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.