212: Advice for Homeschooling Students

Ethan Sawyer  0:09  
Hey, y'all This is Ethan Sawyer, aka College Essay Guy, letting his southern roots show once again, my goal is to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. Welcome to the CEG podcast. CEG stands for College Essay Guy, by the way, where it's my job to interview some of the most brilliant minds in the college admissions world, analyze their genius and break it down for y'all into practical, actionable steps you can take, whether you're applying to college or helping somebody else apply. This is the first of two episodes on homeschooling and self directed learning, something that for me as a father of a four year old, I'm way into right now. My guest on this episode is Becca Orlovsky. She's a teacher and consultant with more than two decades of experience in the independent homeschooling world. On this episode, we talk about what are some common homeschooling myths. Is it true, for example, that homeschooling is just way too much work for any parent in their right minds. Are colleges biased towards homeschoolers? Are they biased against homeschoolers? Neither or both? What kinds of folks choose to homeschool? And can parents homeschool and work at the same time? We'll even get into some of the nitty gritty of the different homeschooling styles, how academics differ from public schools and practical tips like, what is the difference when you're trying to apply to college? And, for example, how much detail do you need in your transcript as a homeschooler? And then, of course, lots of resources and recommendations. Thanks for stopping by. Hi friends. My guest today is Rebecca Stewart Orlovsky, also known as Becca. Becca has a BA in Communicative Disorders with two specialized teaching credentials, and taught in deaf and special ed classrooms for five years. She's been independently homeschooling in California for 21 years, and has been an independent educational consultant for eight for many years. Rebecca served as the California homeschool network contact for gifted homeschoolers, and she specializes in guiding gifted and twice exceptional homeschoolers. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast.


Rebecca Orlowski  2:08  
Thank you so much for having me. Ethan. I'm excited to be here.


Ethan Sawyer  2:11  
Who calls you, Rebecca, and who calls you Becca? I'm curious. That's


Rebecca Orlowski  2:15  
a great question. Most people call me Becca just because that's my nickname, but I have friends who are very close who just like the name Rebecca and it sticks, just don't call me Becky, and we'll be good.


Ethan Sawyer  2:26  
I'll try not to. Oh, great. I might switch off back and forth. So I want to just be really upfront with our listeners, because you and I have already talked about this, about my bias, or my like, like, my engagement in this topic, because, as my daughter is, you know, four going on five, and we're getting ready to think about how we're gonna school her, you know, and looking at public and private just on the horizon has suddenly come homeschooling. And as we were prepping a little for this podcast, and, you know, over email, I was like, hmm, this kind of sounds cool. So I've got my College Essay Guy hat on, and I've definitely got my dad hat on listening for is this potentially the future for for my daughter and our family? So you know that already coming in, but I wanted to say that for folks, yeah,


Rebecca Orlowski  3:09  
that's that's great, and I think it's a perfect time to figure it out. It's a great age to really think ahead. Tell me a


Ethan Sawyer  3:17  
little bit about how you got into the whole homeschooling thing?


Rebecca Orlowski  3:22  
Yeah, that's a great question. And actually, my eldest son was your daughter's age when I jumped into homeschooling. In my case, it was sort of a two fold thing. My eldest son was extremely active weekly. Could not sit still, and he was also very academically advanced in math in particular. So I tell the story of when he would swing on the swing set out in the backyard, saying, Mommy, give me a math problem. And by age four, yeah, right. But by age four, he was doing multiplication, division, squares and square roots. Being an ex Special Ed teacher, I thought, what school is going to know? You know what to do with a kid like that. And so I went to a one day homeschooling conference and found out that in California, you can homeschool pretty much any way you want. And I was off and running.


Ethan Sawyer  4:13  
Wow. Well, what folks don't know is that there's one of those conferences coming up in two days, and Becca speaking at it, and I'm considering going, so, yeah, it'd be fun. Yeah. And just in general, for for folks who end up homeschooling, why do, why do families end up doing it?


