Direct link to Royal Military College’s admissions page re: homeschoolers

There is also material of interest to homeschoolers specifically, such as the alternative (i.e. homeschool) admission policies of Ontario universities, but of course, UniversityAdmissions.ca is geared to all students so not everything will be exclusively homeschool related.

Here are a few more posts up on UniversityAdmission.ca to give you an idea of the content, and whether it’s a site you want to visit:

Ontario University programs not requiring ENG4U for admission
Dealing with procrastination
Is March Break the best time to visit prospective universities?

And I have added some of the older articles from this site, including articles such as
Is it worth going to university?
6 ways to turn your interests into extra-curricular activities for your university application

So if you subscribe to this website by RSS or email, or if you visit here every now and then, consider doing the same for UniversityAdmissions.ca!

The recommendation for teachers not to accept or initiate friend requests on Facebook (or follow on Twitter) isn’t all that surprising. For the longest time, I didn’t even publish my Twitter information here (although I never attempted to hide it) because I worried about the appropriateness of having political and other ideological views become a part of this work that I do for the homeschooling community.

But, I have former students who are some of my closest friends now. Tutoring and teaching has given me an extended family, and coincidentally, I have a large number of cousins who fall within the same age range as my students (some of whom I even tutored). I hang out with a cousin whose diapers I used to change and I have always enjoyed hanging out with my own aunts and uncles. Why is the generational gap between students and teachers supposed to create such a divide?

I honestly don’t know what I would decide if I were still working today re: engaging with students over Twitter (I don’t belong to Facebook because I don’t trust its privacy policies), but I’m very glad I never had to make that decision.

The bigger issue for me, though, is comments like the ones below posted on the CBC and Toronto Star websites in response to their articles. I just don’t think it demonstrates a great vision of education in general (emphasis mine):

Professionalism anyone? When I was in school my teacher was the LAST person I wanted to hang out with and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. I also did not want to hang out with my parents friends either. It was called sticking to your own age group.

Why would a teacher who is an adult want to interact socially with a student?

The student/teacher relationship is not one of friendship, it is one of authority and subordinate. This divide must be there for things to work.

NO KIDDING people employed as teachers should not be socializing with students inside or outside of the classroom – FOR ANY REASON. There is a teacher/student relationship and that is all. There is NO ‘friendship’ involved and ANY teacher that sees students as friends, OR tries to interact with them, or their families socially, should be investigated thoroughly and fired.

This is one of the basics of teaching kids: you need to be friendly but you are *not* their friend. It’s a one-sided relationship. Teachers have almost all the power, so it’s important to set boundaries. Their job is to be authority figures and role models, and they can’t do that while trying to get along with them as equals.

I expect nothing short of sainthood for my children’s teachers. If you are not one, then do NOT become a teacher. Do something else.

Teacher’s college tells us not to even be seen at an LCBO, bar, or any other place of “questionable moral character” during the weekend or off hours.

So in retrospect, one of the reasons I’m really glad I don’t teach/tutor anymore is that I don’t have to subscribe to the general public’s notions of what education, and especially the relationships between teachers and students, should be like.

All hope is not lost, though.  One last comment, from a teacher:

I am a teacher. I have FB. I also have some former students as FB friends. I do not use FB to post pics of ‘drinking with buddies on the weekends’ nor do I think that any of the interactions I have had with students over FB have been inappropriate or in any way unprofessional. I enjoy seeing how they are doing in high school, and celebrating with them their big milestones hit (graduations, weddings, babies, etc). Just because they have left my classroom doesn’t mean I stop caring about them. Teachers, and students, are human.

UniversityAdmissions.ca is my new website for all things related to university admissions in Canada… with or without a high school diploma!

Ironically, it’s no longer homeschoolers who are most in need of my help when it comes to university admissions.  It’s the students trapped by or within the system who don’t realize that there are other paths to university.  It’s the kids who, for whatever reason, just weren’t meant for the system because the system isn’t meant for them.  It’s the young adults who made certain choices that leave them in what they think is a disadvantaged educational position. It’s even the teachers like me who want to help students, not administer policy.

