CA Homeschoolers - ways to fulfill A-G

[Porridge]

I was under the impression that it was possible to create a home-grown course and follow certain UC approved syllabi to meet A-G requirements. (I may have gleaned this from talking with some homeschool moms many years ago). When I went to the UC admission page today, it seems that home-grown classes for A-G are no longer an option.  It sounds like you either have to take an approved class from an approved vendor, or you have to take a DE class at community college, or you have to test out by AP.

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/subject-requirement-a-g.html

So that means that AOPS courses done at home, or through AOPS Online, don't count for A-G.

And No potential home-grown course for English or History would count, either. The student could do a home-grown course, but would have to take an AP exam to validate it.

Is that correct??

[daijobu]

First I encourage you to join CA Homeschool College Seekers FB group, even if you don't like FB.  There are several college consultants who stay up to date on everything.  It's only been a few years and already my experience is out of date.  

I did a quick search and found a post (not mine) dated from April last year with this info.  I do not personally endorse this info, because the situation was very different when my kids applied.  Even now there's a chance it could already be out of date.  

Quote

I want to help families understand the distinctions regarding A-G since it's quite confusing. (Edited to add two more points)
Please note: this post is about FRESHMAN applicants. This does not address transfer students.
For students who homeschool under a PSA (Private School Affidavit) or an unaccredited PSP, the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) do NOT require students to take A-G courses through *accredited* providers.
Students in PSAs or PSPs that are not recognized by UCs or CSUs as being accredited will be considered as HOMESCHOOLERS, and will fall under that category; thus, they will be evaluated separately from other students who are attending accredited schools.
Said students (see above) will be eligible for admission by exception *even* if they took all their A-G courses through accredited providers (which includes community college courses) because their main school is HOMESCHOOL.
This does not mean that PSA/PSP students can't take A-G courses from accredited providers; it just means they don't *HAVE* to do that to be eligible for admissions.
The UCs and the CSUs EXPECT all applicants to have *taken* courses in the A-G subject areas, absolutely. There are rare exceptions, but I would encourage PSA/PSP students who want to apply to the UCs/CSUs to take courses in the A-G subject areas. Again, they don't have to take these through specific providers. They can be home-designed courses or whatever. They just need to be *in* the A-G areas.
One of the gray areas is if a PSA or PSP student has taken a significant amount of courses from an outside accredited provider. You will still list homeschooling as your school, but it may well be that you will be listing secondary providers/schools (say Stanford OHS) in the application. I cannot confirm exactly how the UCs or CSUs would look at such a student.
UCs and Cal States don't require transcripts during the app process, though I have known some Cal States who ask for a transcript, so it's always good to have one ready to go, just in case. Courses on the UC and CSU apps are self-reported.
For any UC questions, I encourage PSA parents to reach out to AskUC@UCOP.edu.

 

 

 

[Porridge]

27 minutes ago, daijobu said:

First I encourage you to join CA Homeschool College Seekers FB group, even if you don't like FB.  There are several college consultants who stay up to date on everything.  It's only been a few years and already my experience is out of date.  

I did a quick search and found a post (not mine) dated from April last year with this info.  I do not personally endorse this info, because the situation was very different when my kids applied.  Even now there's a chance it could already be out of date.  

 

 

 

Thank you, I will check that FB group

[Roadrunner]

If you want to satisfy A through G as a PSA homeschooler, you can either AP or DE. You can’t call an online class A through G approved because it isn’t the class but the school that needs to have that approval, and you as a PSA can’t get it. 
However as Arcadia said, you can get admitted through exception and I think that’s how most of us will get there. UCs are in a sense easier to deal with than CSUs. If mine wanted a CSU, I would go through a charter. 

[Ellie]

24 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

However as Arcadia said, you can get admitted through exception and I think that’s how most of us will get there. UCs are in a sense easier to deal with than CSUs. If mine wanted a CSU, I would go through a charter. 

My dc did community college instead of high school; older dd transferred to San Jose State with no problems.

[Roadrunner]

3 minutes ago, Ellie said:

My dc did community college instead of high school; older dd transferred to San Jose State with no problems.

