Do colleges inquire about homeschoolers' biology dissections?

[Julie in MN]

Has anyone found that their colleges inquire in detail about homeschoolers' science labs? I would never have thought this might happen, but recently I keep reading about colleges which are micromanaging their applicants.

 

My son is doing Biology this year, and we'll do plenty of labs. We have a microscope, and we even have a home dialysis machine, blood collection tubes, blood spinner, etc. However, I'm just feeling I don't have the heart to do dissections this year. We dissected a worm in 8th, and in elementary my son did several dissections with a group. I thought I'd be fine with more dissections, but suddenly I just don't feel up to it.

 

I'm just wondering if anyone's had a college ask, "You did lab science at home? How many dissections did you do?"

 

By the way, I want my son to be prepared in case he enters the sciences, perhaps a medical field. I don't think the dissections are essential to this, in terms of his total education, but I don't want the lack thereof to hold him back.

 

Julie

[creekland]

Has anyone found that their colleges inquire in detail about homeschoolers' science labs? I would never have thought this might happen, but recently I keep reading about colleges which are micromanaging their applicants.

 

My son is doing Biology this year, and we'll do plenty of labs. We have a microscope, and we even have a home dialysis machine, blood collection tubes, blood spinner, etc. However, I'm just feeling I don't have the heart to do dissections this year. We dissected a worm in 8th, and in elementary my son did several dissections with a group. I thought I'd be fine with more dissections, but suddenly I just don't feel up to it.

 

I'm just wondering if anyone's had a college ask, "You did lab science at home? How many dissections did you do?"

 

By the way, I want my son to be prepared in case he enters the sciences, perhaps a medical field. I don't think the dissections are essential to this, in terms of his total education, but I don't want the lack thereof to hold him back.

 

Julie

 

 

We've never had any ask us, and, just in case you were curious, youngest took Bio in our ps last year (9th grade) and they did no dissections at all - none, nada, zip, not even a part of a critter. I was stymied, but that's the way it was. I'm guessing it's not as "basic" for labs as it used to be.

[Jane in NC]

Dissections in intro biology are really a thing of the past. With the emphasis in modern bio on biochemistry, the cell, evolutionary motivation, animal behavior, etc., most high school students do few dissections except in anatomy/physiology courses. I recently posted a site that has some great (and often inexpensive) activities:

 

Link.

 

By the way, my son had some unique biological opportunities in his role as a volunteer with a shorebird/raptor rehabber. I emphasized in course descriptions the interesting things he did--not the things he missed due to lack of equipment in our home lab.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Jane in NC

[Gwen in VA]

We're a math/engineering family, but the one thing I just couldn't handle was bio labs. So we didn't do them. Period. :D

 

My kids did have strong SAT2 scores in biology and they had labs for their other sciences, but no bio labs were done.

 

My kids have successfully applied to a WIDE range of colleges, from top-20 LAC's to "Public Ivy" universities to top private research universities to small religious colleges. We have never had any college ask about labs at all.

[MomsintheGarden]

Our oldest two didn't do dissections in homeschool high school, either. They begged not to because of the formaldehyde in the specimins. Neither was asked about it or any other science labs by colleges. Ds is not a bio major, so not having the experience didn't affect him at all. Dd is a biochem major and has successfully done lots of dissections in her bio and zoology labs in college. She did have lots of experience with living and dead animals when she volunteered at a wildlife center for five years, though.

 

Our third is definitely not going into a bio field, so this year we compromised and bought the DIVE CD for him. He was totally grossed out by the worm dissection he did in Rainbow Science, and we don't him to hate bio. It has "slideshow" labs that include the standard worm, fish, crayfish, etc., dissections. I'm sure there are lots of YouTube videos with dissections. Maybe something like that would work?

 

Whatever you decide, please let us know if you are asked about labs by schools. I'd like to know more about the micromanaging you mentioned. It sounds like your children have had more than enough hands-on bio experience already.:grouphug:

 

Blessings,

GardenMom

[2cents]

We did dissections but none of the colleges ever asked about it. We recorded LAB on his high school transcript though so they may just have seen it there and wouldn't question it. We did however have foreign language questioned and even though it was on the transcript, we were questioned about it and verified it via FLVS. I thought that was odd.

[Barbara H]

There are some selective colleges that express concern about labs and would like to see a strong lab component for homeschoolers. That doesn't necessarily mean the student needs dissections, but that somewhere along the way you should be prepared to make sure they have a science lab notebook or reports they'd feel comfortable showing. If you are considering community college classes while in high school it may be a good way to document some lab science experience. It doesn't necessarily need to be for every year of science.

 

Just as one example Oberlin College asks for three years of lab sciences including "evidence of science laboratory experience." http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/admissions/first-year-applicant/homeschooled.dot

[FaithManor]

DD never had a college ask. We highlighted her unique science experiences.

 

She did do dissections and all of my kids will but that is because the current 9th grader will take A & P (we'll do the dissections as part of that) and the next boy is going into biology with a zoology emphasis so again, animal anatomy will be an area of interest and requirement.

