Looking at Student Work: Should Exposure Be Mandatory?

A few years ago, I participated in a Deeper Learning MOOC. The topic for Week 2 of the course was "looking at student work." Specifically, we were asked:

• What can teachers and students learn from samples of student work? 
• What methods have teachers used to evaluate project-based learning (PBL) or expeditionary (Outward Bound-style) learning? 
• Can we establish objective criteria for assessing deeper learning? 
• What happens when teachers encourage students to look at each other's work? Are they able to facilitate effective peer reviews? 

I wondered how these questions might apply to me as a home educator because I didn't think of myself as an evaluator. I was more like a coach or a mirror, reflecting back what I noticed, calling attention to what had been accomplished, pointing out to my kids (and other students) where they had grown strong and where they might still have room to grow. My goal was for them to learn how to evaluate their own progress, set their own high standards, and then do their best to live up to them. I didn't believe in testing or grading my kids (as I explain in The Testing Effect).

Over time, however, I began to understand why assessments based on objective criteria were important—certainly for schools, and perhaps even for home educators. Sure, my casual one-on-one assessments through conversations with my kids enabled me to get a sense of how they were doing overall,  but there were times when I also needed to evaluate their progress based on specific goals. Were her writing skills strong enough to permit enrollment in a college-level literature course? Had he mastered algebra well enough to go on to calculus? Formal assessments, or evaluations based on predetermined criteria, served a key purpose: they let me (and my kids) know exactly what had been mastered and what hadn't. They gave us feedback that said, "Hey, you might want to pay more attention to this!" or "These skills are solid. You can move on to something else now." Without that sort of feedback, it would have been hard for us to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to learning a particular subject.

It's human nature for people to become complacent over time. If we think what we are doing is working pretty well, we tend not to change our practice. In a classroom, a teacher might be muddling along with one lesson plan after another without realizing that a few tweaks here and there could dramatically enhance student interest and retention. In a home, a parent might be going through each day's routine as always, unaware that her child hasn't really mastered geography as well as he (and she) thinks he has.

How can teachers and students get the feedback they need to do a better job? How can they determine to what extent their actions are helping or hindering progress?

The old-school method for evaluating progress was standardized testing. Granted, if the goal is to assess retention of facts (1+1=2), testing might be the answer. However, testing is limited and clearly fails to measure "deeper learning," those qualities of education that make it meaningful, relevant and lasting. That's why another form of assessment is necessary.

Which leads me to back to the topic of this post—peer reviews and "looking at student work."

What the Young and the Old Have in Common

Atul Gawande is the kind of person who makes the rest of us feel inadequate. It isn't enough for him to be a Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Medical school graduate, and surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital (arguably one of the finest teaching hospitals in the world). He's also a researcher, a journalist (having written articles for Slate and The New Yorker), the author of four popular books (Complications, Better, Checklist Manifesto, and the recently released Being Mortal), and—oh yes—a loving husband and father to three children. According to his Wikipedia entry, "He enjoys reading." How he finds the time is anyone's guess. In short: he's amazing.

I've always been fascinated by medicine, and there's nothing I enjoy more than curling up with a well-written nonfiction book. So, not surprisingly, I've loved everything Dr. Gawande has written. Being Mortal is his best so far. It is terrifying (because he makes us think about our own mortality), poignant, informative, tragic and brilliant. And, quite unexpectedly, it includes insights into why schools aren't necessarily the best places for our kids to be spending so many hours of their days, so many months of the year, for so many years of their young lives.

Did Dr. Gawande intend for his newest book to be a commentary on our educational system? I'm sure he didn't. In fact, he might not even agree with me. But as I was reading along, I kept coming across passages that I believe apply as much to education as they do to elder care. 

Transferable Skills: What I'm Learning from My Kids

After nearly two decades of being a home educator, and with the youngest of my three homeschooled children now living and studying at an out-of-state college, I've finally got the time to pursue my own career. This is both exciting and terrifying.

