Unlike conventional schooling at private and public schools, homeschooling is the practice of educating children at home by parents or preferably private tutors. Surprisingly the number of children being home-schooled has increased in recent years. Just in the United States of America, in 2007, there was an increase in homeschooling from 1.9% to 2.7% of children aged 5-17. There should be no surprise to the fact that homeschooling has increased viably and that it is a popular practice all over the world today. This is because of a variety of reasons: parent education, finances, child’s preference, transport, past experience, temperament of the child, etc. Homeschooling has also gained official face as there are many Home school cooperatives formed by parents who have home-schooled their children.
One of the most popular reasons with the increase in homeschooling is the blended freedom of academics and socializing, of both the parents and their children. Parents don’t have to pile work on the children, there is no homework, well obviously, and the children can almost still complete their yearly syllabus in time having spent the time with lesser stress compared to children with conventional schooling. Furthermore, research shows that almost half of all school going students are facing time-management problems because they are into extracurricular activities so much that they lose out on their academics. Home schooled kids, in contrast, don’t have to face this problem as much. A home-schooled violinist, for example, can give his final exams and play the violin in the same room, or could even reschedule the exam!
It is strange how home-schooled students are sometimes presumed to have lesser intellect than traditional high school goers. No one can convince home-schooled students to buy youtube views any easier than high school goers.
Moreover, college admissions are not at all a problem with home schooled students, although it is often thought otherwise. College Board does advise them to keep detailed portfolios on their entire education records, though. Over the last decade 75% of all colleges and universities have a separate policy for home-schooled students, and 95% have accepted applications of home-schooled students. Admission officers don’t shun home-schooled kids’ applications as one would presume. When one of them has something to put forward they listen to it. 78% of admission officers claim they expect home-schooled kids to do the same or better at college than traditional high school graduates. Students with a background of homeschooling graduated college at a higher percentage than their mates: 66.7 percent compared to 57.5. Such students have matriculated at over 900 institutions including some that have a very selective standard of admission. Examples include the US military academies, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth and Princeton universities.
Homeschooling has been one of the more doubted practices all along, but when one comes to think of it, the so-called differences that are said to exist between students of the two types do not matter in the long run. Success is not subject to whether your school was at this whole other building or your own backyard.