Every year homeschoolers are admitted to hundreds of colleges in at least five countries. Those who prepare thoroughly can be admitted with full scholarships at those selective colleges that some parents daydream about their children attending. Read on to find out which colleges have admitted homeschooled children, and continue to the linked subpages to find out more about how to get into the college of your choice.
More than 1,000 schools of higher education appear on this FAQ and its subpages, and links to over 980 college Web sites appear on these pages.
Entries followed by double exclamation points (!!) are those confirmed to have admitted at least one homeschooled applicant.
Asterisks (* *) following names of schools known to accept homeschoolers show how many printed sources
of college ratings mention those schools as "selective" or "good" colleges.
See subpages for other colleges A-G,
for other colleges H-S,
for other colleges T-Z,
and for open-admission colleges reported to have accepted home-schooled students.
Use this site's site search
feature to find out whether a college you know about is already listed, and on which page.
Selective Colleges Known to Have Admitted Homeschoolers
Entries followed by double exclamation points (!!) are those confirmed to have admitted at least one homeschooled applicant.
Asterisks (* *) following names of schools known to accept homeschoolers show how many printed sources
of college ratings mention those schools as "selective" or "good" colleges.
See subpages for other colleges A-G,
for other colleges H-S,
for other colleges T-Z,
and for open-admission colleges reported to have accepted home-schooled students.
It is reported that every one of the colleges listed in the various subpages of this FAQ has offered admission to at least one "home schooled" applicant (who may or may not have enrolled there). Those that I have confirmed as definitely having made a firm offer of admission to a homeschooled applicant are marked with double exclamation points ("!!") on the page where they are listed. Colleges known to recruit homeschoolers, those that describe admission procedures for home-schooled applicants in their application materials, or those whose admission officers indicate that they would admit homeschooled applicants are marked as "[yes]." As the reconfirmation process continues, the "!!" mark will take precedence over any other applicable mark describing a school's admission of homeschoolers. Below is information to help you pursue knowledge about homeschool college admission.
Admission Criteria
More than 600 open admission two-year colleges and more than 100 open admission four-year colleges in the United States are listed in The College Handbook 2000 at pages 1791-1794. Those known to have admitted homeschoolers are now listed on a page about open-admission schools for homeschoolers to save space on this main FAQ page.
College admission of applicants without high school diplomas has been going on for a long time. Harvard College specifically mentions that Harvard has never required a high school diploma for admission. Stanford University makes clear in a form letter to homeschooled applicants that a high school diploma is not necessary for admission. The United States Air Force Academy now has a specific Web page with answers to questions about homeschool admission procedures, a sign that it gets that kind of question quite often. More and more colleges are following their lead and mentioning admission policies for homeschoolers on-line or in printed materials.
A parenting resources Web site features an on-line article by Bruce Hammond that makes clear that many colleges think homeschoolers are "often better socialized and more mature than students in public schools." The pan-Canadian homeschooling resource site on the Web has a detailed page about Canadian Universities Accepting Homeschoolers with much information about specific admission requirements. If you want to get into higher education, home education in younger years is no barrier. A useful website about this issue is the Homeschool Success: High School Planning for College Admissions Success website kept by a friend of mine whom I met at conferences about education.
Colleges that accept homeschoolers rely on various materials in place of high school grades, including, perhaps, portfolios of student work, the applicant's personal essay, SAT I test or ACT test scores, grades from open admission community colleges, and personal recommendations. Challenging extracurricular activities are generally important for nontraditional applicants, and especially important for all applicants who hope to get scholarships. I have found out from telephone interviews with admission officers that admission criteria can vary quite widely. One Bible college admission officer told me that homeschoolers are welcomed by her school, but that applicants without a high school diploma are required to take the GED exam. Some quite selective colleges will admit anyone with scores on the SAT or ACT above a certain level, and will consider other applicants based on portfolios of the applicants' academic work. Cafi Cohen's Web site has especially detailed descriptions of some colleges' admission procedures that I won't duplicate here; her site is very helpful.
Other Pages of This FAQ
Feel free to browse the other pages of the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ, besides this main page, for more detailed information.
The overall structure of the FAQ is like the outline below:
Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ (Guide to Selective College Admission for Home-schooled Applicants) [this page]
A guide to selective colleges that admit homeschooled applicants, with other college information for families.
Colleges (A-G) (two-year and four-year) with neither open admission nor highly selective admission policies reported to have admitted homeschooled applicants.
Colleges (H-S) (two-year and four-year) with neither open admission nor highly selective admission policies reported to have admitted homeschooled applicants.
Colleges (T-Z) (two-year and four-year) with neither open admission nor highly selective admission policies reported to have admitted homeschooled applicants.
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1859)
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