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Angel
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| Posted: Jan 30 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged
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Does anyone have any experience with applying to the Ivy League or other very selective colleges?
My ds (9th grade) wants to head in that direction, so I've been reading a lot of books about it -- unfortunately geared mainly toward traditional high school students. Everything I'm reading makes it sound like unschoolers with the right test scores would do pretty well. He hasn't taken any tests yet, but I think he has a shot at it.
Of course, the responsibility of being "the guidance counselor" through all of this scares me to death. If anyone does have experience and can tell me what you sorts of things you focused on in high school, what sorts of records you submitted, how the process went, etc, I would love to hear about it!!!
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Angela
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Elena
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Why does he want to head in that direction? I guess I would want to be very clear on that before proceeding. Besides the expense, many of those schools are not well known for nurturing the Catholic faith you've instilled in your child.
That all said we have gone the CollegePlus! route in an attempt to get a degree without a lot of debt. Maybe something like that would be of interest to you and your son too?
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Elena
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Angel
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| Posted: Jan 30 2012 at 4:33pm | IP Logged
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It's the academics. His interests are in linguistics and archaeology, and he wants to study Asian languages in addition to classical or other modern languages. The only college in the Newman guide which has anything along those lines is Providence College, and its acceptance rate definitely puts it in the "selective" category. (Last year 9800 students applied for 1000 places in the freshman class.)
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Angela
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Elena
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Providence is Catholic! and it looks like it is in line with the magisterium, so that is good as well!
I haven't had a child apply to a selective college but I have a son about your age that may be going that way. I am having him study Latin so that he will develop word recognition skills to do well on the ACT and SATs. He will also be taking CLEP tests to document his high school studies and to just generally do well with tests.
Providence doesn't accept any CLEPS apparently but it might still look good on his resume. They do accept AP classes and IB if you can get him any of those. Hit the math and the writing skills hard as well - those will be the major things they look at academically.
Will certainly look forward to your experiences as you guys travel this road!
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Elena
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SallyT
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It's very well worth asking admissions staff at any college what they like to see in a strong application. I asked about narrative transcripts (yes at smaller liberal-arts schools -- we didn't apply to any state universities or larger schools, but a swamped admissions department may be less likely to want to see anything non-standard).
Test scores to underscore the grades you've given are important. So is evidence of well-roundedness, thoughfulness, leadership, and so on, as demonstrated by extracurricular activities.
I recommend reading Greg and Martine Millman's Home Schooling: A Family's Journey -- I think their approach would resonate with you, and the back of the book is dedicated to high school and college admissions. At publication, in 2008 or so, two of the family's six kids were in college, and one of those two had gone to Brown. They have lots of useful insights regarding the admissions process and what made their children's own applications stand out.
For what it's worth, I think Providence is swamped with applicants because it's a strong regional Catholic school -- lots of New England kids trying to go there. On the other hand, the average ACT score is only something like 24 (I forget what the average SAT is for them, but for some reason that ACT figure sticks in my head from when my daughter was looking at colleges). So it's swamped with applicants, but apparently not necessarily super-academically-selective. Moderately strong test scores with a record reflecting a strong academic background would be pretty impressive, I think, especially if he presents himself well on paper as a whole person (if you know what I mean!).
I'm not dissing Providence, by the way -- it's where writer Anthony Esolen teaches, and they have a really impressive core humanities curriculum which he designed.
You might also visit Home Life Academy's website (http://www.homelifeacademy.com) and look at their high-school pages. They have a wealth of good guidance-counselor-ish information, from how to plan a course of study, how to weight courses, and so on.
One challenge for an unschooler is to frame learning experiences so that in terms of content/what's been learned they line up with what would constitute a traditional course of study. If you're applying to Ivies, then you're competing with kids who have gone to tony private schools, which doesn't at all mean that they've had the better education -- it just means that you should at least be aware of the "polish" those kids' applications would have ("spent summer in China on Confucius Institute exchange program," that kind of thing), and think about how your child would want to present himself as something different, but with somehow the same level of "enrichment" experience, if that makes any sense.
I hope this helps. We haven't thus far had anyone apply to an Ivy, but one never knows. I have a child wanting to go to West Point, however, so I do think along these lines these days.
Sally
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kristinannie
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I know that Stanford has a whole separate admissions process for homeschoolers so I am wondering if maybe some other top tier colleges do as well. I would definitely call some admissions offices and ask what they are looking for. I can imagine that would be stressful! I am glad that it is a long way off for me!
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SallyT
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| Posted: Jan 31 2012 at 8:35am | IP Logged
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It really does help to have a consistent focus. Going into 9th grade, I really expected my daughter to do something outside of traditional academics -- she was very involved in theater at that stage (eta: heh. pun not intended) and interested in things like art and design. By late high school, she had developed serious *academic* interests which completely changed the landscape of her expectations of what would come next. This did make our college prep a little more stressful, though it was certainly doable.
And I think it's probably useful to research what you'd need to do -- both requirements and the admissions process itself -- to get into the best, most competitive school on your radar. Doesn't mean your child has to go there (meaning "best" isn't the same thing as "best for your child"), but if you've prepared as if that were a goal all along, then I think that's an extra confidence boost, in terms of having the bases covered. That also doesn't mean that you have to change an unschooling MO, just that you're thinking how you're going to both provide unschooling experiences to meet what a top college might expect, and how you would translate those experiences into language that would speak to an admissions committee at a place like that.
Sally
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Angie Mc
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While my dd didn't get into an Ivy League school, she did get into a very competitive journalism "school" within a major university. I'll ask her what she thinks helped her and get back to you.
What I remember is that she contacted the University admissions and the journalism school early, as a freshman I believe. Since the U/school is in our area, my dh set up an appt. to personally meet with admissions as well. Since my dd was a homeschooler, it seemed prudent to talk with people, to make sure she was on the right track and that everyone was on the same page (which often they weren't.) If dd had been at a local high school, she wouldn't have had that excuse! Admissions (most likely) would have referred her back to her school counselors. Because this University is huge, it helped that my dd and dh didn't stop at admissions, but introduced themselves to the journalism school folks. These Deans and professors invited my dd to start attending public presentations and other activities that the school provided for the community. It was a time for my dd to get to know the program.
Building these relationships really helped. For example, we were told that it would be nearly impossible for my dd to finish the program in 3 years (she had community college credits) because of blah blah blah. In the end, a Dean stepped in and said, "Let's give it a try." So she is giving it a try!
It's just so easy to get lost in the shuffle. Anything that helps a student to stand out...and not in a weird, manipulative, false way...is a good thing. Play to your student/family strengths! Homeschooling, being local, and having an involved dad, certainly made my dd unique  .
Love,
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Angie Mc
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: Applying to highly selective colleges
