59. College Admissions: A Guide for Homeschooled Students with Expert Pat Wesolowski

Ever wondered how homeschooled students navigate the complex terrain of college admissions? Pat Weslowski from Bryan College joins us to illuminate the path forward, sharing rich insights into the unique advantages and hurdles these students encounter. From the flexibility of homeschool scheduling that opens doors to impressive extracurricular exploits to the strategic importance of standardized tests like the ACT, Pat's expertise demystifies the process, offering a beacon of reassurance to both students and parents.

But even if you are not a homeschooled student or parent of, this episode is packed with insightful tips for all parents regarding college prep and:

- College Admissions
- Dual Enrollment and College Test Preparation
- Comparison of College Requirements and Transcripts
- Choosing Community College vs Four-Year College
- College Opportunities, College Camps, Scholarships, Stacking Athletic and Merit Scholarships and more.

Pat Weslowski shares compelling anecdotes about the close-knit educational communities and the transformative potential of academic camps and clinics, which offer a glimpse into collegiate life. For those eager to learn more about the homeschooling landscape and Bryan College's offerings, Pat extends an open invitation to connect, promising a continuation of the informative journey we embark upon in this enlightening discussion.

This link is the page that offers our free transcript builder and a free e-resource called The Journey. https://www.bryan.edu/admissions/homeschool/   
Facebook page for Bryan College Homeschool Admissions is here - https://www.facebook.com/homeschoolstudents

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the College and Career Ready podcast, your go-to resource for all things related to preparing our students for success in their college and career journey. My name is Sonia Casique and I will be your host and guide on this exciting journey toward the bright future. Our mission is simple to empower our parents and students by elevating their confidence and resourcefulness. We believe that you deserve all the tools and support necessary to open the doors to endless possibilities of success and with our community, you don't have to do this alone, so come with me and let's get started. To all of our listeners of the College and Career Ready podcast, we're so excited that you are here with us today. We have an exceptional guest who is going to talk to us about college admissions.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Now, some of our questions today will be tailored for homeschool students. However, all high school students and parents alike can benefit from this conversation. Our guest is Pat Weslowski. She is an author speaker and has homeschooled her nine children and is now the homeschool admissions counselor Bryan College and Dayton, Tennessee. Pat has a heart for helping parents find joy in their homeschooling experience. She is the host of the podcast. The Homeschool Specialist, writes a blog and has authored numerous unit studies for homeschool students, so I am very thrilled to have you here, pat. Welcome to the College and Career Ready podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:43

Thank you so much for having me and I appreciate all you're doing to help families get their kids prepared for college. That's great.

Speaker 1: 1:50

And you are going to have plenty of information to share with us, so let's go ahead and get started. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background, and then we'll transition into the college admissions process?

Speaker 2: 2:03

All right. So I begin homeschooling in the 1980s in Florida. The first year it was legal. It was pretty easy to do up until they got to high school and at that time wasn't real sure what to do next. Kind of slew by the seat of my pants Didn't prepare my older children real well for college, unfortunately. I apologize to them for that. It did work out. They went, but I learned as I went along, learned from my mistakes and now I love helping other, especially homeschool families who don't have a brick and mortar guidance counselor they don't have one to help them understand about transcripts and scholarships and everything you need to know. The FASFA, the PSAT, which I didn't know about until the night of mine were out of their junior year. So I'm just here to help parents do a good job with that, be able to understand it, help prepare their students well. And I promote the College I Work at because I love it. It's a great college.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Super and we will definitely be touching a little bit on the college and where you work at. But let's dive into the homeschool experience and college application process, which is a key topic. The first question that I have for you and a lot of our homeschool parents asked me this a lot is how do colleges see homeschool students and do they see them any different than those going to public or private education? They definitely see them differently.

Speaker 2: 3:30

Fortunately, it's way better than it used to be. In the early days we were looked at like we had a third eyeball, very different, skeptical. How could you teach your child at home if you don't have a teaching degree? How can they be prepared? But now colleges are seeing and statistics are showing that homeschool students do really well in college. So there are more than a few colleges, mine included, who have hired people with homeschool experience, both to recruit homeschoolers and to help the homeschoolers through the process, and many of them, including the one I work at, have homeschool scholarships. So it's way better situation than it's ever been before.

