Can Homeschoolers Get Into Military Academies?

At the last college fair, I spent a long time talking to military academies, especially Annapolis. All of the military academies accept homeschoolers, even when Mom makes the transcript. Homeschoolers are on completely equal footing with every other applicant. The big-time military academies want leadership and physical fitness to be as important as grades. They even have a "homeschool admission" page, which is always very helpful. Boy scouting is a huge plus. Anyway, they are welcoming to homeschoolers, and they value a homeschool transcript. That said, they are pretty competitive, but ROTC through other colleges is also available as a back up plan.

The academic preparation for a military academy is actually the easy part. It's the extracurricular, leadership and physical fitness aspects of preparation that are much more difficult to achieve! It's completely possible if you have the right kind of child. I have a local homeschool friend and her son was recently admitted to an academy - REAL homeschoolers REALLY do get in.

They will ask you to give a "list of courses with materials used." That means they want very detailed course descriptions.

Military academies also want to see a reading list. The reading list includes ALL the books that the student reads. Books for school, books for pleasure, Christian books, classics, fluff pieces. It's actually important to have a good mix of classics AND current literature. I have heard some colleges complain that homeschoolers only read the classics and don't seem to have enough popular literature. This can make them look a bit artificial. The reading list is just a LIST, not a bibliography. It just needs to have the title and author of each book.

It can help your chances of success if you meet with the Military Academies early in high school. Visit their booth at a college fair, and ask detailed information about preparation and what they require. You'll be amazed, because homeschooling will be the very least of your worries, and the easiest part of the process!

By: Lee Binz

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Need help homeschooling high school? Lee Binz, The HomeScholar is an expert on sonlight homeschool curriculum and maintains a website that talks about christian homeschool blog where you can get answers to all your questions.