Rebecca Orlowski  4:32  
Yeah, that's, you know, there are a lot of reasons, I think, you know, particularly maybe here, you know, across the country, actually, I interact with, you know, homeschoolers all over and it can be anywhere from, you know, like in our situation, having, like, really advanced, academically advanced kids and the local schools aren't meeting their needs. I've had people come to homeschooling through, you know, illness and, you know, miss. A lot of school families with kids who have learning disabilities find homeschooling to be a lot better for their kids. And of course, there's you know that the ones we hear about, like athletes and performing artists who schedule just doesn't allow traditional schooling, even military families, certainly difficult, bad local schools, and then just, you know, people who just feel like, I want to be in charge of my, you know, my children's education. I think I can do a better job than the local school can. For


Ethan Sawyer  5:36  
you, I'm curious, what would you say were some of the I'm big on core values? What were some of the core values that you found were really important to you as you went through through the process, even as you got, like, a few years in? Like, what did you value most? Yeah,


Rebecca Orlowski  5:49  
that's a great question. And, you know, again, and this is actually something I talk to families who are either considering homeschooling or who have been homeschooling but then are struggling to kind of fit back in the box as they consider, you know, as they move toward college applications or whatever. So I, early on, I kind of discovered something called unschooling, or self directed learning. There was a great book, unfortunately, it's out of print, but it, it was by an author named Lisa Rivero, and it focused on self directed learning. So really that was the core value for our family. Was just, what do you love to learn? And let's find a way for you to learn that. So with my older two children in particular, I have three sons that I've homeschooled all the way through. I have a 14 year old at home that I'm still homeschooling. Just really, what do you want to learn, you know? So for my eldest, that was, you know, math and physics and literature. And for my middle son, it was, you know, Art and Writing and just listening to books on tape for, you know, just hours and hours and being outside. So that was my philosophy, you know. And every homeschooler, you know, I really encourage them to think about their own personal philosophy, because, because it's really, it's really family dependent, really unique, right? I want to


Ethan Sawyer  7:10  
get into some of the myths, because there are a lot of myths about homeschooling, and I'm interested in potentially debunking some of them. But one of the ones that I just want to kind of tee off with, one of the ones that's in my head, is that I imagine when you, when I hear you say that homeschooling, you homeschooled three sons, that, to me just seems like a full time job, like a full time like, like, three full time jobs. Is that? Is that what you found? Well,


Rebecca Orlowski  7:33  
yeah, and, and, you know, I mean, it will kind of segue into the myth, you know, one of the myths of homeschooling is, you know, this old picture of, you know, mom sitting at the dining table, you know, and teaching the kids, or they all have desks, or something like that, and, and, you know. So it's almost a misnomer to say homeschooling. In fact, you know, a lot of homeschoolers, we kind of joke is that we're not home enough, you know, a lot of times. So it at a certain age. I transitioned from teaching, you know, when they're young, to being a facilitator of their education. For my eldest son, it happened really early on, because he was so advanced in, you know, stem in particular. So, yeah, so it was more about managing schedules, finding resources, and rather than, you know, I'm sitting down and teaching all my kids at once,


Ethan Sawyer  8:30  
right? So, what are some other myths about homeschooling? Right?


Rebecca Orlowski  8:34  
I think, you know, I think the big one that you know, people talk about is, you know, what about socialization? So many of us heard that question early on and and actually, you know, I think it's kind of a valid question, only in that, you know, homeschoolers need to be some homeschoolers need to be more intentional about making sure that they're, you know, kids are around other kids, but it by and large, it happens naturally. And I would actually come back and say, in some ways, homeschoolers are more at an advantage because they're with kids of all ages. They're with adults of all ages because they're out in the community. They're at their Co Ops. They're volunteering, you know, in different places. So they're not just in one classroom with the same age kids. So, you know. So I don't, you know, I suppose there are little, tiny pockets, but I suppose that it's there are pockets of, you know, difficult social situations at school too. Well.


Ethan Sawyer  9:39  
The image I imagine is like, the homeschooler is the student who has spent all of their time, you know, in like, almost like the movie room, if you ever saw that movie, where it's like, just the mother and the child, like, in a room, and that kid hasn't had any interaction. And what I'm hearing is, like, that's just not true. Like, there are actually tons of opportunities. In fact, I think your son had some pretty cool opportunities to socialize. Yeah, yeah. Right,


