Will your child be able to fulfill their dreams in education?

Ok, this is really the core question, for all of us. “Can my child gain acceptance into post-secondary programs, (university and college), as a home schooled student?”

This is a complicated issue. The default answer is “Yes”, most do, but it’s not as easy as you think. Even in institutions which do accept non-accredited home schooled students, I don’t know if all of their undergraduate degree programs will accept a home schooled student. There may also be limited spaces available to home schooled students per program.

Therefore, it is my strong suggestion that you focus on accreditation from Grades 9 through 12. Accreditation means the school is recognized by the Ministry of Education and is submitting your child’s grades to be recorded on their OSR, (Ontario School Record). Not all schools are accredited, and homeschooling is not accredited either. This isn’t important for Grades 1 through 8, but beginning in Grade 9, they need to meet the required amount of credits each grade to be able to apply to post-secondary programs the normal way, (the least restricted way).

Each post-secondary institution also has their own application and pre-requisite testing processes for non-accredited home schooled students; usually a Language Proficiency test and others such as SAT, ACT, or AP, and even completion of the 4 (Grade 12) U (university level), or 4 C (college level), pre-requisite credits. Some even want a record of your child’s testing and grading procedures throughout Grades 9 to 12, so you need to set up this system and keep the results on an electronic file as your child begins Grade 9 subjects. Also keep any high school level awards they’ve earned, competitions they entered (and especially won), special high school summer programs they have participated in at local universities, etc. Take short videos or photos of all of their projects.

So, as you can begin to see, this preparation for post-secondary is a vital element in whether your child is able to compete in the application processes if they are not accredited. You will need to speak to each institution and ask them which of their undergraduate degree programs or college diploma programs will accept a home schooled student without accreditation. (See the links below for admission requirements for all Universities and Colleges in Ontario for home schooled students without accreditation.)

You will need to do your research very early, at least by the Grade 8 year, to decide whether you will use accredited programs, and then again in the Grade 10 year so that you are prepared to enroll your child into the Grade 11 pre-requisite credits to therefore enroll them into the Grade 12 pre-requisite credits for the program of your choice). You should have received a student number when you submitted the Letter of Intent to Homeschool. Keep this number somewhere where you won’t forget, because you will need it if you want to use Summer School, Night School, or Adult Learning School to supplement the pre-requisite courses in Grades 11 and 12. (You need to be right on top of those application dates online, because those courses fill up in a matter of days. Apply the very first day they accept applications.)

You will also need to understand the process of applying through OUAC and OCAS (Ontario Universities’ Application Center and Ontario Colleges’ Application Center). You need to know the opening and closing dates in Grade 12 for applying, (January – March-ish), the documents you need in the application process, the application fees, etc. I will also talk about this in more detail in the workshops.

Another option for home schooled students is to wait until they are 19 or 21 yrs old, (depending on the institution), and then apply as a mature student. Each institution has their own set of policies and procedures for this pathway, too. It is similar to Home Schooled students, with testing procedures. All these colleges accept Mature Students, some of them also accept Home Schooled students, too. The age restriction doesn’t apply to Home Schooled students, so they can apply at earlier ages if they are ready to be tested on Grade 12 University level exams.

Below are the links to all of the universities and colleges in Ontario that accept home schooled students, so that you can familiarize yourself with the different pre-requisites.

Accredited home schooled high school graduates, (from accredited online schools), will already have OSR student numbers given to them via their school, and so they will be prompted and guided by the school to begin the application process the same as public, Catholic, and accredited private school students will be.