<p>For some personal and complicated reasons, I don't have ANY outside class from Grade 9 to 12. Will this greatly hurt my chance of admission to top-tier colleges? All homeschoolers I know that were accepted to Ivies had at least one outside class. Does this mean I have no chance since I have none? How can I deal with this big blank in my academic career?</p>
<p>Homeschoolers need 2 things - first, they need proof that they can do the academic work. This proof can be grades from outside classes. But it can also be scores on standardized tests like SAT II and AP. Do you have those? It can also be a portfolio of work, but that is a bit more problemmatic for admissions offices to process.</p>
<p>The second thing homeschoolers need is proof that they can function in a group, particularly a diverse group (ie, proof they haven't spend 18 years chained to a radiator). That proof can also be performance in an outside class, but does not have to be. If you have been involved in community activities or summer programs, whether academic or not, that will also work. Get an adult who knows you from something like that to write a letter saying you can work with others and aren't a social misfit.</p>
<p>It IS going to make it tougher. I concur with the advice of having outside leaders write recommendations. Be prepared to address WHY you did no outside classes in your interviews and essays. I know that my two older girls are where they are because of their outside courses--we will continue to follow this pattern with the next three children.</p>
<p>My son graduated from Dartmouth in June and had no classes since sixth grade, nor any APs. He was admitted to several other comparable colleges as well. My daughter is now applying to college without classes or APs. I'll keep you posted! We are pretty anti-school as a family, at least until college, when people are treated with a little more respect as adults.
What they both did was have excellent SAT Subject test scores. We feel that these are cheap, pretty painless (one hour each) ways of showing competence. They also accomodated my kids learning styles- much self motivation with no one peering over their shoulders. Of course they loved talking about what interested them, and shared their favorite sources with others!
In short, there are many ways of demonstrating competence to colleges.</p>
<p>
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Be prepared to address WHY you did no outside classes in your interviews and essays.
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While I agree that many (most?) homeschoolers choose to take outside classes, I don't think that it is expected to such a degree that you have to justify yourself if you didn't do it. My son got in everywhere he applied including Harvard and Stanford without much in the way of outside classes. But he had 10 AP scores, 4 SAT IIs, tons of academic awards, tons of special summer programs. There are lots of legitimate reasons not to have outside classes (local CC unfriendly to homeschoolers or too far away, travel, living abroad, work). But you have to have something that shows that (1) you can do the work and (2) you can function well in a group.</p>
<p>I think you'll be fine without them as long as you can show your classes have been at least as difficult as what you would have done outside.</p>
<p>
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What they both did was have excellent SAT Subject test scores. We feel that these are cheap, pretty painless (one hour each) ways of showing competence.
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</p>
<p>How many SAT IIs did your son take?</p>
<h2>"But you have to have something that shows that (1) you can do the work and (2) you can function well in a group."</h2>
<p>This is really good advice. To the original poster, if by "I don't have ANY outside class from grades 9-12" you mean literally nothing, no camps, no group activities, etc. I think you need to remedy the deficit right away. Sign up for an outside class, or group activity, or something that will demonstrate your ability to function in a group learning situation.</p>
<p>My son took 4 SAT IIs, including Writing. This was in the days of the 2 part SAT I. My daughter has taken 3 SAT Subject Tests and the 3 part SAT I.</p>
<p>Danas wrote: "My son took 4 SAT IIs, including Writing. This was in the days of the 2 part SAT I. My daughter has taken 3 SAT Subject Tests and the 3 part SAT I."</p>
<p>That takes care of proving academics, but surely they also had something to show the ability to function in a group, ie) camps, activities, etc that were taken outside of the home?</p>
<p>My son was involved in a paid arts program for teenagers every summer, with activities during the year as well. My daughter does ballet classes 6 days a week. They've had other activities as well.
But I can't imagine demonstrating "being out in the world" is a problem for many home schoolers at all. It isn't for any of the home schoolers I've met, though I suppose by definition I wouldn't meet isolated home schoolers. I haven't even heard of rumors of such people in the several home schooling groups I've been a part of. I also don't think sitting in a classroom has anything to do with "getting along well with others".