Speaker 1: 4:14

That's so good to hear and very relieving for those parents who have chosen the route of homeschooling. Do you think that homeschool students could be at a disadvantage at certain universities? Have you seen that?

Speaker 2: 4:28

I think it's some they may, but I have heard of them going to all the schools, including Ivy Leagues, and doing really well, especially ones who are in the speech and debate clubs and the mock trial, and they competitive that way, competitive as athletes. The field is pretty open to homeschoolers now, especially compared to what it used to be.

Speaker 1: 4:50

I love it. So, based on what you're telling me and please help me if I'm misunderstanding this or saying this correctly the key here is for the students to be actively involved in other extracurricular activities that can basically broaden their opportunities. Is it correct?

Speaker 2: 5:07

That's a big part of it. I think one of the one of the big advantages that homeschoolers have is the flexibility in their time to do so many different things during their high school years. That gives them a resume with experience that kids who are in school from eight to three every day don't have the opportunity to do. They can. They can go on overseas trips, they can campaign for politicians, they can go to workshops and conferences and they can make their schedule as flexible as they want it to be. The experiences my kids had were so varied and so wide that it really appealed to.

Speaker 2: 5:46

The colleges Also think they're at an advantage in that they have more time to prepare for the test and take the exams the college exams. That's something that's important to them and statistics do show We've even backed that up at the college where I work the test scores of the homeschool students are generally pretty higher than the other students. When we give out our honors or awards at graduation I actually looked up one year to see because I recognized so many of the students getting the awards at homeschool students 60% that I could identify were homeschooled, and we don't have 60% homeschool students on campus. We have less than 30%, so they do a really good job with that.

Speaker 2: 6:31

But they also a lot of homeschoolers because, like me, I had nine children 18 years apart. They were with kids of different ages and with adults all the time. So we homeschooled once a week in a co-op so they were with parents, they were with younger kids, they were with older kids. They learned how to communicate well, they learned how to ask important questions. They even learned how to respectfully challenge answers that they're given, and so when they come to college, what we've seen is they're not afraid to raise their hand and talk, and the professors love that. They like the feedback, they like the interaction and I think, for that reason, some of the experiences the homeschoolers have that are more varied than traditional school children. It makes them a different student.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Yeah, absolutely, and that actually makes a lot of sense. So, in regards to standardized testing, because that's a big hot topic what exams should they consider? What's your take on that? I?

Speaker 2: 7:30

will admit. With my older children I said and I still believe this I do not think standardized tests are good indicators of how well a student will do in college. In fact, I'm just shocked that a third of those tests include math, because we all have that little piece of equipment in our hand that can give us the answers we need almost immediately. I told my older children the colleges will look at your resumes and they will want you. And I was right. They wanted them. But did they want to give them any money? No, not without a test score. So then I realized okay, this is a jump we have to jump, this is a hoop we have to jump through. So I had to teach my children how to take tests. Now I raised my children, we homeschooled them, teaching them to be mature, independent, functional adults who knew how to get the information they needed when they needed it, not so much to memorize a lot of information they could spout back out and pass the test with. So for them to take tests with some of my older ones that's the first time they had ever done it, because we required them to do their work till they did it. Well, that was just what we required. So I didn't put very much emphasis on the test at all. And now I'm excited at the college I work at, where you think either test scores for Merritt Scholarship either the test score or a dual enrollment GPA if they've earned at least nine credits.

Speaker 2: 8:52

For high school students, which my youngest three were at Bryan a few years ago they all made 4.0 GPAs in their dual enrollment classes. So they were college classes during high school but they were not good test takers. And they did take the test until they got the grants that they needed to earn in the state to be able to afford college. But their GPAs were much higher. So if we had this policy in place, then a 3.75 GPA is equivalent to a 29 ACT, which is our highest Merritt Award. They would have had our highest award. The fact that we have that opportunity I don't know if other colleges do for the students who make good grades and our good students improve that they're ready for college because they've taken college classes, that's a great option for them.

