@albert69 Thank you very much. I agree on going to CC. I need a GPA to give to a college. I need ECs. I most of all need to be prepared for a big university. I think I might do 3 classes, but I’ll pick easier stuff for the first semester- it’s probably best that I work up towards it so I don’t screw up my grades from the start, like you said.
Thank you, everyone; this is far more helpful than what the advisors have given me.
@Donutholez You misunderstand my post. I wasn’t even thinking in terms of standardized testing. I think that is the absolute lowest hurdle you have to conquer.
Taking a random list of classes that you think you need is the wrong approach. You need to understand exactly what classes you need to take in order to even be considered as a transfer student at any school and every school you are considering. (and you should just eliminate most public OOS schools b/c you will not be able to afford them). Some schools have articulation agreements where students who have completed a specific “pre” program opens up the doors for transferring. You should contact the admissions (not physics) dept at schools and speak to whoever is in charge of transfer applications. Just taking a list of math and CS classes and then applying as a transfer student is probably not the best approach.
I would also google “non-traditional college student” and research what you find.
My other point is that if you opt to pursue colleges like UChicago, based on the approach you are describing it will take you about 7 yrs to earn your BS and then you need to add yrs to earn your PhD on top of that.
I actually disagree that you need to attend a CC right now. Instead of attending a CC, you could self-study all the classes you want (that way you can continue to work)—MIT opencourseware, Coursera, Khan Academy, etc are all free resources that you can use to learn the material you say you need to learn to fill in your gaps. (For example, it would make more sense for you to self-study alg, geo, alg 2, high school level chem, physics independently than pay to study them at a CC.) Once you have achieved a level where you feel confident of studying at a pre-cal level math and entry level science, then it would make more sense to make a decision as to whether or not you want to pursue a CC or a 4 yr university. Then either take the GED or enroll at a CC.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science
https://www.khanacademy.org/math
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00sc-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-spring-2011/
Here is an example of what I am referring to as needing for transferring:
Note: Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences applicants who have earned 48 or more credits will be expected to have satisfactorily completed one college level English composition course and a college level algebra class (or higher level math) with a ‘C’ grade or better. Students who have not completed these requirements will be reviewed on an individual basis.
A note for community college transfer applicants to the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and the College of General Studies:If you are currently enrolled in an Associate’s Degree program or taking courses at a community college, we normally expect you to complete two full years of transferable coursework before you enroll at the University of Pittsburgh. However, if you completed a strong college preparatory curriculum in high school with grades and test scores (SAT or ACT) that would have made you admissible as a freshman, then it is likely that we may offer you admission even if you have completed less than two years of coursework, provided that your college-level work demonstrates academic success.
MIT is less inclined to rely on scores then CAlTEch. They also have students with all kinds of unusual backgrounds. Unusual is typical at MIT.
That is exactly what I’m doing. I’m currently working through ALL of my high school work up to Algebra 2 with Khan Academy. I’m self studying for a year before CC. What you are misunderstanding is that I WANT to go to CC for classes that are of eventual interest to the career I want, not the school I want. I am very aware that it will be 7 years to earn my BS.
Consider me NOT a transfer student. Consider my CC experience supplemental.
Thing is you can’t NOT consider yourself a transfer student. The minute you start taking CC classes, you automatically become classified as a transfer student. Those courses aren’t just personal preference and supplemental experiences. They impact HOW you apply. There are going to be specific guidelines you need to follow. Pitt requires English comp. Other schools might require other specific courses. Some are going to require a certain number of hours. Some are going to want an AA. Knowing those things ahead of time will save you headaches later on.
The way I apply later will be as a transfer student. Whether credits transfer or not, I don’t care. Most likely they won’t because they fall under a different category than Physics. What you’re trying to tell me is that if I don’t complete certain courses at CC, I won’t be accepted because I’d be a transfer student without any applicable credit? Why would I not just take the courses need at the 4 year, then?
Say I take 21 credits in programming classes, 6 in Parametric Modeling, 6 in CAD, and 18 in advanced math. (If I’m counting 3 credits per class)
Then I transfer to a 4-year. Would I not just do my two years of gen-ed then declare my major for a total of 4 years?
