Some colleges courting home schoolers

<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/01/home.schoolers.colleges.ap/index.html?eref=aol%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/01/home.schoolers.colleges.ap/index.html?eref=aol&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My sons were both homeschooled their entire lives, although they attended high school part-time. Some of the colleges to which they applied were quite open to homeschoolers; others were more skeptical and didn't seem to understand how homeschooling works. I can especially vouch for Stanford (mentioned in the article). The year my son applied they had a big article on admitted homeschoolers in their alumni magazine, and homeschoolers had twice the admittance rate as conventionally schooled students.</p>

<p>In general, it seemed that private universities and colleges were more open to the different styles of homeschoolers than big state universities. Or perhaps it is just harder for a big state university to evaluate someone who may not quite fit the mold, since they have so many applications and perhaps fewer people available to evaluate them.</p>

<p>We found that to be true, also. CSU kept sending my dd scholarship awards based on her SATs, but then would only count her grades as 3.4--including 45 college credits from a CO state college (with a 4.0) as she was not traditionally schooled. Private LACs were no problem for either of my older two, nor were engineering schools. Interestingly enough, USNA and USAFA had no problem with hsing, but the USCGA demanded an "accredited" program. As always, check with the college in question...</p>

<p>It can vary, though. The worst attitude I've heard of is held by Dickinson and it's private. And my daughter got into her large, state safety with no problem at all (Missouri -- just need a transcript and a minimum of 24 on the ACT).</p>

<p>The places that require multiple SAT Subject Tests seem to include both private and public.</p>

<p>So, whatever may be true as a general rule, one has to research the specific schools involved. Not that I'm implying that anyone wouldn't do this :)</p>

<p>As homeschooling spreads, it should get easier. For instance, when my daughter applied, Chicago had nothing official about how to deal with homeschoolers. We were told that an interview at the school was essential (and then they never scheduled one). My daughter was deferred in EA. Talking to the regional rep, she was told that he didn't understand how homeschooling worked. So he had her send in an email each week for quite some time explaining what she did each week. (I should explain that we had already sent in rather extensive course descriptions.) She was finally admitted, but decided to go to Brown. I see that Chicago now has something on the web site about homeschoolers applying.</p>

<p>I just doublechecked. It isn't Dickinson I heard about, but Davidson.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=195486&page=2&highlight=Davidson+homeschooler%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=195486&page=2&highlight=Davidson+homeschooler&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Whatever :)</p>

<p>Rutgers (a public university) has pretty straightforward policy for homeschoolers, we did not have any problems with them. UIUC did not have any special policy, S just applied and was accepted, too. Looks like large public schools are catching up.</p>