We are long-term homeschoolers. Since we are outside the norm, we often get questions like, "What about high school?" and "How will they get into college?"
Our oldest daughter is in the "11th grade" (what ever that means for a homeschooler). So, the college question is very much on our minds. Since she is our first, she is also our learner child. If our strategy doesn't work well for her, we can try something different for the next kid.
This is our college strategy:
She will attend community college for a year or two and then transfer to a 4 year university. Our oldest has started her second class at a local community college and we plan for increasingly more classes during her "senior" year of homeschooling.
Our local community college system allows concurrent enrollment. High school juniors and seniors can take up to 6 per semester for free. I think they can take even for than 6 per semester if their principal (me) signs a waver.
However, our oldest daughter is also taking all the standardized tests (SAT, ACT), so that she could apply as a freshman. The universities that she would like to attend will take homeschool students with reasonable SAT or ACT scores. These universities require higher scores for the homeschool students than the traditional students. Our oldest tests well, so it shouldn't be an issue.
A friend's son ran into problems applying to a university we are considering. He scored high on the SAT but they wouldn't accept his CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam) as proof of high school completion. The wanted him to pass the GED. However, students are NOT allowed to take the GED until they are 18 years old, which is a little late for the regular application period. There is an exception to the GED testing age. Youth who have been incarcerated can take the GED early. We joked that he needed to get himself arrested so that he could take the GED, so that he could go to college on track with his friends.
We hope to avoid this issue with a transcript from the community college. However, we also hope to get scholarship offers from the SAT and ACT scores.
In addition to the community college classes, we are encouraging our daughter to take a few CLEP tests. I started university as a sophomore because of CLEP credits. However, the universities that are on the top of her list don't accept CLEP credits. Since many of the California Universities do accept the credits and we don't know where she will end up yet, we figure it can't hurt to have the credits. If the school doesn't accept the credit, it can still make her homeschool transcript look more impressive.
Our goal is for our daughter to get accept to a good university with a scholarship of some sort. We will keep you posted on how well this plan works for us.
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