Dual Enrollment for Homeschool can be easy

Y’all, I have spent the last two months getting my kids registered for dual enrollment in college as a homeschooler. If you haven’t done this, it’s a nightmare. Or, my experience was, I’ve found somewhere dual enrollment for homeschool isn’t a nightmare, but sadly I’m not in Pennsylvania, so we can’t go there, but let me tell you why if you’re close to Thiel college, you totally want to go there.

(this post is sponsored by Thiel College, my opinions are my own, and my dual enrollment experience is my own, and nothing like what you get from Thiel College)

Requirements for Dual Enrollment

Once you’re thinking about Dual Enrollment for homeschool you need to see what that school requires. Let’s look at what Dual Enrollment at Thiel College requires.

Y’all, that prints out on one page. I just spent months on a 4-page dual enrollment plan, and half the time the needed information wasn’t on the sheet we needed.

What you need to get together as a parent:

• Application

That’s it. For our local college, I needed: application, a state-issued photo-id, birth certificate, TSI, approval from a counselor, and about half a dozen papers filled out that weren’t included on the list because REASONS.

Go back to Thiel College’s Dual Enrollment page, and scroll down for just a little bit. What do you see?

That’s right, they give you a phone number you can text or call with questions about dual enrollment for homeschool.

I don’t have a phone number for my local school to call. I’m insanely jealous!

Why you want dual enrollment for your homeschooler

Dual enrollment is the holy grail for homeschoolers, your child gets college credit while still in high school, and usually at a reduced rate. Here are my reasons I wanted my kids in a dual enrollment program:

1. They make mistakes while I’m there to help them. It is depressing the number of students who flunk out of college in their first year because they don’t know how to adapt.
2. They have the advantage of smaller class sizes. This isn’t true of every dual enrollment opportunity, but it’s true at Thiel College. Thiel College has a 11:1 ratio. Your kid gets the chance to take the intro classes at a smaller class size with professors interested in keeping your student successful.
3. Dual enrollment lets them experience college life and adapt to it. Students in the dual enrollment program at Theil College can participate in all of college life except varsity sports and Greek clubs. I mentioned the number of students who fail out of college, and many kids become so enamored of the amazing opportunities they never go to class. Dual enrollment allows your kids to experience college life, and have the wisdom of their parents reminding them that college life isn’t real life.

Tips as you get started on dual enrollment

1. Look at the school’s location– Thiel College has a great location, and is gorgeous! It’s in the Pennsylvania countryside about ninety minutes outside of both Pittsburgh and Cleveland, far enough away from the big town it’s not a daily distraction, but close enough you could go for a weekend. 
2. Class size– I mentioned this before, but when first starting out, look for a small class size like Thiel College has.
3. Requirements for the class– every class has its own prerequisites, books, and outside of class time. One piece of advice our local college had that was VERY helpful was to look at the requirements, do you need special equipment, lots of books, or maybe lab time? This can seriously impact time requirements or how much you need to spend.

 

I’m intrigued by Thiel College

I hadn’t heard of them until recently, but my research has me intrigued, and I’m adding them to my list of colleges I’m going to recommend to my kids as they look at colleges. It reminds me of the university I went to. There are a lot of things Thiel college wants to brag about, but my favorites on their long list:

1. Community Hour– Every week, everything on the college shuts down for an hour for the whole college to attend chapel together. ACU did the same thing, only every day and I loved the time of attending chapel together with my friends and it’s one of my favorite memories.
2. Common Hour– Every week, again, for an hour the college shuts down for students to participate in social activities. This is a great way to build community and friendships.
3. Practical application– 100% of students participate in an internship of some sort. I talk to Jeff about interviewing new college hires, and his biggest complaint is the number of people who have the theory of programming but haven’t actually worked with the nitty-gritty details he works with. Thiel College makes sure you get real-world applications. I appreciate this. It also cuts down on people spending all their time thinking they love the idea of the job, and then actually getting into the job and discovering they hate it
4. 95% students live on campus– I loved the experience of living on campus, and the discussions I got into with my dormmates helped me figure out what I think and believe. Living on campus gives you a great experience to learn about yourself.
5. Thiel College is well connected– It’s highly recommended. They are part of Dietrich Honors Institute with Carnegie Mellon and Princeton, it’s regularly ranked on the Forbes list of Grateful Grad Colleges, its students go on to Ivy League schools for graduate work, and boasts 95% of their students hired within their field 3 months after graduating, that’s an impressive brag

There aren’t a lot of homeschool-friendly colleges that are well thought of, so I’m glad to add this to the list.

Okay, it’s what I’m starting the list with.

Please, go check them out.