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| Homeschooling afternoon (Photo: hbakkh) |
If you plan to homeschool high school soon, it's time to pay attention to your student's college preparations, and get them ready for college level work by the time they graduate.
There's a lot of planning at this stage, including selecting courses, keeping good records, and paying attention to important testing dates.
One of the most important courses to pay attention to in high school is foreign language. Colleges like to see two or three years of a single language, so if your student doesn't start in their Freshman year, they'll need to start in their Sophomore year. Don't wait until Junior year to begin!
It's also very important to plan some rigorous classes. That doesn't mean that in Freshman year your student must do calculus. It means that you try to keep your child challenged. Make sure to give them classes that aren't easy. That doesn't mean they should be overwhelming, just not all easy.
Keep it rigorous and keep them challenged. Plan your courses, so you'll know exactly what courses you'll cover over the four years of high school.
Early high school is the time to think about taking the PSAT for practice. Sophomore year is a good time to take the PSAT just for fun. It doesn't count for National Merit Scholarship (that's Junior year), it's just for practice.
The PSAT is only offered during October, so register for the test by September. It's easy to register, just call your local public or private high school, and tell them you'd like to know if you can register your child to take the PSAT at their school.
If, for some reason, the school says no, call the next closest high school. Most of them are very welcoming. The College Board is the company that oversees the PSAT, and they encourage public schools to provide the tests to homeschooled children.
Make sure as you begin high school that you're keeping good records. Keep a good reading list and make sure that you get your transcript done each year. Sometimes you might be asked to provide a transcript when you least expect it.
For instance, when your child starts driving, and you want to get the Good Student Discount, the insurance company will probably ask for a transcript. This can save you hundreds of dollars, so make sure you have it ready.
Course descriptions are important to begin writing early. Don't be intimidated, they're just a paragraph about what the class was like. You're perfectly capable of writing them, but if you put it off until later, like until the first day of senior year, it will be really hard to come up with four years of course descriptions all at once. Work on them one year at a time so that you'll only have a few each year.
Course descriptions and homeschool records are so important! If you'd like more help, watch my FREE webinar, Homeschool Records that Open Doors, where you'll learn the secrets of creating admission and scholarship winning homeschool records.
For even more help, my Total Transcript Solution will show you how to create an AMAZING homeschool transcripts that will impress the colleges! For more information, click here.
Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, is a homeschool high school expert. Both her two boys earned full-tuition scholarships at their first choice university. Learn how she did it on her website and look for The HomeScholar on Facebook!
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