I really don’t know how to explain this any clearer. It isn’t that you wouldn’t be accepted b/c you wouldn’t have any applicable credit, it is that you won’t be accepted because you didn’t meet their transfer requirements. No, you can’t take that list of courses and then just expect to apply everywhere and be accepted as a transfer student. That is why I have said you need to understand the process before you start and make sure you understand what you need to do. It isn’t enough to fill your educational gaps and take classes that interest you, NOT if you want to be accepted at the 4 yr college of your choice. You have to meet THEIR requirements.
For example, VT clearly lays out main expectations:
I looked at UChicago’s transfer site and it is incredibly vague. While the website might be vague, the admissions committee won’t be. It is why I suggested contacting the person in charge of admissions at the schools you are interested in to make sure you understand what you need to take in order for you to even be a viable candidate.
AH I see what you are saying now. I was a little confused because I thought you only had to be moving from another school to be considered a transfer student, rather than you had to complete certain classes to transfer. I did misunderstand your other post, I apologize. If that’s the case, I suppose my only option (If I contact a few schools on their requirements and it is all as you mentioned) is to take gen-ed at CC then transfer and do two years at a larger school. I unfortunately do need a GPA and ECs to even be considered, being that I have no educational background. On top of that, if my diploma turns out to be legitimate (Still working on finding that out) it is actually not legal to get both a GED and a diploma in Pennsylvania. So if I were left with no GED, no ECs, no GPA, and just an SAT score, I’d be screwed.
Also I just read this section in UChicago’s transfer page:
“Transfer students must attend the College for at least two academic years (six quarters) and complete the Core curriculum and at least half of their major with us. Tentative evaluations of transfer credit are conducted by the Office of the Dean of Students and mailed out over the summer to enrolling students.”
So it sounds like they might be more open with what I hope to do. I’ll contact them tomorrow and update, since this is really a bizarre problem to figure out.
I know nothing about homeschooling in CA, but I do know that the way you discuss your diploma makes no sense to me. I have graduated kids from from our homeschool in 3 different states. Their diplomas would be nothing more than something I designed in publisher and printed off my computer. No one has ever asked to see their diplomas and I doubt they ever will bc they graduated from an unaccredited high school, our home. What has mattered are their transcripts. Again, they are created by me in excel and printed off my computer. It is not an issue bc my children have numerous points of verification for their academic achievements. My understanding (though I am out of my league on this one bc this is only based on reading about situations and no real experience) is that the GED is a way of dealing with not having appropriate high school transcripts. The GED is supposed to verify the equivalent of high school education competency.
Since you lived in CA when you supposedly graduated from high school, CA law is what impacts your graduation requirements, not PA. But, your situation is more realistically this–You don’t have high school transcripts. Not having post-secondary institutions recognize your diploma is really a secondary issue. (For most homeschoolers, the issues are typically reversed. Most homeschoolers verify their transcripts by test scores via subject tests, dual enrollment, letters of recommendation, etc. and the transcripts verify the diploma.)
I have never heard of not being able to have a homeschool diploma and the GED. Many homeschoolers take the GED (that is why I have read about it.) If your diploma is accredited, that I have no idea about and then it is doubtful that it is simply a diploma mill bookstore creating a diploma. (A homeschooling diploma mill seems oxymoronic from my perspective, but I am clueless about CA law and every state is different.)
Do you have high school transcripts?
I haven’t seen your response to the idea of the Ada Comstock program at Smith. Can you look into it.
Take the classes you need- CCS also do remedial education. then, the classes you need to transfer ro various colleges. Basically they’ll want to see first year English, calculus, general physics, an art class, twoaocial science classes, one humanities, perhaps foreign language. With that and 2nd year physics you’d be good for any university I think.
I would spend a day with an adviser at a community college near you. CCs are designed exactly for people like you, who have suboptimal high school experiences but want to get an education. There are high school graduates who have huge gaping holes in their education too. They also need to figure out the diploma vs GED thing, figure out how to place you correctly, give you advice on matriculation agreements, etc.
The rest of this is not to be discouraging. It is great to look at the moon and say, I will go there. It is foolish to build a paper airplane and figure out it is not the correct type of craft.
