Homeschool High School Plans

For anyone wondering what different homeschool high school plans looks like, the best free online resource open for public viewing that I have found is a brochure published by HSLDA:

Developing a Plan for High School

There are three basic plans that HSLDA has laid out.

Students seeking college admissions should check the websites of the colleges they are interested in applying to. Some colleges have different and/or more strict academic course loads or additional standardized test scores required for homeschoolers compared to applicants who attended schools (than what this HSLDA brochure outlines).

Looking at what individual colleges want is an imperfect planning tool though, as the college admissions requirements can change year to year, such as going from requiring 2 SAT II tests to requiring 3 or 4, which would mean the applicant would scramble to take a crazy amount of tests in their junior and senior year.

It seemed to me, at first, that the homeschooler's best idea is to do more and to go above and beyond just to cover one's bases. However, overly preparing by taking rigorous high school level courses or AP (college level) courses and doubling up on standardized tests can over-burden a homeschooler to the point where it would be impossible for the homeschool student to have any time left to do something alternative or interesting that would utilize the freedom and different schedule that homeschoolers have.

Thus, my attempt to straddle the fence, to do what school kids do for courses and tests, plus do extra regular school-type work done just to prove that homeschoolers really do spend time learning the right stuff, and to still do cool alternative education things that homeschoolers can do seems impossible. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do it all. Or, if there can be enough time for the academics it leaves little time for extra-curricular's such as one serious sport and Boy Scouts. It also leaves little time for doing things to feed one's passion. (For more ideas about passion, see the book by Cal Newport How to be a High School Superstar. Then you will have even more to ponder.)

Even just doing the academic work and standardized tests required for admissions to top tier colleges can be so time-consuming that the homeschool team risks looking like a cookie-cutter regular high school student. If that was the goal should we not just send our kids to public high school and be done?

I don't have all the answers, but I've linked to that helpful grid that HSLDA has mapped out so you can ponder about this when considering what type of homeschool high school plan you want to create for your teen. (Maybe now you are as confused as I am.)