Rebecca Orlowski  10:00  
yeah and yeah and his my eldest is an interesting story, because in some ways we there are homeschool communities. But he was not really a part of a homeschool community, per se, because of his eclectic interest. But he built community around each interest. So he was a competitive chess player, so he had chess friends. He was a mass elite, if we don't know the term, you know, basically, he did math and physics competition. So he was a part of a Math Circle here locally, which, you know, he ended up making a lot of friends there. He was a baseball player. So he was very good baseball player. So he did the local Little League, and then he went on and played for a high school team for a couple of years, he was a musician. He was a part of a, you know, a group of, you know, that played a strings, you know, concerts. And he was a part of two rock bands, actually, he played violin and a couple rock bands. And then he was really involved in in our church as well. So, yeah. So he just had a ton of, a ton of outlets. And, you know, even my middle son, who's more introverted, he found most of his interactions through our Co Op, and then later through music, because he's a musician, he'll be going to school, you know, as a music performance major. So, yeah, so plenty of, plenty of, you know, opportunities, but we were intentional. So I would say, you know, intentionality is important, yeah, maybe some of the other, some of the other myths, you know, homeschoolers can't get into good colleges, or they have to transfer. You know, that's obviously not true. If you, if you, you know, just do a Google search of homeschooling in college. I mean, you know, my eldest son, again, is just an example. He graduated from MIT and got into a lot of really good schools. My middle son got into University of Pennsylvania, among some other schools. So that's, you know, that's just not true. Yeah, I think one of the other ones that really is, I think maybe years ago, it may have been the case that colleges were biased against homeschoolers and I, and you know, there are test optional colleges, which, you know for homeschoolers, are not really test optional, because we do need objective, you know, data in order to assess homeschoolers readiness. But by and large, you know, every college that I've ever interacted with, they've they welcome home schoolers. You know, they, they just want to see, you know, evidence like every other you know, every other applicant. So I guess other, you know, one of the other myths is, you know, only conservative Christians home school, and that's definitely not the case. You know, I live in California, and we're such a diverse place for homeschool. I mean, you know what's actually, what's really cool about the homeschool community in California is that we are so diverse from just, you know, very extreme political backgrounds, but when there's an issue that threatens the freedoms that homeschoolers have here every group you know, Muslim homeschoolers, Jewish homeschoolers, agnostic, atheist homeschoolers, Christian schools, we all come together to support, and, you know, to protect our freedoms. So it just isn't true that you know homeschooling is, you know, there's one particular face of homeschooling. And, you know, and then, you know, probably the last, you know, one of the last myths that we combat, you know, as parents just can't teach their children. You know, number one, a lot of homeschool parents don't teach their children as they get older. I think, you know, every parent who cares about their kids is pretty good at teaching them, you know, in the early ages, we just, you know, we have the internet now, we have co ops, you know, there's so much that we can do. We we work with each other, but, you know, as I said, you know, I was an elementary school teacher, so I, you know, aside from sign language and dance, you know, I don't have the ability to teach high school level courses, but I didn't need to, you know, I outsourced, whether it's through the community college or co ops or, you know, online classes, you know, I didn't need to teach my kids. So, yeah, so I think it's really good to educate people, just really what, what it can look like, to quote, you know, home school, that's a great way to educate as I think you you and I talked it was, we use the word like, it's just another alternative for education, really,


Ethan Sawyer  14:29  
right? One of the things that I'm imagining some folks are listening for is like, can I, on a practical level, can I homeschool my kids and also have a full time job, or can I homeschool my kids and also have a part time job. What is your sense, just in terms of the way that parents have been able to make this work?


Rebecca Orlowski  14:47  
That's that's a really great question, and it's not an easy answer. I would say, you know, full time working parents, it's going to be a lot more difficult, particularly in the younger years. Now I've always worked very part time. I was a jazz dancer, very part time for years, and then I built up my business over the past eight years. And so I've worked part time, and that's worked fine. You know, particularly my youngest son is older. I think you need to be really creative, really intentional. You need to get help. So it might be, I've known parents. I've known single parents working full time, who homeschooled. So, you know, they use, you know, they use a community. So they use the community of homeschoolers. They might barter for babysitting, you know, so that they can work while, you know, you know, while the child is at home, they might hire somebody to come in for a few hours. They hire tutors. They, you know, they do classes. So the key, you know, if you're going to work in homeschool is to really be and it's funny, because I just, it's funny, you mentioned that I just met with a parent of an elementary age child who's working full time, and they are, you know, bantering the idea of homeschooling. And so we talked about the fact that, you know, planning really needs to happen ahead of time. You know, who's going to be responsible for what part of the education. So, yeah, so, you know, homeschooling really is, you know, it can be called Community Based Education in a lot of ways. And of course, you know, there are here in California, there are, we have lots of charter schools, and a lot of parents use charter schools that have class days, and, you know, they offer teacher support. And so it's out there. You just need to do a lot of research.


