Just learning about college req's... have questions

[steppingstonemomma]

This is a statement on our local college's website that describes what additional info a homeschool child would need to submit for consideration. Can anyone explain what these mean more simply or if you have done this before would you be willing to send me a sample of what this should look like- I'm more visual!

 

Thanks so much. My son is 8th grade, but wants to go into mechanical engineering and I want to make sure I do this really, really well!

Tiffany

 

Home Schooled Applicants

UMBC welcomes home-schooled applicants. In addition to the above admissions materials, home-schooled applicants should submit curriculum vitae describing course content, instructional materials and an evaluation of the student’s work.

[Susan C.]

It looks like they want course descriptions, so keep accurate records of what texts you use, what chapters you cover, maybe a photocopy of the table of contents. There are several ways to accomplish what they are asking for. One question that stands out for me is who needs to evaluate your student's work? Is it acceptable for you to? I would ask admissions to be sure (make sure you get the person in admissions that handles homeschoolers). SAT Subject tests may be a way to validate your work if the college requires it. Luckily, I didn't have to do course descriptions or SAT subject tests.

[Penny from Tenny]

I had to do something similar to this some years back when my first child was in highschool. I actually only had to submit this once to the Air Force Academy. No one else ever requested it. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you feel it needs to be or as they request. I tried to keep mine to one page per course. Cathy Duffy's curriculum manual had a form that I used for my template. I wish I could upload an example, but my forms are all on old diskettes! Ha! I am going to try to scan a copy so that you can get a general idea. I'm guessing this might be similar to what they are requesting, but if not, it might help some or at least give you a starting point. In the course standard section if the grade is weighted, I would note how. I would probably even change some things now in hindsight as I look at these. I wouldn't call a course "Language Arts" for a highschool course - geez. I would call it English I or similar. (I also wouldn't use sos for language again - it just happened to be a year that we were in transition and school wouldn't have been done otherwise). When he did Smarr Literature I listed all the books that were read for that course, but I can't find that one. Also, as a for instance, in his language course curriculum and description, and because he was involved in Civil Air Patrol, I would include in the description what he was doing that related to his language course. (i.e. Writing, preparing, and teaching classes to cadets at the Memphis Belle Memorial Squadron; Writing newspaper articles for MBMS; Writing an essay explaining....etc.) I also included Civil Air Patrol in his course curriculum for physics because he was taking flying lessons and getting his pilot's license, so there would be a brief description in the "course description" area of how many hours he was spending on this (I can't find that one either). If you only have a one semester course then you would note something like "1/2 (or 0.5) for fall semester of academic year 2012-2013".

 

I'm not very good at this techy stuff; hopefully this will work. I didn't even have his name on the course descriptions because they were only part of his portfolio or "vitae" as they call them. I tried to scan a few that I could find that were a little "different" from each other.

 

HTH,

Penny

ETA: When I look at back at the "mistakes" I made when my first one was coming up through homeschool as I looked through his stuff, it is a wonder that he made it! I knew nothing. We didn't even have the resources that are so readily available now. But, he did, and got a full scholarship to boot! He knew what he wanted, and he went after it.

Edited May 26, 2012 by Penny from Tenny

[Kareni]

 

Home Schooled Applicants

UMBC welcomes home-schooled applicants. In addition to the above admissions materials, home-schooled applicants should submit curriculum vitae describing course content, instructional materials and an evaluation of the student’s work.

 

I'd interpret this to mean course descriptions, a book/textbook list, and a transcript. If you do a tag search on 'course descriptions', you'll find some helpful discussions. Here's the link for those threads tagged 'transcripts'.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Julie in MN]

I'm not very good at this techy stuff; hopefully this will work. I didn't even have his name on the course descriptions because they were only part of his portfolio or "vitae" as they call them. I tried to scan a few that I could find that were a little "different" from each other.

Penny,

Thanks, those were interesting to read and very clear.

Julie

[Penny from Tenny]

Penny,

Thanks, those were interesting to read and very clear.

Julie

 

Thank you, Julie. I was beginning to think I had the dreaded "thread killer disease"! :D

[Julie in MN]

Thank you, Julie. I was beginning to think I had the dreaded "thread killer disease"! :D

 

Heehee, I'm sure we all know that feeling. And it's probably rarely true :)

[Candid]

On the Yahoo! hs2col group, their files section have some excellent thorough course descriptions similar to Penny's if you want more samples.

[Kareni]

On the Yahoo! hs2col group, their files section have some excellent thorough course descriptions similar to Penny's if you want more samples.

 

The Yahoo group Homeschooling toward college is indeed great; I found it invaluable when my daughter was applying to college. One small correction, it's hs2coll.

 

Regards,

Kareni