How can I go to college without finishing high school?
Very few colleges require a high school diploma. Homeschoolers and other non-traditional students are regularly admitted to colleges across the country, including Ivy League universities, UMass and other public universities, selective schools like Stanford and Sarah Lawrence, and even highly traditional, highly structured institutions like West Point and other U.S. Service Academies.
While you don’t need the high school diploma itself, you do need to show that you are capable of doing college-level work. But there are many ways to accomplish this.
Okay. How do I do that?
In some countries, college admission is determined by a single score on a single test. For better or worse, the U.S. system is much more expansive: American colleges look at “the whole student.” To that end, admissions offices will want to see evidence of the breadth, depth, and rigor of your academic work, your extracurricular activities and any leadership positions you’ve held, your work and volunteer history, your letters of recommendation, your standardized test scores, and at least one personal essay.
A good first step is to download the Common Application, including the homeschooling supplement if relevant, and familiarize yourself with its format. As you can see, most of the information you’ll need to include speaks to your experiences outside school. This allows students like you to shine, since being out of school gives you more time and flexibility to participate in more activities, and at a higher level, compared to students who are in school 30+ hours a week.
For your academic work, there are three basic approaches: 1) you can take classes online, at an alternative high school, or at any college that lets you enroll as a non-degree student, or 2) you can design your curriculum and create your own transcript, or 3) a combination of both.
College admissions offices are used to seeing this from homeschoolers and other non-traditional students, and may have a preferred format for presenting your transcript or portfolio. Contact schools individually to see what they recommend.
Which subjects should I study?
At minimum, you should take the equivalent of four years of English, three years of social studies, three years of science (including two years of lab science), at least two years of a single foreign language, Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. More selective schools will want to see four years of a foreign language, math through Calculus, and other challenging electives.
Use this framework as a guideline, but don’t let it limit you. High school students typically take the biology-chemistry-physics sequence in science, because that’s what schools offer. But you can take oceanography or astronomy and meet the same requirement. Maybe you took French in school but would rather study Japanese. One homeschooler we know spent a full year studying female authors of 19th century literature and wrote a research paper that she included with her (successful) college application.
Do I need a GED?
No. You need to develop a transcript and portfolio that describes the work you did during your high school years, but you don’t need to get a GED, HiSET, or any other high school equivalency certificate.
There are, however, some community colleges and job training programs that will accept you almost automatically if you have a GED. If you are in this situation, getting a GED might be the most straightforward way to move ahead.
If I start taking college classes now, how many classes should I take?
Taking two or three college classes communicates your ability to do college-level work, as well as your facility with “soft skills” like time management, punctuality, and the ability to meet deadlines.
Some students may wish to go beyond this. Each college is different, but generally, if you have completed more than one or two semesters of college credit (four to ten classes, or 12-30 credit hours), you’ll be applying to college as a transfer student, rather than as a freshman.
This has advantages and disadvantages. Things to consider:
If you apply as a transfer student, you do not have to submit your high school transcripts and you do not have to take the SAT. For students who want to put their high school record entirely behind them, this can be a good option.
Colleges usually reserve fewer places for transfer students, so the competition will be tighter. On the other hand, you’ll be competing with other transfer students, who’ve often left their first college because it was a poor fit. This can put you in a comparatively better position than if you were competing against other high school seniors with stellar records from highly-ranked high schools.
Transfer students can graduate from college sooner, which potentially saves thousands of dollars. But it also means you’ll miss the full four-year college experience.
If you begin college as a junior, you’ll probably have to declare a major immediately. If you decide to switch after two or three semesters – and this is common among 18-year-olds – you can do so, but you’ll lose the benefit of all the credit you’ve already earned and paid for. Going slowly gives you more time to make this important decision.
Some highly selective schools, like Harvard, and some quirky schools, like St. John’s, may not accept any transfer credit. Your college classes will still make your application more impressive, but don’t assume that all your work will transfer.
Actually I’m not that interested in college. (Or I’m interested in college, but not right now. Or I’d like to “unschool” college.) Do you only work with college-bound students?
No, Rise Out is happy to work with all students, regardless of their future goals. We stress college readiness because this is the goal for most students, and because we want to be very clear that leaving high school does not foreclose college as an option. But if you’d like to go in another direction, great! The Alternatives to College page on this web site is a good place to start.
Photography credit: Laura Fokkena