Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments What happens after home schooling for PG kids?

I'm just beginning to consider homeschooling as an option for my DD5 if our other options don't work out. But what happens when they are old enough to go to college? How do the most competitive universities view home schooled kids? Or do these kids go to college earlier? Are they socialized enough to be ok in college?

Hi EB
I'm sure the homeschoolers will chime in soon but I thought I would offer the college and professor's view. We see homeschoolers for a wide variety of reasons, illness, religion, sports, etc and in my experience they have been wonderful students. I had an olympic level fencer once and I asked him about the differences and he said he enjoyed listening to the professor and other points of view but found it also very slow to be in lecture for a set time and on a set syllabi schedule. As for the socialized side,I have a lot of poorly socialized individuals LOL and I can't tell you who is homeschooled and who isn't.

Admissions-wise I cannot say for certain but my understanding is that the tests are the leveler - the same way the MCATs or LSATs provide med and law schools a means to determine if students from Timbuktu U are equivalent to Harvard. I suspect that documenting the schooling is also important since you won't have a standardized transcript.but there are so many more nowadays that the discrimination is not there - or at least that is my impression.

I wouldn't let college admissions stop you if you are considering doing it, but others might have a different point of view.

DeHe

Another professor chiming in here. Not only do many homeschoolers get in to top colleges, but those top colleges are now actively paving the way for homeschoolers (e.g. by having information on their admissions webpage about how homeschoolers should put together their application). I really truly wouldn't worry about this issue.

I would be curious about which homeschoolers get in. You hear about the homeschooled kid that sailed around the world solo at 17 getting into Harvard, but in general what is the profile.

If it is harder and harder to get into top schools because so many kids get top scores, what makes the homeschooler stand out? Not president of the school or editor of the newspaper.

Defining it better might help parents more.

We've had 3 homeschoolers in my cub scout den that I am the den leader. All 3 were poorly socialized and strange children, but maybe we just saw 3 strange kids.

Many of the top schools in the country not only actively solicit h/s kids but have hired admissions personel specifically for homeschoolers.

Statistically homeschoolers are much more likely to do well in college and complete their degree.

I'd be interested to read those statistics; statistics are in my experience very hard to find regarding homeschooling (and impossible for unschooling). Are they based on homeschoolers as a whole, or just the ones who enter college, ones who apply, etc.?

jack'smom,

I think that you are likely to find that many homeschooled kids have at least one exceptionality, whether giftedness, AS, ADHD, dysgraphia or dyslexia, anxiety, or some other trait that makes fitting in with an ordinary age-level class difficult...not because there is anything about the homeschooling environment that makes kids have problems fitting in, but because, frankly, homeschooling is a PITA and most families won't do it without some really pressing impetus, like the fact that their kid finds it impossible to fit in for reasons that they can't help and that have nothing to do with how they were raised...or the parents have a strong distrust of the integrity of the local schools (which may or may not be justified.)

Many, many, many kids with Asperger's Syndrome are homeschooled in order to provide a learning environment that is not overwhelming from a sensory perspective, and to protect the child from the really brutal bullying that such children frequently encounter in schools.

My hunch is that, had you ever met him, my PG/AS/NVLD child would have come across as odd and socially at least a bit awkward regardless of whether or not we had homeschooled him.

For first grade in cub scouts, we had to do all of these activities to get the end of the year Tiger Badge. One thing was "hop on one foot." My husband and I had to teach the homeschoolers how to hop on one foot since they had no idea! In school, you learn that or it's encouraged as a skill.

Jack'smom- my son was in public school K-3 and nobody taught him to hop on one foot. They didn't even have PE except a longer recess a few times a week. Maybe your school is just different, but here it's all about the standardized test prep. I don't remember seeing hopping on the test...

My DYS son is 8 years old and we're homeschooling this year, no 2E issues. (4th grade on the records, 6th grade in the curriculum.) We don't know how long we plan to do it. But if he's still home in high school, I'll have him take some community college classes as well. Partly to build a transcript with outside opinions and partly because he will have far exceeded my knowledge base at that point.

I think that most of us don't know enough homeschooling families to draw any kind of statistically significant conclusions. The homeschooling families I know for the most part are families who either homeschool for religious reasons or because they simply want to avoid having their kids get lost in large classrooms where they receive less personalized attention. One of my friends homeschooled her dd in one grade simply because she didn't like the teacher that year. I've taught religious ed weekly to third graders for more years than I can count and my students have included quite a few homeschooled children - most of whom were well-behaved polite high performing students compared to my other students. I can't draw any conclusions about homeschoolers in general from those I know but instead think that perhaps that for many of us who aren't homeschooling families, the hs families we have contact with most likely have something in common with our own families hence we see one particular group of homeschoolers and not a broad spectrum.

polarbear

Lucounu,

I'll track them down for you. It was posted a while back on one of the gifted blogs. I'm thinking the article was in the Washington Post? Anyway, I'll find it..