Yes, I did say either an AP score of DE credit would satisfy those requirements. However if you don’t have all the ducks in order (say no AP score for history or a DE class for history) UCs might still accept you under their exception if you are otherwise wonderful. CSUs will reject you for every tiny thing you didn’t satisfy.

[Ellie]

19 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Yes, I did say either an AP score of DE credit would satisfy those requirements. However if you don’t have all the ducks in order (say no AP score for history or a DE class for history) UCs might still accept you under their exception if you are otherwise wonderful. CSUs will reject you for every tiny thing you didn’t satisfy.

You said that you thought "most" you would do the exception. I was responding to that comment. It was my experience that "most" of the homeschoolers I knew were doing community college instead of high school (not always "dual enrollment").

[Roadrunner]

17 minutes ago, Ellie said:

You said that you thought "most" you would do the exception. I was responding to that comment. It was my experience that "most" of the homeschoolers I knew were doing community college instead of high school (not always "dual enrollment").

UCs tend to admit students under their “admission by exception” as opposed to A through G, since the latter is not accessible for PSA students but only to those who attend public and private schools. You don’t get to choose how you get accepted.

Yes, waters are muddy in CA. You can be a public charter student and a homeschooler or a full time CC student and a homeschooler, but there are still those of us who PSA and have home brewed courses on transcript. And for the latter group, yes, we are going to be accepted under their “exception” route.

[Arcadia]

tmi

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Arcadia

[daijobu]

@Arcadia makes a good point about the online application.   What you might want to do, @WTM is pretend you are homeschooled student applying to UC and see exactly what they ask for in terms of coursework.  This may change of course by the time your student is ready to apply.  

[Farrar]

Another vote for that FB group.

When you apply to the UC's it will be by exception, so please do not get hung up on A-G approval. You need to fill the A-G categories. You do not need A-G approval because it is literally not available to you. Lots of homeschoolers do well with the UC's (better than the CSU's, interestingly). Just do the best coursework you can and check the boxes (the vast majority of which you'd check anyway).

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

Another vote for that FB group.

When you apply to the UC's it will be by exception, so please do not get hung up on A-G approval. You need to fill the A-G categories. You do not need A-G approval because it is literally not available to you. Lots of homeschoolers do well with the UC's (better than the CSU's, interestingly). Just do the best coursework you can and check the boxes (the vast majority of which you'd check anyway).

Lower you go on the chain, more inflexible they get. CSU is such a “check the box” type of admission that they don’t see beyond the box. I think the holistic approach of actually looking at various components of application helps us with non traditional transcripts a bit. 
 

[rzberrymom]

Is there one other option, where if you can find a flexible-enough charter, they’ll certify the homegrown mom courses as A-G? For example, if I do AOPS Geometry at home with a 7th grader, they check-in with us once/week and then sign off on it as having completed the UC geometry requirement?

 

I *think* we have one charter like this in our tiny county. It’s hard to get into, but I’ve been holding out hope that this could be a way to do A-G with my younger kiddo.

[Arcadia]

tmi

Edited March 25, 2022 by Arcadia

[Farrar]

8 hours ago, rzberrymom said:

Is there one other option, where if you can find a flexible-enough charter, they’ll certify the homegrown mom courses as A-G? For example, if I do AOPS Geometry at home with a 7th grader, they check-in with us once/week and then sign off on it as having completed the UC geometry requirement?

 

I *think* we have one charter like this in our tiny county. It’s hard to get into, but I’ve been holding out hope that this could be a way to do A-G with my younger kiddo.

I mean, yeah, that's potentially possible. But in practice, I haven't seen it happen often. Most of the time, even the really good charters have systems and they don't vary a ton. And there are a lot more bad ones. Like, no one touch Blue Ridge with a ten foot pole, y'all. 

[Farrar]

You know, the irony of the charters and the UC's is that you don't need the charter A-G to get your kid into a UC. Assuming you have the (not extravagant) funds and time to create a really strong homeschool experience and remember to cross all your t's and dot your i's, you probably have a better shot at a UC than working within the confines of most charters. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Farrar

[Arcadia]

nm

Edited March 25, 2022 by Arcadia
Formatting

[Roadrunner]

@Arcadiacrazy numbers. Having one application makes it easy to apply to many campuses. 

