<p>Thanks for the congratulations, but at this point, the congrats are a little premature, since all son has done is score well enough on the SAT to rank as one of the top 20 male testers in our state. That’s nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but the test just gets him through the entry door. Soon the application process will begin.</p>
<p>RhineandRoses, you asked about “how you made this work, particularly in HS for subjects in which you / your husband have no background. (Say your son wanted to study Russian?)”</p>
<p>If he had wanted to study a language such as Russian, we would have looked to the community. Our local university does not offer Russian, but he probably could have found a private tutor among the graduate students or foreign students. We would have looked for online opportunities, such as distance learning classes, podcasts, etc. Our daughter finished up French through a distance learning class; the University sent her audio tapes that she used for listening and speaking. We also watch French TV on satellite. I just did a search, and you can now get Russian radio and TV over the internet. There are lots of options.</p>
<p>Russian seems like an odd example, since very few public or private schools offer Russian. It is becoming increasingly common for institutional schools to offer their students distance courses, often online, for subjects not taught at the school. Some rural schools offer AP classes this way, for example, so the schooled students are now taking some of the same courses that homeschoolers routinely take. </p>
<p>I was curious about the reference to research backing up concerns about homeschooled high school students, since to my knowledge no such research exists. A professor at Indiana University has made a study of available research, and he concludes that “The bottom line is, we can’t draw any conclusions about the academic performance of the ‘average homeschoooler,’ because none of the studies drew from a random sample representing homeschoolers nationwide.” This comment refers to homeschoolers of all ages, not just teens. Homeschoolers often cite a study that found homeschoolers out-performing their schooled peers, but the Indiana U. prof downplays this study because it was not comprehensive enough in scope by his standards. Here’s his web site FAQ page:
[Homeschooling</a> FAQ](<a href=“http://www.indiana.edu/~homeeduc/FAQ.html]Homeschooling”>http://www.indiana.edu/~homeeduc/FAQ.html)</p>
<p>All I know is that our children thrived by homeschooling through high school. Son was accepted Early Action at a wonderful school. His sister graduated from college last spring.</p>