Lucouno,
This is an article about it. The Home School Legal Defense Association has the full report.


Homeschool College Success


by Tammy Drennan

A new study, reports Home School Legal Defense Association � Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students,* by Michael F. Cogan shows that homeschoolers are not just succeeding in college, they�re continuing their above-average tradition.

Consider this:
o Homeschoolers scored higher on the ACT (26.5) compared with the overall student body (25).
o Homeschoolers earned more college credit (14.7) prior to their freshman year compared to the student body (6).
o Homeschooled students earned a higher fall semester GPA (3.37) when compared to other freshman students (3.08).
o Homeschooled students earned a higher first-year GPA (3.41) when compared to other freshman students (3.12).
o Homeschooled students earned a higher fourth-year GPA (3.46) when compared to other freshman students who completed their fourth year (3.16).
The evidence for independent education just keeps mounting. The evidence damning education by the state also keeps mounting.

As the state gasps and grasps, we must all help to keep the option of freedom before parents. If they don�t know it can work, if they don�t know how many others are doing it, they can�t make the choice.


* http://i.bnet.com/blogs/homeschool.pdf?tag=content%3Bcol1

It really is impossible to answer the question where do homeschoolers go to college any more than we could answer where do kids named Jacob or Kate go to college. Homeschooling is not uncommon. There are homeschoolers going every place from highly selective colleges to community college.

As far as how homeschoolers distinguish themselves there are lots of different ways. Work experiences, travel, volunteer experiences, internships, college classes in high school, competitions such as math and science competitions, sports that are not restricted by school attendance, arts, independent in depth study of topics of interest. One of the main advantages homeschoolers have over kids who go to school is that they have a lot more time available to devote to interests this is particularly true when compared to students who are attending elite, homework intensive high schools. Some opportunities such as internships may be easier to take advantage of for students who have daytime m-f availability.

As far as socialization, to me the concern there shouldn't be college but life. If your kid isn't well socialized enough to interact well with other people they've got bigger problems than college. Homeschoolers, like any other group of kids have mixed abilities. Some kids are mature and highly social, some not so much. Some parents are better at nurturing social development than others. Most homeschoolers are involved in a variety of experiences such as co-ops and community activities.

To the original poster, it isn't an all or nothing thing. You can always try homeschooling for a bit and see how you like it.

My 13-year-old son is twice exceptional and we have homeschooled since he finished kindergarten because the principal and a teacher recommended it. At six he was Tiger cub but mentally he fit in better with kids four years older. Almost all of his friends were three or four years older. They understood and liked the jokes he made and the vocabulary he used. The kids his age didn't understand his jokes. Even at six strangers were telling us that he talked more like an adult than a child. Some people probably thought this was strange. I heard someone describe him as "scary smart" one time. He had to learn to the social skill of dumbing down his vocabulary even with some adults. Since he wasn't around kids except in musical theater where he was with kids of all ages, many of them also very smart, he didn't have a good idea of what words kids were supposed to know at his age.

He stayed in scouts where he was with public schooled kids until just after he crossed over to boy scouts when his physical disabilities made it impossible for him to stay in with all the hiking and camping requirements. Even though his disabilities affect him physically he was able to hop on one foot at six. He didn't learn it at school, he learned it in dance that was part of his musical theater class. He would not have had time to both learn at his level and do the extracurricular activities he was involved in if he had stayed in public school with all the busywork they assign for homework that would have taken him longer to do because of his motor dysgraphia.

He also could not wear the brace he has to wear if he were in public school. We have to continue homeschooling for this reason. I had thought at one time that I might put him back in school for high school but not any more. When we go out for lunch, my son and I sometimes hear the conversations of the high school kids and I don't want my son socialized to be like them. A lot of them are rude and disrespectful and their vocabulary is filled with words I don't want my son repeating.

I think my son will fit in much better when he gets to college. My college professor sister-in-law doesn't think he will have any problem in college. She says they will make accommodations for his dysgraphia. His brace shouldn't be a problem then because he should be out of it by then. Most people assume that my son is several years older because he is tall and seems very mature for his age. I think he will finally fit in when he gets to college.