Ethan Sawyer  16:34  
So Becca, what are some of the different methods, or, if you like, the different flavors of homeschooling,


Rebecca Orlowski  16:40  
you know, as I mentioned, you know, each family kind of makes a decision on their own. What's, you know, what works best for them? It's, you know, based on personal philosophy, also based on the parents personalities. And, of course, you know, number of kids, type of learners of kids. So, you know, obviously I talked about the fact that we kind of glommed onto a self directed type of education, basically following our kids leads, you know, filling in quote, unquote requirements as needed as we march towards the, you know, senior year and college applications. But that's one way self directed, structured home schoolers really feel it's important to, you know, lay out lesson plans every day to make sure that their kids are up at a certain time. You know, learning because this is what they know, this is what they're comfortable with. This is how they feel they get things done. You know, people who love to check boxes really appreciate structured. There are a number of homeschoolers who use classical education, which I won't go into detail. Your listeners can can Google that, but it's a very structured type of of homeschooling, and it covers a lot of really, you know, in depth learning. And so, you know, you really have to be structured in that method. Online learning, of course, is huge homeschoolers incorporate. They can incorporate that into their own style of homeschooling, but there are just so many online providers for pretty much every subject that you can think of, all the way from elementary up to college level. So definitely, you know, a lot of homeschoolers use online courses. Eclectic is just what it says it, you know, it uses a variety of methods, whether it's, you know, online, structured, self directed Co Op, you know, it's basically using every type of method that seems to work for your family. Unschooling is a really, basically, you know, child led learning, so letting the child, you know, you know, dictate what they're going to learn, when they're going to learn, how they're going to learn. It's almost like it's a lifestyle. It's really a family choice and and unschooling definitely can look different in different families, I would say, as I may have mentioned, you know, we kind of started as unschoolers, and then kind of moved into self directed, relaxed homeschoolers. Basically, okay, here are the topics that I think, you know, we we should, you know, cover, but how we're going to do that might not be structured like other homeschoolers. So, yeah, yeah. So lots of different ways, you know, it's, it's great, you know, to get online and just read and really understand the various ways that that people do this type of education. We're


Ethan Sawyer  19:32  
going to get into some resources in a little bit. I'm curious. Becca, if you could share a little about some of the ways that the academics differ. There


Rebecca Orlowski  19:39  
are definitely a lot of different approaches that homeschoolers take academically. And I was just thinking about my own youngest son for the past few days, we live on a canyon, and he's been going outside and taking his shears and his shovel and he's been chopping down. Trees and clearing brush and making paths down to the little river that's flowing behind us. And I, I look at that as learning, and I think that's fantastic. And a lot of homeschoolers take that viewpoint, that everything that we do is learning, so learning happens all the time. So that's, you know, one viewpoint, so I can appreciate what he's doing. And other homeschoolers feel it's important to have sort of a verification of learning. So they might, you know, say that that you need to do worksheets, you need to test, you need to use textbooks. You know, we need validation, as it were, that you're actually learning something. Neither approach is right or wrong, it's just different philosophies. Definitely, parents create their own curriculum. Again, I'll use me as an example. When I was a special ed teacher, we didn't have a lot of curriculum for the students that I worked with, so I designed a lot of my own curriculum. So I learned to be really flexible, and a lot of parents do that as well, but we talked earlier about working parents. Some parents don't have the time to do that or the inclination, so it's much easier to just go and purchase an all in one box curriculum. And some curriculum can cover all subjects. They might just cover, like math curriculum, but some curriculum covers language arts and math and science, and for some families, that's really important that they have something easy. Families can even use AP courses. There are some that are online. There's a provider called Pennsylvania homeschoolers, and they offer really rigorous AP courses. And some parents are really creative, and they put together their own materials, and they submit it to the College Board, and they get AP approved. I do tend to work sometimes with some very educated parents and who have the skills and knowledge to do that. I don't. I don't do that. I send my kids to community college when they get to a certain age. So a lot of homeschoolers do dual enrollment through community college or even four year colleges, depending on where they live, their you know, income, their opportunities. But that's very, very popular here in California in particular. But with my students all over the country, a lot of kids take college classes. Definitely, you know, I mentioned before online options. I'm just gonna, you know, throw out some names that people can research if they want later on, Brave Writer is obviously for writing out school that's got a lot of different, you know, subjects covered. I mentioned Pennsylvania homeschoolers. They don't just do AP, you know, courses, but most of their coursework are all the APS. There's blue tent, which offers some really rigorous honors courses. Think well, is a kind of a self studied, self paced provider. There's CTY online, g3 Michael clay Thompson, those are all providers that cater to gifted children, and they're just there are a lot more. A lot of people also use like open courseware. They're sort of self paced courses that are provided by colleges like MIT, University of Pennsylvania. My own son took a it was a really cool class. It was based on the video game Lord of the Rings Online. It was through Vanderbilt University, through Coursera, which is also like MIT open X open courseware. And he studied, you know, Lord of the Rings, literature, lore and the video game. So, you know, just great, great options for people who like to do online learning. And you know, Co Op is fantastic. Co Ops are great. We have a number of co ops. You know, around my area, parents can form their own co ops if there's nothing happening. You know, parents can group together. You know, I, you know, I can teach ASL and dance. I can't teach these other but I've, you know, at my co op, I've taught both of them. And then I, you know, my kids will take, you know, the science labs, because there are, you know, parents who have those skills, and then they're just homeschool classes outside of any Co Op, which, you know, we've made use of as well. So really, there, you know, there are so many resources and parents, you know, parents are the best resources, and oftentimes, actually, I'll say parents are the best resources. But also, you know, these days, you know, with all the entrepreneurs out there, a lot of a lot of us will hire outside teachers and tutors and professionals to come in and teach groups of homeschooling. So it's just, you know, it's, it's a really expanding opportunity for anyone who loves to work with kids. Two


