Where was your homeschooler accepted?

[Prof. Plum]

As we begin our search, I'm hoping to get a sense of which colleges are especially welcoming to homeschoolers. I know that this changes from year to year and obviously depends on the applicant, but I suspect that some admissions teams are more open to alternative paths than others. Thanks and congratulations!

Phoebe

[ScoutTN]

You can see the annual thread of acceptances and decisions on the high school/college boards.

 

[Lori D.]

Welcome to the WTM boards!

To be honest, because homeschooling has been around now for decades, there are very few universities any more that make it actively difficult for homeschoolers to be admitted. Some do have a few extra hoops to jump.

My guess is that it will really be more about how much of a "fit" a college is for your student's personality, interests, and goals. Homeschooling, or where you went to high school, doesn't seem to come up much in conversation once you're a college student taking classes and getting involved with campus life activities. 😉

In case you are interested in seeing where other homeschoolers have been accepted, and have decided to go, here are links that @ScoutTN mentioned -- these are all linked on PAGE 2 of the big thread "College Motherlode", pinned at the top of the WTM College board:

WTMer COLLEGE ACCEPTANCES / DECISIONS

2020
Class of 2020 acceptances 

2019
Class of 2019 acceptances & decisions thread 

2018
Class of 2018 acceptance thread 
Class of 2018 acceptances (list view) updated: 3/21
Class of 2018 decisions thread 
Canadian (mostly Ontario) acceptances - woo hoo! (report on successfully applying to Canadian colleges)

2017
The 2017 acceptance thread 
List view of class of 2017 college acceptances 
Class of 2017 decisions thread

2016
List view of 2016 acceptances 
2016 decisions thread 
Class of 2016 check in 
Service Academies and ROTC - Class of 2020 

2015
2015 - college acceptances 
2015 college acceptances list only 

 

[8filltheheart]

I think your question is really, "Where are students not accepted bc they were homeschooled?" The answer to that is one I dont know bc I have not heard or seen students rejected simply based on homeschooling. Like all college app situations, plenty of students are rejected bc they dont meet admissions criteria. Know what the schools your student is interested in require and make sure that they surpass those minimal requirements. 

FWIW, my kids have been accepted to a whole range of schools and awarded top competitive scholarships. They have done that without replicating school at home and looking like cookie cutter high school applicants. We fully embrace homeschooling and make our kids' educations fit their individual needs and interests.

[cintinative]

I think Lori D. and 8fill have said it better than I could.  There are some schools that do accept homeschool applicants but perhaps you could argue that they make it a bit harder for those applicants?  For example, this requirement from Iowa State.  It's not that they won't accept your grades, but they will evaluate them independently.  (I have not done a lot of research. This just happens to be a school we looked at early on.)

GPA policy for home school students

When calculating a home school applicant's high school GPA for admission, only those grades which have been assigned by an independent entity (e.g., the local high school, a college, or an accredited online curriculum) are factored into the cumulative GPA. Home school applicants must have earned independently assigned grades in at least 12 semester credits of college-level coursework or at least 5 Carnegie units of high school-level coursework (or a combination of both) before their independently assigned grades can be used to establish their high school GPA.

Home school applicants who have not earned enough independently assigned grades to have an established high school GPA will be considered for admission on an individual basis. This will include a holistic evaluation of the student’s entire academic record, including ACT/SAT test scores, high school core classes, and coursework taken through high school and local colleges and universities.

[8filltheheart]

40 minutes ago, cintinative said:

I think Lori D. and 8fill have said it better than I could.  There are some schools that do accept homeschool applicants but perhaps you could argue that they make it a bit harder for those applicants?  For example, this requirement from Iowa State.  It's not that they won't accept your grades, but they will evaluate them independently.  (I have not done a lot of research. This just happens to be a school we looked at early on.)