Speaker 2: 9:38

For the students who have to have certain test scores, especially for the Ivy League and the higher tier schools that require really high ACT and SAT scores to start with, students are sometimes at a disadvantage if they're just not good test takers. Hence we had all the cheating and the scandal and everything else that went on and people buying their way into college. So it's kind of a shame they still put so much emphasis on that. But there are three tests out there now. There's the ACT and SAT, which we both know about, which I hear they're going to go virtual. They haven't yet. During COVID they had to shut down. And then there's a third test called the Classic Learning Test, clt. It was developed by Christians. Many Christian colleges will use it to award Merritt scholarships and the state of Florida actually just adopted it as a state test. So students in Florida can even use that as a third option to get the state grants in Florida. We're hoping other states will follow suit. Tennessee said they would, but it has to go through the legislative session and it keeps dying in committees, probably because of some lobby money on the other side. But those are the tests.

Speaker 2: 10:48

So when my children were in school there was only the ACT and SAT. I said take both of them once, see which one you prefer. We'll stick with that. You pay extra for the writing. I don't know if many colleges, if any, that require the writing portion anymore. I heard SAT was going to drop it. They may have. I haven't looked into that further, but I said take it the first time. I won't even turn in your scores. See what it's like. Pick the one you like. That's the one we'll study for, that's the one that you can take until you get the score that you need. So that's what mine did. Several picked the ACT, several picked the SAT.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Wow Well, and I'm glad you shared about your personal experience with some of your students, or sorry, some of your children.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Well, yeah, children and students they are that struggled because of test anxiety or test performance, because I can relate 100% with that.

Speaker 1: 13:52

One of my children did not get accepted into a math accelerated program because he did not score high enough on the standardized test and he was then in fourth grade or in third grade, and when I realized that he had test anxiety and that we really needed to go over testing strategies and really help him with that, more than the concept itself, his grade increased dramatically and he mastered the star testing.

Speaker 1: 14:22

The following year, however, he did not get accepted into the program because of the score. It had to have been within that year and not that it matters, to be quite honest in the grand scheme of things for us personally as parents, but it just made me realize how, if parents are not knowledgeable, you can easily misjudge a child by just the test score and thinking that they're not capable. Again, once we managed to overcome the issues and empowered him with strategies, he mastered the exam without any hesitation the second year, but he did get left out of the program for that reason, and we could have actually gone in and tried to made it a bigger issue, but we thought that's fine, we're moving on, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:07

But it's good, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So we had one student come to Brian who had earned his AA in high school, so he had earned his associates and a higher than a 3.0 GPA. But at the time in Tennessee you could only get the state grant with a test score and he couldn't get the 21 he needed on the ACT. Was he ready for college? Actually, he had finished two years. Two years that cost him $20,000. And kind of what prompted me to get with legislators and encourage them to pass legislation to use the dual enrollment GPA in lieu of the test score for students like that, because some just fall through the cracks. They're great students, but the test anxiety. Or you sign up two months in advance and then the Saturday, the day up, you're sick as a dog or your grandfather dying, it's his funeral. You're just out of luck that if that's what you're waiting on, is that one opportunity and you don't get to take it. So it seems so crazy that so much rides on that those two hours of their life.

Speaker 1: 16:09

Yeah, absolutely, and actually this is for all of our parent listeners. The earlier they can take it, the better, because the more practice they have with the test, the more familiar they are with the questions, the better they are going to do. Please do not wait until like it's time to take it there once, an only chance before college application process. And speaking about that, how early do you recommend students start considering taking the PSAT practice tests? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 16:37

CLT has a CLT eight that seventh and eighth graders can take. They also have a CLT 10. It's like the PSAT because it comes with scholarship potential. Ninth and tenth graders can take that, not just once a year like the PSAT, but three times. So I recommend that one. And that is an online virtual test. But the PSAT ninth and tenth graders can take it if they find a location that allows them to this.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Homeschoolers. That gets tricky. You have to find a public or private school that will have enough booklets and let your student come. But it's good practice and it's an affordable test. And then the PSAT for 11th graders, of course, is the one that counts for National Merit Scholarship. So that's.

Speaker 2: 17:23

You don't want to miss that one, but it's only in October. Then again, don't feel bad if you miss it. I don't feel bad online, I'm not going to mind miss it, because you have to be in the top 1% or higher to get National Merit finalists or semi finalists with the PSAT. So you have to be a really good test taker. But if you don't take it, you don't have that option at all.

