I have six tadpoles, all of whom have been or currently are homeschooled, the oldest of whom is a college junior and the youngest of whom is a third grader in our own Edith Stein Academy. Right now, our high school senior and I are engaged in college application fun. I thought it might be of some interest to the Ricochetti to hear what the process is like for home schooling families like the one here in Toad Hall.

College Prep

My goal for my high school students is a rigorous college prep course with plenty of math and science and plenty of humanities. For math, my current high school senior did some of the Saxon math courses for high school, this outstanding and extremely fun geometry text, and is currently taking college calculus for credit at a local community college (he got an A the fall semester! Woo hoo!). His older brother, a super-duper smarty pants with perfect SAT scores, did the same math course, started college calculus a year earlier in 11th grade in conjunction with computer science at the community college, and had four semesters of college level math and credits by the time he completed high school (Calc I, II, III, and Discrete Math).

My current senior’s science course work included physical science, biology, and chemistry, all with labs. We used these texts, although I would have preferred something better. They did the job well enough of imparting the information and were easy to teach to homeschoolers. I taught two of these classes to him and a small group of other students while biology was taught by another mom.

Throughout middle school and high school, I combine history/geography with literature, and his high school course work started with the ancient history, Greece and Rome, in which we read translations of Homer, Plutarch, Thucydides, Sophocles, as well as more modern things like Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and even “Pygmalion.” Then he studied medieval history, comparing the rise of England and Spain, read “The Ballad of the White Horse,” “Beowulf,” and Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples. We read “Song of Roland” and “El Cid.” His junior year focused on American history. We read Ben Franklin’s biography, David McCullough’s John Adams, Richard Brookhiser’s Founding Father, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Witness, and other books. This senior year calls for government for one semester and economics for the other. For government, we use Declaration Statesmanship, which has the student reading Federalist Papers and Tocqueville. The economics course will cover Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson as well as Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?

I use Latin as the foreign language of choice here in Edith Stein Academy. I have been learning it with my students, since my previous foreign language study was French, German, and Japanese. My senior has only had two years of high school Latin, but he is very involved in music and we allowed him to overload on that during the past three years. However, his sister, a high school sophomore, is in her third year of high school Latin, for her interests are different. She will almost certainly also take calculus at the community college level her senior year, where she will also take physics or another science course.

We also make sure our students have a strong physical education, art training, religion study (the students and I are Catholic but they have a Jewish heritage as well), and an opportunity to work in the community, either as volunteer or hired labor. This current senior is an outstanding musician and has played in multiple ensembles for several years, putting in easily 10 hours a week just on rehearsals, never mind lessons, individual practice, or performance. Several ensembles are through the community college, which means that he is also getting college credit for them.

One of my big concerns as a homeschooling parent was the lack of opportunity for a musician to play in orchestra or band, but in fact my son has done more exciting things then he might have done had he been playing in a high school band. He is generally playing with very professional and demanding musicians who are adults, not with other teenagers. It required much more leg work and outreach on our part to find the opportunities, but they are well worth it.

Some Important Differences for the Parent

In traditional high school, the student has a guidance counselor. The homeschool parent needs to be more proactive.

The PSAT is a test typically taken in the fall of the junior year. This test is the criteria for the National Merit Scholarship (which, if I may brag for a moment, my oldest son was a Finalist and awarded a Scholarship). In order to register for this, a parent needs to contact the school district, which administers this test.

The SAT is run by a different company, the College Board, and the registration for that test is online, so is pretty much the same for homeschoolers as regular students. My students have not taken the ACT test, so I have no familiarity with it.

I need to generate transcripts for my students. As a homeschooler in New York State, I am subject to regulations that require me to submit a detailed Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP) for each student each year, and to submit quarterly reports on the student throughout the year. I know some families that homeschool under the radar, and while part of me cheers them on, to do so creates additional problems down the road that I choose to avoid through compliance. Since I am actively pursuing a college prep course for my high school students, generating a transcript is not too difficult and is made easier by my IHIPs.

In fact, if any potential or current homeschoolers want to look at my transcript or IHIP format, I would be happy to share, just PM me. Another mom shared her format with me some years ago and I love to pass on the favor.

Let me just say that as a homeschooler, I am aware that a college admission officer might be skeptical about the value of Mommy’s grading system, so I really want to make sure that my students have outside grades that can corroborate their abilities. This we accomplish through community college coursework. This past year, in fact, New York State has reduced the college credit rates for homeschooled or high school students to only $55 per credit, which is really lovely. My son is taking 9 credits right now, in Calculus, Music Theory, and the aforementioned ensembles.

Finally, some college applications require a letter of recommendation from the guidance counselor, which means me. They also require letters from teachers, which could be tough if a student has now had teachers apart from Mom or Dad. My children have always had art teachers, music teachers, work supervisors, volunteer supervisors, as well as community college professors to call on for these kinds of needs, and in point of fact we participate in activities with at least half an eye toward college applications, so this has not been a concern.

One of my final jobs as homeschooling mom is to obtain a letter of completion from the school district. The regs specify what credits are required, so I lay it all out easy for the school district after I have submitted my final paperwork in order to obtain it. I cannot award a diploma, but my students graduate from Edith Stein’s program of study.

Finding the Right College

My oldest knew for years what he wanted to study and found the perfect program for him and applied early admission with an outstanding transcript as a National Merit Finalist with perfect SAT scores and was admitted right away, so there was very little trauma or stress involved. His brother has less certainty, but we believe that we have selected four good schools that he would be happy at and do well. One, Columbia engineering program, is our so-called “reach” school that we don’t really expect to get into, but the others I think are good likelihoods: Manhattan College, Providence College, and SUNY Stony Brook. He hopes to study engineering while also being able to participate in musical theater and/or performance. Having extra college credits going into college makes it more likely that he can take courses outside his major while in college. His older brother is currently double-majoring because of his extra credits.

If anyone has read this whole tome and has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.