I think everyone can benefit from my university admission resources, but they might not think to look for help at a website devoted to homeschoolers. That’s where UniversityAdmissions.ca comes in.  It’s my chance to take these messages of freedom and choice to a wider student audience. It’s my attempt to move beyond labels like “homeschooler” and let the general public know that anyone can create their own high school experience without closing the door to university. I hope to encourage not only homeschoolers who worry that they have to go into the system for high school, but also students who have always been traditionally-schooled who need or want something different now, but who don’t know that anything even exists outside of the system.

I hope you’ll join me in bringing this message of empowerment mainstream.  The University Admissions.ca site is not specifically aimed at homeschoolers, but it strongly asserts that every path to university is an equally valid choice, and most importantly, reveals that going to a traditional high school and earning a diploma is a choice, as so few actually realize.  It also allows me to broaden my scope to include general student concerns like issues of learning, motivation, and success that I didn’t feel was my mandate on my previous website.  I think homeschoolers will find useful resources there, even though you’ll find that I less frequently refer to homeschoolers explicitly.  After all, the point is that you don’t have to be a “homeschooler” to be in charge of your own education!

So please, visit me at UniversityAdmissions.ca and spread the word to everyone, both inside and outside of your homeschooling network!

I have not specifically asked them about admitting homeschooled students, but they do allow teachers to register (teachers get in free) and bring groups of students or students may attend on their own.  I see no reason why they would choose to exclude homeschoolers, but you never know.  Please contact the university at the phone number below to confirm.

From their brochure (pdf):

Interaction provides a unique opportunity for university bound secondary school students in grades 10 and 11 to experience the university living and learning community at Guelph. Session topics cover a wide range of issues and subjects and will be presented by faculty, staff and students from a variety of academic disciplines and student services areas.

Students choose one morning session and one afternoon session from dozens of choices including subject-specific themed sessions such as

• Science in Sports: How Sports Fields Are Maintained and How They Impact the Urban Environment
• Wild in the Rainforest
• Microscopy of Food – What the Eye Cannot See!
• Let Your Colours Burst: “Designimation”

as well as university-orientation themed sessions such as

• Tips for Financial Planning
• Setting Yourself Apart: Opportunities and New Horizons
• Your Orientation Starts Now: Finding Your Voice, Your Place, Your Way
• The Co-operative Education Advantage

You must register for this conference by Monday, April 11, 2011. Registration is $30 and includes lunch. If you require special assistance, please call 519.824.4120, ext. 58713.  An application and brochure can be found at http://admission.uoguelph.ca/interaction

Athabasca University has an open admissions policy – no formal schooling or credential is required to apply. The admissions page states that applicants should be 16 years of age, but student may apply even earlier with parental permission. For that reason, it is a great choice for homeschoolers, and many may wish to consider Athabasca instead of following a homeschool high school education/program through to completion.

You’ll have to do some work on the University of Lethbridge website to find their policy on homeschool admissions. First, navigate to their main high school applicant page. Once there, in the bottom left of the screen you’ll find a search box where you can ask a question. Just type in the word homeschool and click ask, and you’ll be directed to the following information:

Q: Admissions: What are the admissions requirements for home-schooled students?
A: Admission requirements for home-schooled students include proof of recognized secondary credentials, or some other means of satisfying the requirements of a U of L admission route.

For more information on this route of admission, contact Recruitment and Student Life

Unfortunately, this information does not appear to reside on its own, directly accessible page. (And yes, you’ll notice some meta data in the code where the answer is provided.) So while it’s not the greatest set up, the information can be found.

The University of Calgary does not have any homeschoool admissions information in the usual places, but if you navigate into the school calendar (published annually and includes all university policies, courses, degree requirements etc.) then you will find there is a short blurb about homeschool applicants in section A-13. Usually these sections remain consistent year after year, so when in doubt, look for section A in the university calendar (often found from the Registrar’s website) and probably subsection 13 (give or take) will be the homeschooling admissions policy.  The curent calendar reads:

University of Calgary Calendar 2010-2011 Undergraduate Admissions A.13 Home Schooled Applicants
A.13 Home Schooled Applicants

Home schooled applicants can qualify for admission by presenting provincial (diploma) examination results in appropriate subjects (Alberta or British Columbia) or by satisfying the requirements given under College Entrance Examinations. Applicants must normally possess a high school diploma and present acceptable scores and average on the five appropriate SAT tests.

