There was a time when I was a new homeschooler who wondered if my children would ever be able to get into college. Would the universities want someone who hadn't graduated from a traditional school? Would they accept a diploma hand-water colored by mom? Was I harming my children's academic futures with the educational choices I was making today?
Eleven years later, my eldest is a junior in high school and I know better. Not only can she get into college, but the universities will chase her. Just today we received 15 letters from institutions of higher learning who are all eager to talk to her. Even her protestations of "Thank you, but I have no interest in moving to Michigan, New Hampshire, Colorado, etc." will not stop their pursuits. The recruiters think she is playing hard to get and double down on their efforts.
The colleges have learned the value of a home-grown education. They recognize that students who learn at their kitchen tables have higher graduation rates, need fewer remedial classes, and are generally better prepared for the university style of learning. Our children should be, the university model is what most homeschoolers instinctively do at home.
There are many fears we tackle when we undertake the challenge of teaching our own children. We fear that somehow we will not equip them for life in the same ways and institutional school would. We fear gaps and holes in their knowledge base. We worry about the kind of people they will become.
This afternoon (most afternoons) in the mailbox was a bit of reassurance. The universities have taken a long hard look at the results of a homeschooled education and have resoundingly agreed that it is a very good thing indeed.
7 comments:
AMEN sister!
Even better that less than perfect homeschool moms such as myself have successful kiddos. I am so NOT the mom running the tight ship on schedule all or even most of the time, with gorgeous color coded binders and a lemon yellow classroom, neither am I like the mom at church who looked at her 6 year old after the kids caught a lizard and says "Now what phylum is that?" My 6 year old would be more apt to try to get the lizard to bite her sibling on the nose. They are all more likely to see who can dig the deepest hole in the dirt vs. looking at it under a microscope.
Did I miss some things in my homeschooling? Yup. Have my older kids come back to me and said, "You know mom, it would have been nice if..." Yup. Neither have been the end of the world.
Rebecca knows what my kiddos are up to. But for the uninitiated...my oldest is a sophomore at University of Dallas and currently spending the semester in Rome and my next oldest has been accepted to 5 schools, including The Citadel and Baylor and received a nomination to the United States Naval Academy. We are still waiting to hear about an appointment and two his two top choices after the USNA. I've homeschooled the lot since 1999.
As Cooking Mama would say: You can do eet!!
Amen to Rebecca's post and Karen's comment. Because my daughter was sick so much of the time, I was the worst for keeping to any schedule. Thank goodness she absorbed all that she could.
Said daughter graduated from University in 2010 with excellent grades. She had no problems fitting in and was not afraid to discuss issues with the instructors or stand up for her beliefs.
Because daughter has always wanted to travel, she figured out how to travel and get paid to do it. She spent a year teaching in Seoul, SK, visited Thailand, Cambodia, and Viet Nam, and is now is teaching in Moscow, Russia.
Sooo...maybe this is a dumb question but eh, I'll ask anyway. How do the colleges find the home schooled kids? I always assumed when I got college pamphlets in the mail they somehow got my name through the school. Thank you for the encouragement that we can do this and congrats to your daughter!
Mary, they found her through her registration and scores on the ACT and the information she provided on a scholarship website and at a locally sponsored college night. She self identified as homeschooled at all 3.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, I needed to hear this especially today. Went to a funeral over the weekend with folks we haven't seen in 13 years, came home with a flu bug and feeling LOW because I compared my kids to their college/young adults who all went thru public school and privileged backgrounds. Spiritually/morally/maturity my kids were light years ahead of most of them but I was beating myself up over academics and doubts of the future. I am practically in tears now. So reading this (and I'm gonna reread it all week and the comments) is salve for my troubled soul. Love you, Loretta (ps. MI isn't so bad)
What Loretta said - Michigan isn't so bad. You can hide in the potholes from all the drive-by shooters.
What?
If she is interested in a good small genuinely Catholic University you all should check out http://www.jpcatholic.com/
God Bless!
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