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<p>Top colleges are not exam-optional or homework-optional in their courses, nor do they follow an “unschooling” philosophy. They are factories that issue diplomas by the thousands. While nothing prevents this student from continuing to unschool himself without attending university at all, if he does wish to attend college, it is a vain gesture to fight this battle at the admissions stage without intending to also fight it class by class at the college.</p>
<p>I have known incredibly smart and well-prepared autodidacts who actually pursued similar approaches while in college, such as submitting long original research articles when possible in lieu of ordinary course requirements (when allowed by professor, which was often) and were effectively treated like grad students. But none of them tried to circumvent the testing requirements for admission, and they did extremely well on SATs, GREs and all other objective measures.</p>