It's exciting, because I can put myself first, instead of second, third—or last. Make no mistake, I'm no martyr. No one compelled me to be self-sacrificing; I simply chose to make my kids and their learning community my highest priority. I always knew it was only a temporary arrangement (that is, if you can call 24 years "temporary"), and so with that in mind I gladly volunteered to confine all my plans, my hours and days, to fit the schedules of others. But now, at long last, my time is my own. I can try doing things I've never done before. I'm ready for a change.

And yet, this transition is also somewhat terrifying, because I've been an at-home mother and educator for so long that doing anything else feels really strange. Applying for jobs is intimidating, my resume looks unconventional and skimpy, my last paid employment was back in the '80s, and I expect the learning curve for any new job will be steep.

Luckily, I know three young adults who are wonderful sources of advice and encouragement.

When I turn to my kids and wonder how I'm going to make my way in the wider world of rapid change, independent contractors, and new technologies, I hear my own words coming back to me.

"You can do it, Mom!" they say. "You've got loads of experience: researching, teaching, organizing events, planning curriculum, keeping records, writing newsletters and reports." They remind me of all I've accomplished over the years, just as I used to remind them of their achievements when they were feeling unsure of themselves.

"Look at all you've done this year!" I'd say. "Remember how you couldn't do This or That back in September? But now you can!" Whether or not our school district required an annual written evaluation, I always prepared one for each of my children, so that they (and I) could see their progress. Now my kids are returning the favor, lifting me up in my time of self-doubt and helping to restore my confidence.

When I tell my oldest daughter I'm not sure what to do next, she tells me, "do what you love." (Now where have I heard that before?) I think about writing, tutoring, mentoring. She helps me consider the pros and cons of different jobs and opens my eyes to the possibilities. Never one to shy away from adventure or a new challenge, my eldest knows how to inspire me to try new things.

When I ask my youngest daughter—a college senior—for help with my resume, she says, "think about not only the things you've done, but also what you've learned in the process, the extent of the impact you've had." I think about the dozens of kids who have learned in my home, all the ways in which I've had to change and adapt, and the hundreds of homeschoolers who have contacted me over the years. I smile as I reminisce, all the while feeling so proud of the remarkable young woman who is giving me this advice.

I even confide in my son, who is home for mid-year break after his first semester. I tell him I'm feeling nervous about starting my first job, and he says, "You'll be fine! You've done much harder things than this. You've got this, Mom." I feel momentarily overwhelmed by his words of encouragement. Afraid I might embarrass him if I start to cry, I give him a hug instead, so he can't see my face. He towers over me by at least six inches, and when I step back to smile at him, I notice there's a dark shadow of stubble on his upper lip and jawline. Only a few months away from home and already he seems older, more self-assured.

Maybe it seems weird for me to turn to my kids for career advice and support, but oddly enough, they understand what I'm going through. Considering career options, updating resumes, applying for jobs: these are things they've either done recently or will be doing in the near future. Even if we didn't have that in common, though, the collaborative give and take of solving problems together has become so normal and habitual for us that we fall into the pattern naturally. I value their opinions as much as they value mine, and we trust each other to be honest, fair, encouraging and forthright.

It's now 2015, and my husband and kids have helped me transition from homeschooling to a new job. I suffered through a few months of dead ends and a couple rejections, but I've found part-time work that I love. I'm an editor for Author Accelerator, a startup company formed by Jennie Nash (editor, author and book coach) and Matt Richter-Sand, entrepreneur. My new "students" are writers who are serious about getting their books written and published, and I enjoy working with them. It's challenging to find the right balance between critique and encouragement, but Jennie is a wonderful mentor and I'm learning all the time. It seems like a perfect fit for me, and I'm happy to have found a use for many of the skills I cultivated as a home educator.

Can Happiness Be Taught?

What if it were possible to teach our children how to be happy? We already teach them how to read and write, and most modern curricula strive to include instruction in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). All of these subjects are considered fundamental to a good education, as they should be.

