College Application Tips for Homeschoolers
Hey there. It’s Dr. Bernstein, the president and founder of Get Yourself Into College,
and in today’s video, I want to provide you with some really important tips about
how to take advantage of the competitive edge that homeschooling can give you in the college
admissions process, so stay tuned. These tips are valuable for 9th-12th graders. . .not
just those of you who are starting to put together your application packages.
If you’re applying to college using the Common Application, you have to complete the
Homeschool Supervisor Report, which requires sharing any information about your “homeschool
experience and environment that you believe would be helpful to the reader” and by that
they mean details about your “educational philosophy,” your “motivation for homeschooling,”
the “instructional setting,” and other such things.
Now clearly this is part of the application that a parent or other homeschool supervisor
should fill out.
However, it’s really important for you—the student—to be able to describe your own
educational philosophy, your own motivation for homeschooling, and how you've optimized
your learning experiences and your own growth through this form of education. . .which really
does set you apart from many other applicants.
As the admissions team at MIT point out that their “admitted homeschooled applicants
have really shined” when it comes to taking the initiative and taking advantage “of
their less constrained educational environment to take on exciting projects, go in depth
in topics that excite them, create new opportunities for themselves and others, and more.” These
are some very compelling reasons why colleges—not just MIT—but colleges in general are intrigued
by homeschooled students.
But as I pointed out a moment ago, you have to be able to provide admissions officers
with insight into your learning process, into your character, into your experiences, into
your perspectives. You can’t—and shouldn’t—just rely on your transcript and the Homeschool
Supervisor Report to do these things. It won’t work. Colleges are admitting you—not your
parents, not your Homeschool Supervisor. So they want to know about these things from
YOU.
So I want to give you some tips to help you get started. I always think it’s most important
to start with yourself and not with the application. You want your entire application package to
emerge out yourself rather than trying to make yourself conform to it.
Okay. . .
My first recommendation is to set aside some time to write about the educational philosphy
informing your homeschooling experience. Don’t get overwhelmed by the phrase “educational
philosophy.” Just think about the way you have approached learning throughout high school.
You might be in Stanford University’s Online High School or participating in Oak Meadow’s
innovative homeschool program. Or you might be using a curriculum like the Charlotte Mason
method or Classical Conversations. You might even be unschooling or creating an eclectic
blend of educational methods.
How do you approach learning in your homeschool environment? I want you to describe to someone
who isn’t familiar with this approach. For instance, if you use the Charlotte Mason
method, describe that method in your own words. Are you mainly studying textbooks, writing
a few papers, and then taking tests? Or are you taking a more eclectic approach to learning?
Just describe it as fully and vividly as you can. You might want to just observe yourself
over the next week or so as you’re studying and working on projects and think about how
you’re approaching your learning.
My second recommendation is to write about why you wanted to homeschool.
See if you can shed light on how homeschooling was a good fit for your learning style—your
learning preferences. For instance, one of my homeschooled students is a very creative
person who is also academically gifted. She really likes being able to delve deeply into
whatever she studies and is always itching to take innovative approaches to her projects,
and in her school district this just wasn’t something that could be accommodated, so she
decided to pursue homeschooling.
Don’t just “tell” the facts. I want you to start showing—illuminating your experiences,
perspectives, and motivations for homeschooling by sharing anecdotes. So the student I was
just telling you about. . .started her process by creating a really detailed, vivid anecdote
about a time—during her last year in public school—when she had a a really interesting
idea for a project but wasn’t allowed to pursue it in her paper. She wrote it in a
way that enabled readers to “see" her—and feel like they were in her mind. Now clearly
you do not want to be bashing traditional schools. The focus should mainly be on you.
So that example was her “before.” Her “after” story was about a specific project
she worked while homeschooling. If she used this in her application package, she might
get rid of the “before” story in her admissions essay, but this approach really helped her
get clear about her motivations for homeschooling and got her creative juices pumping.
My third recommendation is connected with the second one. I want you to describe how
your homeschooling experience has helped you pursue your interests in exciting ways. So
you might want to describe one or a few special projects that you’ve worked on and how these
projects have allowed you to delve deeply into topics that excite you. Again, description
is essential. You want to share external and internal details.
My fourth recommendation is to describe your actual learning environment. I mean the physical
environment in which you learn. There is a Common App essay topic that allows you to
write about a place or environment where you feel perfectly content. You might be able
to come up with an amazing essay about your intellectual environment.
So let’s say that you’re originally from San Francisco, but you’ve been living in
Bali with your parents who run a yoga retreat center there and you’ve been pursuing your
high school education through homeschooling. You might want to describe your learning spaces.
Where do you read and study? Most kids in traditional schools, wake up in the morning,
have breakfast, and go to a building—a school—to learn. But maybe you wake up in the morning,
have some breakfast, and go to a yurt to read. Maybe you spend an hour each day learning
traditional Balinese dance. Then, later on you go back to your room, where you get on
the computer to engage in online discussions with other students in your literature class.
So let yourself describe your learning spaces as vividly as you can and balance the external
details with the internal ones. Why is this kind of environment conducive to your learning
process? How did you create this environment? This could be really interesting. And you
can definitely just zoom in one particular aspect of the environment. You don’t have
to describe everything.
So those are my four tips to get you started writing about your homeschool experience in
ways that will ultimately help you provide admissions officers with meaningful, interesting
insight into your special form of education.
If you want to learn more about making the most of your homeschooling experience in your
college application package, head over to my site getyourselfintocollege.com and click
on the “HOMESCHOOL TAB” on the menu bar…that’s where you can get free access to a special
presentation that I’ve created especially for homeschooled students.
So that’s it for now. Take care. Bye!