<p>I have been homeschooled since 7th grade, and I've always loved it. I've enjoyed the freedom to design my own curriculum and the ability to take dual enrollment classes and do an amazing (but time-consuming) internship. Lately, though, I've been feeling kind of over homeschooling--I don't hate it, but taking college classes has shown me how much I actually enjoy being in the classroom, participating class discussions. I also want to be certain that I'm prepared for AP exams, since I'll be taking several in May. Finally, although I have an amazing group of homeschooled friends, I feel like I rarely see them and that I never have any fun. For the first time, I have good friends who go to public school and I really feel like I'm missing out with everyone going to homecoming and everything except me.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about going to high school for the second semester of my senior year. It'll be after college applications are due, so hopefully it wouldn't complicate that too much. I think I'd be able to transfer into all-AP courses (which would be similar to the schedule I'm taking now). I would be able to have a little bit of the high school experience (like prom and graduation) before I go to college.</p>
<p>I'm just worried that my homeschool credits might not transfer and I wouldn't be able to graduate. I wouldn't mind taking a couple online courses to catch up if I had to. I would really appreciate some help with this as I'm sick of homeschooling. I really wish I'd started public school in 9th grade.</p>
<p>I think it sounds like a reasonable plan if you do it once your college apps are already in and you’re applying as a homeschooler. I think, however, that it makes much more sense if you don’t make graduating from the high school a goal. I mean, you will be completing your homeschooling – with a combination of independent study, college classes and high school classes – so you’ll be “graduating” in that sense. If you don’t formally graduate from the high school, nothing is lost except walking in the high school graduation ceremony. In the state where we live homeschoolers can take classes at the public high school without being fully enrolled graduation-track students. They still compete in high school sports, act in high school plays, play music with the school ensembles, go to proms and other social events, etc., but they don’t graduate from the high school because they didn’t jump through all the requirement hoops the traditional students have to. Many still go to the graduation ceremony to celebrate with their traditionally-schooled friends. They can go to senior night and do it all, except walk across the stage in a cap and gown. (I know several who just got a cap and gown and wore it to the ceremony, watched from the audience, threw their caps in the air with the rest and for them that was fun.) My homeschooled kids did classes and ECs at the high school but didn’t care a bit about the graduation ceremony.</p>
<p>So, I’m curious, why do care about graduating from a school you would only have attended for one semester?</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I care that much about the diploma, per se (as long as the colleges that accept me don’t require it). I would just want the experience of graduation, so what you described would probably be sufficient, although for what it’s worth I took a look at my state’s graduation requirements and I’ve met all of them except for 1 semester of economics, which I could do the semester I’d be there. So unless the school refused to accept my homeschool credits, I think I’d be fine.</p>
<p>This isn’t so much a well-thought-out plan as an idea I’m kind of exploring. I’ll give it more thought in November, when I won’t be as busy. Thank you for the advice.</p>
<p>You might just try to schedule a meeting with a counselor at the high school pretty soon and go over with them what is transferable. It will depend on the school and will also depend on the district policies and the state laws. It can vary so wildly. I know the high school here, while being very open to homeschooled students taking classes and participating in other ways, they would never take a “homeschool credit” towards their own graduation requirements. They wouldn’t even take a correspondence course credit from an accredited program – except for two very specific ones that had been approved by the district. Since then, one of those has been dropped. Now the only correspondence/online credits they will accept are from a state online school program designed to help kids who have dropped out or been expelled for disciplinary reasons. They would not even take a college credit/dual credit earned by a homeschooler. For that the student would have had to do the dual enrollment through another high school that accepted that credit.</p>
<p>My kids never sought to have the high school accept anything. They just took some courses there to fill out their homeschool transcripts for purposes of college admissions… but they only took one or two classes at a time, if I recall, and only for a couple years.</p>
<p>By the way, both got into college just fine with their homeschool transcripts and SAT scores. One opted for the honors college of our flagship state university, the other went to a selective small liberal arts college.</p>
<p>A meeting with a counselor at the high school you’re interested in would probably clarify a lot very quickly. It could be what you’re considering will work seamlessly, or it could be you’d find out it’s not going to benefit you at all… or something in between. I do understand the appeal it has for you though. My kids – my son particularly – got a lot out of his peripheral involvement at the high school. He enjoyed a couple classes he had very much (a couple others less so) and had a great experience on the varsity sports team. He even won two state titles for the school… as odd as that sounds since he wasn’t actually a fully enrolled student there. (They allow that in our state.)</p>
<p>I really wish I’d known about the idea of taking high school classes sooner. One of my friends is going to do it this year and it sounds like a great idea.</p>
<p>Do you mind if I ask what state you’re in? My state is fairly pro-homeschool due to an extremely conservative state legislature and a pro-homeschool “lobby”. For example, by law schools have to let homeschoolers participate in all sports and extracurricular activities (another thing I wish I knew about sooner), and the state university system accepts “mommy grades” at face value, with almost no extra requirements for homeschoolers. I think there was even a proposal at one point to pay homeschoolers because we save the state money. So maybe the ultimate goal is just to destroy public education, but there are some pretty nice perks for homeschoolers.</p>
<p>Anyway, I did a little research and found out my state has a uniform policy for accepting private an homeschool credits. They want you to pass an end-of-course exam in Algebra, Geometry, Biology, and US History, which I could easily do. I can’t imagine a scenario under which they wouldn’t accept my dual enrollment credits, and I have test scores to back up several of my other courses. I might not get all my credits awarded, but I think I could scrape together enough to graduate. And if not, I just wouldn’t get a real diploma. If I don’t get into at least one school EA that wouldn’t care, I just won’t risk going.</p>
<p>BTW, they accepted my cousin’s foreign credits no problem, and they even give credit to their students for independent study. The way I see it is, they have to take me and it would be somewhat cruel not to award me some credit if they could.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, and I’ll look into taking classes there part-time as an option.</p>