But what if at the end of all that learning, our kids fail to thrive? What if they are deeply unhappy? Then what?

I decided to homeschool my children because I felt it was important for them to have ample time to grow emotionally and spiritually as well as academically. Too many hours in a classroom would have precluded the activities we cherished: leisurely afternoons at the beach and peaceful walks through the woods, days of storytelling and hours of introspection, impromptu visits with friends and family. We "wasted" time on slow cooking, travel, conversations that digressed, and Calvin and Hobbes. When there was a conflict, we dropped everything and muddled through a process of reconciliation. Although I wasn't deliberately teaching my kids these "soft skills," which I have since learned are associated with a happier life, I followed my heart and liberally took time away from other subjects to work on improving communication and strengthening friendships.

What I didn't know then was that I was inadvertently helping my kids learn how to be happy. What pains me now is realizing I could have done a better job if I had known this little secret: there are specific skills and practices that have a measurable, positive impact on a person's level of happiness.

For most of my life, I assumed that a person's level of happiness was largely determined by good luck and good genes. If a person wasn't happy as an adult, it was probably due to a combination of neurochemistry and unhappy circumstances.  Turns out I was only partially correct. Nature and nurture establish a baseline, but the choices we make can increase (or decrease) our level of happiness by as much as 20%.

To be clear, I'm not saying researchers have discovered a cure for clinical depression (a condition that afflicts several people in my extended family and circle of friends). What I am saying is that we can learn to consciously act in ways that will increase our "happiness," specifically as the term is defined by positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky:

"Happiness is the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

If we can learn how to be happier, then it follows that we can also teach these skills to our kids. That's the exciting news proclaimed by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.

The Science of Happiness

I'm currently taking an edX course called The Science of Happiness. (I've praised edX, a marvelous nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT in a previous post: "MIT Quality, edX Accessibility." To learn more about edX, go here.) This particular course was created by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and the emphasis is on "positive psychology." So far, I'm finding the course worthwhile and interesting.

In four weeks, we've explored the following major topics, one per week: Happiness (how we define, measure, and actively increase our experience of it); Social Connection (how our affiliations, affections and ability to form attachments impact our level of happiness); Kindness and Compassion (the happiness-altruism loop); and Cooperation and Reconciliation (why cooperation, reconciliation and forgiveness are good for happiness).

A course like this one could easily be all theory and no substance, but it isn't. Every week, there's a new experiment to try, an opportunity to evaluate for ourselves whether there's demonstrable truth in what we're being told. Thus, we are given things to do as well as food for thought.

The course includes asynchronous class discussions, which often illustrate—sometimes unintentionally—what the course is teaching as people freely share their stories of personal challenges and successes. For example, after an exercise in forgiveness, many reported on what worked well for them, what didn't, and why. Some posts were quite moving as people wrote about painful betrayals, regrets, and estrangements from family members. As I read many and responded to a few, I felt a kinship with the other participants. This was in spite of never having met them in person and even though there are perhaps thousands of people enrolled in this MOOC.

And did I mention that the course is free?

I'm not certain whether I will become a happier person now than I was before I took the course, but there's strong evidence (provided by the course) that I might. If I commit to practicing the skills taught in the course, the odds are definitely in my favor. Best of all, I feel empowered to make changes instead of leaving my mood up to chance. That alone makes the course worthwhile.

For More Information

I recommend the Science of Happiness course to anyone who has the time for it (at least six hours per week for nine weeks). If you don't have the time for the course, you can still find many of the videos and readings on the Greater Good Science Center website. In addition, the primary texts for the course are as follows:

1. Born to Be Good by Dacher Keltner 




2. The Compassionate Instinct, an anthology of readings co-edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith


3. The How of Happiness by Sonya Lyubomirsky

What Hard Evidence Is There for the Efficacy of Homeschooling?

