Homeschooled applicants
You use the same high school application as everyone else. Two things work differently: the record you send, and who recommends you.
What counts as homeschooled
You are homeschooled if most of your secondary education happened outside a school that issues its own transcript. Your parents may have directed it, you may have directed it yourself, or you may have worked through an umbrella school, a co-op, or a tutorial program.
You do not need to have followed an approved or prescribed homeschooling program. We do not treat one arrangement as better than another.
The record you send
Send a document that does the work a transcript does. It lists the subjects you studied, when you studied them, the materials or curriculum you used, and how your work was assessed. A parent, a tutor, or whoever directed your education may prepare it. You may prepare it yourself.
Include the records anyone else already holds for you:
- Community college or dual-enrollment course results.
- Online school or correspondence course results.
- Records from a co-op, a tutorial program, or an umbrella school.
- Exam board results that are part of your academic record, such as A-Levels or an IB Diploma.
Unofficial copies are accepted, self-translation is allowed, and we ask for official records only if you are selected. The rules on Transcripts apply to you exactly as they do to everyone else.
Test scores
We do not accept test scores, and that includes AP and IB exam scores sent as extra evidence of preparation. Sending them does not help.
If an exam result is part of your academic record, it belongs in the record itself, alongside your courses.
Who recommends you
A parent or guardian may not recommend you, including the parent who taught you. Your recommendation must come from an adult outside your family.
That is a real constraint for a homeschooled student, so here is who usually works: a community college instructor, an online course teacher, a co-op or tutorial teacher, a music or sports coach, an employer or supervisor, a program or club leader, a faith or community leader, or a family friend who has worked with you and is not related to you.
The person does not need to have graded your work. They need to know your situation first-hand. Read Recommendation for the four questions they answer and the fifteen minutes it takes.
The questions about your school
The high school form asks what kind of school you attend and what courses were available to you. We ask so that we can read your record in the setting it came from.
Answer as a homeschooled student. Say that you were homeschooled, and say plainly what you had access to: which courses you could take, what they cost, and what was out of reach. An answer of “none” is a real answer and tells us something.