Can you help me?

[LittleRedMama]

Hello, I recently PM’ed Lori and she suggested I post my question here. 

“Hello, I am not really active on this site however, I do come here whenever I am looking for answers. I am wondering if you could help me. 

My son (my oldest) will be 17 in October. Our family went through a time of crisis two years ago and it put him about a year behind. It is not his fault at all. He is very bright. We have been trying to catch up but I fear it is just burning him out. He wants to go to college. He wants to play basketball. In your opinion would it hurt him to slow the pace and “be a 10th grader” and graduate at 19+?  Or should we keep the pace and graduate on time?  

I personally think his grades would be better and he would be happier. But I don’t want to hurt his chances for college. 

 Thanks in advance. I don’t have any homeschool peers and google only can help but so much.  ~Tammy”

[alewife]

1 hour ago, LittleRedMama said:

Hello, I recently PM’ed Lori and she suggested I post my question here. 

“Hello, I am not really active on this site however, I do come here whenever I am looking for answers. I am wondering if you could help me. 

My son (my oldest) will be 17 in October. Our family went through a time of crisis two years ago and it put him about a year behind. It is not his fault at all. He is very bright. We have been trying to catch up but I fear it is just burning him out. He wants to go to college. He wants to play basketball. In your opinion would it hurt him to slow the pace and “be a 10th grader” and graduate at 19+?  Or should we keep the pace and graduate on time?  

I personally think his grades would be better and he would be happier. But I don’t want to hurt his chances for college. 

 Thanks in advance. I don’t have any homeschool peers and google only can help but so much.  ~Tammy”

II am sorry for your family's crisis.  I hope things are better now.

If your son wants to play D1 or D2 basketball in college, I would check on the NCAA website to see what their rules are for high school graduation.  I know for some sports, once a student begins 9th grade, he has to graduate within 4 years.

If basketball is not an issue (or if your son wants to play D3) then from an academic standpoint, I don't think you would be hurting your son's chances for college acceptances by delaying his graduation.  Imo, it would be much better to delay graduation and have a happy kid vs. continuing with a hectic pace only to have a burned out student at the end of high school.  

[LittleRedMama]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. He is my first and I get so nervous about these first time experiences. I worry I’ll make a critical mistake and hurt his chances to achieve his goals and dreams. Thanks again. ?

[JanetC]

Graduating late will not hurt your son in terms of being able to go to college and get a degree. You'll have to check into the rules to see how it would affect athletic eligibility. My guess is the worst case scenario is that he has less than four full seasons of eligibility, but that he could still play. But, my opinion is that you do right academically by your child first. That means an appropriate curriculum delivered at an appropriate pace. Even your son is a basketball superstar where getting him into a Div I scholarship is a possibility, I'm the kind of mean mom that would put academics first.

Getting on a basketball team at Div III or community college is much easier than playing Div I, but there is no athletic scholarship money. You have to have the grades and test scores for merit aid, or you have to get into a school that provides good need-based aid (and what the financial aid formulas say you can afford is often ridiculously high), or you have to have the money in cash or loans. Many large state universities also have huge intramural sports programs where he could play for fun (for a dorm, club, or frat team).

[Corraleno]

Graduating at 19 is not a problem; it's actually becoming more common, especially for boys and even more so for athletes. FWIW, my son repeated 3rd grade in B&M school and when we started homeschooling I just called the next year 4th grade and went from there, so he graduated HS shortly after his 19th birthday. I think it was definitely the best thing for him.

As for playing basketball in college — the process will be different depending on whether he has been homeschooled throughout high school, or has ever been enrolled (even briefly) in any private or public high school. If he's been homeschooled throughout high school, just label this year whatever grade you want and when he graduates do a regular 4-yr transcript, dropping the original 9th grade courses to 8th (you can still put any HS-level math and foreign language courses from 8th grade on the transcript). If he was enrolled in a high school (including accredited online schools), then NCAA will know his actual 9th grade starting date. My understanding of NCAA rules is that a student can take 5 years to graduate, but he still has to meet all 16 NCAA core course requirements within 48 months of the 9th grade start date (including 4 credits in English), and he must meet 10 of them before the 7th semester (so basically within 36 months). So you would need to make sure that he has met all those requirements within NCAA time frames, even if he then spends an extra year in high school before he graduates. I think he would be allowed to compete during his 5th year of HS without losing any eligibility, as long as he goes directly to college after that, but I would definitely double-check that with NCAA.

However, unless he is quite a high-level player, he may be more likely to end up at a D3 or NAIA school. D3 athletes do not need NCAA approval to play, and NAIA requires approval but it's purely based on test scores: homeschoolers only need an 18 ACT or 950 SAT, and coursework/GPA is irrelevant.