Anyone reading this blog will quickly surmise that I am in favor of homeschooling as a viable educational alternative. While I wouldn't presume to advocate homeschooling for all—it's options I favor, not absolutes—I do believe it can be an excellent choice for those who seek an educational experience that is flexible, customizable, and highly individualistic. I'm encouraged by what I've seen work in practice: I've successfully homeschooled my own three children, and I've assisted and known many other homeschooling families who likewise have done quite well.

For the skeptics, there are also books filled with personal stories, such as Homeschooling for Excellence (already mentioned in a previous post), Homeschoolers' Success Stories by Linda Dobson, A Sense of Self by Susannah Sheffer, and Real Lives by Grace Llewelyn—to name just a few.

So, why should I bother asking whether there is "hard evidence" that homeschooling "works"? Isn't the answer self-evident? Well, no, not really.

The Difference Between Anecdotes and Evidence

In their book Think Like a Freak, Leavitt and Dubner state, "An anecdote is a snapshot, a one-dimensional shard of the big picture. It is lacking in scale, perspective, and data." A homeschooler talking about how her kids learned algebra is sharing an anecdote. She cannot tell you to what extent other homeschooled children mastered algebra as a direct result of using an identical approach, nor can she say whether an alternative approach might have worked better. While her anecdotes might be helpful to other homeschoolers who are looking for methods to try with their own kids, it can't be construed as proof that this particular method will work just as well for anyone else who tries it.

So, how do we determine whether homeschooling in general, or a specific homeschooling method in particular, is effective? Is it really true that children do well because they are homeschooled? How do we know the same people wouldn't have done equally well or even better in school? (Of course, a similar question can be asked about schooled children: how might those same people have done if they had been homeschooled?)

Everyone knows there are many successful people who were homeschooled as children, but correlation doesn't prove causation, as the following cartoon humorously points out:

An Impractical Research Proposal

What we need is a controlled study.

For example, let's start with a set of identical triplets (extremely rare) and treat them exactly the same in every way except for the type of schooling they receive (a level of consistency which, any parent can tell you, is practically impossible to achieve).

We might then be able to separate the impact of homeschooling from everything else.

As far as I know, this type of study has never been done—and it's unlikely it ever will be—for an obvious reason: parents don't like to gamble with their kids' futures. When parents choose one educational alternative over another, they generally have very good reasons for doing so, which is why it's hard to imagine how someone could be convinced to choose a different (theoretically less desirable) option for only one child out of two or three, especially when the children are genetically identical with very similar educational needs.

Faced with this predicament, how might a researcher assess the efficacy of homeschooling? Such an assessment would need to begin with a clear definition of "homeschooling." It would be necessary to identify and control for confounding variables, such as family dynamics, educational philosophy, methods of instruction, materials used, quality and quantity of parent-child interaction, and all the other details that define a homeschooling lifestyle. Perhaps some forms of homeschooling are highly effective while others are not.

Unfortunately, there's not yet enough information to come to any conclusions.

My Anecdotes Are Not Evidence

All I know for sure is this: my kids and I enjoyed homeschooling and learned a lot. Although I can't clearly identify exactly which aspects of homeschooling were effective, I can look at what they've been able to accomplish, both during and after our years of homeschooling, and honestly declare that they've done "well": they've earned high marks on nationally standardized achievement tests and, subsequently, at competitive colleges; they've formed healthy, longterm relationships with their peers; they've never been arrested or even accused of a crime; and (so far) they've been able to find and keep decent jobs. They've also received positive feedback and praise from their teachers, classmates, employers, and coworkers.

What's more, they seem to be happy about having been homeschooled.

I'm very grateful for my kids' success and relieved that the dire predictions of how I might be ruining their chances at a good life by homeschooling have not come true. I'm reluctant to draw broad conclusions from my experiences, though, because I realize things could have easily gone differently. What if my kids hadn't done well on tests, didn't choose to go on to college, or couldn't find jobs or mutually satisfying relationships? I already know homeschooling parents who are second-guessing themselves now because their grown kids are struggling in one way or another. Was it a mistake for them to homeschool? Should they have sent their kids to school instead?

