This is the last in a short series of three posts we are doing for a friend who is starting to homeschool this year. We have no illusions about our homeschooling method and plans being right for anyone else, but we thought it might be a help for others to get a sense for what works for at least one family. The following is links to the first and second of the three posts:
Homeschool methods update – Part 1 of 3 – curricula
Homeschool methods update – Part 2 of 3 – a typical day
Of course, what students do after they finish high school varies greatly. Some get a job. Others join the military. Some take a year off and travel if they have the money. Some start a business. Many go on to college. Circumstances change, but to the extent that we have influence, we have decided that we want Kelly and Christian to be prepared to enter college. There is really no problem for well prepared homeschoolers to get into even the best universities in the nation. It is commonplace to read articles about homeschoolers succeeding at places like Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard, and good small private colleges like Grove City, Hillsdale, and George Fox. There are homeschoolers in most state run colleges and universities, too. The third and fourth tier private colleges like Linfield, Lewis and Clark, and Willamette here in Oregon have programs to try to attract as many homeschooled students as they can get. So getting into a college is not really too difficult for students who document their academic achievements and test even at just an “OK” level on the SAT or ACT. We are doing ar best to cover those bases.
The challenge with many homeschoolers is that many of them are academically ready to enter college at a much younger age than normal. It is not so much that they are not ready for college, it is more that the college is not ready for them. If we stay on our current track, Kelly will be ready to start taking college courses in just three years and Christian will be ready in four. Of course, there is no way that we want them to leave home at that time. So we have to find a way to keep them academically engaged for two or three years at the college level while they are still at home.
The obvious answer for us is the community college. The government school district to which we pay our taxes is required to pay for community college for those students for which they have nothing to offer academically. Of course it could be argued that they have not ever had anything to offer, but that is a different post. We are fortunate to live within driving distance of both a community college and a major state university. It is not difficult to meet the admission requirements of the community college, so entrance to that system is easily manageable. We will probably start the kids at the there with they idea they will continue there through the age when they would normally have graduated from a government high school. That should help them prepare well for the PSAT, SAT, and/or ACT tests. Volunteer work, a job or two, and continued participation in their clubs, music, and sports should help to round out their preparation. It is up to Lorena and I to continue to document their academic progress. All this should prepare them to get into a good school.
If we prepare well, it will be easier for them to decide where (and if) they want to go to college. We are kind of hoping they will stay at home through a bachelor’s degree and then take a graduate degree as their away from home experience, but that will really be their decision. If things move along on their current course, both of the kids should graduate with a bachelor’s degree by the time they are nineteen or twenty. The other wild-card, is that, if we have the resources, we would like to go someplace for six or nine months to pick up a third language. Whether we can do that and whether the time we take will impact the schooling is something we do not know. Neither do we know whether it will work out like this at all. But we have a plan that we can either follow or modify as time and chance change our circumstances. Even if it does not all go according to plan, it is good to have a plan.