 

Do they come back and say, sorry your home brewed courses don’t qualify? I wonder if anybody applied with say US History done at home without DE or AP.
I guess another way to ask is what is a point of telling PSA families they can validate A through G via DE or AP if they don’t check it and accept home credit? 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Roadrunner

[Arcadia]

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Edited March 25, 2022 by Arcadia

[Roadrunner]

1 minute ago, Arcadia said:

That’s true. However for every campus applied to the applicant would have to create an account. One of the UCs that DS17 applied to requires him to login to their account and update his fall exams grades. 
The fee waivers grant four free choices. The applicant would have to pay if applying for more than four. $70 per campus isn’t cheap.

They give four free to everybody? 

[Arcadia]

4 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

They give four free to everybody? 

Nope.

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/helping/

“Fee waivers

We will waive application fees for up to four campuses for students who otherwise would not be able to apply for admission. Students who qualify for fee waivers and who select more than four campuses must pay $70 for each additional choice. To be accepted for the fee waiver program, a student's family income and size must fall within specific guidelines.”

[rzberrymom]

14 hours ago, Farrar said:

You know, the irony of the charters and the UC's is that you don't need the charter A-G to get your kid into a UC. Assuming you have the (not extravagant) funds and time to create a really strong homeschool experience and remember to cross all your t's and dot your i's, you probably have a better shot at a UC than working within the confines of most charters. 

I really, truly wish there was some data on this. I hear the anecdotes, but I’m just not all that convinced without numbers. For a kid aiming for Berkeley or UCLA, it feels really iffy to me. Especially after Varsity Blues and the closer scrutiny of admission by exception. Especially after they got rid of the SAT and ACT and now focus on GPA. Maybe it would work at Merced or Riverside or UCSC, but not every kid wants that. I wish it weren’t like this, but wishing doesn’t make it so. 😞

[Roadrunner]

11 minutes ago, rzberrymom said:

I really, truly wish there was some data on this. I hear the anecdotes, but I’m just not all that convinced without numbers. For a kid aiming for Berkeley or UCLA, it feels really iffy to me. Especially after Varsity Blues and the closer scrutiny of admission by exception. Especially after they got rid of the SAT and ACT and now focus on GPA. Maybe it would work at Merced or Riverside or UCSC, but not every kid wants that. I wish it weren’t like this, but wishing doesn’t make it so. 😞

I can tell you data from our high school. Only kids with top AP scores made it to UCB and UCLA. Those with grades but not reporting scores didn’t. This is purely anecdotal evidence but our school counselor seems to think AP scores made a difference in a world without SATs.

So PSA kids going for those schools would probably also have a ton of AP scores and DE, which makes charters unnecessary. I personally think charters are super handy if you don’t want to do a lot of high level work and want a more standard transcript. 

[rzberrymom]

18 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I can tell you data from our high school. Only kids with top AP scores made it to UCB and UCLA. Those with grades but not reporting scores didn’t. This is purely anecdotal evidence but our school counselor seems to think AP scores made a difference in a world without SATs.

So PSA kids going for those schools would probably also have a ton of AP scores and DE, which makes charters unnecessary. I personally think charters are super handy if you don’t want to do a lot of high level work and want a more standard transcript. 

Interesting! So much for holistic…

[Roadrunner]

22 minutes ago, rzberrymom said:

Interesting! So much for holistic…

I mean it’s still holistic in a sense that they care about essays and extracurriculars and such. But they have to somehow distinguish between 18 valedictorians my school produces. I think given so many perfect GPAs, they are relying on AP scores. But this is really the speculation coming from our school counselor. And I do remember last year their admissions department saying on Facebook (or maybe Twitter?) to send them scores if you had them. 

[Farrar]

Holistic for the school is comparing them to other school kids from their school and other schools like theirs. So to beat the other kids, you need AP's. A lot of them if your school offers a lot of them. Holistic for homeschoolers is more open ended. You just have to pick a lane. If you do a charter, then you're going to be compared to the other charter kids to some extent. But also, because you'll be a public school student, and because a good charter will let you take AP's, you need AP's. So that's your choice.

[Arcadia]

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Edited March 25, 2022 by Arcadia