To what extent did homeschooling determine the outcomes? Who knows?

A Call for More Research

Without a controlled study, it's anyone's guess as to why some students do well and others appear to flounder. Any attempt to claim that formal schooling would have produced better results than homeschooling is nothing more than conjecture. And, to be fair, any attempt to claim that homeschooling produces better results than schooling—without solid evidence of causation—is also conjecture.

When all we've got are collections of anecdotes as "evidence," how can we be sure it was the decision to homeschool that resulted in an individual's success (or hardship) and not something else? If we are to judge whether homeschooling is efficacious or disastrous or something in between, we need real data from research that takes into consideration all the confounding variables, including genetic predispositions, socioeconomic conditions, geographic location, family circumstances, and even plain old luck.

With all the advice freely given on whether and how to homeschool, it would be helpful if there were some way to distinguish the good advice from the bad. Research on homeschooling might also help address the questions schools have been asking for years: what type of teaching works best? What makes some schools seemingly more effective than others at graduating students who go on to become successful in college, work or life in general?

If we can identify the most effective practices, perhaps we can share them and improve the educational outcomes for children in all settings.

Teaching What You Don't Know Yet (But Want to Learn)

Something I experienced often as a home educator was the desire to help my kids learn about a subject that wasn't exactly my area of expertise. In general, I had three choices:

1. Connect with an expert. Find someone who was proficient and ask if they would be willing to offer guidance and respond to questions as my child learned. This was an easy and obvious method, but it was also expensive, especially if the expert was a professional educator.
2. Encourage autodidactic exploration. Provide books, software, study groups—whatever was needed to enable my child to be self-taught, to figure things out independently through a process of trial and error. This method worked quite well when my kids felt passionate about a subject or were intrinsically motivated to develop a skill.
3. Become proficient enough to be the teacher.  

Admittedly, the third option requires a bit of ingenuity. How could I teach something that I had yet to learn myself? The most sensible thing would have been for me to teach subjects in which I had received formal instruction in the past. To some extent, I did exactly that when I helped my kids with math, science, and writing.

At other times, there were subjects or skills I was happy to learn along with my kids. My geeky self reveled in the whole process of sifting through books, researching subjects, exploring, asking questions and (eventually) finding answers. I loved discovering things together. I savored the moments when my kids surpassed me and became the ones doing the teaching.

How Does It Work, Exactly?

When I agreed to teach classes to groups of homeschooled kids who weren't my own, I took the job very seriously. Essentially, I did what I had been doing all along with my own kids, but I approached the task in a more focused, organized way. I assigned myself the following responsibilities:

1. Choosing resources carefully. I researched books and related materials to find gems that would be worth using. This was probably the most time-consuming step in the process but well worth it to avoid the mind-numbing drivel that's marketed as "educational" but can only be described as tedious. 
2. Preparing a tentative reading list (supplemented by a movie list, project list, field trip list, etc.). These proposed lists would always be significantly more extensive than what I would ever end up using during the year, but they weren't wasted effort. Having a readily available list of alternatives made it easier to improvise and come up with substitutions when something that looked good initially was disappointing. 
3. Planning and preparing well enough to stay one step ahead of my kids. Before I could teach, my understanding of a subject had to be at least a few grade levels ahead of what my children were learning. This was easy when they were very young but got progressively harder as they got older. By the time we were homeschooling high school, I had to be consulting college and graduate-level texts. 
4. Studying in advance, then studying again. Prior to the start of the school year or semester, I would typically read the books (and watch the movies) I intended to recommend to my children plus one or more advanced texts. Then, during the year, I would re-read all the books in parallel, as my kids read them. So, for example, as they read about the American Civil War, I read about the American Civil War—in their books and mine.  
5. Continuing to learn alongside my kids. By re-reading, or at least skimming, all the books as my kids read them, I was able to keep certain subjects in the forefront of my mind so I'd be prepared to respond to questions and recognize opportunities for related projects or activities. So, while I might not have been an expert on the American Civil War all the time, I was at the time they needed me to be. I also used the internet and connected with experts to get answers to questions that we couldn't answer on our own. 

