How many high school chemistry teachers would do original research in their spare time? Almost none nationwide. Out of maybe a half million teachers.
A creative example. My daughter volunteered in the mammal department of our natural history museum. The first day she was given scalpels and saws, and asked to dissect a Siberian Tiger. She worked on wombats, giraffes, pumas, rats and bats. With real live researchers. Not school teachers. She also relabeled specimens from around the world according to a new scientific ordering system.
I am just trying to argue that trying to fit into school categories, rather than explore the world with the opportunities home schooling affords, is a big mistake.
I understand the fear of following a different path. As a parent, my high point along this adventure was when my son was accepted to Williams. Not a school he was excited about attending. But an affirmation in my mind that I hadn’t place my son at risk for allowing a different path.
Home schoolers have terrific advantages, provided they are willing to seize them.
And here is the thing. Life is more fun and exciting exploring the world you can’t in school. The college admissions payoff is just the icing on the cake.</p>
<p>s</p>
<p>Python, in our case the kids did not list how long they studied something, but did include a time frame such as “2006-7”, or “Summer 2005” or something like that. First we made a nutshell transcript – something like a traditional high school transcript that just contained course titles, and grouped by subject matter (English, Math, Science, etc.) or else grouped chronologically (2005-6, 2006-7, Summer 2007, etc.)</p>
<p>The more descriptive course descriptions was another, separate multi-page document. An example from my son’s course descriptions would be:</p>
<hr>
<p>Geometry Fall 2005-Summer 2006
Home study
Video lectures with textbook practice and progress tests. Topics include: Reasoning, Lines in a Plane, Congruent Triangles, Properties of Triangles, Polygons, Transformations, Similarity, Right Triangles, Circles, Planar Measurements, Space Measurements.<br>
Text: Geometry: An Intergrated Approach by Larson, Boswell, Stiff (D.C. Heath 1995) Video lectures: “Chalkdust Geometry” produced by Chalkdust Math Co.<br>
Grade: A</p>
<hr>
<p>But on his nutshell transcript it just said “Geometry”.</p>
<p>You have a lot of latitude in how you want to do it. I would only say, in the course descriptions be brief and to-the-point, but also include specfics topics covered. That would be better than hoping an admissions officer can intuit what you specifically studied by how long you spent studying it.</p>
<p>In addition to that give them a quick reference list; a nutshell transcript that just lists the courses.</p>
<p>As Danas says, this is more applicable to students who have followed a more traditional approach to education in their homeschooling. If this is your experience as a homeschooler, than you can build a strong transcript in this model. If your path has been more non-traditional, then you should take an approach to your transcript that best communicates what you have done/are doing.</p>
<p>I recently tried some research (I think - I’m not exactly sure what constitutes that) in the form of a programming project; this lasted about half a year, and I did most of it independently. However, at the end, my program wouldn’t work and I couldn’t debug it, so I contacted some of the professors at a local university, and one of them was actually kind enough to fix my code for me. Another put me in contact with a PhD student who also gave me some useful advice.</p>
<p>Although I didn’t actually work with a researcher regularly, I might see if there are any new opportunities to do so in the area. I moved recently (hence the late reply. Sorry about that)</p>
<p>I do want to fulfill the universities’ recommended academic preparation (4 years of science, etc.) although being homeschooled leaves me with almost too much spare time, anyway which I’m mostly spending on three of my favourite hobbies (creative writing, drawing, and trying to start a business) as well as programming.</p>
<p>To be honest, I think the former (working to a strict schedule academic-wise) does instil a kind of discipline that “doing my own thing” all the time can’t really give, and that’s useful for the job world as well as for college. But that’s only 15 years of experience speaking, so I’m not really sure what the “best” preparation for life is, if there is any “best”. However, I would still like to fulfill the academic requirements (not even just because the colleges recommend it, but also because I want to learn new subjects for the sake of it, and I can’t consider a career as, say, a biologist if I’ve never studied the subject in detail.)</p>
<p>P.S. Is it necessary to list all the topics covered even if I’ve just gone through the whole book and stated something like (Primary text covered: all of …)?</p>
<p>Python,</p>
<p>You have taken and will take more English “A” level exams, right?</p>
<p>These will provide all the validation you need of your curiculum and achievement, you hardly need reading lists and textbook lists on top of that. All US universities are absolutely familiar with “A” level system.</p>
<p>I would focus on getting scores for SAT Reasoning and SAT subject tests, to round out the formalities of what is required for application.</p>
<p>The try to work on making your ECs sound as interesting as possible.</p>