<p>To the OP, does this policy apply if you do one year of homeschooling for your freshman year?</p>
<p>Hi uchopeful. I don't think homeschooling your freshman year would have any bearing. However, I think you should provide documentation of the work you did that year to show you were productive and learning.</p>
<p>I am curious what the general feeling is, are folks suggesting that high SAT IIs (subject tests) have more meaning than high SAT I's for evaluating homeschoolers applying to colleges? </p>
<p>It is my understanding that the SAT I's were designed to measures critical reading, mathematical reasoning, and writing skills that students have developed over time and that they need to be successful in college. While the SAT II's (subject tests) are designed to measure students' knowledge and skills in particular subject areas, as well as their ability to apply that knowledge. (these definitions come directly from College Board)</p>
<p>While Homeschool philosophies differ greatly with families, given the independent nature of the people homeschooling, I have pushed forward homeschooling my 4 children because I wanted them to be exposed to a variety of ideas, environments and skills and from that, develop the capacity to enjoy learning. The SAT I's seem to better "measure" a student's overall ability to embrace learning . The SAT II (subject tests) measure very specific academic skills/passions, which can be prepared for, to a certain extent. They also are limiting in predicting a student's broad preparation for succeeding in the bigger college picture.</p>
<p>I hope that colleges don't automatically go to SAT II's for validation of a homeschool transcript and miss the greater picture that many families strive for in their homeschooling approach.</p>
<p>SAT II scores (or AP scores) would serve the same function as grades or a portfolio in telling ad coms something about your mastery of specific subjects. If you have a lot of AP scores or outside grades from CC courses or whatever, you have less need of SAT II scores than someone without those things. Few selective colleges would feel they had all the info they needed to evaluate a student who only submitted an SAT I score. Some would be willing to evaluate a portfolio of work to prove mastery of specific subjects, but many do not have the resources or desire to do that.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'm a senior at UnivMI-Flint and I was home schooled through most of my high school. My reasons for home schooling were based on growing up in a small town were students who were different were often placed in special ed and so on...</p>
<p>UM-Flint has no record of my original high school. They did toss me into a "special" transitional program after accepting me. At best it was 5th grade-level tutoring with heavy emphasis on "being involved" with the school. This meant attending several "diversity" workshops. I'm sure you know of the court cases involving this school and such issues. </p>
<p>After my first year I was released from said program. It supposedly taught me some real important skills, such as how to write legibly, take notes, fill out scantrons (bubble sheets) and sharpen pencils! I was an honor-level student before this program and I still am honor-level. It was a waste of time! </p>
<p>Sorry for the length, but I guess what I'm trying to say is UM will admit home schooled students, but they treat them as idiots for awhile!</p>
<p>I found this today on the Parents Forum, "College application policies easing for homeschoolers."</p>
<p>I don't homeschool but an acquaintance who does recently bragged that he has ceased ALL coursework for his 16-year-old daughter in order to make it possible for the child to spend 4-5 hours a day to prepare for the SAT. </p>
<p>Far from the concerns you may think colleges and universities have that you aren't doing a good enough job to prepare your child for college, perhaps it has occurred to them that overly HIGH scores on standardized tests from homeschoolers can blur the picture as much as overly LOW scores. </p>
<p>I suppose you could argue that any child capable of the uber-high score regardless of the preparation opportunities deserves to be admitted to the college of his or her choice, but if the admissions folks are truly guided by the "level playing field" concept, they have to take into consideration the fact that most traditionally-schooled high school students with high aspirations do not have the "same opportunities" and thus, the conundrum. Maybe some are requesting the additional SAT subject tests in an attempt to measure the breadth of the student's knowledge?</p>
<p>"I was a teacher as well, and I have had experiences with students who had been homeschooled and now were attending public school (usually high school freshmen). There have been some that were better prepared than their peers, and some that were tremendously far behind."</p>
<p>Obviously some students are better prepared than others at 14 years old. That is true of the students who begin high school from public 8th grade, as well. Some score higher than others. Homeschooled students are human beings, just like kids who go to school. Our children have had alternative educations. They are not aliens. They don't have to outscore every single kid who attends school to prove their worth. And yes, homeschooled students are not good at everything. Schooled students have their own individual strengths and weaknesses as well.</p>
<p>Homeschoolers don't mind being singled out. We mind being discrminated against. If colleges require SAT IIs of all applicants, then fine. If they ONLY require SAT IIs of homeschooled students, and not schooled students who score in the lower percentiles on tests, or kids from unaccredited private schools, or kids from overseas, then I am firmly against the practice.</p>
<p>Kids in school can take state tests every year and do poorly without having it effect their college admission, as colleges do not see those scores. So obviously you cannot compare the state tests to SAT IIs.</p>
<p>
<p>Homeschoolers don't mind being singled out. We mind being discrminated against. If colleges require SAT IIs of all applicants, then fine. If they ONLY require SAT IIs of homeschooled students, and not schooled students who score in the lower percentiles on tests, or kids from unaccredited private schools, or kids from overseas, then I am firmly against the practice.</p>
<p>Kids in school can take state tests every year and do poorly without having it effect their college admission, as colleges do not see those scores. So obviously you cannot compare the state tests to SAT IIs.