Did I do this for every subject, every year? Of course not. I picked the subjects I would "teach" from one year to the next, and then I worked with my kids to cobble together a reasonably well-rounded course of study that included autodidactic, experiential and teacher-led learning (for the subjects that I wasn't as interested in studying along with them).

The Challenge

Were there any drawbacks to this approach? The short answer is yes. I recognized all along that my relative lack of expertise could be considered a disadvantage—for example, a more knowledgeable teacher could have provided with confidence more immediate, accurate answers to students' questions. When I was asked, "Is this right?" I always wanted to respond with a simple yes or no. There were times when it would have been so much easier if only I could have known the answers instead of having to grapple and search and say "I'm not sure." What made me think I could teach history or psychology or political science without a degree in those subjects? Was I overconfident, unable to see this approach as a case of the blind leading the blind?

I think all home educators—likely all teachers—know what it feels like to be asked questions we can't answer because we lack the expertise in a particular subject. I can't shrug the feeling off as inconsequential; it can be painfully frustrating and discouraging to feel useless in that moment. However, I'd argue the experience makes us even more conscientious about checking answers to be sure the ones we do give are either accurate or clearly identified as in need of verification.

The Optimistic Model of Error

In her fascinating book, Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz describes an "optimistic model of error." According to this model, there is value in making mistakes. Not getting things right the first time or all the time leads to all sorts of benefits. As Shultz writes in Chapter 14 ("The Paradox of Error"): 

"Awareness of one's own qualms, attention to contradiction, acceptance of the possibility of error: these strike me as signs of sophisticated thinking, far preferable in many contexts to the confident bulldozer of unmodified assertions." 

"When we are aware that we could be wrong, we are far more inclined to hear other people out. [...] In love, as in medicine, as in life more generally, listening is an act of humility. It says that other people's ideas are interesting and important; that our own could be in error; that there is still plenty left for us to learn." 

Being an effective guide alongside means being willing to admit you have "plenty left to learn." It doesn't mean there's no such thing as a correct answer. It just means you haven't cornered the market on them.

The Most Useful Lesson

I believe "I don't know" is a beginning, not an admittance of defeat. Maybe that's why I've always felt there was something beneficial about my not having all the answers as a home educator, because it allowed me to show my kids by my example that we all start out by not knowing. Instead of being an encyclopedia filled with answers, I was a role model for a work in progress. I showed them that solving problems, conducting research, and developing new skills is a process of trial and error, not something that gets handed to you in a neat little curriculum package. Of all the things my kids learned, I think that lesson has been the most useful to them.

Homeschooling and the Transition to College

It seems ludicrous now, but when I first began homeschooling, one question that arose was, "What about college?" My oldest child at the time was barely seven years old, and college seemed a long way off to me. Besides, I had other things to worry about, such as how I was going to manage to teach anything—never mind college-preparatory academics—to my precocious second grader when I also had an inquisitive four-year-old and a rambunctious one-year-old (not yet weaned) who were constantly vying for my attention.

I decided early on that we'd just have to take it one day at a time. We'd think about college "later." Still, the question of "What about college?" nagged me, especially when well-meaning friends or family members asked it.

So, when I had a spare moment to myself, I researched the topic. I started by reading Homeschooling for Excellence by David and Micki Colfax (1988). The book came to me highly recommended, and the authors wrote—without seeming to brag—about how three out of four of their children were accepted into Harvard after being homeschooled. (Not just accepted: I found out they went on to become doctors and lawyers. One of them is even a doctor and a lawyer.)