Ethan Sawyer  24:56  
things. One, you mentioned dual enrollment, and you said, you know, at. Certain age students can go to community college, like, when the age is right? What is the range of ages that you've seen like, what is, I know that the right quote, unquote, right age is for each student, but what is the range of ages that you've seen for students enrolling at these community colleges?


Rebecca Orlowski  25:13  
Right? Honestly, I've seen them really young, you know, eight, 910, 1112, and then, more typically, kids are coming in at like 16, maybe, you know, for junior and senior year, that's more typical. And again, it'll depend on the the laws in each state, and actually the laws even at each particular college. So in, you know, like for my eldest son, we kind of, we had a little bit of fun when he I was ready to outsource him at age 12, because he had started learning calculus. So we he took a particular test that you need to take here in California. We went and tried to sign him up, and they objected, saying, 12 year olds don't go to college. But, you know, we persevered, and he registered, and, you know, he began to take online classes, and then, you know, in a year or two, he he went to the campus, but then he ran out of classes to take in his areas, and we had to get real creative, because, you know, we we didn't have the money to go pay for a UCSD class. So we approached a professor at San Diego State. I emailed him, told him about my son. He agreed to meet my son, and he let my son come in and audit classes. It was upper division physics classes, and he did all the work. He said, You know, he told my son, do all the work, and my son, you know, did really well. And the guy invited him to do physics research, you know, after junior year and the iron. The irony of it was, he actually got my son hired at San Diego State to tutor this upper division physics course. But they didn't even really know he was on the campus. So hopefully they're not listening. I just, I love


Ethan Sawyer  27:00  
that. And that was the second thing I said two things. The second thing was like, didn't you have a cool story about your son? Go on, speaking of college, talk to us about some, what are some of the practical differences for homeschoolers when it comes to, like, actually applying to college?