</p>
<p>Exactly. We (homeschoolers) don't care being told that we're different. We care when we're told that being different is bad. I actually went to public school in 9th grade. I left after one year with a 3.967 GPA. I had no problems making friends, and was even named team manager to the varsity basketball team. When I would tell other people that I was a former homeschooler now in public school, they always assumed that I was pulled out because I was too stupid to compete with my peers. The exact opposite was true. I am now a proudly homeschooled senior who will be going to the University of Oklahoma Honors College this fall. I actually avoided applying to certain schools after reading this thread, because I didn't feel that I needed to prove myself any more than I had.</p>
<p>I am a homeschooled Junior getting ready to apply to Very Selective and Selective Colleges.
I started homeschooling in 9th Grade and I love it.
I schooled with the help of a umbrella school in 9th and 10th grade and with the help of a very rigorous and accredited Virtual School in 11th and 12th grade. My mother also teaches me in subjects such as AP European History and AP Calculus AB.
She is a lawyer who got her graduate degree from the number 1 University in Germany.
All I can say is that I do not regret homeschooling for a minute and I feel as though I am much better prepeared for the real world and a rigorous College education. I have had the opportunity to travel the world, spend more time with my family which is very improtant to me and I have been able to strengthen my ability to research and educate myself in many subjects which will help me in College.
I would not recommend homeschooling to most teens, since you have to be incredibly disciplined but if you have that ability, it is very rewarding.
Just though I would share my story with anyone who wonders what a homeschooler herself thinks on this subject.</p>
<p>I haven't read this whole thread, but (as a homeschooler) I firmly believe that colleges are justified in requiring homeschoolers to submit additional materials and documentation. Think of it this way: Due to our unique situation, (unique by our own choice, I might throw in), we homeschoolers are incapabale of sumbitting and/or proving numerous objective criteria that colleges use as measurements of quality and sweeping benchmarks. I am referring to things like an accredited GPA and a class rank. We just don't have them, and that is why colleges ask us to provide extra documentation.
Stanford explains its policy towards homeschooled students quite well:</p>
<p>I think the Stanford explanation is fine, and I quite agree with it. Stanford makes no fixed requirements of homeschoolers above those for other students. It instead treats a homeschooler’s transcript much like that of “someone with excellent grades from a small, rural high school from which we have seen no other applicants.”. It does this because such transcripts have no comparative context. Its solution is not to fix several official requirements upon homeschoolers, the fulfillment of which must occur before a student even applies. It instead lets us know that because of the inherent problems of comparing homeschoolers to others, standardized tests, especially subject tests, will be more important for homeschoolers. That is a far cry from the view that homeschoolers need extra testing because ‘I knew a homeschooler who could barely write a paper’ (as if there aren’t scores of public schoolers who graduate and also can’t write).</p>
<p>I think when schools fix official requirements of homeschoolers, they are not just putting individual homeschoolers on trial, but homeschooling itself. They are implying that homeschooling has some inherent defect in view of which additional testing is required. This flies in the face of the mountains of evidence showing homeschoolers are at least as capable as public schoolers. It would be one thing if the empirical data showed that homeschooling predisposed kids to sub-standard performance and that homeschoolers should therefore be singled out in the college application process. But that just isn’t true. If anything, public schools need to be singled out, since they produce proportionately more sub-standard performers than homeschoolers.</p>
<p>I do not mean to slam public schools here. I love the public schools and the work they do. In many ways they have things I applaud and that I wish we had. I also think the problems in the public schools are not all the fault of the schools or their administrators. But I still see no reason to give a garden variety public schooler a chance to apply to a school while denying a homeschooled musical genius the same chance simply because he hasn’t taken one little test. The only reason I see to deny this latter kid is if we think homeschooling itself is defective.</p>
<p>To make it clear: I do not take my position because I wish lower standards for homeschoolers. Our homeschool here has a fixed requirement that our students send a minimum of four subject tests to their schools. I think during the last two cycles the kids have sent five subject tests. In the next cycle we will adjust this to make sure they send a wider variety of subjects, since our last two kids took the Math 1 & 2 tests to fulfill two of their required tests. Also, while I did not appreciate Columbia’s requirement of the additional tests for homeschoolers, my son had no problem with it and applied to the school. He was accepted as a Jay</a> Scholar.</p>
<p>
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If anything, public schools need to be singled out, since they produce proportionately more sub-standard performers than homeschoolers.