So keep your dreams - but maybe increase their scope - but also concentrate on how you will get there.
Also, you do not mention finances, but if you need to subsidize basic life, you may need to find FA that includes housing and other costs. This would allow you to concentrate on academics. Sooner would be better than later, avoid college debt … all the time.
Physics is really a very difficult major … but you could get there. Or you may find, as you take more classes, that your muse is really in computer science (gaming in an alternate universe) or science fiction writing or something different.
In Physics of the type you would encounter at Caltech or U Chicago, you need to be standing on the shoulders of giants, in other words, learning everything to understand Newton through Einstein through today. There are no shortcuts to get the knowledge you need to make a discovery or new equations or any thing like that.
Honestly both these programs would have such competitive students that unless you are super advanced in 3 years, well, lots of people stay away from Caltech … Someone mentioned a non-traditional program at MIT, and that is a much bigger school with more varied offerings.
Personally, I would work on a path of CC->state 4-yr (flagship if possible) -> top rated graduate school. Pitt is by no means not serious. I think the Comstock program at Smith or some other 4 year private school programs may also work well for you. A LAC might provide you a more customized education that can keep filling in blanks in your prior rocky education.
At CC, you will likely be taking some remedial, pre-college classes, but get an A in all of them and you have many successes - learning the material to high 90%+ level, proving you are an A student with lots of potential, moving closer to your goals, and … well allowing you to show doubters that you are the one who is going to go from no highschool to PhD physicist to household Physics genius.
And at some point, shed the “no high school education”
Physics and calculus are tightly related, so you need to get your math level up to Calc1 before you can take any college level physics classes. This one is easy, the CC will have a raft of tests to place you properly in the standard math sequence. SAT math is really somewhere around Algebra, Geometry level. If you balk at taking something called pre-algebra, just do fantastic in that, talk to the professor, and they can move you up at a much accelerated rate.
Finding new equations to solve math is probably not the way to learn anything. Again, stand on the shoulders of giants, people from Summeria on have developed math techniques that are efficient and fairly easy to learn. If you have a different way, great, but learn the normal way too. You need to have lots of tools in your toolbox and using a paperclip to remove a screw will not work nearly as many times as that boring screwdriver from Sears.
I would also start taking some non-calculus based, non-physics major physics. You need to work through some basic concepts.
Also have them place you appropriately in other fields. Your writing is college level …
And wikipedia is your friend. Bohr’s equations are from a different Bohr and refer to oxygen uptake in the lungs. The Bohr model of the atom was invented in the late 1800s. Bohr and Einstein do not contradict each other.
As the late 1800s date tells you, if you try to invent something at this stage, without being on the shoulders of giants, you will likely just reinvent the wheel.
The community college library or a local university library would have more enlightened passers-by. You should try to get a good reading list of physics books more on your level. Per wikipedia, the Hawkings book you were reading was deemed unintelligible by Hawkings himself (and no, this is likely not because of your creativeness, but just lack of knowing what you do not know). Popular science magaizine might be a good start, or some on-line science journal written for, well, below college graduate level.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek
My homeschool experience was this:
For seven years my mother had me do under an hour of schooling a day. Most of the time, it would be fifteen minutes because she would just give me the teacher’s book and tell me that as long as I knew what the right answer was I would learn. She never taught me anything herself because she knew nothing. Most of my days were filled with going grocery shopping with her, going to church, and eventually going to my best friend’s home daily, though I was cut off from that because my mother didn’t like that she wasn’t christian. So for years, I just read books by myself. I have no idea where my mother turned grades into, if she did at all. I remember two different programs that we only stayed with for a very short period of time; the first was CHEP, which we used right after I was pulled from school. For the first year my mother was actually trying to homeschool us correctly and we did well. I’m not sure why we left that program, but soon after leaving my mother threw my brother back into the public system because he was so problematic. He went on to lead an awful life of constantly being suspended, failing classes, and eventually dropping out of school. It wasn’t his fault; my parents preferred christian counseling over ‘secular’ psychiatrists, and so he was never prescribed medication for his ADHD until much, much later. Anyways, I wasn’t allowed to return to school except for half a year at the beginning of high school. I did horribly as stated in the OP and I returned back to homeschooling. I remember doing nothing most of the days in middle school, and then in high school I was put into an online homeschool program for a short period-that lasted a few minutes a day because all it consisted of was multiple choice tests and an occasional meeting with an online instructor, and I remember doing horribly at that as well. I don’t know which program, if any I was in after that point. I just know that I spent far more time helping my mom with things than learning. The diploma I mentioned was as you said, just a print-up from some bookstore.