My sense is the OP was concerned with outside verification of academic ability. The question wasn't about a lack of outside activities, club memberships, etc., being a "normal person", or whatever.</p>
<p>unfortunately, there are plenty of homeschoolers who are not "out in the world". My community has 2 homeschool support groups. One is an all white Christian-only group that requires a "statement of faith" for membership, expousing belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible, among other things. I am in the inclusive "anyone is welcome" group that includes Christians of all types and colors, as well as wiccans, atheists, Hindus, former hippies, etc. There are a few families who attend activities of both groups, but not many. Most of the families involved in the Christian-only group appear to keep their children away from activities that are open to kids who are not evangelical Christians. The Christian-only group has about twice as many families as the inclusive group. I'm sure colleges see many applicants from homeschoolers who have had limited exposure to "the world".</p>
<p>I live on the south side of Chicago and my home schooling group is secular and overwhelmingly African-American. My family is white.
I think we need to avoid being judgemental here.
While the people in my group are out and about in the city, I'm sure the Christian home schoolers are participating in charitable activities and outreach to new members. They likely join soccer leagues, take music lessons and perform, join scouting, etc. They probably sing in the choir and participate in church socials. Compared to the kids in my home schooling organization, they have much more experience working with others in groups and operating in institutional settings, which is what people on this thread have been concerned about! And when they apply to college, they probably apply to Christian ones or to universities with a significant number of people who share their value systems.<br>
My apologies to the OP if he/she is still around! Maybe this deserves a different thread.</p>
<p>I apologize if I came across as judgemental. That certainly was not my intent. I was merely trying to say that there are some stereotypes about homeschoolers that may be based on at least a smidgen of reality for at least a subset of homeschoolers, even if the stereotypes do not apply to the homeschoolers we personally know. I'm sure the homeschooling community here in Texas has very different demographics from homeschooling communities in other parts of the country, including Chicago. And admissions offices may be seeing homeschoolers whose demographics are different from the impressions individual homeschooling families may have formed from their own communities. Just because you and I don't believe that a particular stereotype is fair or accurate does not mean that others do not believe the stereotype, possibly based on people they know. We can do more to dispel it by confronting it head on than by ignoring it. That's why I advise homeschoolers to make it clear on their apps that they have been involved in a variety of group or communty based activities. For most of them, that isn't a problem.</p>
<p>Well, it was probably my error in misunderstanding the original post, which was: "For some personal and complicated reasons, I don't have ANY outside class from Grade 9 to 12." Because the ANY was capitalized, I took it to mean they had no outside classes whatsoever.</p>
<p>just_wondering - I don't have any outside classes, either. I don't think homeschoolers necessarily "need" them -- after all, isn't homeschooling something that, by definition, occurs at home? If your particular way of homeschooling doesn't happen to involve outside classes, I think it should be okay as long as you've done other worthwhile things with your time. I have health problems that have prevented me from doing outside activities/classes, but I did other things instead on my own instead. </p>
<p>I don't think there's anything you can do anything this late to "fix" this, so you might as well apply and see what happens. All you can do is hope that colleges will be understanding.</p>
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isn't homeschooling something that, by definition, occurs at home?
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actually, no. Sometimes it's one of those terms like "buffalo wings" where it is perfectly obvious what it means, except that it doesn't.</p>
<p>The term "homeschooling" was coined, I think in the 1960s, probably by JohnHolt or Ray & Dorothy Moore, to describe something involving very young children (elementary aged). They were generally schooled at home, with a parent as teacher. As more and more teens forged non-traditional educational paths, the term became less and less descriptive of the wide variety of things people were actually doing to acquire an education. But by then we were stuck with it.</p>
<p>I personally think that you don't need outside classes, especially from poorly taught community colleges or online programs. homeschooling gives you a chance to learn most everything yourself and choose which education resources you believe to be the best. you "learn how to learn" when you overcome your own trouble spots, instead of being like those who always raise their hands and ask stupid questions as they get to higher level courses.</p>
<p>this is from personal experience as my parents aren't quite of the most highly educated classes.</p>
<p>I keep trying to understand the "poorly taught community college" comments from a number of posters. We live in a large city, there are quite a few colleges and universities available, ranging from community colleges, to state universities, to private universities. Many of the same teachers who teach the community college classes are also teachers at the state colleges and the private universities. Do they suddenly become better teachers when you have to pay more for the class? Now if you were to say the student body wasn't as qualified, I might be more likely to agree. However, even then, often the difference between poor students and good students has more to do with motivation, study habits and environment than native intelligence. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>CC classes come in good, medium, and bad just like high school courses, distance learning courses, and textbooks. That's why it's good to be able to pick and choose among all your options.</p>