CommonApp- Homeschool- Additional Detail

[Rebecca]

What have you placed here? What kind of detail do you include?

I created a couple of paragraphs- but reading it over- I feel so uncertain.

Thank you for your help,

Rebecca

[8filltheheart]

I included as little info via the CA portal as possible.  I included everything I felt was important in documents I uploaded.  My counselor letter and school profile included all of the information I believed was vital to clarifying our student's homeschool experience.

[alewife]

37 minutes ago, Rebecca said:

What have you placed here? What kind of detail do you include?

I created a couple of paragraphs- but reading it over- I feel so uncertain.

Thank you for your help,

Rebecca

I didn't provide any details.  I had a one sentence response to each question that referred the reader to the appropriate document that I had already uploaded.  For example, one response said, "Please refer to School Profile."  

[RootAnn]

I went to go look. In that particular spot, I had three words, "See school profile."

Under Grading Scale, I had "See the transcript for the grading scale. Course descriptions are uploaded in the second transcript slot and include evaluation methods." 

I had a bit more under the Outside Evaluation question, but it ended with, "Detailed course descriptions can be found in the Course Description document uploaded in the second transcript slot."

[Rebecca]

O my!

Thank you so much. 

In the counselor letter, did you address more than just the student applying?

For example, my current counselor letter highlights my son's qualities- I mainly use it as an opportunity to provide more context for his application.

I do not really address our homeschooling methodology, curriculum, GPA, or anything like that.

Appreciate all feedback.

THANK YOU!

Rebecca

[regentrude]

59 minutes ago, Rebecca said:

In the counselor letter, did you address more than just the student applying?

For example, my current counselor letter highlights my son's qualities- I mainly use it as an opportunity to provide more context for his application.

I do not really address our homeschooling methodology, curriculum, GPA, or anything like that.

I focused the counselor letter on my students' personalities and elaborated on our homeschool philosophy/methods in the school profile. The GPA is found on the transcript.

[RootAnn]

@Rebecca what did you put in the School Profile? That's where I addressed homeschool methodology, vision, goals, and such. 

8Filltheheart has more wisdom and much more experience on the writing of these two documents. But, I followed her advice to use the documents together to give the whole picture of our homeschool outlook/environment and a good feeling about what that particular student is like. (They don't cover the same ground but work together.)

Edited November 19, 2018 by RootAnn

[alewife]

1 hour ago, Rebecca said:

O my!

Thank you so much. 

In the counselor letter, did you address more than just the student applying?

For example, my current counselor letter highlights my son's qualities- I mainly use it as an opportunity to provide more context for his application.

I do not really address our homeschooling methodology, curriculum, GPA, or anything like that.

Appreciate all feedback.

THANK YOU!

Rebecca

I used the counselor letter to speak exclusively about my child that was applying to the school.  I addressed our homeschool philosophy and grading methods in the homeschool profile.  The course description document listed the textbooks used for each course.  The transcript contained the GPA.

[...................]

For grading scale, I mentioned in that section that all of my son's grades stood as earned, using verifiable grading criteria in 9th grade, and that 10-12th grade were all outsourced one way or another, and all grades on the transcript show as earned and never adjusted by the homeschool over the class.  I also mentioned that our grading scale is the typical 90 and above A, 80 -89 B and so on and so forth.  I kept it short. 

[...................]

Also, our umbrella school counselor had me help her write the school report and counselor recommendation.

In that section we spent more time sharing about the homeschooling journey, how it led to community college classes, and the independent and motivated nature of my son.  She felt that he was special in that the extremely advanced/gifted kids she's had in the past often had social quirks, and she really wanted to mention how socially affable and well adjusted he is, independent (drives his car to and fro) etc.  (Many kids in our area may be great at school but have a very weird lack of independence- they don't get their drivers license, OR take public transportation OR ride their bikes, they don't manage their own doctors appointments, etc.  things like that) So, we included a little bit about that aspect of his personality, but rolled it all together into one short but inspiring story of who we/she really thinks my son is and how he might be different from the rest of the kids with the same SAT and stats.   

 

🙂