<p>I'm back again haha :) anyway here's my big question for today: what's up with homeschool gpas? </p>
<p>From what I've gleaned off browsing through this forum (and I don't know how accurate all the stuff here is cause some stuff is from years back), it seems like homeschool gpas aren't all that reliable and some homeschoolers actually submit transcripts without gpas attached but rather submit a description of the course and textbooks used instead etc. </p>
<p>But at some of the schools I'm applying to (not so selective safety schools) they actually stated that for homeschoolers they will refer to curriculum, gpa and sat score for admissions purposes. </p>
<p>It was a huge shock when I found out and even for homeschoolers, they treated my gpa as though it were from an accredited school. </p>
<p>And of course, based on that I came up with 3 possible theories for this: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Homeschooling is a much more common option now as opposed to in the past, and in light of the fact that public school gpas aren't all that reliable either (cheating, grade inflation etc) adcoms are starting to trust homeschool gpas and take them into account. </p></li>
<li><p>They secretly ignore your gpa and instead look at your sat or act score and the gpa is just for admin purposes. </p></li>
<li><p>They only accept your gpa if your test scores correspond, and of they don't then the school might also ask for a list of textbooks etc</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any opinions on which one might be true ? :) thanks !!!</p>
<p>Most homeschoolers are taking from a variety of outside sources: community colleges, online classes, homeschool coops, etc and thus it does mean something.</p>
<p>I hope I’m not coming across as offensive, but not all homeschoolers do that, so how would that play into my original question? Even then, many homeschoolers don’t attend outside classes, but have outside validation like test scores which don’t affect gpa, or they only attend certain lessons outside (of course, if they attended all their lessons outside, it wouldn’t really be homeschooling, would it?). Any insight as to how gpa works for them?</p>
<p>Also, if I recall correctly, there’re people on this forum who’ve gotten into excellent colleges despite having minimal outside classes at best (more emphasis on test scores instead of AP/CC), if any of you could offer an explanation that would be particularly interesting to me :)</p>
<p>I’ve asked a few folks in admissions about this and each one told me they don’t really take a homeschool GPA into consideration. They look more at test scores. I also assume they will look at and consider anything with outside substantiation (outside classes) more highly.</p>
<p>We still put the GPA on our transcripts, but I had middle son do more with outside confirmation than oldest son. Youngest opted to attend our public school for high school, and has a great “real” GPA, but he’ll freely tell you his classes are far easier than what we did while homeschooling. He prefers easy. It’ll show up in his test scores and we’ll make sure we don’t overmatch him with a college based solely upon his GPA. </p>
<p>NOTE: I’m not saying ALL homeschoolers go into more depth than ALL public schools. They most certainly don’t. Our ps also is below average in state and national stats and doesn’t offer AP (except European History I think). I think admissions folks are wise to look at test scores (and perhaps class rank for ps kids) more than GPA for traditional academic majors. Many of the top GPA kids at our public school test into remedial classes at 4 year colleges.</p>
<p>Just another data point in it all - the state of Colorado assigns a GPA to homeschoolers for admission into state colleges.</p>
<p>"Guidelines established by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) require that all applicants from non-graded educational settings (i.e., narrative or portfolio assessment) be assigned a 3.3 “proxy” GPA (on a 4.0 scale), regardless of the type of assessment system used by the family or curriculum. " [Homeschool</a> FAQ - Admissions - Colorado State University](<a href=“http://admissions.colostate.edu/homeschoolfaq]Homeschool”>Homeschool Applicants | Admissions | Colorado State University)</p>
<p>xoxo, I know some homeschool students who do not have 4.0 GPAs. idk how to explain this, but I think it is kind of like a “box to check” that will select against a portion of your students who are not as hard workers. Additionally, I’m not sure they have much more reason to trust “normal” public (government) schools GPAs than homeschools. </p>
<p>“more emphasis on test scores instead of AP/CC)”
Don’t take this wrong, but for homeschoolers like myself, we will take a nationally recognized test (SAT II, AP,
National Spanish Exam…) for each subject in addition to outsourcing most stuff. Example: I plan to take the AP econ tests after taking Econ via cc. </p>
<p>With regards to whether outsourcing everything is still homeschooling, well, what would you call it when you take some classes online, some via cc, some via coop, some via parent, some via tutor…? I agree that much of homeschooling takes place outside of the home.</p>