If there are transcripts, I don’t know where. I’d have to call the programs I remember and see if I have them; if I do they must be absolutely terrible.
@MYOS1634
I’m not too interested in Smith, personally. It could be great for some people, but I’ve ruled out women’s colleges for multiple reasons. I appreciate the info about core classes, though.
I don’t want you to be unsuccessful. Quite frankly, I don’t even care lol. But if you aren’t a top math student, you are not getting into CalTech. No other way around it. Not even sorry about it. But I’m glad that you’re open to the prospect of going to Chicago or Columbia. I’m glad those schools are good enough for you.
Framing an acceptance letter? Really? Your end goal shouldn’t be getting in. You should be aiming for actually getting a diploma. =)) I never said you shouldn’t apply. Knock yourself out. But I’m also not gonna come to a pity party and tell you that you will get in out of sympathy. Could you get in? Sure technically anything can happen. @bodangles @guineagirl96 Sorry for encouraging her to push herself further. I’ll make sure to encourage students to settle in the future 
@CaliCash Might want to read this entire thread again, because it was most definitely not “Will I get into CalTech?” You’re responding as if it had been. At this point, I’d “settle” for some basic comprehension skills. 
I specifically avoided asking your about your homeschooling experience b/c it sounds like you weren’t. You experienced educational neglect. They are are not the same thing. You don’t have transcripts, therefore you diploma is unaccredited. You have zero validation for having one.
Pickone1 offers excellent advice at the beginning of that post . The first issue to address is speaking to someone about your background and the GED. The next is to form a logical progression forward toward realistic goals. I think you need to seek out a professional who can give you solid guidance or you could very end up spinning your wheels and not end finding a successful path to your ultimate goals. My recommendation in terms of the professional help would be to find 2…one at your CC and one at your target transfer school …who can ensure that you are meeting the needs on both ends. But, I agree with Pickone1 that your goal should be an avg 4 yr school. There is absolutely zero shame or failure in going to a typical school for undergrad. (My physics geek took 5 semesters of cal up physics and 3 semesters of math beyond cal 1 and 2 in high school and is attending the University of Alabama. It is what we can afford and he is having a fabulous experience.)
@PickOne1 I find your post to be inspiring. I by no means underestimate physics and I currently have nothing but basic knowledge, if that. But I do know that I want to pursue it, and pursue it hard. My ideas may not be fully formed yet, but that’s why I need school. Mostly for the framework of an education (I can still continue to learn outside of the classroom).
By finding new equations, I suppose I meant looking at things in a different way- I still think that is important in ANY field, but especially in one that contains so many unknowns. Forgive me for mixing up Bohrs, I haven’t even begun to study yet.
Over the next year I will be studying everything from high school chem and physics, to history, to English. I also plan to make my way up to high school Calc 1. In CC I’d do Calc 1,2,3 as well as differential equations and linear algebra, if not out of sheer interest before really starting on physics. I might find that programming is my niche, sure. But right now the goal is to explore multiple fields within computer sciences, mathematics, and physics. I may very well change my mind as I go along, so I really consider all of this a floating target; I just need to get my basic questions out of the way so I know how to plan.
I do plan to climb my way up onto the shoulders of giants first. Very much like the fine arts, we must have the foundations before a creative license. My endgame isn’t to became a famous inventor, or to make huge discoveries, per say- but I want to be able to serve my personal needs in scientific imaging and to do that I may very well need to be able to create something to fit that.
@CaliCash
Was there a pity party being planned? No one invited me…
You at no point challenged me to push myself further. You literally just said “You won’t get in, sorry.”
If you in all seriousness are assuming that I’m not good enough in math, your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired; might want to work on that.