I saw this thoughtful blog post and added my comment to it below:

One of the reasons we decided to homeschool our children was to avoid the
“one size fits all” education available in our school district.  Both of our
boys didn’t fit neatly into the mold and would not have achieved what they
have if we had force fit them in.  One of the strengths of homeschooling is
exactly what you describe as the cultivation of “a diversity of talents and
develops ‘unique niche talents.’”  They were able to identify and pursue
their passionate interests at an early age and that allowed them to go much
further than they ever could have in a classroom setting.

We did the standardized tests only because they were required by law.  We
“studied” for them only to the extent that we studied reading, writing, math
and science.  In order to play the game demanded by the universities, we
also made sure our kids were very comfortable in pressurized test
situations.  These two steps allowed them to score very well on the SAT
without it becoming a dominant component of their education.  Testing was a
necessary evil that contributed nothing to their actual education.

Thanks for the thought provoking post.

Blessings,
Matt

Should you always take a CLEP test after every class your child gets an “A” in?  Not necessarily.  It depends on if the CLEP will help your child get into college – but there is one very important factor to consider!  Here is what one mother asked:

I read on your website that your son passed the CLEP test for Biology after taking the Apologia course. My son just finished taking that class from a lady in our community and got an A. Should I be having him take that test???
~ Kitty in Washington

My husband read that question and said, “Hey Lee!  I actually KNOW the answer to this one!”  LOL!  He’s so cute.  Anyway, you can give him a CLEP test if you think a CLEP score may help him, but you want to make SURE that he can pass the test first.  Give him a sample test, make sure he can get 50% or better on it.  If so, then you can consider giving him the test for real.  Some colleges don’t accept CLEP, but I still find it a useful tool for some outside documentation for classes taught at home.  Here is the website I have about using CLEP to homeschool college.

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Is it reasonable to think I can completely school my high schooler doing online college courses for dual credit?  I figure that way all his work is documented.  We have always used Abeka, he will be a freshman in the fall and he tests very well each year on the CAT despite the fact that he spends half of the school year traveling and working with his truck driver dad. (I need to find the most efficient way to do high school as we are schooling 5/6 children, the 6th having special needs.)
~ Dorie

Hi Dorie,

It’s certainly possible to homeschool high school with online college courses.  The only problem with that is making sure that your child is ready for COLLEGE courses.  Many times homeschoolers are so well educated at home, they are capable of homeschooling college courses toward the end of high school.  That gives you a great advantage, by the way, because college will cost less in the long run!

I have a webpage devoted to the concept of “homeschooling college.”

Read it through, and see if it’s a good fit for you.  My own children did have a year of college that they completed at home.  I know many people are successful with CollegePlus.  Here is the link CollegePlus.

So I guess the answer is YES!  It’s possible!  But it’s not right for everyone, and it depends a lot on your student.

Have you seem my New Homeschool Special Report: “7 Secrets for Homeschooling Through a Financial Storm”?  It is available now for free!

Did you get any college credit from CLEP exams?  When?  Senior year?  Did you do it on your own or use that CollegePlus! website you have to pay for their services?

Dear Susan,
Thank you for asking this question at my “Preparing to Homeschool High School” seminar last weekend!

We did do college credit by exam, and our college allows each student to earn up to one year of college credit through CLEP exams.  One son had many more CLEP exams than they accepted, and he ended up with one year of credit.  My other son didn’t have quite a whole year of credit, but he was still given college credit for the 7 exams he passed. Of course, college credit is completely at the discretion of the college, and policies will vary widely.  Our exams were accepted by 3 of the 4 colleges we applied to.  The fourth college didn’t give us college credit, but it did help us with our application and admission to that college.

We took the exams over the summer before senior year, so that I could include them on their transcript when they applied to college.  I did it myself using the techniques in these two books:
Accelerated Distance Learning and Bears’ Guide.