GPA policy for home school students

When calculating a home school applicant's high school GPA for admission, only those grades which have been assigned by an independent entity (e.g., the local high school, a college, or an accredited online curriculum) are factored into the cumulative GPA. Home school applicants must have earned independently assigned grades in at least 12 semester credits of college-level coursework or at least 5 Carnegie units of high school-level coursework (or a combination of both) before their independently assigned grades can be used to establish their high school GPA.

Home school applicants who have not earned enough independently assigned grades to have an established high school GPA will be considered for admission on an individual basis. This will include a holistic evaluation of the student’s entire academic record, including ACT/SAT test scores, high school core classes, and coursework taken through high school and local colleges and universities.

I won't alter our homeschooling approach for a college.  So, if this were me, I'd have had my student submit their application with our school profile, course descriptions, counselor letter, and transcripts to see what would happen.  I'd probably have had them follow up with the admissions officer to ask if any additional information was necessary.

I contacted one school after one my kids applied bc after the application was submitted, I realized they required a bunch of additional testing she was not going to submit.  I told them she was going to withdraw her application if the tests were required.  They contacted me back in a couple of days and told me her application was fine.  They ended up inviting her to their competitive scholarship weekend.  So, if a school really is looking holistically at applications vs. filtering through a computer program like SRAR, I wouldn't be afraid of being a homeschooler.  I would contact admissions and ask questions if I had them.  For schools using SRAR, I would definitely reach out and talk to them if the drop down menus didn't meet my kids' transcript coursework.

FWIW, our application process is finding schools that fit our kids vs. fitting our kids to schools.  And, we don't put all of our eggs in one basket.  😉  YMMV. 

Edited August 9, 2023 by 8filltheheart

[easypeasy]

4 hours ago, cintinative said:

I think Lori D. and 8fill have said it better than I could.  There are some schools that do accept homeschool applicants but perhaps you could argue that they make it a bit harder for those applicants?  For example, this requirement from Iowa State.  It's not that they won't accept your grades, but they will evaluate them independently.  (I have not done a lot of research. This just happens to be a school we looked at early on.)

GPA policy for home school students

When calculating a home school applicant's high school GPA for admission, only those grades which have been assigned by an independent entity (e.g., the local high school, a college, or an accredited online curriculum) are factored into the cumulative GPA. Home school applicants must have earned independently assigned grades in at least 12 semester credits of college-level coursework or at least 5 Carnegie units of high school-level coursework (or a combination of both) before their independently assigned grades can be used to establish their high school GPA.

Home school applicants who have not earned enough independently assigned grades to have an established high school GPA will be considered for admission on an individual basis. This will include a holistic evaluation of the student’s entire academic record, including ACT/SAT test scores, high school core classes, and coursework taken through high school and local colleges and universities.

My favorite part is that - most (not all) of the universities I have seen that have had these additional requirements for homeschoolers have very high acceptance rates. Iowa State, for instance, looks to have a 91% acceptance rate. Like, what??? The uni itself will accept pretty much anyone who applies, but is going to make additional hoops for homeschoolers to jump through? It's insane. A few others with similar (or worse) requests my kids looked at had acceptance rates in the upper 80%s. Whereas, the schools they applied to with <20% didn't have any (or very, very minimal - like a short essay explaining homeschooling philosophy, or asking the student what their experience was like) special requirements for homeschooled students.

 

4 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I won't alter our homeschooling approach for a college.  So, if this were me, I'd have had my student submit their application with our school profile, course descriptions, counselor letter, and transcripts to see what would happen.  I'd probably have had them follow up with the admissions officer to ask if any additional information was necessary.

 

FWIW, our application process is finding schools that fit our kids vs. fitting our kids to schools.  And, we don't put all of our eggs in one basket.  😉  YMMV. 

ditto. We either chose to a) not apply to those schools or b) consider those "requirements" as "requests" and sent in what we had. Was never an issue.

Wasn't it UMass Amherst that was requiring GEDs for homeschooled students? I wonder if they ever updated that. My oldest was accepted there and no one ever mentioned the requirement, even though they knew she was homeschooled. She went elsewhere, so we never had to test it.