None of the 3 homeschoolers we had had any disabilities. One was a fundamentalist christian, so they homeschooled for that reason. It wasn't clear to us why the other two homeschooled- one boy couldn't read by the end of first grade. They all dropped out by third grade from cub scouts b/c they were "too busy."
I surf on a homeschooling 2 college website, although we don't homeschool. I think if you homeschool high school and the child wants to go to a very competitive college, they need to have very good SAT and other scores, National Merit finalist status, etc. Alot of them seem at that point to go to community college anyway, so although it's not "high school," it's not so much "homeschool."
It's gotten so difficult anyway to get into college! Out here in california, the average GPA on a 4.00 scale to get into the mediocre university of California schools (NOT Berkeley) is 4.20! Incredible!

Yes, I think my son will need to make a good score on the SAT or ACT if he wants to go out of state to college like his sister wants him to but I think it might be difficult for him to get through a really long test now because of the pain and fatigue issues, especially in his brace. I like the idea of having him take CLEP tests to get college credit while he is high school age, take community college classes while living at home for the first few years, then transfer to a state college about 45 minutes away from home. I don't want him to have any student loan debt and this is the only way I know to do it.

Can he take it off for three hours the day of the test or is he wearing it 24/7? If he's wearing it twenty four hours a day wouldn't he be used to it by the time he takes the test?

As far as graduating without student loan debt it would depend on his financial need and his academic profile. There are certainly students with high financial need who attend "no loan" colleges. And, there are students with high academic merit who get full college scholarships. Since he's so unhappy in your town, it seems like it would make sense to allow him the greatest range options to relocate. If you don't like the students in high school, I doubt you'll find community college more appealing.

Even if you homeschool a five years old things may change before graduation. I keep seeing k-12 virtual public school advertised. There are things called umbrella schools that are little co-ops of homeschoolers, I believe with a licensed registered teacher. AFAIK the colleges don't look at anything earlier than the ninth grade. You could homeschool until then. Foreign exchange during highschool is one thought. We're likely to have to figure something out before college age, you and me both. Seems like somewhere between ages 8-16 parents start looking for outside mentors, tutors, classes, or something.
If you have a pg kid you could apply for DYS and then you have like a guidance counselor to help.

-I have a 4 yr old & a 1 yr old. I'm not the voice of experience.

Good luck Lori. I have a feeling that your son will be very successful with the obstacles that have come his way and he has overcome. Whatever schooling he chooses.

Ren

I have relatively young kids (11 & 7) that are being homeschooled at the moment. We live in a somewhat large metro area with a rich secular homeschooling community. I know many kids that have successfuly gone to competitive colleges and universities after high school, or have gone early. Most kids do some college at high school age. And some kids chose to go back into a brick and mortar school at some point. To me, it seems like most of the secular homeschooling community I'm in contact with has kids that would need GT and/or 2E/LD programming in a regular classroom.

My kids are extroverted and they don't stand out. Most other kids they meet up with activities do not know they're homeschooled. Most of the homeschooled kids my kids relate well too are more on the too verbal and social for their own good end of the spectrum.

That said, some parents do chose to homeschool because they have a quirky child that would have a hard time in a regular classroom. OR they choose it because of extreme religious and/or political views and they make a point of isolating their kids from the larger society. Either way, if these kids were dropped in a PS classroom they wouldn't magically be social and outgoing. They'd be socially awkward kids in a regular classroom. I know they exist because my son had a couple kids in his classes the 2 years he attended school that barely would speak or make eye contact (I volunteered weekly).

Anyway, getting a child to that point through homeschooling takes some serious planning and organization, but it is certainly can be a good, flexible option for HG/PG kids. I am in complete stall mode with my 5th grader because he has no interest in early graduation. I have him doing theater and music and circus arts classes and whatever else I can keep him busy with like writing a novel.

Thank you very much.

My son has to wear the brace full time but he hasn't been able to fall asleep in it. I have looked on SPD message boards and scoliosis boards and never found any posters who had both sensory issues and scoliosis. I would love for someone to tell me how my son can get used to pain so that it doesn't distract him and he can actually fall asleep in it. His first orthotist told him that most people can get used to the pain. He is still trying. He is not giving up.

Is there a minimum age before they'll do the surgery? I didn't thing they did the brace for an extended time anymore.

There are A LOT of people who are affected by chronic pain of one sort or another. Maybe broaden your search to look at techniques for coping with chronic pain such as meditation, biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc. What sorts of treatments has he had for chronic pain?

