Homeschooling High School with College in Mind - It's Not That Hard

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Does your teen want to go to a 4 year college, after graduating from your homeschool, like mine did?  

When we were in the middle school years, my husband and I began thinking about the possibility of college for our daughter.  And I was more than a little nervous.  

But I wanted my teen to have the option of going directly to a 4 year college, if she wanted to do that.

  

How would I, as a homeschooling mom, help her get there?  

The idea of knocking on the college door with a homeschool transcript in hand, was more than a little daunting for me.  I knew that the homeschool transcript was now widely accepted by colleges.  But the colleges seemed so big, and I, in contrast, felt so small.  

Do you ever feel that way?

I wanted more information, so I began to research about college.  I found that there were many homeschool friendly colleges out there, that wanted the type of kids that homeschooling produces - motivated, independent learners. Seeing that spurred me on to find out more.

I wanted to find out what she would need to apply to college.  I got on the web and looked up likely colleges that my daughter might attend. I found that the entrance requirements were similar, but not consistent from college to college. Some of them also had extra requirements for their homeschooling applicants, and some didn't. 

What's a mom to do?

I continued my search, looking at college websites and entrance requirements.  Soon I had a list of the required courses that my teen would need.  And it wasn't that hard to do!  

This post explains the process that I went through to research and then compile the list of college entrance requirements specifically needed for my teen.  

Starting this research early is a help, but it is still possible to do this any time in high school, by just recalling info from their previous studies, and going from there.  And you can always add in an extra quarter or two, to make up for any requirements that you might have missed.

 Admission Requirements

Each college will show their admission requirements with just a click of the button.  This information was easy for us to find, just by looking at college websites, and clicking on the freshman admission requirements.

We found these requirements to be similar from college to college, with some variance depending if the college was an ivy league, private, or a state college. 

How did we find this information?  We just clicked around until we found a heading like this:

________________________________________________

College Academic Distribution Requirements (CADR)

All applicants must complete a minimum level of preparation in six subject areas. This requirement ensures that students entering the University have an appreciation for the liberal arts and are adequately prepared to succeed in college.....etc

_____________________________________________________

There we found a  list of their requirements....

SAMPLE  ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Enjoying the college campus.

# 1 A 2 TIER UNIVERSITY

 Math - 3 credits

English - 4 credits

Social Studies - 3 credits

 Science, with labs - 2 credits

 Foreign Language - 2 credits

Senior Year Math or Statistics course - 1 credit

1/2 -1 credit of Fine Art

Here's another example, just for comparison sake. My niece is going to a faith based college in our area.  This is how her high school requirements looked:

 #2 A PRIVATE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

English - 4 credits
Math - 2 credits
Social Studies - 2 credits

Science - 2 credits
Foreign Language - 2 credits Electives

Electives - 3 credits 

So you see that this college does not require as many credits for math or science as the first one did.  That would leave more time for volunteering, or special interests, etc.

#3 AN IVY UNIVERSITY

English - 4 credits

Math - 4 credits

Science 4 credits, with 3 lab sciences

Social Studies – 4 credits

Foreign Language – 3 credits  

See how they require so much more than the above two examples. Many ivys also look for SAT subject tests, AP courses, and very high SAT/ACT scores.

 Each college is different.

Some colleges also require extra things from their homeschool applicants.  Our next step was to look for any specific requirements for homeschoolers.  But they didn't get in our way!  

My daughter with friends, dressed up for a special campus event.

To find out more about "validation", making your transcripts, and all the other components of applying to college, I invite you to check out my book on going from high school to college 

I put together all of my best tips for high school and college, all in one place............ 

Heidi, from Starts at Eight says:

"If you are planning on homeschooling high school then Betsy's book is the one that you want to have on the shelf"......click here to read the rest of her review."

 Homeschooling High School with College in Mind

Kindle and Paperback on Amazon

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college junior, whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote the book - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

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