What can homeschoolers do for extracurricular activities?

hsmomstef
Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:03:15 +0000

I am homeschooling my 2 boys, 5th and 9th grade this year. My oldest wants to attend a very good, small private college (nothing picked out yet) and he has also considered the air force academy or an air force scholarship (full ride!) so I have been doing alot of research so that he would meet the standards for HYP if he chooses to go that way.

This is what we have decided on for EC’s:

Scouts–both boys must stay active in scouts until they earn their Eagle Award. at that time they can choose to drop out of it or continue. Many colleges look at the Eagle Award as a demonstration of leadership (which can also be shown as president of student council, editor of a school newspaper, etc…all not available to homeschoolers). The Girl Scout Gold Award is also looked upon as proof of leadership.

Civil Air Patrol–my oldest son is participating and planning on achieving the highest rank (the Spaatz Award) before applying to colleges (hopefully end of junior year). This is a tough award, demonstrates leadership and academics…another way to show that you can work well with others. My younger son will probably do the same.

Congressional Youth Award–you can find out more doing a google search. Basically, this award is great for homeschoolers as it should encompass alot of what you are already doing. there are three parts to it, physical, academic and volunteer work. you have a counselor that is not related to you that go over it…again, outside verification that you have done the work and it is of a high level. My sons are both required to get the gold medal before graduating.

A Sport–college are looking for variety in activities, leadership, depth in the field and a real interest. I called and talked to several college admissions counselors (including yale and air force academy) regarding sports. My son is not big on sports at all and team sports are not available to home schoolers in our state. My son loves martial arts and has chosen Aikido as his sport of passion. the schools i talked to said they preferred team sports (again with the leadership) and a varsity letter, but for homeschoolers they understood the difficulty (or impossibility) of that. Choosing a sport and pursuing over the high school years and demonstrating mastery and leadership (my son will have his Shodan–like a black belt–and teach classes if all goes well) is what they are looking for. there are tons of options for sports…a good place to look is college clubs. Fencing, crew, softball, swimming…i could go on and on. but every college i talked to said they wanted a sport!!

One more activity–colleges are not looking for the person signed up for 20 things…they want someone who shows a passion for what they are involved in, showed leadership, contribution to society, etc. pick one more activity and do it 100%. this could be music, art, speech and debate or something more exotic! this is where homeschoolers can really shine because of our flexibility. We haven’t decided on this for my son, his only real big interest is in Asian Studies, so that will probably be it. He takes private Chinese lessons and wants to live in China for his senior year.

In addition to the above, year round activities…travel, be well read (not just what is assigned), go to concerts and plays, read a good newspaper, get out and meet different people and participate in some summer programs. homeschoolers are sometimes perceived as being closeted at home with parents and never getting good exposure to the outside world. Be ready to counter that attititude by being well rounded and working hard to have many different outside experiences.