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Can Colleges Discriminate Against Homeschooled Applicants? – By

Antony Barone Kolenc

Some homeschooled high school students worry that the undergraduate admissions process

is prejudiced against them. They fear that colleges will dismiss their applications based onunfavorable stereotypes about homeschoolers or that they will be forced to take tests notrequired by students who attend traditional high schools. Even worse, they wonder whethercolleges will require them to obtain a General Education Development Certificate, often

referred to as a Graduate Equivalency Diploma, or “GED.” In short, they’re concerned aboutdiscrimination. Are there any laws to prevent such treatment, and are these worrieswarranted?

Past Discrimination

Discrimination against homeschoolers in the college admissions process has undoubtedly

occurred. Unlike factors such as race, gender, and religion—all shielded from discrimination

under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—home education holds no protected statusunder federal or state law. Some college admissions officers, unfamiliar with the home

education movement, may have rejected such applicants in the past due to unfaircaricatures of homeschoolers as educationally inferior, socially underdeveloped, orreligiously intolerant.

More troublesome were the formal obstacles placed in the path of home-educatedapplicants.

For instance, admissions offices often believed it necessary for such students to obtain aGED—a certificate with an unfortunate reputation associated with high school dropouts—orto have high school diplomas officially “approved” by their states. Some of these

misperceptions still persist today. However, as homeschooling has entered the mainstream

of education, many barriers have crumbled.

Financial Aid Laws

Much of the grief given to homeschooled applicants began with confusion about federal rulesfor financial aid. In the 1990s, ambiguous guidance put out by the U.S. Department of

Education led many colleges to assume that applicants who were educated at homerequired either a GED or an official “state-approved” diploma. With the assistance of the

homeschooling lobby, Congress modified the law to make it clear that federal aid did notrequire either item.1 

Today the law clearly states, “In order for a student who does not have a certificate ofgraduation from a school providing secondary education, or the recognized equivalent of

such certificate, to be eligible for [federal aid] . . . the student shall have completed asecondary school education in a home schoolsetting that is treated as a home school or

private school under State law.” 2 In other words, as long as a family’s homeschool program

complies with state lawrequirements, the student should be eligible for federal aid.

Earlier in 2012, this legal issue again reared its head after Congress modified the law

dealing with federal aid. False rumors began to circulate among some colleges that a GED

would in fact be required of homeschoolers. Once again, homeschool advocates stepped into defuse the issue.3 In June 2012, the Department of Education issued a formal clarification

letter, noting that the requirements for homeschooled applicants had not changed under the

law’s modifications.4 

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Times Are Changing?

This year has witnessed renewed media interest in home-educated college applicants, with

signs pointing to a greater acceptance and understanding of this unique pool of students. Amainstream news source, U.S. News, penned an article in June that debunked commonmyths about home education.5  Another media outlet, the Carolina Journal, noted the

positive reception of homeschoolers at elite colleges.6 Others have reported that top schools

such as Harvard and Yale are “actively recruiting homeschoolers” because they recognizethose students “are often better prepared for college than their brick-and-mortar schooledpeers.” 7 Even the “Common Application” has a standard supplement for homeschoolers.8 

And at least one recent statistical study has affirmed the reality that home educated college

students can out-perform their peers from more traditional paths.9 But have collegeadmissions offices truly been persuaded?

Continued Challenges

Despite these positive signs, the nontraditional status of homeschooling still leads skeptical

admissions offices to require additional information from applicants to better competeagainst their peers and “prove” their worth. Nothing in the law prohibits colleges from

seeking this extra information or holding homeschoolers to a higher standard.

For instance, a representative from Cornell University told one interviewer how admissions

counselors would evaluate homeschoolers: “I think we would have to put more emphasis onstandardized test scores. We would expect multiple tests to be taken. Really, there would

 just be no way to trust the GPA and grades.” 10 Similarly, although Princeton Universityofficially welcomes home-educated students to apply, its admissions office recommends that

those applicants voluntarily choose to take more than the standard two SAT Subject Mattertests “to further demonstrate their academic breadth in the absence of traditional grades.” 11 

In contrast, schools such as the University of New Hampshire (UNH) do not post anyadditional requirements for homeschooled applicants: “With as many as two million students

receiving their secondary education at home, we view home-schooling as simply another

viable and well established means of preparation for the transition to college or

university.” 12 

Homeschooled high school students should contact colleges of interest early on to find out

the application requirements and required coursework needed for admission. Even when acollege seems receptive to homeschoolers, savvy applicants will still go the extra mile.

