<p>Python, I’ll tell you what we did, but please keep in mind that this is only our choice–what was easiest for son and me. There are doubtless many variations on how homeschoolers submit their common apps.</p>
<p>Son completed the Common Application and submitted the student portion online. He requested that two of his community college profs sumbit letters online. </p>
<p>I, as parent and advisor sent the following by the postal service: List of Application Supplements enclosed, Homeschool Supplement, Secondary School Report, Counselor Recommendation Letter (I wrote see letter on the homeschool supplement), School Profile, Official Transcript, and Course Descriptions. All of these documents I placed into a large envelope, sealed and signed it over the flap, and wrote “official documents” all over it. I also placed my son’s name on this envelope. If son had collected early letters of recommendation, I would have placed those (should be sealed and signed) in the large envelope. I took that large envelope and placed it in a US Mailing Envelope and purchased tracking so that we were sure that each school had received everything. I don’t know how long your overseas post will take, but here we allowed up to a week. Mail out of our state can be very slow :-)</p>
<p>I am looking at son’s homeschool supplement. On the front, I filled in about a paragraph each for philosophy, grading scale, outside evaluation. On the second page, I typed in each course name, the date (descending from earliest to latest), the grade (and a parenthetical remark if the course was in progress), and then along the side, where it asked for primary text used, I hand wrote “see attached course descriptions”. I did not have enough room to put in all of son’s courses, so on the bottom, in the “Other” section I typed in “Please see attached master transcript”. There was no way that the homeschool supplement had room for all the text. There is no room on this year’s supplement for course descriptions. </p>
<p>Okay, on the first document I put in the big envelope called Application Supplements, I also wrote what colleges could expect under separate cover. That included SAT scores, additional snail mail recommendations (yes, we had high school teachers send two extras), and official transcripts from several other institutions. </p>
<p>I followed this procedure based on the advice of a fellow homeschooler that had great success last year–kid at an Ivy now. She emphasized organizing stuff so that colleges would have an easy time figuring out what you had accomplished with your education in a format that colleges understand. </p>
<p>So, I hope this makes sense and helps a bit. Like I said, other homeschoolers have been successful using the common app without doing all of this, but this is what worked for us.</p>