CollegePlus! is an organization that will help you through the process of coordinating exams.  If you are just taking a few course, you may not need it.  If you have a complicated situation, or you want to obtain a degree with distance learning, then you may decide it’s worth it to get their help.
Here is a link to CollegePlus!

I have written an article about our experience homeschooling college, in case you are interested.  It’s called “Homeschool College This Summer.”

Hi everyone,

I just published a 5 part mini-course about “The 5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make When Homeschooling High School.”  It captures some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in homeschooling my own children through high school and helping other parents succeed as well.  These five short lessons will provide an overview to help you stay on track as you think through high school issues with your student.  Whether you are already into the high school years, or just wondering whether homeschooling high school is a possibility, this is the course for you.

It is ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Read more about it here.

When you sign up, please make sure you fill out the question “What is your BIGGEST question about homeschooling high school.”  Your answers will help me know the best issues to address in my blog, newsletter, Dig Deeper pages and my Products and Services.  Thanks!

View this quick video on the process.

Here are the books I recommend on the subject:

* “Accelerated Distance Learning” by Homeschool Graduate Brad Voeller.

* or Bears Guide To Earning College Degrees Nontraditionally by Bear

Here’s how it works: You pick and choose from online classes across the nation. All the work is done at home.  All the results from those different online experiences are all sent to one distant location, to a real university.  If you choose to do it all 4 years of college, some (but not all) of the upper level courses require you to fly to the distance location for testing once a quarter.  That University will provide “accreditation” for all the credits that are earned.  Those accredited transcripts will be sent the next University he wants to go to.  It’s possible to homeschool college for 1 quarter or all 4 years of college.

Here is my webpage on Homeschooling College. And here’s my page on homeschooling gifted teens.

Just so you know, my good friend has had great success with community college, and is happy with the results though not always thrilled with the process. So here goes…

• Calculus professor drops the f-bomb every sentence.
  • We chose a prof that was a homeschool graduate instead – he ended up coming to our graduation party. Great guy.
• Physics prof used marital positions to describe physics principles.
  • Luck of the draw – we didn’t get him, but my friend did.
• Music class book said “I capitalize Self because I was taught to capitalize the name of God” and instructed class to say mantra each day “I am good, I am great, I am God.”
  • We declined to take that class.
• French class showed movies with unclothed people for culture.
  • No-go.
• Speech class teacher and curriculum was OK, but another student did a speech on the religion of sex (no kidding.)
  • This teacher did take Alex under her wing and provided him great opportunities.
• There were no economics courses that were at my student’s level.
• The poli-sci classes were taught by a Marxist.
  • He did write a very nice letter of recommendation, though.

My students were well prepared for college. Within the first 2 weeks of college, they had done all the reading and completed all the assignments they could. They both spent the next 6 weeks learning how to be lazy, and get A’s without trying.

On the bright side, the community college did have an honors program. If you add additional coursework (teach a class, give an extra speech, write an additional paper) then you could get “honors” after the course. That helped a bit.

We couldn’t find many classes that would challenge my son and at the same time not offend our faith. That meant my poli-sci son Alex spent most of his time in engineering physics and math classes with his brother. I’m glad he liked differential equations, LOL!

I wrote an article in the last newsletter about perfectionists and community college. Here’s a link on my gifted ed page:

In addition, we noticed that for the first time, my kids encountered people who didn’t want to learn. People there thought passing meant over a 0.7 gpa, and that a 2.0 in a class was good. People didn’t speak up in class, even when they knew the answer. The academic preparation was very low.

I go to a lot of college fairs in my business. One community college took me aside and said “Please tell homeschoolers not to send their young children to community college! We have adjudicated people in the classes!” She said felons, including predators, were known to be on campus, and they worry about innocent homeschoolers.

I live in very liberal Seattle, but I’ve heard these same things from a mom in Oklahoma.

