<p>I have been instructed the following by MIT adcom(very helpful person) Matt
[quote]
You should submit teacher recommendations, and may want to supplement that with recommendations from other adults not related to you and not friends of the family who know you well in some regard. </p>
<p>You may wish to submit a report of your homeschooling and private candidacy in place of the school report,
[/quote]
I am not able to interpret it,firstly how do i prepare report on home schooling or even what it is. secondaly who are "adults not related to you", will a research mentor eligible to write recs. I am new to home Home schooling so please bare with me.</p>
<p>No offense, really, but I think you should be able to figure out who could write a recommendation other than someone in your family - examples might be :</p>
<ol>
<li>If your child does volunteer work - the "director" at that establishment.</li>
<li>An instructor at a site where your child takes "extra" classes (perhaps a biology class, series of art classes or computer classes, etc...)</li>
<li>Maybe a pastor or sunday school teacher</li>
<li>Mentor for any research projects or major competitions like the Robotics Competition, etc...</li>
<li>Employer </li>
</ol>
<p>you get the idea. </p>
<p>Depending on the school, you may need to create a transcript (There is a good one from EduServ) and outlines of ALL Courses taken 9 - 12 (adding up to 24 credits - each credit is one year or 180 days.) Outlines should mention all text books and resources you used for the class as well as an outline of subject matter covered.
they generally want to see:
4 credits of English (world, US, and British lit and Advanced Composition)
3 credits of Science (biology with lab, chemisty with lab and physics)
3 credits of Social Sciences (US history, World History, American Government (sometimes 1/2 credit) and Ecomomics (1/2 credit)
2 credits of SAME foreign lanugage
3 credits of Math (Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry) and a fourth strongly recommended - (Pre Calculus or Advanced Alg/Trig and maybe a statistics class)
Electives to make up the other credits needed for the 24. </p>
<p>My son was accepted everywhere he applied, including MIT. We submitted a one page "school report" that generally outlined our approach to homeschooling. I think colleges want to know why an applicant was homeschooled (lived abroad, student wanted to accelerate, parents felt they could do better than the schools, parents wanted to protect student from exposure to others with different religious beliefs). Then I think they want some idea of how much interaction student has had with a community outside your home and family (ie - has the student worked in groups?).</p>
<p>re recs - most "homeschooled" teens have actually taken traditional classes, either at a local community college, via distance learning, or via the homeschool community. Virtually all of them are involved in either employment or extracurricular activities of one sort or another. These are all sources of people outside the immediate family to write recs.</p>
<p>I don't think you have to get too carried away with figuring out credits. If you live in a state that requires that and you have documented your efforts that way, fine. Any CC or diatnce learning courses you've taken will have assigned credits. But you don't need to worry too much about making your self-directed activities fit into the "180 days times one hour per day equals one credit" paradigm.</p>
<p>Our response was similar to that of texas137. We submitted a transcript which showed all classes taken, annotated to show which were taken outside the home at the cc or wherever. I wrote up short course descriptions for the classes done at home, using a format similar to that used by the local high school--one paragraph on each course listing main texts or materials used (but not every book; I could never figure all that out) and general scope of the class. I also wrote a cover letter, which would correspond to the "report" you mention. I talked about why we decided to homeschool, the general methods we used, and how homeschooling helped my son pursue his particular passions.</p>
<p>As for the recs, yes, a research mentor would be a great person to write a letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>Thanks Pearl,texas137 & Susantm;Thank you very much for your help, i will now begin writing my application. Teaxs137 could you please PM me your sons' stats so that i could have an ruff idea of requirments for home-scholars at MIT.</p>