Earning College Scholarships!

Your child is homeschooling high school and the college years are fast approaching! College tuition seems to be climbing exponentially and earning those college scholarships is even more important than ever! The first thing that you can do to put your children into position for merit based scholarships is to seek a rigorous curriculum for the high school years.

Most colleges want to see four years of English, three to four years of math, three to four years of social studies, three years of science, two to three years of the same foreign language, two years of P.E., one year of fine art, and electives to add up to 24 credits.

This course outline will get you into college. What about how to get big college scholarships to help you through college? The basic, 24 credits plan is NOT your plan for big scholarships. In order to get a big scholarship, you have to exceed this strategy.

Make sure that you meet the highest possible criteria in every single area, and exceed for some of them. In your student’s area of interest, you may exceed it by far. I have helped clients that have four credits of music per year because that’s their area of strength. Make sure that you meet the minimum in each of these areas, but also that you have penetrated those areas of strength to get more than the colleges are looking for and earn those college scholarships.

It’s not uncommon for students (whether public, private, or homeschooled) to have 35 or more credits. The 24 is your bare minimum if you need a big scholarship. Keep in mind that it’s a win-win situation; what could possibly go wrong if you do more than enough? Your children might come out better educated and better prepared for adulthood, but nothing bad is going to happen if they have more than enough credits. Be prepared and get those big scholarships! For more tips and tricks, check out my book, "The HomeScholar Guide to College Admission and Scholarships: Homeschool Secrets to Getting Ready, Getting In and Getting Paid".

Preparing Homeschool Records for College

It's important to get your homeschooler's work organized in preparation for college admission. When you organize your homeschool high school records, it’s a good idea to have a folder, binder, or notebook with subject tabs for each subject area that you cover in your homeschool for placing any papers that you can scrounge up. Don't be paralyzed by indecision when it's something that crosses the curriculum and dips into two subject areas. It doesn’t really matter where you put it; what matters is that you DO save it!

The benefit of using a notebook with a subject tab is so you can easily figure out what subjects you don’t have records for. You won't necessarily know in advance what colleges are going to request for admission. Some colleges will want to see a lab write up from a lab class. Others will want to see a math paper or a math test just to see it in the student's own handwriting. One of the colleges that my son applied to wanted a graded English paper. I’ve talked to a lot of colleges who are very frustrated at the state of public education. Kids can go through FOUR YEARS of English classes and come to college without the ability to read or write! They will want to verify that your student CAN.

I wrote a course description for each of the classes we completed as we homeschooled high school. Each course description was about a paragraph long. I also listed the activities we did and the books or curriculum used, and wrote every possible way that I evaluated them at the bottom.

It’s important to note that the way you evaluate your children is not ALL about testing. Testing is a very small piece of how we evaluate our children. The kids in public or private schools are not solely evaluated on tests. When they go to school, they might be given a grade that’s based on a variety of things, including attendance, homework completion, and participation in class. If you as a homeschooler are only giving a grade based on each of the chapter tests, you’re putting your student at a disadvantage against every other grade in the state.

If you haven't yet begun sorting through your homeschooler's work to have samples ready for colleges, don't panic, get started today! If you need help, you can find my Comprehensive Record Solution at www.TheHomeScholar.com.

Plan Ahead For College Scholarships

If your child wants to attend college after graduating from homeschool high school, money is probably one of the chief things on your mind. How do people pay for college?!  It’s not unusual for a private school to cost $40,000 a year or more, and public universities aren’t a lot cheaper because, unlike private schools, they don’t typically award as much scholarship money, so the final costs can be comparable. The best way to get college money is to plan ahead, and use a variety of different methods to meet your needs.

       

In addition to scholarships that individual universities award, there are private scholarships that you can apply for. These scholarships are often available all the way through the summer, so if you have a senior, they can still look for private scholarship money during the summer before they go off to college. Not all private scholarships are merit-based; some are awarded based on personal attributes.  For instance, our son won a scholarship for Italian Americans, just by being part Italian American!  There are scholarships specifically for girls, scholarships for students who are into the arts, and scholarships for students who want to travel overseas. If you look hard enough, you’ll probably find a scholarship for just about anything!

How do you find these scholarships?  The best way to search is to use college scholarship search engines.  Fastweb.com is one of the largest, and both of my sons found some excellent scholarships on this site.  Other sites you can try include Scholarships.com, finaid.com, and fastaid.com. 

In addition to searching for private scholarships, you can also ask a college for more money.  Sometimes they will give you information about other scholarships you can apply for, and sometimes they will have undesignated funds available for students who ask.  Most schools require incoming students to declare their intentions to attend by May 1^st, so if you contact the financial aid office after this date, they might have financial aid funds that are available because someone else turned that school down and didn’t accept the scholarships aid.  Another good time to ask for more financial aid is in August or September, when some students drop out of school at the last minute. That might free up more financial aid, and asking at this time of year might result in more aid for your child. Of course, a school won’t just give you more money because you ask them. You might have to demonstrate your need, and even then they may not have any more funds left, but it is worth asking. As with so many other things in life, if you don’t ask, you won’t know!

Planning ahead, especially during your child’s junior year of high school, is the best way to maximize your financial aid. Sometimes consulting your financial planner is worthwhile too, just to make sure you are not doing anything financially that will jeopardize your federal financial aid chances. Whatever you do, don’t wait until your child’s senior year to start thinking about paying for college! Plan ahead for success.