Home-schooled see chance to enter college improving
Union-Tribune 3/5/07
The University of California system is known for being tough in nontraditionally schooled applicants. For them, the best tickets to UC have been transferring in after taking community college classes or posting near-perfect scores on college entrance exams.
“For home-schoolers, it was basically a shut door for us because of the restrictions,” Sample said.
Last fall, however, Riverside joined a growing number of colleges around the country that are revamping application policies to accommodate home-schooled students.
The change came just in time for Sample, 18, to apply and get accepted with a substantial scholarship.
Under UC Riverside's new policy, home-schoolers can apply by submitting a lengthy portfolio detailing their studies and other educational experiences.
Sample's package showed he had studied chemistry, U.S. history and geometry, rewired a house and helped rebuild a medical clinic in Nicaragua.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that 1.1 million, or 2.2 percent of all students in the nation, are home-schooled. Some private colleges have eagerly recruited those students for years and tailored application processes to include them. Home-schoolers still face challenges when applying to many public universities, but their chances of being considered are improving.
In 2000, 52 percent of all colleges in the country had a formal evaluation policy for applications from home-schoolers, said David Hawkins, director of public policy for the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Four years later, the number jumped to 83 percent. During that time, 45 percent of colleges reported receiving more applications from home-schoolers, he said.
Major schools that now post application procedures for home-schoolers on their Web sites include Michigan State University, Oregon State University and the University of Texas. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is also willing to consider home-schoolers.
UC Riverside is actively recruiting home-schoolers, said Merlyn Campos, interim director of undergraduate admissions.
“There are a lot of students out there that are very prepared for a college-level education,” she said. “They are kind of being forced into going into a community college.”
The home-schooling movement has its roots in religion, but families pull their children out of traditional schools for a variety of reasons. When many of those students reached college age in the 1990s, colleges began considering their qualifications and potential more closely.
Harrison Hartley has been home-schooled in Burbank since kindergarten. Now 13, he will start community college classes this year and hopes to transfer to a university as a junior before he turns 18.
“I just want him to start out with taking a couple of fun classes,” said his mother, Beverly Hartley. “Then we'll throw him into things that are more serious.”
Sample lives in Redlands with his parents and three younger siblings, who are also home-schooled. He got acceptance letters from colleges in Illinois and Texas but wanted to attend Riverside, the local university.
Now a freshman, he is adjusting well to college classes and shrugs when his peers complain about the way a professor teaches.
“You are already used to teaching yourself,” he said about home schooling. “Forget the teacher, forget the class, I am just going to read the book and figure it out myself.”