Similarly, the University of Alberta will require you to do some digging to find the appropriate information for homeschoolers. In fact, I can’t find any mention of homeschoolers on their website at all.  Again, going through the official school calendar from the Registrar’s website gives us at least something to go on.  The calendar states that the university recognizes three categories of applicants: matriculated applicants from high school, matriculated applicants transferring from another post-secondary institution and non-matriculated applicants.  Of these three categories, homeschoolers fall into the third:

14.3 Nonmatriculated Applicants

The University of Alberta gives special consideration to nonmatriculated applicants for admission to some undergraduate programs. To be considered for admission as a nonmatriculated applicant, a student must be 21 years of age or older by the first day of classes of the term in which admission is sought. Specific Faculty requirements for those Faculties that do consider nonmatriculated applicants for admission are outlined in §15.

Nonmatriculated applicants must normally complete specific Alberta Grade 12 courses (or equivalents) appropriate to each Faculty with a grade of at least 50% in each required course and a minimum overall average of 70%. There is a limit on the number of nonmatriculated applicants accepted into each program; there is no guarantee that candidates meeting the minimum criteria will be accepted. Students are considered based on their academic merit and interview results where applicable. Notwithstanding the basis of admission, all students, once admitted, have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities.

The application deadlines for nonmatriculated applicants are the same as for high school applicants (see §12).

 

For these and other institutions in Alberta, including university colleges, technical institutions, public colleges, bible colleges and apprenticeships, visit the comprehensive listing of institutions and homeschool admissions policies at Education Unlimited.

I learned about Simon’s Rock “early college” even before I was very familiar with Canada’s open universities.  I think that’s why, although I always try to give personalized options and guidance to those who ask for my help, I’m just so keen on using our open universities as a way into Canada’s post-secondary system.

Bard College at Simon’s Rock doesn’t have an “open” admission system: students must apply and convince the admissions department of their suitability for the school.  But, there are no arbitrary admission standards.  You don’t need to write the SAT.  You don’t need a high school diploma.  (In fact, this school mostly accepts Gr. 10 and Gr. 11 students.) You don’t need to meet a certain GPA requirement. There isn’t a particular credential or indicator that all applicants must have.

Admission, for homeschooled and schooled alike, is based on academic information such as transcripts (official or otherwise), standardized test scores (if desired) and writing samples. The application also requests recommendations from anyone involved in the student’s education (home or otherwise), an interview with the student and anything the student wishes to share in support of their application (such as volunteer work, employment experiences, research).

Yes, I like that they’ve created a great example of a flexible admissions policy.  But even more so, I love that it’s specifically created for younger students and that it counters the tendency in today’s education system to hold students hostage in high school until a pre-defined, age-appropriate time for college or university studies.

Is every 16 year old ready for college? No. But, I bet a lot more of them are than we or even they realize.

I didn’t get much out of my partially-earned B.Ed., but one name I was exposed to was Lev Vygotsky. Although Vygotsky himself never used the current educational buzzword “scaffolding”, his concept of the zone of proximal development (the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help) informed the practice of instructional scaffolding: carefully constructed learning supports that are gradually removed when no longer needed.

With some thoughtful (as in, provided with thought) additional support, our students are capable of working at a higher level than their current abilities would suggest.  In order to promote academic development we should absolutely be providing challenges just beyond a student’s comfort zone, and it’s OK if a student needs a little help to meet those challenges.

Here’s where my background as a tutor kicks in, because of course, most of my time was spent simultaneously challenging and supporting my students. I’ve had to endure years of criticism that I was “doing the work for my students” or “creating dependencies” upon my services, but that’s simply not the way good tutoring works.  Traditional education models focus on the challenging but not the supporting.  If learning via support mechanisms were truly valued, then student assessments wouldn’t continue to over-emphasize “eyes on your own paper” test results. Yet, it’s often through support (from parents, teachers, mentors, and peers) that students become able to face and meet even greater challenges.