 

That said, there are a lot of neat bio labs one can do without dissections. I highly recommend blood typing as well for those students that have managed to make it to high school and are unaware of their blood type. It's practical knowledge and as they become more and more independent and may be more likely to be in a position to be away from mom, dad, and medical records and need medical attention, knowing their own blood type is wise. DD is the only one who knew her blood type before 9th grade, so our boys are just getting ready to embark on blood typing. It's a simple lab, but a good one to do.

 

Faith

[Candid]

There are some selective colleges that express concern about labs and would like to see a strong lab component for homeschoolers. That doesn't necessarily mean the student needs dissections, but that somewhere along the way you should be prepared to make sure they have a science lab notebook or reports they'd feel comfortable showing. If you are considering community college classes while in high school it may be a good way to document some lab science experience. It doesn't necessarily need to be for every year of science.

 

Just as one example Oberlin College asks for three years of lab sciences including "evidence of science laboratory experience." http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/admissions/first-year-applicant/homeschooled.dot

 

:iagree:

 

I think they are looking to see if a student has learned to work precisely and carefully. I suspect that a dissection is not a good measure of that (at least not at the high school level). As a really date example, my dad got a hospital lab job and the test they had him do to qualify was a chemistry titration (do they still do those?).

[Julie in MN]

Thanks, all of you. I'm feeling better now.

 

I tried to do a search and can't find the thread where folks heading for college at Georgia state schools have to show exact high school courses. For the life of me, I can't figure out how that could possibly be a university, since there were students at my own university who were in all walks of life, with all types of backgrounds, which is the definition of university in my own mind. But I digress...

 

I know I don't *have* to do dissections, but I guess I had a panic moment that colleges now might be grilling homeschoolers, looking over their spectacles and saying, "Home lab? What does that meeeeeeeaannn??? How many dissecttttttttions did you do???"

 

I'm planning to use Experiences in Biology for labs (they don't recommend you do all of the labs in the book, but they do recommend you do some of the dissections), plus he can watch a few online dissections & such. But I was hoping to focus mostly on investigations & microscope labs.

 

Thank you all sooo much! And any more comments that come thru, especially about kids who got into sciency colleges without doing high school dissections.

 

Julie

 

He was totally grossed out by the worm dissection he did in Rainbow Science,

P.S. This is the one my son did in 8th, and he didn't mind. But he'd rather not do any more advanced animals.

[Janice H]

Dd and I sat with the head of the biology department at a school described as "high research". We talked about a lot of things, but "critters you have dissected" was not one of them. (Dd was accepted at this school.)

[snowbeltmom]

My son is doing Biology this year, and we'll do plenty of labs...

 

I'm just wondering if anyone's had a college ask, "You did lab science at home? How many dissections did you do?"

 

Julie

 

My son took high school biology through Johns Hopkins CTY online program. He completed a number of wet and virtual labs. He did not perform a single dissection.

[stripe]

I only had one lab dissection in hs biology, and I skipped it and wrote a paper about frog anatomy instead.

 

(That being said, couldn't you investigate, say, a chicken, fish, and whatever other meat you eat instead of a special animal, so he could see inside without wasting the animal just for science?)

[Julie in MN]

Thanks, you guys! Every answer is building my confidence.

 

(That being said, couldn't you investigate, say, a chicken, fish, and whatever other meat you eat instead of a special animal, so he could see inside without wasting the animal just for science?)

 

I've been trying to get my brother to prepare a fish with ds. Still prompting him.

 

Julie

[J-rap]

Like you, our household is centered around other things besides schooling right now... But my #5 did Biology this past year. I didn't have the energy to do a lot of labs, but wanted her to have an understanding of them. Voila Youtube! You can find labs for everything on Youtube. I'd search Biology + ??? (whatever the topic we were studying), and assign a couple of short labs for her to watch. I know there are science-specific sites that do this as well. They are called virtual labs, and apparently even many public schools are doing this now.

[Julie in MN]

Like you, our household is centered around other things besides schooling right now...

 

Hi there, comrade, I see you are right there in the trenches with me.

 

Yes, I have been building a list of virtual labs and other websites all summer. It was actually watching some of those that made me realize I'm really not up to dissections right now (the eyeball and the pig, in particular). Before that, I didn't think we'd have an issue with it. After all, we have our hands in blood & guts a lot around here :tongue_smilie:

 

apparently even many public schools are doing this now.

 

Interesting on the public schools. I'll have to ask some of my son's friends. But I just had envisioned that the expectations of the interviewers might be sky-high for homeschoolers. You know, the types who say that the public school curriculum covers all this endless jargon, even if you know it doesn't. I'm starting to feel relieved by this thread.

 

Dd and I sat with the head of the biology department at a school described as "high research". We talked about a lot of things, but "critters you have dissected" was not one of them. (Dd was accepted at this school.)

 

I've been thinking back on this one & feeling happy :)

 

Julie

[FlockOfSillies]

LOL, wouldn't that be funny to see "Critters You Have Dissected" as a box to fill in on a college app?

[anne1456]

My daughter applied as a biology major, and one admissions officer did ask her how she had handled science labs. I put a few sentences in the School profile part of the common app discussing science labs in general, and no one asked anything more.