I don't know that you'll net that much under sensory and a problem that affects primarily teenagers because typically sensory concerns lessen over time as the nervous system matures. So, for most kids into the teenage years it isn't really a stand alone diagnosis but would be more often seen with something like autism.

Even if the chronic pain management techniques aren't perfect DOING something, anything about pain can be a helpful thing. And getting some help with the emotional aspects of having his teen years be so disrupted would probably be helpful.

passthepotatoes reminded me - does your son see a chiropractor? I know there are a lot of quack ones out there, but there are also some fabulous ones as well. The one I see used to be a primary care physician but decided to scale back and do something different - as such she doesn't promise to cure anything, only to help relieve tension and pain. She also teaches various stretches and exercises, and allows the patients to use the decompression table. I personally can't use the table due to my vertebra being fused to my pelvis, but a lot of folks with scoliosis LOVE it.

You might also try a DO, as opposed to an MD. They are typically more open to using manipulation and homeopathic remedies in addition to the traditional medical answers.

I have an acute joint issue that is now going away. I have a very high pain threshold. But it still kept me from sleeping well. I don't think you get used to pain. You just learn to cope.

I just wanted to add that two friends in the Army were severely injured a few years ago. One went on meds for the pain and the other refused. Both still could not sleep well. It took several years for the pain to go away.

Back to the OP, in my state, a child can only earn a diploma by going to high school and taking the requisite courses. If the child is homeschooled, they can earn a GED. Yes, they can only acquire the graduation certificate of juvenile delinquents.

The child can avoid the social stigma of having a GED in these ways:

1) Earn an advanced degree. Then nobody cares about the GED, because the degree trumps high school. Of course, not everyone goes on to earn a degree.
2) Earn the GED at a young age, and say so in the resume. Because when an employer sees a GED, they assume "graduated at 25," not 15.
3) Homeschool until the child is ready for high school, then enroll and get a diploma. This is typically the point at which public schools have something to offer gifted kids, because AP.

Just something to think about. For my DD, homeschooling is something we've done before and is still very much an option, but if we go back to it, we're thinking of option 3.

It wasn't a fit for our child, but for my chronic pain I've found chiropractic somewhat helpful. Even more helpful for me has been working on the mind connection with biofeedback and therapy and lifestyle stuff like sleep hygiene. None of it is a "cure" that makes pain go away, but all of it can make pain a less central focus of life. Even if none of it improves the level of pain, I think it is worthwhile because living with chronic pain has big implications for life. What will work for an individual will vary, but the key is doing something. There are lots of people with chronic pain and lots of potential avenues for help.

I'm also thinking that some help might come from connecting with other people with scoliosis. If you look at the research compliance rates on using braces are quite low. Clearly, a lot of teenagers have trouble with it.

What state are you talking about? Typically homeschools are allowed to grant diplomas. And, in higher regulation states there is also the option to work with an online or umbrella school to get an accredited transcript. There are many, many homeschoolers who have been graduated high school by their parents and have entered highly selective colleges on parent issued diplomas.

Well, I *was* talking about Louisiana, but in pulling up the relevant information I found that they updated the policy recently (Aug 2010), so nevermind. You still can't get a diploma from the state, but your home study program can issue a diploma which is just as recognized.

Thank you very much. While I'm not pooh-poohing the study, I think it's important to think carefully about what these statistics show-- they are only for the University of St. Thomas, and obviously only for college admittees. The four-year completion rate for homeschoolers in the study is only 66%, for example, wherease for a top-tier university I'd expect to see it much higher. I also think it's likely that a lot of the study sample will have chosen that particular college for religious reasons, and it's possible that a particular religious viewpoint might boost one in the college admissions process (I am a complete know-nothing about such criteria for admission at religous institutions, though).

How much of this extrapolates to information about barriers facing homeschooled PG kids applying to top universities? It's hard to know. It's obvious that a properly motivated, properly prepared PG student shouldn't be lumped in with the ordinary students in considering these sorts of questions (so one may assume, for example, that a properly motivated PG student applying to St. Thomas would do quite well and do better even than those aggregate stats), and it's also true that some get into top universities. I'd also guess that homeschooling of PG kids is on the rise.

I would think that it's especially important to focus on resume building sorts of activities for a homeschooled child, especially one who is homeschooled to the end of high school. I'd also guess that some top universities are more open to homeschooled applicants than others. ETA: I noticed that the homeschooled kids had many more transfer credits than average.

This is what I've seen locally too. Especially if you have a kid who has no problem testing well on a format like the SAT or ACT and has a rich resume with many activities/experiences. Parents definitely need to be on top of maintaining a "transcript" and enrolling in some structured classes can help.