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<p>I doubt that. Many homeschoolers homeschool for religious reasons and are wary of participating in any studies, especially government affiliated/sponsored ones.</p>
<p>Ernie H....
In the United States, some states require periodic testing of all home schoolers along with public schooled kids. Home schoolers always outscore the kids in public schools.
I think the general point is that until the state can demonstrate it can do a better job with education, it should tread lightly in regulating home schoolers. I concur.
Happily, I live in a state that does not require registration of home schoolers. No one knows how many home schoolers there are here in Illinois.</p>
<p><a href="Drosselmeier%20wrote:">quote</a>
I think when schools fix official requirements of homeschoolers, they are not just putting individual homeschoolers on trial, but homeschooling itself. They are implying that homeschooling has some inherent defect in view of which additional testing is required. This flies in the face of the mountains of evidence showing homeschoolers are at least as capable as public schoolers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The schools discussed in this thread (Stanford, Michigan, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia scholars program) are not receiving applications from an undifferentiated population of "public schoolers", to which they hand out places like candy while casting jaundiced eye upon homeschooled prodigies.</p>
<p>The population being compared to (some) homeschoolers is the top students from public schools, and usually the best-funded or highest-performing public schools at that. The universities do discriminate between public schools and between private schools; though the formal application requirements are the same for applicants from any accredited school in the United States, applicants from weak schools are advised to do the same thing as homeschoolers, which is to provide additional credentials (test scores, college grades, etc). Whatever the discrimination, it is not specifically directed at homeschooling.</p>
<p>Homeschoolers as a group are often missing one basic credential, in that some or all of their grades may not come from accredited sources. This is another reason why requiring extra compensating credentials (more SAT-II, for example) makes sense and may not be discriminatory in any formal or informal sense. Applicants from non-accredited public schools would probably be asked to do the same, even though those schools are not in anybody's home.</p>
<p>If anything, the universities' policy is inclusive; they would be within their rights to accept grades only from accredited sources, and this would leave homeschoolers in the cold.</p>
<p>I just found this thread and have homeschooled my children for almost 20 years now. My eldest son was admitted to a selective school (his #1 choice;Hillsdale College) without the required SATs. However, the admissions dept. did defer his acceptance to the college president and the Admissions Dept. Director. He had great recs and ECs; I think that tipped his balance.</p>
<p>The critierion for admission don't change as a result of being homeschooled rather than public/private schooled-- What changes is what constitutes proof that the criterion has been met. </p>
<p>In a traditional school setting, a transcript reading Class: Honors Biology, Grade: A means something fairly specific: The student attending 5 hours a week, took mulitple exams and was awarded a grade based on the exams which were graded by someone more likely to grade objectively than mom. In requiring the SAT II in Biology, the college is attempting to verify that Class: Honors Biology, Grade: A on a homeschool transcript has similar meaning.</p>
<p>We homeschooled for the 9th grade, but our son sat for AP tests in Physics and US History to confirm his transcript. We provided very detailed class info for his remaining classes. He also sat for the PSAT in 9th grade to have more proof of academic readiness/achievement.</p>
<p>I don't think it is realistic to expect colleges to simply take your word for the quality of learning resulting in your homeschool</p>
<p>I agree with Deidre that outside tests such as the APs, Subject Tests, etc. are important and even crucial.
I disagree that Honors Biology, Grade "A" from a teacher, means anything at all. Something like 43% of SAT takers report they have "A" averages. Add in teacher bias, different expectations and standards by school, etc., and an "A" communicates no information.
As a home school parent of two college applicants, I didn't assign "grades" and didn't even think in those terms. I didn't expect a college admissions person to take my word for anything. In my experience having no grades at all served as well as a high school transcript.</p>
<p>I don't think you really believe that "A" conveys NO information, do you? In a traditional school, it certainly means 5 hours a week of class time and a teacher who was at least not appalled at the students' performance. I agree with you that the "A" represents a range of values, I just think that a homeschool "A" with no outside documentation represents a much, much wider range of values. Colleges prefer a narrower range of possible values to those grades.</p>
<p>We are talking about specific students applying to specific schools. The students applying to the elite schools most talked about on CC all have "A" averages. Not a distinguishing trait.
A lower tier school could discern a difference between an "A" and a "C" high school student, but then they'd both get in anyway.
Let's get a reality check on the numbers. 43% of SAT takers have "A" averages. Let's say the bottom 20% of SAT takers do not end up applying to 4 year colleges- these are kids with maybe 800 or below SATs. That leaves over half of 4 year college applicants as "A" students.
I wouldn't assume anything more from an "A" in a course than behavioral adaptation to school.</p>