Speaker 2: 17:43

And a semi finalist to National Merit gets full tuition at Bryan. So that's a good way to get tuition money. But the younger they start, like you said, the more often they take it. They lose some of that anxiety. They become more familiar with the test and, unfortunately, a lot about the success of the test rides on understanding test-taking skills more than knowing the information that's presented, because a lot of it's critical writing and a lot of it is being able to get through the questions and answers within a small amount of time. So it's really testing their skills of taking tests more, in my opinion. But while there's still hoops and they're required by colleges and they're what gives you the money then the students need to jump through those hoops?

Speaker 1: 18:30

Absolutely. And what about the test? Optional schools, those that have the test as an option. What's your take on that? Should students still try to take standardized tests?

Speaker 2: 18:40

When I first came to Bryan when I first started working there in 2014, I said why don't we become test optional? And at the time the vice president said we could, but that would just be for admission. We would still use test scores for scholarship. So I did a little research and I looked and at the time almost every college that both did that they were test optional. They required the test score for merit scholarship but you might be able to get in without the test score.

Speaker 2: 19:06

But because there are so many different states with grants tied to test scores because a PSAT is can get you some really good scholarship money you want them to start taking them because if they're good test takers, they'll miss out on a lot of opportunities if they don't take those tests. If they're going to some, if they know they're going to go to somewhere like growing college, it will use the dual enrollment GPA. They're good students, they're going to have a good dual enrollment GPA and they can even earn their state grant that way, which a student now can do that in Tennessee. So we have students who come and get our top tier scholarships without a test score, but the students in our nursing department and in our education department. Both are required to have tests by part of the major. They're in the education major and the nursing major.

Speaker 2: 19:56

Yeah, yeah yeah, and another thing to think about too, especially with homeschoolers, are the athletic conferences. So they put different expectations on homeschoolers. If there were enough lawyers and money and we could lobby for our rights more. It is unfair because for an at a homeschooler to be able to play in most athletic conferences they need either a certain test score or they have finally added the dual enrollment, gpa, so that now hadn't been before, but now that is an option too. But that's something you have to look at.

Speaker 2: 20:29

And as far as even and we may talk more about transcripts later, but as far as transcripts go the most difficult transcript for a homeschooler to put together is one for the. I don't even know what the athletic conference is, but the one all the big colleges have in C. I don't know what it is, but they're very picky with the homeschoolers transcripts. They have to see syllabus and descriptions and percentage of time in class and time in test, and they require a lot more. So you need to. That's probably why they need to narrow down their college choices. Find out what do you need for admissions, what do you need for merit, what do you need for athletics, so they can do the things that they need to do while there's still time to do it.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Absolutely. And in regards to dual enrollments, because we've mentioned that a little bit, can you explain dual enrollments to our listeners?

Speaker 2: 21:20

Yeah. So there's a lot of parents who don't realize this opportunity even exists. But high school students can take college classes at colleges that offer them either online or in person or, like in our college, both. So I have a granddaughter who's a senior who signed up for one online and three on campus this semester and you're taking the college classes but you're getting high school credit and college credit at the same time. So that's the word dual D-U-A-L, and usually one semester of a college course is counted on a transcript as a full credit in high school. But if you were to take English 101 in the fall and English 10, I mean 109 and 110 in the spring, you would have two full high school English credits in one year, but you would also have college credit. But you earn college credit and high school credit at the same time. At Brian, a 10th grader can take one dual enrollment class with us each semester, but 11th and 12th graders can take four hours each fall and spring. We have short eight-week sessions. They can only take one during that. Different colleges will have different requirements. We do not require a test score. Many colleges do. We require a GPA, so you just have to check with the colleges.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Do they offer dual enrollment? Is it online? Is it on campus? What do you have to have? And then how do you pay for it?

Speaker 2: 22:40

Many states have grants that allow your students to take dual enrollment for free. A student in Tennessee could take 30 hours that's a full year with us. If they live in Tennessee and use a grant and the scholarship we offer for under $200 tuition total A full year private college under $200. Some colleges offer partial, some states offer partial scholarships. Some don't offer any.

