Questions for those with children in a Military Academy

[kiso1]

I was perusing the Naval Academy website which said this regarding homeschoolers: "(Y)ou should let us know if your schooling is recognized by the local school board or the State Board of Education." What does this mean? Does this mean we should simply state in a letter if homeschooling is recognized in our home state or do we need a letter of proof?

 

Also, how hard is it getting a nomination? That is, did you have any problems getting one?

 

We are oversea residents with official residency in Maryland. I was looking at the service academies for my current ninth grader.

 

Seems like homeschoolers have blazed the trail into all kinds of higher education so I thought I'd ask here.

 

 

[G5052]

Every state is different, but here you just need a copy of your approved "Notice of Intent to Homeschool" which is given by the local school system.  The local colleges actually require that for dual enrollment each semester too, so it's something I make sure to save.

 

Where I live, getting a nomination is difficult because there are so many high achievers. We know a few that have gone, but many more that didn't get a nomination. Quite a few I know did get an ROTC scholarship though.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

In addition to the Congressional delegation, your kid should plan to apply for a Vice Presidential nomination.  If one of the parents was military, you should look at the requirements for the Presidential nomination to see if that applies.

 

 

[kiso1]

Thanks ladies for your tidbits. I really appreciate them. This is gonna require serious thought, whether we should pursue this path since there seems to be some hurdles we'll have to go over. We're homeschoolers overseas so I'm not sure where we can get this proof. But I guess we'll get to that IF we decide to go down that road. Thanks again.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

There are several threads here with lengthy discussions of service academy and ROTC applications.

 

In general, the academies and ROTC do NOT require that homeschoolers submit an accredited transcript.  Navy ROTC had no problem with my parent created transcript.  I also submitted course descriptions.  

 

I used the same transcript/course description packet for USNA.  They did not ask for additional academic information.  (DS also submitted official transcripts from the CC's he'd attended.  He used his CC pre-calc teacher for his math recommendation.  I did his English recommendation.  For ROTC, he used his Latin instructor for his second recommendation.)

 

The academies and ROTC are very competitive applications.  Having said that, there are homeschoolers who are offered appointments and who earn ROTC scholarships.  The last numbers I saw for USNA had homeschoolers at about 1.5% of the students offered appointments.  This tracks with the numbers of homeschoolers nationwide.

 

My recommendation is to concentrate on what you can control.  This would be academics, test scores, extracurriculars (both sport and leadership), and finding a way to have outside voices in the recommendations.  You can't control the relative strength of other applicants or the competitiveness of the nomination area.

 

FWIW, in our area (not MD), a student who had moved overseas did compete for nominations, earned nominations and was offered an appointment.  So it is possible.  Don't take a turn down as a personal judgement.  There are many, many highly qualified applicants.  There are fewer than 900 spots for students coming directly out of high school.