While the book reassured many who had doubted whether homeschooling could ever lead to college, personally I was overwhelmed and intimidated by it. It gave me an inferiority complex the size of the moon. The Colfaxes were incredibly industrious homesteaders: they built their own home from scratch, wired the power lines to it, grew their own food, and cleverly incorporated math and science lessons into practically everything they did.

Are you kidding me? No wonder their kids were accepted into Harvard!

It's time for me to confess: the closest our family ever came to building a house was banging a pile of boards together to create a modest tree fort (with heartfelt thanks to my husband for making that happen). On a good day, we were able to sprout beans between two paper towels, or keep a few "sea monkeys" alive, but we weren't exactly capable of self-sufficiency.

If our family had had to rely on our meager garden for food, we definitely would have starved to death.

Luckily for us, the ability to transition from homeschooling to college depends on more than "life skills." While my kids might be glad they learned how to knit, sew, cook and do their own laundry, it's unlikely those skills are what helped them get into college. As far as I can tell, the acceptance process seems to be all about extraordinary achievements and academic credentials, sprinkled with a little luck and storytelling ability.

In a recent article about "Highly Selective College Admissions for Homeschoolers" (from HomeschoolSuccess.com), homeschoolers are reminded that "competition is fierce" and "the fact that homeschooling is great and your kid is homeschooled isn’t enough." If your student is aiming for a top college, the article insists, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• College applicants, whether they are homeschooled or not, need a well-documented academic record with challenging courses. As the article points out, "A basic expectation for students who wish to be competitive in highly selective admissions is that they have a rigorous high school education with strong development in all of the core areas: math, English, social science, science, and foreign language."

• For homeschoolers who don't have an official transcript from an accredited high school to submit—as was the case for two of my three kids—the "documentation" can get complicated. Selective colleges typically want records that have been validated or provided by an outside source: letters of recommendation from teachers, mentors and coaches; community college or other formal course transcripts; evidence of awards won, especially at the national level; and various test scores. 

• And about those test scores . . . although some colleges are now "test optional," meaning they do not require SAT or ACT scores, "test optional policies may exclude homeschoolers." In other words, homeschooled students sometimes need to submit test scores that schooled students are not required to submit. For example, my son learned too late that Northeastern University (as of 2013–2014) requires applicants to the College of Engineering to submit scores for the SAT or ACT plus two SAT subject tests, one in mathematics (which he had taken) and one in physics (which he hadn't). These are in addition to: the required list of all textbooks used; the School Report portion of The Common Application (which includes a special set of questions required only for homeschooled students); and a transcript of high school courses, prepared by the parent or an outside agency.

• "Most [homeschoolers accepted to selective colleges] also have used the flexibility afforded by homeschooling to develop some special area of talent or extracurricular interest." For the Colfaxes, it was homesteading. Other homeschoolers have built robots, started a business, or excelled as artists, musicians or athletes. MIT, Yale, and Princeton all emphasize the importance of doing something extraordinary as a homeschooler, rather than simply assuming your homeschooling will serve as a Golden Ticket (Willy Wonka style) for admission. 

In spite of all these hurdles, it's certainly possible for a homeschooled student to be admitted and to excel in a selective college. Although the data is sparse on exactly how many and where homeschooled students attend college, there's this list of Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers as well as my own, anecdotal evidence: my kids were offered admission as well as merit scholarships to several colleges, including Simon's Rock College of Bard, UC Berkeley, Northeastern University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (in a year when only 10% of applicants were accepted). Their friends got into Vassar College, Bennington College, Berklee College of Music, and many other schools. Did these kids also receive rejection letters? Yes, just as their schooled peers did.

Homeschooled students can go to college. They can do well once they get there (for example, see Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students, Journal of College Admission, 2010). The real risk is assuming that the doors to selective colleges will be held open, or kept closed, simply because a student is educated in an unconventional way. It's up to students and their families to work hard, keep good records, be aware of any special admission requirements, and prepare the best application they can when the time comes.