College Application process…oh no, already

pile of college reference books from the library

Somehow, being the tutor is fine, being the coach is fine, being the older Christian mentor is fine, but being the guidance councillor is scary.

There is money, decision making (Ben always says a bit of both when there are two kinds of pie at Thanksgiving.) and those *&&^%$ time lines that come up in the middle of other deadlines for more emotionally urgent things.

I finally wrote, “ask reference librarian for book recommendations for college guides.” on his to-do list, then, “read college guides.”  Then I got obsessed and read them myself and made lists.  Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to do things for him.

Mommom did buy him a copy of Fiske, but it got lost in the house some where.  It will probably turn up when Ben moves out, under some science fiction books.  So right now he’s interested in industrial engineering, we’d like him to stay instate (so we don’t have to indenture him to pay for it) and we’ve narrowed it down to 7 schools.  We keep getting fancy brochures from the PSAT, but not so far from our 7, so we’ll have to contact them.  Two are U Mass schools, which will be harder to get into as a homeschooler than the private ones.  They want a, “certificate of high school equivalency.” Do they mean the GED? Ugh, that’s a red flag to future HR departments.

But U Mass Lowel has some unique engineering majors, and a Christian Fellowship where two local kids have found good friends and support.

We’ll figure it out.

And I need to update his high school transcript.

2 Replies to “College Application process…oh no, already”

  1. If your state doesn’t have any annoying rules about it, I recommend trying to get him in without the GED. If he doesn’t need it to graduate and get his college diploma, great. No one will look for the high school diploma if he has a college degree. If he can’t graduate without a high school diploma, take the 24 credit option, it will put him that much closer to his degree while he earns the GED. Talk with the college admissions department. A lot of them will work with homeschoolers because they know they are good students.
    And you’re very smart to want to stay instate. Luckily, if I remember where you are correctly, he has plenty of good choices for his field of interest there.

    • Yes, yes and yes. We hope to have him take some dual admissions classes next year at the local community college, and negotiate like crazy at U Mass Lowel – which has the cool engineering majors, including one in plastic.