Homeschooling the College Bound Teen {GIVEAWAY}

Are you thinking about homeschooling your teen through high school?  

What do you do if they want to go to college?

When we were in the middle school years, my husband and I began thinking about the possibility of college for our daughter. 

 

And I was more than a little nervous.  

We loved homeschooling.  It was my calling.  It worked so well for our family and for our daughter.  

We knew we wanted to continue through the teen years.  

We didn't, of course know what our daughter would want to do yet for after graduation.  But we wanted her to have the option of going to college, if that was part of her calling.

  

How would I, as a homeschooling mom, help her get there?  

I spoke with my homeschooling mom friends and found out that many of them did not know how to go about applying to college as homeschoolers.  

Just like me.

And the colleges seemed so big, and I, in contrast, felt so small.  

Do you ever feel that way?

I wanted more information, so I began to research on the web all about homeschooling and college. 

There are many homeschool friendly colleges out there, that want the type of kids that homeschooling produces - motivated, independent learners. 

We helped our daughter get into college, and found the process of to not be that hard!

We did lots of fun family activities and nature study, too.

Today I'd like to share 4 key steps for getting into college for your homeschooled teen, including learning about their:

• college entrance requirements, which will guide you in:
• making an over all High School Plan
• choosing their high school curriculum, and
• making their homeschool transcript.

Let's get started, with the first key step:

1.  College Entrance Requirements

What specifically are "college entrance requirements"?  

They are just the courses that your teen would need to complete to be able to apply to college.

This information is easy to find, just by looking at college websites, and clicking on the freshman admission requirements. 

We found these requirements to be similar from college to college, with some variance. 

They were not all the same.  

How did we find this information?  

I looked up the most likely colleges that my daughter might attend. So it's a good idea to look up 2 to 4 possible colleges, and make note of what they require.  

I invite you to click  for my free PDF:     Researching and Getting Started - College Entrance Requirements

Once we did this, we had our list of college entrance requirements in hand.  

In fact, we used it to make an overall homeschool high school plan. That is our second step in this process of going from homeschool to college.

2.  Making an Overall High School Plan

As homeschoolers, we are already experts in planning. We have searched for resources and planned out our kid's homeschooling for years.

Planning for high school with college in mind is really no different, except that we want to be sure to get those entrance requirements done, too. 

So one way to do that is to take our list of admission requirements and sketch out what the high school years might look like.....with our best guesses of what we wanted to do when.  

With our plan, as described above, we were less likely to forget a requirement or two.  We kept ours handy each year, when it was curriculum planning time.

And choosing our homeschool high school curriculum is our third step.

3.  Choosing Curriculum with College in Mind

Choosing your homeschool high school curriculum can be very similar to the process you used during their earlier years. 

We explored around, as usual, choosing the textbooks, living books, and/or online courses that would be a good fit for our teen.  

We worked to meet our teen’s entrance requirements, but did not forget to focus on her special interests as well.  Those became electives.

When I taught my daughter photography, that became a credit in photography on her transcript.  

For more information on assigning high school credit, click here - Assigning High School Credit and Planning High School at Home

It is important to know the specifics that your colleges require. For example, does your college ask for labs to be done with each science course?  

Do they require two science courses, or three?  

What do they ask for in math?  

My book mentioned below, has a chapter that includes specifics on each subject.

The next and final step is that of making your teen's homeschool transcripts.

And what should be included in the homeschool transcript, anyway?

4.  Making Your Teen's Transcript

The homeschool transcript is basically just a list of all the courses your teen has completed, both at home, and at any outside courses, too.  

That way, the colleges can see clearly what your teen has done as far as coursework.

I recommend that your transcript to be just one page.  That is what the colleges are used to seeing. 

For all the details of how to put together your homeschool transcript, I invite you to go back to my blog again, BJ's Homeschool, and click on the Transcript Pop Up.  It will pop up!

It is a free Homeschool Transcripts PDF for you.

These instructions will show you just how we made your transcripts, how I did that for my daughter when she got into each of the colleges that she applied to. 

For more information, I invite you to watch my video called:    5 Steps to Planning High School at Home

It also includes information on my book, which I am offering as a GIVEAWAY and a SALE  as a part of this event!

Both Paperback and Kindle are on Amazon

Kindle SALE - 50% off $3.49 

With 

HIGH SCHOOL PLANNING PRINTABLES

These downloadable high school planning printables include:

• College Entrance Requirements Form
• Overall High School Planning Form
• Curriculum Planning Sheet
• High School Credit Record Form
• Transcript Form
• Homemade Course Form
• Writing the College Essay Form
• Course Descriptions Record Keeping Form, and more.
• Find out more about the book!

Helping our daughter get into college did not take up all of our homeschool time. 

We took it step-by-step so that we had time for the fun family activities, family devotionals, and also time for my teen to explore her God given gifts and special interests.   

And isn't that what homeschooling is about anyway?  

The best way to follow me for resources and tips on high school and college is to join me on Pinterest. (Links below.)

I share there often.  

So happy to have you join us in this Upper Grades event!  I am honored to be a part of it.

Giveaway!!  Betsy will be giving away two paperback copies of her book, Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd edition. Enter to win on the Homeschooling Upper Grades landing page!

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Betsy is a veteran homeschool blogger who writes at BJ's Homeschool blog about Frugal Resources, high school, college, and more.  Join her on BJ's Facebook, and don't forget to follow her on BJ's Homeschool - Pinterest.  

Betsy enjoys going on nature trips with her family, and lots of photography outings in the country with her daughter.  They live in WA state, with two adorable cats.