Rebecca Orlowski  27:14  
Yeah, yeah. That's a that's a really good question. And so probably the first thing that I tell you students that I'm working with who are homeschooling is to tell your story through essays. So this kind of segues into what you do. It's not that there are ever essays that say, Okay, you're a homeschooler. Tell us about yourself. But you know, as you know, there's additional information through the Common Application and on the UC application and and this is a perfect place for homeschoolers to kind of let colleges in on their you know, on what it was like as a homeschooler, what opportunities did they have that they otherwise would not have had, or even what, you know, the reasons that homeschooling was beneficial. Like in the case of my middle son, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at age 10, and so it turned out to be a really good thing that he was already homeschooling along with my older son, and I remember his doctor saying, you know, I'm so glad that you homeschool, because we were able to manage his blood sugar so much better than kids who were at school. So, yeah, so I think, you know, and now, and he wrote about that, you know, he wrote about just all the things you know that made life easier by homeschooling. So also in the Common Application and the UC application, there are some specific sections that ask about your education. Obviously, you're going to list homeschooling. And again, this is going to really depend on what type of homeschooling, and I won't get into all the details, but like here in California, you know, we have independent homeschoolers, which is what I do. So I file what's called an affidavit, which makes me a private school, but for the UCs and for colleges, for all intents and purposes, I'm, I'm a homeschooler, then there's something called a private satellite program. Again, this is California specific, which is like an overhead organization that does record keeping and transcripts, but the parents and the children, they do the homeschooling, and again, they are considered homeschoolers. And then there's charter homeschooling, which here in California, they're considered public schools. So it's important to know, you know what type of homeschooler you are, what they what the laws are for your state. So when you're filling out the application, you will know, you know what it is, what boxes that you need to check. And I always encourage students, if there are any questions, obviously reach out to colleges. That's what they're. There for, that's what admissions officers are there for. Ask, ask those questions. You know, as a homeschooler, it actually, it's actually beneficial, you know, because you have a legitimate reason to be reaching out, asking questions both students and parents. So, you know, there are definitely going to be some specific areas on the applications. And as far as you know, general recommendations for homeschoolers. Again, if we're talking about, you know, selective or highly selective, you know, colleges, then it is going to be important for you to have objective data that colleges can look at. So, you know, tests, the essay, T or the A, C, T, most of the time I recommend my homeschoolers take two to three subject tests. In fact, I was just at a counselor breakfast yesterday and with five liberal arts colleges, and I, you know, I asked questions on behalf of homeschoolers, and I laid out everything for them, and they said, yep, yep, yep, this is what we do. So basically, what I laid out was, you know, transcripts with course descriptions. They said, Yep, that sounds good. I said, S, A, T or A, C, T, and two or three subject tests. They said yes. I said community college classes or AP exams. They said yes. I said letters of recommendation from people you know who know them. I you know, they said yes. And normally I recommend two to three teacher recommendations and one or two non academic recommendations, you know, maybe a scouts leader or a music teacher or somebody like that. So they said yes. So you know, it was good to know that I'm on the right track. And then, as far as for parents, if you're a parent who's the independent home schooler, who's doing the actual, you know, college counseling, as it were, that you're functioning as the college counselor, you will be asked to write your kids counselor letter. You know, basically it's a letter of recommendation. It's your time to talk about your students qualities, both academic and personal, that make them, you know, commendable for any college like I mentioned before. You're going to make transcripts with course descriptions, and then you're also going to write a school profile, which, you know, all schools, public, private, they have a profile. And for homeschool profiles, I typically say you're going to write about, you know, the reason that you chose to homeschool and your homeschool philosophy, you're going to actually do a school profile. So what I do in my school profile is I kind of profile my neighborhood and my local public school. You know, obviously I can't really profile my school because I'm only homeschooling one or two kids. But, you know, I might compare, you know, the neighborhood, you know, SAT scores. I'm going to give the demographics of where we live, just to give admissions officers, you know, a bird's eye view of of what our world is like. In the school profile, you're going to talk about the curriculum that you use, you know, whatever it is, you'll want to describe it a little bit. And then I also do kind of, how I use my grading system, you know, how I give grades. And then I, I can, I also include test scores as well. So in school, profiles usually two pages long. Counselor letter can be one to three pages. Course descriptions, really, they can be anywhere from, you know, a few pages, up to, you know, 15 pages gets a little long. But my philosophy is, give colleges more, not less, put the onus on them to ignore anything, because I would rather give them too much than too little. And I'm just going to give a real quick example, if you don't mind, Ethan my eldest son was, he was vying for a full tuition scholarship at Harvey Mudd, and we went up to their, you know, to the program, and I got a chance to meet the admissions director at the time, and he just came over and thanked me, and he said, Thank you so much for making it so easy for us to figure out what exactly you guys do as homeschoolers. So, you know, at that point, from then on, I, you know, I that's the model that I've used with families that I work with. And if you want to find examples of the documents that I'm talking about, there are a number of locations online. You can do that. HSLDA has samples of all the documents I've talked about. There's a great yahoo group called H S, the number 2c, O, L, L, home, school to college is what it's about. And they have a Files section, and you can find examples of transcript, school, profile counselor letter. So those are two good resources, I think, to start off with a. Um, yeah. And then, as far as other areas that homeschoolers can be on the lookout for when applying to college, what's really cool is a lot of colleges actually have designated homeschool readers. And you know, because we've all heard this, the kind of the horror stories, as it were, of okay, colleges give, you know, every application seven to eight minutes, you know. But as a homeschooler, your application is actually put in a different pile. They do take a little bit more time because they really need to understand your background. So I think in some ways, homeschooling is advantageous just because you do get a longer read. Yeah, one thing to be also aware of is, even though a lot of colleges have gone test optional, I think I may have mentioned before, for homeschoolers, they are not necessarily going to be test optional, and you would definitely want to contact the colleges. So if, say, you've got a home school junior and you're looking at a particular test optional college go ahead and contact them. It's likely that homeschooler still might have to submit an S, a T or a C, T score. It's also possible that community college transcripts might, you know, suffice, but it's really good to ask directly at the source. And yes, homeschoolers sometimes have to do extra testing. There are schools like Georgetown, USC. Those are two schools that come to mind. Georgetown has changed their policy a little bit, but I would never say not to do it. But they've always required three subject tests from home schoolers. And even though, last year, I talked to a rep who said, No, we strongly recommend it. Well, in my mind, I, you know, I require it, and USC still does require three Subject Tests of homeschoolers. So definitely, when you're building a college list as a homeschooler, you definitely want to look at their test policy and if, if in doubt, contact them, contact the colleges. That's really, you know, I can't emphasize that strongly enough.