And let’s be clear on some of these nefarious, independence-killing strategies of support that I would employ:

• asking questions when a student is stymied (often as innocuous as: “What do you think you should do next?” or “What do you know how to do that you could do here?” or even just “What are you thinking?”)
• choosing for the student which question to attempt next (whether or not the teacher assigned it), maybe because it reinforces a concept just talked about or because it introduces a new idea or because it although it’s been dressed up to look different, it actually uses the same skill just mastered
• suggesting that a student write the question down in a different way to help with clarity and organization (for example, writing in “landscape” orientation for a certain notorious category of problems where students can never, ever fit one single line of math across the width of a page)

So what does this have to do with early college or open universities?

Kids can handle academic challenges, even really tough ones, if we’re smart about providing a support system.

This support system doesn’t have to be formal.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be anything more or wildly different than you’re already doing in your home education. It just has to be sufficient for the academic challenges at hand.

If simply turning a page sideways is enough to vastly improve one’s success rate in working with trigonometric identities, then we should seriously consider, really, how much (or how little!) it could take to support our 15, 16 and 17 year olds in an early college endeavour through one of Canada’s open universities.

Then, our kids could just be in university instead of worrying about how to get in. Instead of spending their “high school” years with curriculum packages, 12U credits, SAT scores, porfolios and home made transcripts, our kids could just be learning at the university level, receiving their university education and working towards a university degree if they so choose.  Or, they could use their university classes to transfer into a traditional college or university after a year or two and be no further behind than others their own age.

This won’t be everyone’s chosen path.  But, I think it should be one of the options that home educating families evaluate before making their post-secondary plans. What if your child really did decide that he or she wanted to start university right now? There are places, like Simon’s Rock, where this is happening in a formal setting. But you can make it happen right in your own home, whenever you want, without jumping through anyone’s admission hoops.

What if we rephrased our current thinking from, “How will my child get into university?” to “When and how will my child decide to take advantage of the guaranteed, immediate access s/he has to Canada’s post-secondary education system?” (If, of course, he or she chooses to make use of it at all.)

I look forward to discussing this at the Kitchener Waterloo Christian Home Educators’ Conference in a few weeks!

We will be following the Sudbury model of education, pioneered by the Sudbury Valley School (www.sudval.org), which has been running in Framingham, Massachusetts since 1968. The main tenets of the Sudbury approach are self-directed learning (which means students choose their own activities; learn what they want, when they want, and how they want; and self-evaluate) and participatory democracy (in which staff and students together make and enforce school rules, budget for resources, etc.).

We are currently looking for a site in central-east Toronto with green space and room for a variety of activities. We are also looking for interested parents, students, and staff, as well as people who would like to help get the school off the ground. More information is available on our website (www.reachsudbury.ca) or by contacting us at reachsudbury@gmail.com. We are hosting bi-weekly information nights on both Toronto alternative education in general and also Reach in particular, and also have a Yahoo group (GTAfreedemschools@yahoogroups.ca).

If you can help them with a location or want to get involved, please don’t hesitate to contact them directly. I’ve already offered any assistance I can provide remotely.

1. The first question whose answer is (B) is —
(A) 1 — (B) 2 — (C) 3 — (D) 4 — (E) 5

2. The only two consecutive questions with identical answers are —
(A) 6 & 7 — (B) 7 & 8 — (C) 8 & 9 — (D) 9 & 10 — (E) 10 & 11

3. The number of questions with answer (E) is —
(A) 0 — (B) 1 — (C) 2 — (D) 3 — (E) — 4

4. The number of questions with answer (A) is —
(A) 4 — (B) 5 — (C) 6 — (D) 7 — (E) 8

5. The answer to this question is the same as the answer to question —
(A) 1 — (B) 2 — (C) 3 — (D) 4 — (E) 5

6. The answer to question 17 is —
(A) C — (B) D — (C) E — (D) none of the above — (E) all of the above

7. Alphabetically, the answer to this question and the answer to the following question are —
(A) 4 apart — (B) 3 apart — (C) 2 apart — (D) 1 apart — (E) the same

