This article offers some good advice to homeschoolers.
Homeschooling and Applying to College

Colleges receive increasing numbers of applications from homeschooled students each year. There are many ways in which homeschooled applicants can utilize their experience outside a traditional learning system to craft an impressive and attractive application.

LEVERAGING YOUR HOMESCHOOL EXPERIENCE

More here.

Homeschoolers should use their uniqueness to build their portfolio and transcript.  In my experience with our youngest, we found our admission materials and format were much different than our homeschooling friends admitted into the same program.  Which fits into the fact our kids had different styles of learning, while heading towards the same path.  Colleges and universities seem highly attracted to homeschoolers.

PBS’s Ten Steps to College By Howard and Matthew Greene

HEM’s Fly-Fishing to College The Value of Uniqueness vs. Orthodoxy By Alison McKee

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost

South Jersey’s Moorestown Sun posted an article about the accomplished Snell brothers.

Homeschooled teen to graduate from college By Kristina Scala

The Snell boys were homeschooled by their parents, Charlie and Lori Snell.

When homeschooling their sons, Lori said she created curriculums based off their interests.

Ryan’s older brothers moved on to Ivy League schools, and Ryan will shortly follow depending on what school he decides to attend.

They volunteered tutoring skills, while their parents made sure the boys followed their interests:

Lori said she wanted to make sure her boys were learning about things they enjoyed. While Ryan’s interest is in graphic design, Tom enjoys math while Jake is interested in science.

Interest-led learning seems to have worked wonderfully well for this family.

The Boston Globe posted an article about a talented Florida basketball player moved to a colder climate for college and basketball.Northeastern’s Quincy Ford a home-schooled self starter By Michael Whitmer

So when Ford initially walked into that Natural Disasters class, anxiety crept in, because there were important decisions to make — where to sit? what notes to take? — and unpleasant scenarios to consider. What if the teacher didn’t like him? What if he wasn’t prepared to be a college student?

This is an interesting Texas story about two people and two achievements after home education.  The article relates the athlete’s community college life and also passes along her coach’s educational history. (more…)

9NEWS.com posted a video of an Aurora, Colorado homeschooling family.

Family of 7 kids finds a way to homeschool, attend college

The Henderson family likes to do things a little differently than most. Not only does Janelle Henderson have to keep up with the whereabouts of all seven kids, she homeschooled all of them.

“I’ve been homeschooling for 21 years now,” Janelle said. “There was a time where I worked all night and came home and homeschooled my kids in the day.”

Never  a dull moment, Janelle Henderson is also working on her mechanical engineering master’s degree.

Homeschooling, community college aided high-achieving Moorestown family By Susan Snyder
Philadelphia Inquirer

[Father] Charlie said they [3 homeschooled sons] weren’t specifically seeking the Ivy League.

“The real issue is finding a good fit, and that’s what we were able to do with the older two sons so far, with academics as well as extracurriculars,” he said, noting that Jake was captain of Yale’s skeet and trap team and Tom a “walk-on” to Harvard’s fencing team.

Ryan said it was “nerve-wracking” when he began taking college classes at 14. He wasn’t sure how people would react, but he quickly became comfortable. He decided to tutor, he said, because he wanted to help others.

HB 1128 is scheduled for the House Education Hearing tomorrow. This South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship legislation would change requirements where there is a higher potential for homeschool eligibility.  The bill has six Representative sponsors and two Senate sponsors. It seems the perspective varies as to whether the lack of set public high school coursework should allow more “certain students to participate in the opportunity scholarship program under certain circumstances”.

American Clarion - with a mind to American principles and the Judeo-Christian values that made this country the greatest in human history - reports:

South Dakota Homeschool Scholarship Eligibility by Bob Ellis

HB 1128 would change the ACT requirement so that homeschoolers simply have to meet the same requirement as all other kids.

Indications are that the Department of Education opposes passage of this bill, likely because of the usual establishment bigotry against homeschooling. Education bureaucrats indicate they don’t believe that homeschool students have done the work, yet the ACT is a very objective test which reveals whether the student knows the material or not.

The Madville Times - From Madison to Spearfish: real liberal media for the great state of South Dakota - has a different perspective:

House Bill 1128 lowers that ACT standard to a 24, the same score that all other students must get to qualify for the Opportunity Scholarship.

In other words, HB 1128 sponsors Rep. Lance Russell (R-30/Hot Springs), Sen. Tim Begalka (R-4/Clear Lake), and their six co-sponsors, all conservative Republicans, want to effectively repeal the course requirements. They want to dumb down the Opportunity Scholarship.

The comments are good reads.

In this first of three posts, titled Compelled to Attend, HEM’s Road Less Travelled columnist, Linda Dobson, is revisiting her first book, The Art of Education: Reclaiming Your Family, Community and Self, published by Home Education Press in 1995. An excerpt:

And if colleges and universities ignore the true meaning of education and accept indoctrination as their function in society, what then is the purpose of all the years of schooling that lead up to college, starting at the tender age of five or, in many cases today, even younger?

Continue reading at the link above.

It has taken ten years for fact to overcome perception but as of August two important issues for Homeschool Families have been clarified. This year’s revision of the “Federal Student Aid Handbook: Vol. 2010-2011″ can be accessed on line.

In the first volume, chapter one, home school students are stated as eligible for FSA funds provided their education at the secondary level was treated by their state law as a home or a private school. Learn more at the link above.

Homeschool advocate Patrick Farenga writes about a message he’s carried “for decades” from John Holt, founder of the groundbreaking Growing Without Schooling:

“…the message of John’s that echoes more today than ever for me is this: college is among the chief enslaving institutions of America.

“When Holt said this I believe he was thinking about graduates who spent time and money on degrees to work in fields they no longer enjoy but are now trapped by their mortgages and loans into staying. Now this critique is gaining traction outside the circle of alternative schooling, probably because the cost of higher education is so out of alignment with its benefits. Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom is we must send our kids to college so they can make more money than high school graduates do.”

Patrick makes several very good points in his post, and points his readers to further good reading.