suzette

Hi, I have another question I'd like feed back on please. My kids are ages 13, 11, 8 & 3. My question is: Is it realistic to think a kid can go to college without ever following a curriculum or taking formal classes? My 13 yr. old doesn't see the need to waste time on highschool when she could just start college. She's thinking about taking the GED and starting community college at 16. The larger part of me thinks this is entirely possible but then there is a smaller part that wonders. I have a Masters degree and did fine in college but I wonder was that only because I had taken classes beforehand? I don't want to set her up to fail. Any input would be appreciated and considered.

Thank you,
Suzette Dufresne

Sandra Dodd

-=-My question is: Is it realistic to think a kid can go to college
without ever following a curriculum or taking formal classes?-=-

Sure. Lots have.

Don't rush her, though. Don't spend the time and energy you have now
on fretting about the future. It messes up the present, which in turn
messes up the future.

http://sandradodd.com/teen
http://sandradodd.com/teens

Lots of stories there of teens doing, being.

Sandra

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Joyce Fetteroll

On Mar 2, 2010, at 10:48 AM, suzette wrote:

> Is it realistic to think a kid can go to college without ever
> following a curriculum or taking formal classes?

Unschooling wasn't a problem for my daughter who took some college
classes for fun starting at 11. Her prior classroom experience was 2
months of 2nd grade and a fair number of art classes.

I suspect your daughter's confidence that she can do it says a lot
more than examples of other kids who've done it, though! :-) If it's
something *she* wants to do, she'll figure out a way to make it work.

(In some states there's a minimum age for the GED probably to prevent
kids from bailing on school early and taking the GED instead.)

Joyce

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Chris Sanders

> Is it realistic to think a kid can go to college without ever
> following a curriculum or taking formal classes? My 13 yr. old
> doesn't see the need to waste time on highschool when she could just
> start college. She's thinking about taking the GED and starting
> community college at 16.
>
>

The short answer is yes, it is realistic to think a kid can go to
college without having followed a high school curriculum or classes.
Many have including my son.

Are you asking if a college would accept her or if she could
successfully do the coursework in college having not done high school?

If you're asking about whether or not colleges accept unschooled
students, then yes, many do. How you go about gaining admission will
depend on the individual college. Many community colleges allow teens
to take courses with school/parental permission. Ours required my son
take a placement exam first. He started taking classes when he was 16
- first one course, then three, then two again, and now at age 18 he's
a full-time student with plans to transfer to a state college as a
junior in 2011. His admission to the state college is guaranteed as
long as he keeps his GPA above 2.5.

If you're asking about whether or not your daughter can be expected to
succeed in college - that depends on a lot of things that only she and
you will know but like Joyce said, if she's motivated to do it
already, then I doubt she'd let anything stop her. But she's only 13
-- that's awfully young to be planning out her college career. Just
focus on enjoying her youth and having lots of fun together.

All the hype kids in school get these days about how important it is
to their future success at college, to focus so heavily on
preparations, is one big scare tactic, in my not so humble opinion.
I've never heard of an unschooled kid who wanted to go to college and
couldn't or didn't succeed at it.

Off to complete our FAFSA!

Chris in IA

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Jenny Cyphers

"My question is: Is it realistic to think a kid can go to college without ever following a curriculum or taking formal classes? My 13 yr. old doesn't see the need to waste time on highschool when she could just start college. She's thinking about taking the GED and starting community college at 16."

I think more and more kids are doing this actually! Even without a GED, taking placement tests and then moving on to college courses. I met a girl at the bookstore the other day and for some reason she felt very chatty with me and was telling me all about her experience of having just dropped out of high school, taking her GED and starting a few courses in the local community college. She took her GED the moment she turned 16, which is the youngest you can take it where I live, that was last Nov. and now she's taking college courses and really enjoying them. She said the kind of information that she was getting from her college classes was actually meaningful and interesting, where as her experience of high school was one of sheer boredom.

She also said that the GED was pretty easy and that the practice test was actually harder and more stressful than the real test. She also stated that she was finding that most of the people that she's meeting that have diplomas probably couldn't pass the GED.

Something else to think about, is that sometimes 13 yr olds change their minds by the time they are 16, or "college" age. While I'm sure there are some 13 yr olds that are concerned about what they will do in the future, that hasn't really been the case with my daughter. She lives very much in the now, learning as she goes along doing meaningful things relevant to her life. I don't see that changing and if going to college will add, in a meaningful way that is relevant to her life, then she'll probably go. There have been plenty of unschooled kids that have taken formal classes and have done just fine, so I'm not worried about that, especially since I know and can see how wonderfully competent my daughter is.

Sometimes, focusing too much on the future, causes parents to lose focus on what is happening right now.





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Sandra Dodd

-=-I think more and more kids are doing this actually! Even without a
GED, taking placement tests and then moving on to college courses. I
met a girl at the bookstore the other day and for some reason she felt
very chatty with me and was telling me all about her experience of
having just dropped out of high school, taking her GED and starting a
few courses in the local community college. She took her GED the
moment she turned 16,-=-

When I was 18 or 19 my sister dropped out of high school (or was
thrown out; the assistant principal met her in the hall, so it was
kind of a tie). She was sixteen. My dad asked me to try to get her
into the university where I was. They wouldn't take her, but one of
the state universities would, and even though I was a kid too, I
figured out what she needed (an ACT test) and arranged to get that all
taken care of, dorms and all. That was in the early 1970s in New
Mexico and possibly the fad for all things alternative helped, but yes
it can be done, and it's not even new, and it doesn't even require
having been a homeschooler in good standing.

Sandra

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Kristi

In 1991 a close friend of mine, 14 at the time, decided to drop out of Los Alamos High School in New Mexico. She got her GED within a year. She worked at a local retail store, a hobby shop, and pursued her own interests at the time. When She was 16 she followed my DH (then my BF) and I to WA state where we were going to college. She got a great job in a local, organic bakery that most of the college students would've killed for...but she got the job, and they didn't. When she was 18 she started taking courses at the local community college. She transferred her credits to The Evergreen State College when she was 19, and had already qualified to be an in-state resident, thus lower tuition. At 22 she got her BS from Evergreen, and then went to work in China as an English teacher for 2 years. At 26 she applied to and got accepted at Bastyr University of Naturopathy. Now, she is 35, happily married, a Doctor of Naturopathy, and running a healthy and vibrant practice in Seattle. She is one of my greatest inspirations and a perfect example of how kids don't need school to succeed and do what they want to do.