8. The number of questions whose answers are vowels is —
(A) 4 — (B) 5 — (C) 6 — (D) 7 — (E) 8

9. The next question with the same answer as this one is question —
(A) 10 — (B) 11 — (C) 12 — (D) 13 — (E) 14

10. The answer to question 16 is —
(A) D — (B) A — (C) E — (D) B — (E) C

11. The number of questions preceding this one with the answer (B) is —
(A) 0 — (B) 1 — (C) 2 — (D) 3 — (E) 4

12. The number of questions whose answer is a consonant is —
(A) an even number — (B) an odd number — (C) a perfect square — (D) a prime — (E) divisible by 5

13. The only odd numbered problem with answer (A) is —
(A) 9 — (B) 11 — (C) 13 — (D) 15 — (E) 17

14. The number of questions with answer (D) is —
(A) 6 — (B) 7 — (C) 8 — (D) 9 — (E) 10

15. The answer to question 12 is —
(A) A — (B) B — (C) C — (D) D — (E) E

16. The answer to question 10 is —
(A) D — (B) C — (C) B — (D) A — (E) E

17. The answer to question 6 is —
(A) C — (B) D — (C) E — (D) none of the above — (E) all of the above

18. The number of questions with answer A equals the number of questions with answer —
(A) B — (B) C — (C) D — (D) E — (E) none of the above

19. The answer to this question is —
(A) A — (B) B — (C) C — (D) D — (E) E

20. Standardized test : intelligence :: barometer : —
(A) temperature (only) — (B) wind velocity (only) — (C) latitude (only) — (D) longitude (only) — (E) temperature, wind velocity, latitude and longitude

From: http://jd2718.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/content-free-test/ Visit there to see a discussion about the answers. There is a unique solution, and I have solved it.

If you stumble across any other puzzles like this, please let me know! This is my favourite kind of puzzle, and as you can imagine, they’re not easy to find.

There are some great curriculum websites but because I no longer tutor I don’t need to have one-click access to them anymore. There were a few that I just couldn’t bring myself to unceremoniously delete, so I thought I’d share them here. Many of these are lesser-known sites that I stumbled upon and didn’t want to forget, so you won’t see a lot of the *famous* math sites here. Consider this to be mostly a list of hidden treasures.

Sites with free video math instruction
Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/
Patrick – Just Math Tutorials: http://patrickjmt.com/
Brightstorm: http://www.brightstorm.com/math

Algebra Lessons
Purple Math: http://www.purplemath.com/modules/index.htm
Cool Math: http://www.coolmath.com (also has sections for younger kids)
The Math Page: http://www.themathpage.com/alg/algebra.htm
SOS Math: http://www.sosmath.com/algebra/algebra.html
Algebasics: http://www.algebasics.com/index.html
Algebra Help: http://www.algebrahelp.com/
Virtual Math Lab College Algebra: http://www.wtamu.edu/academic/anns/mps/math/mathlab/col_algebra/
HippoCampus Algebra: http://www.hippocampus.org/Algebra

Practice Questions/Worksheets
Online pre-calc (alg/trig/geo) random test generator: http://esaab.math.missouri.edu/mucgi-bin/munew.cgi?variable=trig
EdHelper Algebra: http://www.edhelper.com/algebra.htm

Statisitics
Stat Primer: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/StatPrimer/
Stat Trek: http://stattrek.com/
HippoCampus Statistics: http://www.hippocampus.org/Statistics

Sites that are mostly Calculus (many include algebra reviews, too)
University of Houston Math Help Online: http://online.math.uh.edu/
also includes most senior high school/intro university topics including study and practice exams for AP Calc
Aid for Calculus: http://www.jtaylor1142001.net/calcjat/Contents/CalcCont.html
Paul’s Online Math Notes: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/
Find the Error: http://www.dougshaw.com/findtheerror/ (Finding errors in solved problems)
HippoCampus Calculus: http://www.hippocampus.org/Calculus

Cool online tools:
Online Fraction Calculator: http://www.helpwithfractions.com/fraction-calculator.html
Prime Factorization Calculator: http://www.mathwarehouse.com/arithmetic/numbers/prime-number/prime-factorization-calculator.php
Equation Calculator: http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/equation/

Miscellany
Most Common Errors in Undergraduate Mathematics: http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/commerrs/
Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/index.shtml

Online biology textbook with summaries and practice questions: http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderbio6e/

So that’s it! I am officially deleting the “Curriculum” folder in my bookmarks as we speak. Hope you find a gem or two in this list for yourself.