- PG children will typically want and need to access college level material at an age much earlier than the traditional college student who enters college at 17 or 18. While a year or even two won't make much difference to a college and is not all that unusual, students in their early teens often face a challenge of being accepted by college administrators. Because these children are so bright, they can do the work, and neither teachers nor fellow students cause any problems, but the "gatekeepers" like to imagine that they are experts on adolescent psychology and that younger students will not adjust well to the college setting. There is, of course, scant evidence for this.
Therefore, parents need to be proactive, politely insistent, and flexible in how they approach a college. Despite all the publicity about how selective admission has become at the most competitive colleges, it is good to remember that most colleges, including almost all public colleges, are not at all selective, so the argument for a student not being able to show as developed a record as a typical high school student is not persuasive. Rather these colleges want a student to have accomplished certain basic requirements, and that can be enough. As your children grow toward college, and if you think they would be eligible for college sooner rather than later, it would be good to contact your local community college or four-year state college to see how they treat younger and home schooled students. Advance preparation is always good, for it shows administrators that you are taking their requirements respectfully.
- Residential colleges present a special challenge to younger students. Here, admission may indeed be selective, and you as a parent are asking the college to take a risk on your student. There may be no real risk, but admission officers are historically risk-averse, much like insurance companies. So you need to be sure that your child is mature enough to handle the social atmosphere of a college dorm, which can include being exposed to alcohol, drugs, and sexual behavior of which you would disapprove. This varies depending on the college, of course, but all the best intentions of any college to control student behavior are met with continuing creativity by students, so it is best to have no illusions.
- You need to meet selective colleges halfway on their admissions requirements. A good place to start is Stanford's website and their policy on homeschooled students, which you can find at www.stanford.edu. Click on admissions and then admissions policies, and there is a link. It is not the last word on the subject, but a number of other selective colleges have used this statement to create their own models. (One challenge in applying to college in general, for anyone, is a lack of consistency, so you have to check any question out with each college. It is a good sign if the college has a designated officer who works with homeschooled applicants, though usually anyone can answer the obvious questions.
Selective colleges like the intellectual vitality, passion, and creativity of PG kids. These are your children's strengths, and they need to be highlighted in their applications, preferably in the student's own words. It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the student's own self-presentation. Colleges like descriptions of projects, how they got started, and how the student overcame obstacles. They want to know that the student did all this work themselves, and that they are a self-starter. Usually, these students do very well on standardized tests (how did they get to be PG after all?). Admission officers like numbers, and high scores are strangely reassuring to them. To an extent, they answer the question, "Can this student do the work?" AP scores, if you can get access to AP tests, are even better because the level of knowledge is much higher. (The College Board doesn't care if you are not enrolled in a normal school--they get $80 for every AP test, but a high school may be reluctant to let you take it there if you are not one of their students. You have to take AP tests at a high school because the proctoring requirements are quite strict.)
But several other facets of the traditional college application may raise issues. Who is going to write recommendations? Parents are always suspect because of a lack of objectivity. Of course, you know your child exceptionally well, but colleges prefer the seeming objectivity of a counselor and regular teachers. If they are extremely enthusiastic, they can compare the child to other students they have taught, something a parent can rarely do. If your child is homeschooled, what do the grades mean? The answer is: practically nothing.
And activities can be a challenge. The array of stuff available in high schools is harder to access, though it can be done, and there are lots of venues outside of school, from church to scouts, community service, etc. that a homeschooled child can do. The issue is how much a student has gained from such activities, how they express what they have learned, not how long the list of activities is. There is no value in joining for the sake of lengthening a list.
- You have to face certain realities. The world of colleges is not likely to beat a path to your door, despite all the marketing that colleges are doing. If your child starts, appropriately, at a community college at an early age, and finishes a two-year degree there, it may not be that easy to transfer to an elite four-year college. Ironically, their very intelligence may make them less eligible for that type of undergraduate experience. It may be graduate school before they get to a Columbia, Chicago, or a Berkeley. That is hardly a tragedy. The fact is that famous colleges do not necessarily teach better than less famous ones. The list of healthy, successful people who went to colleges of no great renown is extensive. As parents, you have accepted that your children are different, in good ways, and that they have special needs. You (and they) stand out for your independence, for your indifference to the herd mentality, and to the pursuit of labels like the college sticker in the rear window of your car. So why follow the crowd which believes in prestige and bragging value about the college their child attends? The truth is that all colleges teach much of the same material; the mythology that College X has a better department of Y than College Q has is untestable. Whatever works for your child works. There are some advantages to elite education: higher level of engagement among the students (perhaps), more resources for student projects, research, study abroad, and advising, but you have to ask yourselves just what the value of these will be for your child, and whether they can find these attractive qualities elsewhere. As we should know from our own experience, the value of your education is how much you put into it, not the name on the diploma.
- All in all, be suspicious of what someone else tells you. Do your own homework and take responsibility for your own children, as you have done up to now.
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