“Colleges have learned that homeschoolers are more likely to have psychologically healthy living habits and are less of a drain on school personnel. “
Colleges want students that pay full boat tuition.
They want a certain amount of baggage - so that they can justify staffing psychologists and other bureaucracies within bureaucracies.
there are other demographics that are more important than anything else: Do you have an intact nuclear family? Did your parents go to college? Do your parents have the money to send you to college? Did you take rigorous academic courses - including post Algebra and advanced sciences?
Homeschooling self-selects for some of these traits, but by no means claims exclusivity for them.
Self-selecting statistics makes some folks (like you) claim that the mere act of homeschooling makes an individual kid smarter. It does not.
I wholeheartedly support homeschooling. Not just for smart kids that will do well in *any* academic environment, but especially for average kids who may get lost in the mix with a much larger demographic pool.
But it’s important to underscore that homeschooling, in and of itself, does not mean an individual kid is going to do better in a college or university environment. If you claim this, and you usually do, then you do not understand the difference between an individual and a statistical pool of kids.
“Colleges want students that pay full boat tuition.”
Everyone doesn't get what they want. ;-)
More seriously, wanting folks who will pay full tuition is balanced by other organizational needs. There do seem to be schools where this is the primary motivation. I'm struck by how many schools cater to mediocre students who are willing to shell out wildly-large sums of money to obtain a degree from a “respectable” school.
But the more selective schools have other organizational priorities to meet, too. Like, protecting their reputation as “selective” schools, which means that they have to take a substantial proportion of students who aren't mediocrities, and for whom there might be other opportunities. These students rarely pay the full sticker price.
Of course, the way the game is played, each player demands a bit more than the other is willing or able to give.
“Self-selecting statistics makes some folks (like you) claim that the mere act of homeschooling makes an individual kid smarter.”
If by “smart,” you mean innate intelligence, nothing we do with our kids will make them smarter.
But my own view is that homeschooling more reliably helps kids develop more of the smarts they have than most public schools. And much of that IS built in to the actual day-to-day mechanics of homeschooling.
sitetest
Good points.