submitted by Ann Vetter
My daughter is eighteen and I just went through the college admissions process with her. We have homeschooled since she was nine and unschooled since she was eleven. We found this about community colleges... all you have to do is enroll and pay. I did have to contrive a transcript for her, and we did have some fun with that, but it wasn't really used for anything. They just needed to have one on file.
My daughter is eighteen and I just went through the college admissions process with her. We have homeschooled since she was nine and unschooled since she was eleven. We found this about community colleges... all you have to do is enroll and pay. I did have to contrive a transcript for her, and we did have some fun with that, but it wasn't really used for anything. They just needed to have one on file.
For our state university, they required an ACT or SAT score. She wanted to try it, she did fine, could have been admitted, but decided she didn't want to start at such a large school. In fact, she has decided not to go to school at all for now.
Why?
Well, all these years as an unschooler she has played around with all sorts of audio equipment, wrote and recorded her own songs, volunteered in professional studios, and even worked for them part time on an as needed basis. It turns out that a lot of what she learned is much sought after by telecommunications companies. She heard of a job opening, applied, got hired, and is currently being trained by them for free. It is her aptitude and that she was able to explore her interests freely that helped her get a cool job, not college.
So will she ever go to college? Did unschooling perhaps keep her out of college?
My answer is, who cares? She's happy. BTW, she's making an amazing amount of money for an eighteen year old, more than many college grads start out making. The important thing is that she is doing something she enjoys and if later on she decides she would enjoy something else even more, she can pursue that. No doors are closed to her. I wonder if the communications company would have been as impressed with a science class as they were with the real world stuff that she had actually done???
I know one thing, I'm sure glad I didn't invest myself in prepping her for college when she was ten. I do wish I had know about unschooling from the start.
Why?
Well, all these years as an unschooler she has played around with all sorts of audio equipment, wrote and recorded her own songs, volunteered in professional studios, and even worked for them part time on an as needed basis. It turns out that a lot of what she learned is much sought after by telecommunications companies. She heard of a job opening, applied, got hired, and is currently being trained by them for free. It is her aptitude and that she was able to explore her interests freely that helped her get a cool job, not college.
So will she ever go to college? Did unschooling perhaps keep her out of college?
My answer is, who cares? She's happy. BTW, she's making an amazing amount of money for an eighteen year old, more than many college grads start out making. The important thing is that she is doing something she enjoys and if later on she decides she would enjoy something else even more, she can pursue that. No doors are closed to her. I wonder if the communications company would have been as impressed with a science class as they were with the real world stuff that she had actually done???
I know one thing, I'm sure glad I didn't invest myself in prepping her for college when she was ten. I do wish I had know about unschooling from the start.
"...when I knew better, I did better"
~ Maya Angelo
