Comments on: Warning: Homeschooling families must prepare for college

By: Dana

Dana — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:37:43 +0000

We are a billion dollar market. What intrigues me is how much of that is passed from one homeschooling family to another. We are like our own sub-economy.

By: Spunky

Spunky — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:31:59 +0000

I started a comment, but as is my pattern it turned into it’s own blog post. Thanks for the interesting dialogue, Dana!

By: Life On The Planet

Life On The Planet — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:32:07 +0000

One day we may well see ads promoting programs to help the non-homeschooled youth get into college…

“How to beat those pesky homeschoolers at their own game. You too can have a portfolio!”

I may get in on the action early and make my fortune selling portfolio builders to p.s. kids! Hey! If you can’t beat’em, join’em.

By: PeregrinJoe

PeregrinJoe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:29:26 +0000

A homeschool marketing demographic…hmmm…I guess it was just a matter of time. In the past we were always those “crazy people” who were “denying [our] children a proper education.” Now that companies realize we take this seriously and actually invest in our kids’ education we are a cash cow and they can play to what they perceive to be our fears in order to seperate us from our hard-earned cash.

It’s sick really.

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:05:19 +0000

We blogged college admission-relevant cognitive psychology "When Getting IN is Hard to Do" -- includes concepts like behavioral contagion and social contagion.

By: JJ Ross

JJ Ross — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:50:56 +0000

Sebastian, I LOVE Paco Underhill’s Science of Shopping! Along the same lines, check out Emotional Design by Donald Norman and the new Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. Cognitive psychology explains much more than formal “education” about why we think, buy, vote, worship,parent, love, live and die as we do.

Which suggests at least two thoughts:
1. Education should include becoming aware of, and learning to understand and cope with, our own sub-rational operating mechanisms;

2. Family decisions including higher education choices, have to be made within the same sub-rational cognitive contexts as buying and eating. It’s only human! So intelligent parents need to self-educate before making educational decisions for their children.

By: Crimson Wife

Crimson Wife — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:37:09 +0000

I suspect we’ll see more and more college admission consultants targeting the HS market as the popularity of HS continues to grow. Currently, 1% or less of the applicants to elite colleges are HS so they already “stand out” from the crowd. But by the time my kids will be applying to colleges, there will likely be a much higher number of HS applicants. The stiffer competition will presumably drive the demand for the types of “hired guns” that are now standard for traditionally-schooled applicants in many areas.

By: Pmteet

Pmteet — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:11:39 +0000

MichelleRose.
Amen to that! I have been homeschooling for almost as long as you and the choices…wow!
I support everyones right to homeschool using any method they chose. But I think it can be way too much.

I do feel this is a HUGE scam though. I can easily find deadlines, rules and regulations.
How? I know how to use a phone. lol My oldest is 16 and has started college. People should give me a little credit on being able to get her into college.

I also had to laugh! I had a picture of a poor homeschooling child sitting in a desk with the test in front of him/her. He/she is totaly baffled with the instructions to “fill in the circle of the correct answer”
LOL I had never given my 16yo a test before and she was able to figure it out….I know…amazing!

michelle
ps forgive the spelling. I have a killer headache.

By: Alice Gunther

Alice Gunther — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:33:57 +0000

LOL!

By: Sebastian (a lady)

Sebastian (a lady) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:31:14 +0000

Dana,
Well, I agree with you totally there. This is part of a trend of professionalizing the college applications process. There are more and more families who are hiring someone to help their child navigate and prepare for college admissions. There are all kinds of issues with this (egalitarianism, originality of student essays, accuracy of the glimpse of the student that the college gets, etc).
But like anything, there are plenty of ways to rip off families in this too. Like the scholarship search companies that don’t provide anything that a day in the library wouldn’t garner. Most of marketing is about telling the consumer that they aren’t complete without the proffered product. Have you ever read “Why We Buy” by Paco Underhill? I think you’d enjoy it.