Turning College Research Into a Homeschool Project
By a local homeschooling parent
When my daughter was in the 10th grade, I realized that we could better focus the remaining years of her high school education if she had some idea of what college she wanted to attend, and what she wanted to do for a career.
She had no trouble with the career part. She was already quite clear that she wanted to be a Nurse. But the college part was a dim reality that seemed way off in the distance.
The logical choice was for her to use the Commissioner's Scholarship and complete the Pre-Nursing program at Garrett College, and then transfer to Allegany, since the program is set up to transfer there. But Allegany's program was only an AA degree, and I really wanted to encourage her to complete a Bachelor's before starting her career, as I had heard that many times once Nurses start working, it is hard for them to go back to complete the Bachelor's.
The other thing that we really wrestled with is the concept that if she went to a Christian college, she may have more opportunites for missions work and other Christian clubs. I also felt like we had spent thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to provide her with a Christian education, so why in the world would we confine her to a secular education now, particularly with a career field that is so drastically different within the two college systems.
Ultimately, it was our daughter's choice, but she had no idea where she wanted to go to college. So, we felt it was time for her to take a serious look at the options, and think about working toward a plan.
Making College Research a Field Trip
We were in need of a few field trips anyway, so we came up with the idea to combine research with field trips to some of the college choices.
First, I had my daughter pick out ten colleges she thought she may really like to attend, and research them. I had her study their websites, call them for more information, and search the web for reviews. The reviews proved quite valuable because colleges are very good at marketing themselves to look better than they really are.
After all the research, I had her narrow her choices down to a few colleges that she felt strongly about, and we began making plans to visit them in person.
We found that many of the colleges had special days when students could stay in the dorms, attend classes, and eat at the cafeteria to see what life is really like as a student. That was a great added benefit, because most of those overnight offerings were either free or of a low cost.
I would recommend that you start this project in the fall, because it sometimes takes a few months of planning to get into the college weekends.
We attended each of the colleges on different days so that we could focus on just that one college per trip. And, we went as a family so that our younger children could benefit as well, from both seeing college life, and any other learning opportunities the excersions provided. (Families have to stay off campus, though.)
Colleges May Not Be What They Seem
It was quite the "eye-opener". The fact was, most of the colleges were nothing like the information that we had gotten about them from the college websites. I could write another whole story on that issue.
The biggest shock was the fact that most of the colleges that were considered "conservative Christian" were anything but Christian in both their academics and their operations. The things we saw going on in a couple of the campus' would make most parents cringe, even if they weren't looking for a Christian option.
One of the colleges, which is considered highly "conservative", from a conservative denomination, actually told us they didn't believe Jesus Christ was God. In fact, they told us "all gods are equal in their policy, except Jesus Christ, who they said was no more than a good teacher." I won't go into detail about what we saw on the campus, but our family unanimously voted to leave before our day was even done. I would encourage parents that if you are looking for a Christian college, ask them to show you their "Statement of Faith" and ask what they believe. If they can't seem to find their "Statement of Faith" and they dance all around any direct questions, take a much closer look. Also, if all of the staff look over their shoulders to see who is watching every time you ask them a question, its a big "red flag" that you should do some more digging. (We actually had that happen.)
On a side note: Staff from that same college obtained private contact information from our 15-year-old daughter so they could contact her without our knowning about it. After our visit, they tried numerous times to contact her privately, telling her that they wanted to talk to her without our knowledge. She was very freightened, and told us what was happening. I am sharing this because I think parents need to know that things like that can happen. Some of the things said to her by the college were very inappropriate.
We were getting a bit discouraged after some of the visits, but the good news is that my daughter finally did select a college. And, amazingly, it wasn't at all the one she thought she was going to pick before the trips.
What We Gained From the Project
It made things ever so much easier when planning out her last two high school years, because we knew what classes she needed to take and what things she needed to focus on to get good scholarships.
We also had some fun family days traveling to the colleges, in addition to creating several highly educational field trips, as our younger children visited campus museums; classes; and exhibits, and simply learned about college life in general.
After the trips to the colleges, I had my daughter make a scrapbook, with the pictures she took and other information she learned about each college, as part of one of her homeschool classes.
It was an excellent project, and I would highly recommend it. For the best results, I would suggest doing it in the tenth grade or earlier because if your child picks out a college, you can place your child in dual enrollment classes over the course of the next two years that will apply to his/her degree specifically.
Since I made some negative comments, I didn't want to name all of the colleges we attended in this story, but I am including pictures of a couple of the better ones. If their are parents who want details on any of the colleges we visited, we will be happy to share. This website does not post contact information for families, but if someone is interested he/she can send an email to the website, and they will forward it to me.
I will give a plug to Liberty University. We put that one on the list simply because we were seeing another college in that direction, so we spent the night in a hotel and attended Liberty University the next day. We honestly were very impressed by it and its strong Christian stance.
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