Homeschooling

Archive for April, 2007

Question: Question about home school and state ID?

My son is 18 years old ( autistic) and I have been Homeschooling him for the last 10 years. When he was in public school, the kids made fun of him and called him retard and made him cry and have bad anxiety. That is when me and my husband decided to home school him. When he turned 18 last week, we took him to the DPS office to get his ID and brought his birth cert, and his social security card with us. The lady behind the counter said we needed his high school transscripts( he hasn't been in public school for almost 10 years because of his autism) I thought when you turn 18, you are an adult?. I still home school him but they wont accept anything from his homeschool for proof. Im at a lost at what to do to get his state ID?

Answer: Suggest you contact the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) if you cannot find a State ombudsman by contacting your State's Attorney General's office. They should have a Consumer Complaint division.

Here's ACLJ's website: www.aclj.org

Would you go to jail for your kids ?

Question: Michigan Homeschooling...help?!?

I have been Homeschooling my daughter since she got pregnant 2 years ago, according to the michigan.gov/homeschool website it states a parent/guardian issues the graduate a diploma...I am confused, does this mean I print off a generic diploma and thats final? How do parents do this? I have heard people Homeschooling their children through high school but does this mean my daughter has to go take a GED test?

Answer: Yup, that's exactly what that means. You can print off a diploma if you want to. MUCH more important are her next steps and what she plans to do. If she wants to go to college, you'll need to have a WAY more important piece of paper: A Transcript.

You DO NOT need a GED to get into college. It may--in fact, likely WILL--harm your ability to get into college in the first place.

The GED has a certain stigma attached to it. One friend of mine has a daughter who dropped out of school, then decided to homeschool to finish out her education. She was assured by many experts that “a GED is just exactly the same as a high school diploma.”

“It’s NOT,” she said bitterly. “It’s not the same at all, as we’ve learned the hard way. Many colleges have basically slammed the door in our faces when they see “GED” on the application.” She feels it has severely limited her daughter's ability to get a higher education.

Someone else said his daughter got one and it was a giant pain...not only did it limit her college options, but it forced her to live on campus for another year, which translated into a huge outlay of money.

The letters GED cause schools and employers to consider you a high risk. Why? Because the designation turns you from a hardworking homeschooler into a remorseful dropout. Very few colleges will demand a GED, and if they do, they’re likely not worth their salt in the first place.

Can a homeschooled kid get INTO college, then? Yes, of course!

Homeschooler Chelsea Link feared she might not get into any top schools. She got into seven:

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/apr/18/news/chi-homeschool_18apr18

Then there are Micki and David Colfax, who homeschooled their three (four?) boys, and all of them went on to Harvard (and this was back in the 1980s, when Homeschooling was even more unusual than it is today). Their book, “Homeschooling for Excellence,” describes their Homeschooling adventure. There’s also Kerry Anderson, a student who spent her middle- and high-school career riding across the country in the cab of her mom’s big rig and Homeschooling. A recruiter from Harvard came looking for her in 2007. She graduated from Harvard in 2010, and plans to continue to law school:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128674314

You might also want to read Cafi Cohen's book, “And What about College? : How Homeschooling Leads to Admissions to the Best Colleges and Universities.”

So where to start? Find the website of a college you might be interested in, and do a search for “homeschool,” and see if it comes up with anything. MANY colleges and universities have a page dedicated to admissions policies in regard to homeschoolers.

Most, if not all colleges, will also want to see SAT and/or ACT scores. You’ll need to be careful of watching for the deadline on those, to make sure you take them when you need to. They will also want a few letters of recommendation (you can get those from anyone who might be able to speak to your academic life; perhaps outside teachers and/or mentors, a Scout leader, that type of thing), and A TRANSCRIPT.

What about a diploma???

Nope. Diplomas are essentially useless. Face it, there’s a huge variety of high school diplomas, just like there’s a huge variety of high schools. I’ve known people who had high school diplomas and couldn’t read! Aside from that, every state has different requirements and standards when it comes to earning a high school diploma. That’s why when you apply to a college IN state (as opposed to out-of-state), they are more likely to take your diploma and GPA into account. If you apply out-of-state, they rely more heavily on your ACT and SAT scores. Also remember that the kid who took a slew of AP classes and held office in student council and a number of clubs got the same diploma as the kid who squeaked by with a C average taking woodshop, auto mechanics and art. The only way the colleges can tell the difference between these students is to know what classes they took. The list of classes, and the grades obtained for each, is your TRANSCRIPT. Those things are worth their weight in gold!!!

So you’ll want to carefully keep record of what you’re learning, and how much time you spend on it. A portfolio of your work wouldn’t hurt, either.

Lots of homeschooled kids take college courses while they're in high school. (High schools call this “dual enrollment.”) By the time they graduate from high school, they have an Associates Degree and then they transfer to the university of their choice. Not all of them do that, but many do. The only caveat on that is that it COULD affect your financial aid in the future, so it would be worth checking on that aspect.