Bombarded with College Recruiting (homeschool friendly)

It is April.  My son graduates in 4 weeks and we are getting bombarded with college emails and postcards...NOW.

I would have loved these back in September, when we were visiting schools and making decisions.  But these correspondences at this late date are a little unfortunate.  I do realize that there are some kids who have not made their first choice colleges, or who STILL have not applied at all and need to get on it now, but I feel like colleges that send recruitment material this late in the game are missing out.

So.. I guess if your homeschooled kid is still looking, I have a list of schools to consider.  The solicitations we get are mostly from schools with strong Graphic Design and Art programs and/or strong Christian

Homeschoolers Tour SCAD Atlanta

The kids and I had an excellent morning touring SCAD Atlanta. I was prepared to not be impressed because although the college has a stellar reputation of educating and hiring out talented artists and designers. The main campus is in Savannah GA  (which we will visit soon). I fully expected a skeleton of a college, with deserted halls, especially since we visited during summer session.

I was wrong. SCAD Atlanta, made me want to go back to college. It strongly impressed my daughter though their theater major is in Savannah, she loved the interior design and fashion design departments too.

The college made my too-cool-for-school son GIDDY. This is a kid that doesn't show emotion.... but this school moved him. I couldn't ask for a more creative environment for a graphic arts/ media type person.

It is definately at the top of my son's list. While it is a longshot, my daughter hopes they add a theater department to the Atlanta Campus in the next 3 years so she can go there.

As far as homeschool specific information, there was none, but they do actively recruit homeschoolers, having recently attended the GHEA homeschool convention. If you want a scholarship, prepare a killer portfolio.


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Colleges On Our Long List: University of Redlands

Yes, we have started looking at colleges with a rising Jr, and a rising Sophmore.  Our long list (for our son) should turn into a short list in a year. 

As a homeschooling beginning to start the college search process with her children, I am drawn to colleges that allow you to design your own program. The University of Redlands in California is one of those colleges that allows you to "Design Your Own Education".

The Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands has a "radical vision for undergraduate education". For over 20 years, this program trusts in the students ability to active in their own education process and take ownership over their studies. This program currently has 200 students who live and work together in the Johnston complex in their own little areaq of the University of Redlands.

My kids may or may not end up in a program such as this, but it is good to know that these options exist for independant learners like my own.

In addition to the Johnston Center, the University of Redlands also has a traditional education program with over 40 available majors. It has ranked been ranked a top university for three decades and is a top California University. It is part of the Inland Empire college system and is a top notch California business school.

Dragging them kicking and screaming to college seminars

Yesterday I took my kids and my unofficial third child to a seminar given by SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) that was given at the local arts center. The seminar explained how to create a good art portfolio for entry into SCAD or another Fine Arts College.

Out of the three kids, the youngest was the most interested and excited. She is just beginning highschool level in the fall at age 13, and is already pretty set on her college choices. The older two, the boys age 15 and 16 both going into their Jr (ish) years, acted more like It was my responsibility to internalize the information for them. But then in my experience, boys are less likely to make life decisions early on. I can see them scrambling to make college choices late in their senior year... Over my dead body.

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Great Deals on School & Homeschool Curriculum

Sharing Classnotes on Facebook

There is a new website designed to help college students share notes with other students. It allows them to flesh out classnotes, and to get a different perspective. The way this works is that a student in a... at lets say University of Wisconsin POLI SCI 104 course is working on a Political Science Paper and feels they are missing something. They can go through this facebook application to to access notes of a student in another college in another state, or even in the same class to see if their notes reveal something different. In short Coursehero allows students to share information and coursework over a facbook application.

Now if you are thinking that this is an excellent way to cheat and plagarize, you should know that you can and very likely will get caught. This site was designed for ethical sharing of personal class notes and nothing more.

What does this have to do with homeschooling you might ask? Well, if you autodidact homeschooled child is interested in learning,more about political science, or ants to take a CLEP exam for English Literature, they could access notes from students across the country and get a good feel of what is taught in the class. This could turn out to be an excellent resource for homeschoolers, even if college students push the envelope of ethics while using it.




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Colleges with best return on investment that accept CLEP

A colleague of mine at Examiner.com just wrote the article Smart Money magazine ranks colleges with "payback ratio"

As many homeschoolers take CLEP exams in high school to put a few credits under their belt and to prove their worth, I thought I would compare this list to the list of CLEP colleges. The number in parenthesis is return on investment.


Public Colleges

University of Georgia(338%) YES
Texas A&M (315%)YES
University of Texas yes
Austin (306%) yES, WITH FEES
Georgia Tech (263%) yes
University of Washington (225%) NO


Liberal Arts College

Washington and Lee (165%) NO
University of Richmond (130%),YES
Lafayette College (115%),NO
College of the Holy Cross (114%),YES
Bucknell (114%)YES

Ivy Leage

Princeton (132%), YES
Dartmouth (131%), YES
Yale (127%),NO
Harvard (124%),LIMITED
University of Pennsylvania (124%) YES

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Really Worried about College

I really need to sit down with my husband and discuss college.

We already know that the cost of college is now out of this world. We know our kids will need some kind of scholarship to help us put them both through college, especially since they are only two years apart in age. The oldest is 14 and in grade 9.

So now while the firs half of our homeschooling journey was dedicated to giving the kids freedom to learn, the second half of our homeschooling journey is leaning toward building the killer homeschool portifolio and applying for every scholarship we can get out hand on.

If you have info that I don't on portfolios and scholarships, please share.

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More on Getting into College

This is a follow up from a previous video

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California Colleges offering AP and Honors Classes

California is offering AP and Honors classes to homeschoolers and others to make sure kids can qualify for UC colleges. I hope GA colleges comes up with something like this soon.
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If Your Homeschoolers Goal is College, Be Prepared

According to this story, valedictorians are a dime a dozen. Your kids will have to stand out to get into college. For homeschoolers that means being dilligent about academics and finding awesome extracurriculars.

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