Speaker 2: 23:05

We do offer out-of-state scholarships of $200 per class for the states that don't have any state grants. They can take classes with us and get $200 off a three-hour college class and sub, costing them $338 tuition, which is not bad at all, and we're regionally accredited with SACS, which is the same as all the big universities. Our credits should transfer anywhere and that's a question you want to ask when your students looking at dual enrollment. What is the college, what's their accreditation? Are these credits going to transfer? Where are they going to go if they don't go to the college where they're taking the classes? Let other colleges accept these credits, because no college has to accept any credit which actually that brings me to my next question Are there any disadvantages to dual enrollments?

Speaker 1: 23:54

There are some.

Speaker 2: 23:55

This goes on your permanent record. If you fail that class, you have a grade on your permanent record. You can retake the class and get a better grade In Tennessee. If you drop below I don't know 2.8 something, you lose the state grant. Not only do you have to retake the class, you're retaking it without the grant because you've lost it. So that's a disadvantage. That's the biggest disadvantage. I would tell parents to be very careful if they're putting their kids on a college campus while they're in high school, physically letting them go to college campus, to go check out the college campus first, because those are college kids and they do college things and crazy things. And I have a lot of friends who are grad. They're high school kids being on a college campus when they were still in high school. So that's something you just want to weigh. I mean, you know your children, you know when they're ready, you know how mature they are. They can handle that.

Speaker 1: 24:54

Absolutely so. Transcripts we talked about it a little bit. What types of transcripts, for homeschool students especially, are acceptable?

Speaker 2: 25:05

It's so nice now that we can just accept a transcript that a parent puts together without having to pay somebody else to do it. And actually I went to our administration and said can we offer a transcript builder to homeschoolers and put it on our website? So they created one and we have a transcript builder that even calculates the GPAs and it's generic, so you can use it anywhere I wish.

Speaker 2: 25:27

I had it with my nine because I was so frustrated always calculating that GPA, especially if it was a half a credit instead of a whole credit, and keeping it all straight. And I think it may wait and unweight the GPAs. Brian used to accept weighted GPAs. The classes were more difficult honors, ap they got more credit for it, or dual enrollment but then we were getting students applying with higher than a 5.0 GPA. So Brian went back to unweighted GPA.

Speaker 2: 25:57

That's another question you have to ask when you're looking at colleges Do you want to unweighted GPA or unweighted GPA? So a lot of homeschoolers will actually have both made awaited and unweighted, depending on the college and their preference. Most colleges will accept a transcript that just shows the title of the class, the credits they earned and the numerical GPA the cumulative GPA has to be on there as well the date they graduate and signatures. Then again, that's why the conferences might require more. So those are just questions you have to ask and find out why your students are still in school so you can be sure you get everything done you need to do. Sometimes they require what we call SCEDs. Those are codes and if they do, you can just Google that and look up what the SCED codes are. So English has one code, algebra has a code. I've not ever seen one come into Brian with those codes on it. We don't require it.

Speaker 1: 26:54

That's awesome. Thank you so much for providing that to the students. Is that on your website? They just go in for the transcript? Builder.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Yeah, there's a page for homeschoolers and it offers the transcript builder and an e-resource called the journey I put together that helps them plan all four years so it shows them which tests the students can take, which years and when to begin thinking about dual enrollment, all the things that they need to consider Lovely.

Speaker 1: 27:20

What about AP classes and dual enrollment If parents had to choose between one or the other? What's your recommendation?

Speaker 2: 27:28

I do know. I have heard this and this is what I say when I do workshops between AP and CLEP. If you're taking exams to get credit for AP or CLEP, I have heard the CLEP exams are a little easier. Also, clep has gone virtual since COVID so you can take your CLEP test at home now. You don't have to find a proctored site.

Speaker 2: 27:49

While we're talking about CLEP, CLEP is taking a test to get college credit. Some colleges accept CLEP, some accept a little, some accept a lot. Brian College's college will accept 30 CLEP credits and we have specific ones. I send that information out to parents. We have had more than a few homeschoolers come with way more CLEPs than we accept because they weren't sure where they're going to college and they just started taking those tests. But AP, as long as the college accepts AP credit for college, that's a great way to get college credit between AP and CLEP. And then dual enrollment. In dual enrollment, if the college is accredited in such a way that those credits are going to transfer almost anywhere else, I think it's really good and I think it boosts the students' confidence If they take a college class and they do well in it. I think it's going to make it easier for them in college to have more confidence to take more classes than an AP class would. Although they may be very similar in content, it's just an additional experience.