Ethan Sawyer  37:10  
Becca, how much detail do folks need to have in their transcripts?


Rebecca Orlowski  37:14  
Yeah, I, I like, as I said before, I like more rather than less. You know, I think you look at, you know, regular schools, public, private, and they're pretty straightforward. I do like to add a little bit more detail to transcripts. So, for instance, I like to have test scores on transcripts so that, you know, particularly, again, again, if a student is not a strong tester, you don't need to include it. But for for students who are going for selective or highly selective colleges, I think having those right there on that one page transcript, you know, is is easy. They can see it. The other thing that homeschooler should have is listing on the one page transcript. So a transcript is going to look basically, you're going to have the one page transcript, like most transcripts, but then you're going to be attaching the course descriptions below that transcript, and you will have a table of contents to you know, help admissions officers easily identify the courses. And on the one page transcript, it's really good to have just a quick snapshot of of the provider. So you might list, say, on a transcript, you might list say the course. You're going to list the year that it was taken, you're going to list the grade. You're also going to list the provider. So it might be, you know, community college class. It might be Co Op, you know, it might be tutor, it might be self study. You want to indicate that on the transcript, and you're going to, you know, list the credits for that course. So it's a it's a little bit more detail, because you really want to give them a feel for where this student has, you know, studied these courses. And then, you know, on the on the bottom of the transcript, the one page transcript is a key. So you know, you have to, obviously use abbreviations, but you know, say you did you know de, and down below is the key you might say de is going to be, you know, De Anza Exeter school, or something like that, or above. You might see power CFS below. You might, you know, you might give the explanation for what that means. So that way, there's no question to ask. They can look at that transcript, and they can, you know, they can really get a good feel for the student. And I tend to, I like to arrange my transcripts by year by subject, rather than by grade level. This works really well for students who are academically more advanced. But it also can work for, you know, students who are just right at grade level. But like for. In the case of my eldest son, he was taking, you know, college classes by middle school. And so it kind of would look silly to, you know, say, okay, in fourth grade, he took geometry, etc, so it was much easier just say 2004 you know, geometry, 2000 and, you know, five, whatever. So my transcripts that I use, and I've seen other people use as well just do by the year by this subject. So, you know, you'll have math up here, you'll have science and technology. You know, second area down, you'll have language arts. You'll have foreign language, you know, history and social sciences and fine arts and electives. So so they do look a little bit different than traditional transcripts. But I always let people know, really, when you make transcripts, just make it understandable and make make transcripts, however, works for you. Some parents are great, you know, at designing transcripts. And other parents, you know, they, they, you know, hire somebody to make them for them, or they pull down transcript samples off the off the web. So, yeah, I and I love design. I could talk about transcripts forever, but anyhow, we don't have time. I love it. So Becca, what