<p>Oh point taken I question all of this because we live overseas and there are no CCs and AP exams are over five hundred dollars per exam here, so I was wondering how I’d apply instead. Most of my outside verification of grades lies in my concurrent enrollment in a local school and sat ii’s you see. Any advice? :)</p>
<p>^^^ You’ll do fine. You’ll have an SAT score, SAT II scores, and anything else coming from the local school. Admissions folks are quite knowledgeable about different situations.</p>
<p>Remember too, at many schools, you are more than any sort of scores. You’ll have extra curriculars of some sort, essays, letters of recommendation… and more. Scores are really just a “bar” to show you’re capable at the level the college wants. Fall below the bar and you aren’t so likely to make it in (but some do - 25% fall below the 25th percentile bar). However, getting over the bar doesn’t guarantee admission. Admissions comes from the other stuff (at most places). Scores are useful for many merit scholarships though.</p>
<p>Yup it’s more of having a safety school just to reassure myself you know? Else my brain would totally implode before this whole admissions period ends >< And I figured numbers-based colleges would be a great safety, hence the whole panic over GPA.</p>
<p>Thanks creekland! Definitely most schools are now more than just scores, but well, I suppose this must just be the panic getting to me hehe Now that I’m less worried about all this GPA thing I can focus more on other parts of my application :D</p>
<p>I think that the bigger issue is that grades aren’t consistent from
school district to school district, school to school or even teacher
to teacher.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It could be that they want the numbers for their stats for ranking
purposes. I did a transcript for our son and just put down the college
courses that he took for grade purposes.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You are correct; not all homeschoolers take external courses. A lot
of homeschoolers don’t go to college immediately or may not even have
an interest in homeschooling. I know some that did apprenticeships or
started their own businesses.</p>
<p>On doing all of their lessons outside - it depends on the legal
definition of the state. A student could be going through an online
high-school program like the Stanford Online College and I believe
that they would be legally attending a private school. If the student
is taking a few courses at one college and a few from another and
maybe one from an online place, then it would likely fall under the
homeschooling statutes for the state. Students have to attend public,
private or home schools due to compulsory attendance laws so they have
to be categorized for legal purposes. So yes, a student could
completely outsource their studies and still be consider
homeschoolers.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>They may have some particular expertise that makes them particularly
attractive to a school. Colleges might look favorably on being the
best tennis player in the world as a hook.</p>
<p>There may be high-level involvement in international academic
competitions.</p>
<p>There may be a parent that’s a researcher at a top research university
that has involved their kids in their research.</p>
<p>Wow that was a really informative post bceagle, THANKS SO MUCH :D</p>
<p>I think, as a homeschooler, a common worry is not fitting into a so-called mold which would end up in rejection from colleges. Some homeschoolers I know even tailor-fit their curriculum to mirror that of public school, which I personally feel takes away from the entire rationale for homeschooling. </p>
<p>Clearly my transcript is definitely out of whack! While I do present lots of test scores, I don’t have any form of AP/CC credit to show colleges and the local school here, while an excellent school, works in a very different way since they follow the British system. Didn’t take any national exams with them but there is no honors weighting - everyone takes the same classes, neither is AP offered. My home study classes are by far the most rigorous, especially since my parents are well-educated and have taught me well.</p>
<p>And that is why I am especially curious about homeschoolers who have not gone through the AP/CC route and yet have still managed to gain admission into top colleges.</p>
<p>There are many parents coming into homeschooling to deal with a severe
problem in school and one of the main things to deal with in the
transition is the legal issues. You may have to come up with a program
of study and it is easier to use something that they are familiar with
(the traditional school system) in the near-term. There may not be
time to consider philosophical approaches to education when you are
going through the process.</p>
<p>There are many parents that want the same educational model with a
different school setting. There are curriculum providers that provide
test and grading services that may be used to prove a comparable
education with independent testing.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I assume that you’re doing A-level type courses which are typically
advanced compared to the usual US courses at the same age levels.