Speaker 1: 28:55

It is what about community college versus four-year college? Do you see any disadvantage for homeschool students, or any student in general, to start at the community college?

Speaker 2: 29:08

I do. The state of Tennessee came up, I don't know how many years ago with a funding called the Tennessee Promise. Any student who jumps through the hoops to earn that their senior year would get two years free of junior college. I think the state of Tennessee was hoping that would get more kids to go to college. You otherwise just thought they were going to go work in a factory and that if they went to community college for those two years they would go on and finish their four years. But now that's been around for a few years I think they're seeing that's not work out the way they thought it would work out.

Speaker 2: 29:43

A lot of those kids drop out or they never finish or if they don't continue their education, for a lot of kids starting a community college is the most affordable way to start college and so for those who are intentional and determined it might be the best route for them. For kids who know they're going to finish at Bryan College, they're almost better off starting off at Bryan College Because if you go to college after a two year you're coming in as a transfer student. So you're going to be offered transfer student scholarships, not freshman scholarships At Bryan. That's one scholarship based on your GPA, but freshmen can come into Bryan with a variety of other scholarships that will renew each year, all four years. Some families who have done the comparisons in Tennessee have found they're going to be better off just starting at Bryan and ending at Bryan all four years. And they build community. They know the faculty, the staff. It tends to work out better for them. Now there's no black and white answer here. A couple of my kids started at community colleges. A couple of my kids did all four years at the same college. Some moved around. I think so much of that just depends on your situation, their situation, finances, opportunities, the majors they want.

Speaker 2: 31:01

I will tell parents and this has to do with dual enrollment as well If you know what your student wants to major in and it's something as specific as engineering or nursing, you need to be very careful about the classes they take at the community college and dual enrollment. Because an engineering degree, some semesters will require 19 hours and engineering degrees have very few electives. If a student knows they're going to be getting an engineering degree, they want to take the classes that are going to pertain to that. That way, if they take it as dual enrollment, they won't have those 19-hour semesters. They will have completed some of their courses but they will have done it wisely. So they're not all electives because there's very few electives there.

Speaker 2: 31:48

If your student has an idea now, some of the liberal arts majors are, their genets are interchangeable and it won't make much of a difference if you change your major midway through. My son was pretty much finished with a business major and switched to communications, so he ended up with a communications major and a business minor and that didn't really slow him down any. But if you start out with liberal arts and switch to engineering, you're probably going to add another year to your college experience.

Speaker 1: 32:19

Yeah, that's a very good point and really an opportunity for parents to see that sometimes financially, with great scholarships and money that's out there, it might even be more financially, I guess better for the family to go to a university or a college like Bryan College, where they are getting these benefits right off the bat. Because that's what usually parents think about community college they think it's most affordable, not realizing that there's a lot of universities out there that have great opportunities for scholarship.

Speaker 2: 32:51

There are, and we reduced our tuition at Bryan. So we're actually one of the lower colleges in Tennessee. But before we did that we had a high sticker price and we had much higher scholarships. But we found that the sticker price was shocking to people and they're like we can never afford that before we can even say but look at our great scholarships. So we reduced our tuition and in turn reduced our scholarships accordingly. But at least families look at it and they say, oh, we might be able to afford it. We're less than some of the public universities. Don't always just look at the sticker price and say we'll never be able to afford it, because some of the scholarships at these colleges are amazing and some are very wide and varied. We have a special we had a private donor set up a scholarship fund at Bryan for kids who've been in foster care. So that's unusual, but that we just started that a few years ago. We had several kids be able to take advantage of that as well. Another question to ask when you're looking at colleges and scholarships and you're an athlete, do the academic and athletic scholarships stack? Because they don't stack at every college. They do at Bryan, but they don't everywhere. And I'll tell you a sad story which may help. If kids are listening. Especially our parents talk to their kids about it.