Ethan Sawyer  41:12  
are some of your favorite resources that you'd like to point folks to? You've already mentioned a few that are going to be in the show notes, just so everybody knows. But what are some other great ones that you love? Yeah,


Rebecca Orlowski  41:20  
I think I mentioned classical homeschooling. It's really growing in popularity, and it's it's a type of homeschooling that both secular and faith based homeschoolers use. So I would definitely look into the well trained mind. There are websites that include email support lists. There's books that talk about classical education. You know, so well trained mind is a great resource. S E, a secular, eclectic academic. That's another resource for for students who aren't faith based. That's s, period e period a period. I mentioned the homeschool to college yahoo group. There's a Facebook group called ca college homeschool seekers, and that is for people in California. So if your listeners in California, they can check that out for kids who are profoundly gifted, which I find a lot of homeschoolers are gifted, because a lot of times schools can't meet their needs. They should definitely check out the Davidson young scholars. They are a good support group. There's an application that they a process that they go through, but there are really strong support for highly gifted students. As far as resources, books, there's an old classic called Teach your own by John Holt that's sort of the standard classic, and it was written, I think, back in the 1970s but, you know, well worth a read just to understand you know how the modern homeschooling movement got started. One of my favorite resources this, I think I mentioned before, about self directed learning, Lisa Rivero wrote a book called Creative homeschooling, a resource guide for smart families. And she really, she really nailed it. It was, it's very kind of a self directed, eclectic type of homeschooling written about in the book. And it's, it's a classic, I think it was written in the mid 2000s it's very good, a book that's not really about homeschooling, per se, but it really gives you an insight into why homeschoolers do what they do. Is by a guy named John Taylor Gatto, who used to be the superintendent of New York City public schools, but he was so disillusioned by what he saw there. He wrote a book called dumbing us down. And it really talks about the history of public education and how it really, you know, it really was designed to just educate the masses and not the individuals. And so it's, it's definitely sort of a must read for anyone exploring homeschooling. And then there's a more recent book published that that is getting rave reviews. It's called the brave learner, finding everyday magic in homeschooling, learning and life, by Julie Bogart. And it's, I think the title really aptly, you know, expresses it really, you know, it is a it is a magical thing to homeschool. It's not a perfect thing. There are ups and downs. There are plenty of homeschoolers, and plenty of days where, you know, you wish you weren't that that is life, and I think she captures it well. And there are just, I would encourage anybody who's. Out there to look for your statewide local you know, you can google your state and Google, you know, homeschool support. And you know, here in California, we have a number of of homeschool support for California homeschool network. We've got homeschool Association of California. We have a couple of statewide Christian support groups as well, and those are just really great resources to really learn any particular homeschool laws that you would need to know about before you embark on your journey. Thank


Ethan Sawyer  45:33  
you. This has been so, so helpful. I'm I'm like taking notes and going, Okay, I'm buying that when I get home, what would you like to leave folks with?


Rebecca Orlowski  45:44  
Well, that's a great question. I you know, I would say that what I would love for people to just realize is that homeschooling is just yet another, another educational choice, you know, like public or private or charter, it's just one more choice in the arsenal of education. You know, I've worked with people who have moved in and out of multiple systems. You know, they've gone from a public to home school back to a private to online. And, you know, I think, I think that's the The lovely thing about it, it really is empowering. It just helps us realize that we can be in control, in charge of our kids education. It's not that we are the ones doing all the teaching. It's just that we should feel confident and that we are able to organize our kids education in such a way that it's going to meet their needs best. And I think that homeschooling, really, you know, is a great option for parents who you know really want to try something different, really realize that you know what they see out there is not going to work for their


Ethan Sawyer  46:59  
kids. Becca, thank you so much for your time. You


Rebecca Orlowski  47:03  
are welcome. Thank you, Ethan,


Ethan Sawyer  47:08  
that was fun. You can find all the RAD resources that Becca mentioned, linked on the show notes page, college essay guy.com/podcast and don't go away, because in part two of this two part series, I sit down with self directed learning expert, Blake bowls, an advocate for what he calls off trail learning. In fact, that's in his podcast. You can check it out. I love Blake's resources. One of my favorite YouTube videos of his is called, stop wasting your time in high school. And his book is called, better than college, how to build a successful life without a four year degree heads up listening to Blake for too long might lead to deep thinking and a total reconsideration of this whole college thing. Whoops. Stay tuned. You.


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