The Learning Umbrella

In our strangely overlapping homeschool efforts of the moment, my sister went in for testing at the community college yesterday.  Even though we are still not done with middle school (see post two days ago), we’re also looking at some college.  Does this make us crazy?  Maybe a little bit, in a good way.

Her test results gave her a huge boost, and she’s super excited about the classes available to her.  She tested very well in math, and can take a 100 level math class.  Her english test scores weren’t as good, and she’d have to take some high school level english classes.  The combined scores were good enough to admit her as a dual enrollment student (in other words, a high school student taking a few college classes at the same time), and she can take 100 level survey classes.  She briefly talked with a counselor, and was advised to take as many survey courses as she could, given her age and time to decide what’s she interested in studying.  My advice, on the other hand, is to pick just one class that looks like it will be interesting and fun, and take that over the summer with our homeschool planned around it.  This particular community college has a lot of online courses, and that will be what she starts with.

The reason we are over at the college this early (she is only 14), is that my and my brother’s experiences at college have shown us that you don’t really need to “prepare” for a lot of college classes.  You just need to go and start taking them, and a lot of what the community college offers duplicates what you could get in high school.  We won’t use the college for everything - for one thing that would be too expensive right now.  When we can do history for free, using the library for books, why spend $100’s on it?  She’s not “going to college” right now.  She’s just using the resource along with our homeschooling high school.  The really nice thing that I found was that if you have some college credit, your high school diploma (or lack there of in some people’s eyes) just isn’t an issue anymore.

The community college dual enrollment makes the most sense if you plan on tranferring to a state college or university later.  It doesn’t make sense if you want to apply to your “dream” college somewhere far from where you live and hope to get a scholarship, etc.  My cousins went that route from homeschooling, so I know it’s possible.  I just don’t think J. is going to be able to do that, with the realistic amount of financial support for college available to her.  Those scholarships usually only cover the first 1 or 2 years of college, and they don’t cover everything (like room and board).  In my family, you’d better plan on living at home during college, working while you go to school, and going as cheap as you can.  This is the reality of divorced parents and a large family.

But hey, she’s only 14!  There’s still so much time to worry about these things.  The really cool thing right now, is that she got a boost of confidence from the testing, and she’s actually excited about taking classes.  That’s wonderful, and it’s given the entire educational situation a kick of energy.  She’s proud of herself, and I’m proud of her too!