Speaker 2: 34:10

This 18 year old boy wanted to go play sports at a college. He's 18. He's not a minor. He goes and visited. He was a very smart student. The college really wanted him. They loved him. They signed him while he was there. They gave him a good scholarship. He was excited. He came home and told his parents and parents said we're not so sure you should have done that. And he goes. Why? And they go? Because they don't stack academic and athletic. You wouldn't have gotten that same amount academically with what your GPA and test scores are. And what if you get hurt? What if you're cut from the team? You're enough for a semester. He got hurt. He's 18. He's at the college. He's not a minor. They go it's okay, you won't get that athletic scholarship, but we'll give you a loan. Sign these papers, we'll give you a loan.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Didn't talk to his parents, sign the papers. He didn't even make it through the second semester. So he came back home. He felt terrible. That summer he said you know what I'm going to apply. I'm going to go somewhere else. I'm going to do it right this time. He couldn't even apply until he paid off the loan at the other college. No, find out if those, if those scholarships stack. Children, if you're listening, always consult your parents. I knew you may be 18. You may be older, but there are things you may not have thought about that they will be able to help guide you in making some wise decisions.

Speaker 1: 35:34

Yes, thank you for sharing that story, because that's something that can definitely help a lot of parents in helping them make decisions when it comes to financing their child's education. Sure, sure. And what about on the transcript? Back to the transcript. Topic foreign language. What's required Does foreign language? Has to be the same Foreign language credit.

Speaker 2: 35:56

Well, you, know, I thought until all nine of my kids they were supposed to have the same foreign language two years in a row. And one time I had a parent call right and say my son's just really interested in STEM. He doesn't want to do foreign language, does he have to? I thought so let me see what I can find out, and so I Googled. At the time I had moved from Florida, we had moved from Florida to Tennessee when our oldest went to Bryan, and so I wasn't real sure what the Tennessee requirements were. I looked it up and I realized the wording was recommended, the recommended subjects for high school, and they lined up with the public high school requirements. And then I looked back at Florida's and I looked at some other states and all the ones I looked at said recommended and I realized I don't know that any subjects are definitely required of a homeschooler in order to graduate homeschool, high school. We write the transcript, we give it to them. So then I thought maybe they have the freedom to take the courses that they really wanna take. So I wrote to our department heads at Brian and I said what requirements? What do you require of a high school student to come take your major at Brian and the ones who answered said it doesn't matter, they're starting over Now. The engineering professor said it doesn't matter, but we highly recommend science and math to at least pre-cal. So they had recommendations but no requirements.

Speaker 2: 37:25

So then I thought, ooh, can I say this out loud? Because this gives homeschoolers the freedom to design their students' high school years in such a way that they're well prepared for the next step. They don't like foreign language. They can do STEM If they're gonna be an engineer. That would be great. And I know foreign language is good to learn. I know it is.

Speaker 2: 37:43

I wasn't opposed to it, but I thought did I have that freedom? So I was going to Memphis. There was a home life. It's a big umbrella school for homeschoolers. They'd help them with their transcripts, help them get in college, and I asked if I could meet with one of the founders and we met for a couple of hours at a bookstore and I said do y'all require two years of the same foreign language? And she said we suggest it.

Speaker 2: 38:07

I said because there are colleges that wanna see that on your transcript. There are. And I said what if the parent doesn't wanna do it and she goes? We're parent directed, we let them make that decision. We just warned them there may be a college they're childhoods who apply to that requires it and they will not have had it. So they give them that advice, but they let the parents make the decision. So then I thought I'm just gonna share those families. Look at the colleges you're planning to go to see what they need to see on that. Find out what they require on the transcript. Make sure you have those classes that they do require. But I think you'd be surprised with how much freedom you have.

Speaker 1: 38:45

And that definitely opens a lot of opportunities, especially for homeschool parents, to differentiate their learning to the child to the unique individual needs of the child.

Speaker 2: 38:55

Exactly. And, speaking of foreign language, if you have a child who's bilingual, are you raising your children bilingual? If they take the foreign language clap test, it could clap them out of three, six or nine college hours of foreign language. Wow, One test. So that's not a lot of bang for your buck.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Okay, that is noted. Oh, Pat, you shared some of Brian College, but tell us a little bit of an overview of Brian College, why you chose to work there and the benefits that y'all offer specifically for homeschool students.