Nationally recognized education consultants, Howard and Matthew Greene, have explained

that traditional high school students benefit from a school profile “that indicates levels andtypes of academic courses offered, standing of the student in the graduating class (a rank

or a decile distribution, for example), a list of colleges students have attended, thepercentage of graduates going on to college, and so forth.” The Greenes suggest that

homeschoolers can better their competitive position by putting together a portfolio of theiracademic work to provide a more in-depth look at the student’s background.13 

Conclusion

Encouraging news from college admissions offices shows that attitudes towardhomeschooled applicants have indeed begun to change. Though the law provides no

enforceable legal protections to prevent discrimination, students educated at home areovercoming stereotypes by their perseverance and excellence. Lingering skepticism fromsome admissions offices has actually helped application packages from homeschoolers to be

more complete than ever before. The more that colleges learn about the uniqueness of the

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homeschooling experience, the more they appreciate the diversity that such students willbring to their campus.

Endnotes:1. For details on the history of this thorny admissions issue, see Home School Legal Defense

Association (HSLDA), Current Issue Analysis: Federal Requirements for Homeschoolers

Seeking College, October 2010 (available atwww.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/College_Federal_Aid2010.pdf ).2. 20 U.S.C. § 1091(d) (Student eligibility) (available at

www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1091).

3. See William A. Estrada, U.S. Department of EducationAgrees: Homeschoolers Are Eligiblefor StudentAid, HSLDA, August 20, 2012 (available atwww.hslda.org/docs/news/2012/201208201.asp).

4. GEN-12-09, Title IV Eligibility for Students Without a Valid High School Diploma, June 28,2012 (letter from Eduardo M. Ochoa, Assistant Secretary, Office of Postsecondary

Education, U.S. Department of Education) (available atwww.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN1209.pdf ).

5. See Kelsey Sheehy, Home-Schooled Teens Ripe for College, U.S. News, June 1, 2012(available at www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2012/06/01/home-schooled-

teens-ripefor-college).

6. See Kristen Blair, Homeschooling Goes to College, Carolina Journal Online, May18, 2012 (“[O]nce-wary admissions officers are validating the benefits of a home education

in the best way possible—with much-coveted acceptances.”) (available at www.carolinajournal.com/daily_journal/display.html?id=9082).

7. The Homeschoolers Guide to Getting Into College, OnlineCollege.Org (available atwww.onlinecollege.org/2012/06/11/the-homeschoolers-guide-to-getting-into-college).

8. See The Common Application for 2012-2013 (a standard application now accepted at400+colleges) (available at

www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/2013HomeSchool_downloa

d.pdf ).

9. In 2009, Michael Cogan conducted a study at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul,MN, comparing homeschooled students to traditional students on campus. He found thatapplicants educated at home scored a full point higher on the American College Testing

(ACT) standardized test, earned higher high school GPAs, and took significantly morecollege credits in high school. During their first year at St. Thomas, these home-educated

students easily outperformed their peers in both the quality and quantity of their work. And

after four years of college, these same students consistently held higher GPAs andgraduated at higher percentages than those from traditional education models. See Michael

Cogan, Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students (2009) (PowerPointpresentation of Cogan’s study) (available at i.bnet.com/blogs/homeschool.pdf ).

10. Lindsay Cross, Stanford, Cornell & DartmouthTell Mommyish How Those HomeschoolersGo Ivy League, Mommyish.Com, August 20, 2012 (available at

mommyish.com/stuff/homeschoolers-go-ivy-league).11. Princeton University, Tips for Homeschooled Students (admissions website) (available atwww.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/tips_for_home_schooled).12. University of New Hampshire, HomeSchooled Students (admissions website) (available

at admissions.unh.edu/apply/home-school).13. Howard and Matthew Greene, College Admission for Homeschooled Students, PBS(2003) (available at www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege/homeschool.html).

Additionally, because home-educated students usually have no public repository for their

grades and coursework, some state agencies recommend that families “permanently retain

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student transcripts reflecting all of the student’s grade 9-12 academic work on one or twopages.” North Carolina Department of  Administration, Frequently Asked Home School

Questions—Student Transcripts & Records (available atwww.ncdnpe.org/faqs/hhh114u.aspx#E).

 Antony B. Kolenc (J.D., University of Florida College of Law) is an author, speaker, and law

 professor at Florida Coastal School of Law. He is also a retired U.S. Air Force officer. He andhis wife have homeschooled their five children for over a decade. Tony is author of TheChronicles of Xan historical fiction trilogy, as well as many legal articles. Learn more about

him at www.antonykolenc.com. If you have a law-related homeschooling question that you

would like to see Tony address in a future column, please emailTL@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com.

Copyright, 2012. Used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the family education magazine, December 2012. Read themagazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at

www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.