<p>I have rising Juniors that we are homeschooling. They both are interested in TAMU's Engineering program. I have read on other sites that the school is very homeschool friendly. I was wondering if any of you happen to know of a homeschooler going to the college and what kinds of hoops they needed to jump through to get in.</p>
<p>There are tons of homeschoolers at A&M. S1 is one of them. S2 was accepted there, too, but is attending elsewhere (traitor).</p>
<p>Since homeschoolers are not eligible for top 10% admission, many of them come in as academic admits. That means that they scored over 1300 on the math + critical reading sections of the SAT. Do that, and you are automatically admitted. No hoops at all.</p>
<p>In our area, many of the homeschoolers who plan to attend 4 year universities take the Testmasters course for SAT prep. It's expensive...about $700...but it works. Both of our sons are attending college on full scholarships (ROTC), so I think it was well worth the investment. Additionally, S2 was awarded a 50% merit scholarship from the private university he will be attending.</p>
<p>If your kids are capable of scoring 1300's without the test prep, then you are good to go. I know there are lots of SAT prep companies out there. S1 did Kaplan's computer-based prep course. It helped, raising his score on a practice test about 50 points. After Testmasters, he routinely scored 200-300 points higher on practice tests and made a 1320 on the real thing, which got him into A&M. S2 did even better. On his practice test before Testmasters, he scored about 1150, and he ended up with 1420 on his real SAT after the course.</p>
<p>Timely
Thanks for your reply. I was wondering how it would work, given they would have no class rank. You shared some very good information. </p>
<p>Actually I have no idea where they will score on the SAT. They have never taken it. I did have them take the PSAT 2 years ago, as Freshman. He scored in the 180s and she scored in the 150's. However, I have not found how this data cooralates to the SAT. </p>
<p>We plan on taking the PSAT in Oct. of this year as Juniors, then the SAT in Jan of next year. Did your sons take the PSAT?</p>
<p>A 180 on the PSAT correlates to a 1800 on the SAT for all 3 sections combined. That's an average of 600 per section whic would mean a 1200 for critical reading + math. Since your S got that score as a freshman, he may well get up over a 1300 this time. </p>
<p>If they have time to do some test prep before the PSAT, it's a good idea. If either of them score over 201 or so, they would be a National Merit Commended Student and that will look good on applications. Most people don't seem to do test prep for the PSAT, but I think it's worth it if there's a chance of them earning commended student or national merit semifinalist.</p>
<p>That's a great idea to go ahead and do the SAT in Jan. Then you will know where they stand and if they need to do some serious test prep to get their scores up before fall of their senior year when they will be applying to TAMU.</p>
<p>Howdy! I was homeschooled, and am currently a sophomore at Texas A&M. It's actually quite easy to be admitted as a homeschooler. You just apply and do the best you can with things like class rank and "school official's signature". You will need to generate a transcript for all classes taken, including the number of high school credits you have and expect to have.</p>
<p>-timely
Thanks for the tips. We have started the prep for the PSAT. When they took it 2 yrs ago, they had no prep at all. My son fussed at me afterwards that I did not tell him much about it...and that was true. My down falling. </p>
<p>-premedpenguin
I have read in multiple places that TAMU likes homeschoolers and we certainly like TAMU. Did you need to supply additional information to the college such as a list of books read or course descriptions?</p>