Speaker 2: 39:32

Okay, so Brian is a small Christian college in a small town nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee so beautiful campus on the river. My oldest daughter got a scholarship there. We lived in Florida. She got a scholarship to play basketball there. She may be one of the first homeschoolers who homeschooled their whole life when it was from the time it was legal, in the 80s, because she went in 98. She may be one of the first there was totally homeschooled that went to Brian College and we went up there and looked at the school and loved it and we loved the town and we said if we'd moved up here she could live at home and we could save room and board and we could be in Tennessee instead of Florida.

Speaker 2: 40:14

And I had lived in Florida my whole life, so I was ready to try the mountains and we moved up there and I got pretty involved with the school. So they at the time had a worldview team. It's a Christian college that they had a worldview team that traveled and taught seminars to teenagers about worldview. What is a worldview? What is your worldview? How do you find your worldview? Is there truth and what is it? And I ended up organizing seminars all over the Southeast for this worldview team and the man who ran it is John Stone Street who is now the head of Breakpoint with Chuck Coulson. So if you ever hear Breakpoint on the radio it's his voice you hear. But he was teaching at Brian at the time. So we went all around the Southeast and set up seminars for homeschoolers to learn about worldview.

Speaker 2: 41:02

So I was just pretty involved with the college. I went to the concerts, I went to the plays. They have events for communities. It's Saturday. The community is invited to come to the property and celebrate Christmas and make ornaments and come to the musical events I'm going to. The greatest Christmas pageant is the theatrical performance Friday night. So I just always love the school. I love the close knit community.

Speaker 2: 41:29

It is recently accredited, so that's great accreditation. Because it is so small. The student to faculty ratio is small. The professors know their name. They have them in their homes. It's just a close knit community. But the academics is excellent. So we just this last year got our A-bed accrediting with engineering, because you have to have your engineering school running for six years before you get that or five years. So we completed that, we got it. So we've had two graduating classes of engineers and both classes had 100% placement, so they were either already accepted into a graduate program, if that's what they needed, or already working and making over $75,000. So the career placement for the students at Bryan is very good. The kids who are in education are already teaching. We just started a nursing school, so I'm excited about that and we'll help the kids. But nurses are so needed now that won't be hard to be placed anyway. Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 42:35

And I want to tell you about one more opportunity, and this is true of any parent looking at any college. If the college you're looking at has conferences or athletic clinics or summer camps, send your kids to those, because when they go to those they'll get a real, genuine feel for the faculty and the staff and the campus. And we do have a one-week camp in July for students who are rising ninth graders. So if they just finish eighth grade up to graduating seniors, they can come for one week in July and they choose an academic track.

Speaker 2: 43:07

This year, if I can remember them, we have engineering, nursing, criminal justice, creative writing, entrepreneurship, health science, photography, and I might have left something out. So they pick one academic track, they get an hour of college credit, but they live on campus for a week and then they become immersed in that subject. Last year our nursing students each got a stethoscope. The criminal justice kids had a blast because we brought in mom that and Nathan people and we had a crime scene and they do some really cool stuff and they get a little college credit, they make great friends and they even get a scholarship. So if you're looking at colleges that offer things like that, that's a good way to validate if this is a place for your student.

Speaker 1: 43:53

Oh, my goodness, that is amazing. So all of our parent listeners, please check out Bryan College. Where can people connect with you, pat?

Speaker 2: 44:00

So my blog is Pat Wesso, so that's easy, instead of Weselowski, just patwessocom. I have a Facebook page for Bryan College homeschool admissions. My podcast you mentioned is homeschool specialists and you can email me and that's a little more complicated because it's patweselowski at brianedu and it's brian with a Y.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much. I'll have all of that information in our show notes so our listeners could just drop, click and connect with you. Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you, pat. Thank you for spending time with us and hopefully we'll stay in contact. Sure, you have a good day. Thank you, hey friend. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I'd love to hear from you and let me know what was your greatest takeaway. You can reach me at info at collegecareerreadyorg. Thank you for joining us, sweet friend, and, as always, stay well, be present and enjoy the journey. I'll talk to you next week. Hi friend, thank you for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me. If you share it with a friend, share it with them right now or, even better, tag me so I can personally thank you for helping us build our community. I'm so thankful for each and every one of you. Let's keep on touching. Oh, talk to you soon, adios.