I asked my son if he thought community college had been a mistake. At the age of 20 he said “YES!” If I could do my life over again, I would have homeschooled college for two years, not one. Community college wasn’t worth the cost of “free” education.

I think those are all my stories

I firmly believe that parents are the only ones qualified to make decisions about their own children, though. I can provide information from my perspective and experience, but each one of you knows what is best for your own child.

Do you have your own community college stories you’d like to share?

Curious about other options besides Community College? Check out my “How To Homeschool College” website and learn more.

I saw this article about saving money from college, and it had some interesting tidbits. Here is the paragraph that caught my attention:

In 2007, according to the College Board, the average financial aid package totaled $9,500 covering 43% of tuition, fees, and room and board for one year at the average four-year college, public or private. This underscores the need for families to save in a dedicated college savings account to supplement the remaining costs. However, 60% of parents think that if they save too much toward their child’s future education that it could negatively affect their child’s chances of receiving financial aid. And that is just one myth about saving for college. Here are the other seven.

Let’s look at this really closely for a moment. I have mentioned that rarely do people pay “sticker price” for a college. I love to read about how the AVERAGE parent saves 43% of the average college costs – in both public and private school! This article implies that we should therefore panic about the cost. I like to look at the bright side, though. On the bright side, college costs are not as astronomical as they appear on the brochures.

There are people who believe you “should not” save for college because the more you save, the less that will be awarded to you through the FAFSA. This article says that saving money will not hurt you (at least with financial aid.) For our family, we did what we could to save for college, knowing full well that we couldn’t save enough to pay the “sticker price” for a private school. We tried to save enough for the kids to attend a public university while living at home. That way, if they didn’t get ANY scholarships, we could still afford college. Our FAFSA results confirmed that we weren’t penalized for our savings at all. Each family is unique, of course, but don’t hesitate to save for college because you think it will cost you in financial aid.

Here is a link to the original article, in case you are interested. I think they are trying to sell me a 529 plan, don’t you? LOL!

Eight College-Savings Myths

Of course, another way to get into college is to win BIG with merit scholarships! Check out my Getting the BIG Scholarships DVD for how to make this strategy work for your family!

This morning on the opinion page of our newspaper was this quote:

“As my wife is fond of saying, our son was raised by dozens of Professionals (mostly teachers) and two amateurs.” (Seattle PI “Band Teacher hit all the right notes” Guest Columnist Bob Roseth)

I was SO shocked by that quote! They are saying that not only are school teachers professional educators” but they are also “professional child raisers!” Yikes!

I believe that homeschooling parents are professional educators AND professional child-raisers. I know there are high school credits that “educators” believe are official. However, I firmly believe that parents do know best – even in the area of high school credits. There are times when the parent will know better than a “Professional” what to put on a high school transcript. I know a parent who unschooled, and never did math in high school (ever!) But his son ended up knowing pre-algebra. On his transcript was “Pre-algebra” even though he hadn’t done math since 5th grade. There are times when things will go on a transcript because you as the parent are 100% confident that it is accurate and true. On the surface, “professionals” may not understand. But I encourage people to go with their heart. If you have thought through your reasoning, then trust yourself to do the right thing. If you know it to be true, just be honest on your transcript. Don’t leave something off just because you are afraid of a “professional.”

Once we determined that they knew enough to pass a CLEP, then we started to study for the test so that they would get a good score. It seemed like the REA books were the best prep once we go to that stage.

We used CLEP exams only for the things they already “sorta knew.” So, typically, just reading through the REA book and taking the practice tests was enough, since they already were able to pass the test based on previous knowledge.

My son Alex did take one CLEP in a different way – psychology. He didn’t want to take Psych in college (he was only 15 at the time and knew he didn’t want to discuss Freud in mixed company!) He simply read through the REA book, and then he was able to take the test. I had bought him a psych textbook, but I don’t think he read it much. I think it was mostly the REA books.

Read more about how to homeschool college in my Dig Deeper page!