Homeschooling is usually based on parent’s preference, availability and dedication. A very small percentage of homeschooled kids do that by choice. Many who want to, can’t get homeschooled as parents don’t have luxury of free time or resources.
However, I’m not suggesting there aren’t brilliant/talented/driven/social students among them nor suggesting they won’t get accepted or courted by other colleges.
What I’m saying is as religious schools get a significant number of these students and are used to helping them, OP may want to explore that option or not. Most religious schools like Notre dam, Pepperdine, Baylor, Wheaton, SMU, TCU, Trinity, American, Liberty etc are very well-rounded high ranking academic institutions as well, not just limited to theology.
Just chiming in with our experience. Son was accepted to 6/9 colleges he applied to and waitlisted at 1. Of those where he was accepted, all were small LACs (non religious) save for one (university of Kansas). All schools offered merit aid, some quite generous. He did take 4 sections of foreign language (amounting to two years of study ) at our local community college but did also do a study abroad program involving the same language. He also took English, US history Econ/govt at the CC but did not take any math or science past 10th grade. That said he was applying to an arts/humanities major. I’d suggest checking ctcl.org as these off the beaten path colleges seem to be more open minded/less competitive as far as admissions go. Good luck!
Based on table 2 on page 8, in 2016, the most important / important reasons for home schooling (as stated by parents) were:
34% / 80% “You are concerned about the school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure?”
17% / 61% Dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools
16% / 51% Desire to provide religious instruction
11% / 22% Other reasons
6% / 39% Desire to provide a nontraditional approach to child’s education
6% / 20% Child has other special needs
6% / 14% Child has a physical or mental health problem
5% / 67% Desire to provide moral instruction
NA / 4% Child has a temporary illness
Because the number of home schoolers is small, anyone’s observation may be incorrectly based on a sample of home schoolers that is not representative of home schoolers overall. For example, these forums probably lead to self selection of home schoolers motivated heavily by academic reasons. But in some local areas, it may be that home schoolers are motivated heavily by non-academic reasons.
My daughter applied to medium-to-huge state and private universities. She was academically admitted to all of them and got merit aid from all as well. Some had a few extra hoops for homeschoolers to jump through, but honestly I think most colleges are used to getting homeschooled applicants these days and as long as you can put together a detailed application package, it’s not a barrier to enrollment in any way.
One exception I would say is that NY state schools have very specific requirements that are difficult to meet for homeschoolers, and nearly impossible to meet if you are OOS unless your student also takes the GED.