Hopefully the colleges that you are applying to can see this. I
have some familiarity with the British system because my wife grew
up in Singapore.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Basically do something that you love and be really, really good at it.
That works for any kind of schooling.</p>
<p>Again, thanks bceagle, your replies are always so comprehensive, it is definitely appreciated :)</p>
<p>Yes I live in Singapore right now too!! I’m thinking about submitting an appendix to my transcript from the local school listing topics completed, just to give a general idea. I stopped after the O levels but the school was fairly rigorous as well and I would assume it to be harder than corresponding grades in the US. For example, in 10th grade when I took biology (at the Secondary 3 level locally), we used one of the AP bio textbooks and covered it for class. </p>
<p>Do you think that will help?</p>
<p>And of course, yes I definitely agree that as long as you’re good at something any kind of schooling is fine Hopefully it comes across, because my awards aren’t conventional academic awards, they’re more in the creative area for example, FPSPI (Future Problem Solving Program International).</p>
<p>Also, just a question: If I get my AP courses approved by collegeboard, then would parent-assigned grades be considered “valid”? I mean since it has been approved and all.</p>
<p>Actually I got mine approved so that colleges would know what I was doing in my home study classes. I figured that while not as valid as a public school assigned GPA (so to speak), it would be more valid anyway knowing that the coursework has been approved by collegeboard. It’s more of proving the rigor of coursework than actual outside validation, which I’m going to prove using SAT/ACT,SAT II, CLEP/DSST exams, local school transcript since I maintained a A to A+ average there. Not sure why I’m explaining this here, but I hope it helps anyway :D</p>
<p>Singaporean schools have an excellent reputation globally and I would hope that the admissions people would know that but I’d guess that most don’t because they are focused on US students. Hopefully most schools have at least one staffer that deals with international admissions.</p>
<p>I had a look at some of your other threads and you look like a high-performing student - you just need admissions to be able to translate your work to something that they can use to compare to the US system.</p>
<p>It looks like you want to major in Finance and then work on Wall St. It looks like your V vs NYU thread gave you something to think about. There are some posters that have worked on Wall St or that work their now and you might consider chatting with them on what it is like.</p>
<p>You stated that APs are expensive and that Singapore doesn’t have the equivalent of Community Colleges. Could you take a university course this fall at NUS or NTU? I do not know whether or not universities in Singapore allow non-matriculated students to take courses or not. Our son took courses dual-enrollment at five different universities. In each case, I had to convince them that he could do the work and would be mature enough to handle the classroom environment. Sometimes it meant getting around the rules by going to a high-enough level of administration.</p>
<p>You might find it interesting and you will get exposure early on. It might be a complete piece of cake for you but it will give you a little more confidence when you go to college as you know what to expect.</p>
<p>Something else: I assume that you follow some of the things going on in the US but focus a lot on Singapore. Singapore is doing quite well economically (and in many other areas) compared to the United States. The stated unemployment rate in Singapore is around 2.1% compared to 8.2% in the United States. The US number vastly understates the problem though - the number which most people would consider as unemployed is probably in the mid-teens. I have done some reading on Wall St employment and there has been some amount of contraction there - some of the big firms have announced job cuts with unexpectedly poor financial results. No one can say how things will be in four years though.</p>
It’ll show up in his test scores and we’ll make sure we don’t overmatch him with a college based solely upon his GPA. </p>
I question all of this because we live overseas and there are no CCs and AP exams are over five hundred dollars per exam here, so I was wondering how I’d apply instead. Most of my outside verification of grades lies in my concurrent enrollment in a local school and sat ii’s you see. Any advice? :)</p>