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October 26th

Dear Lee,
I was a member of your Gold Care Club for quite some time, and I wanted to let you know how much your information and advice helped us.

My daughter Emily is now a senior and is going full-time at the local community college. She'll graduate with an AA and she's been on the President's List every quarter and is a National Merit Commended student.

For the last 2 years we've been researching schools and their requirements for homeschoolers.  Finally, the list was pared to 6.  We worked extremely this summer to get all of her applications in by mid-September.   She was immediately accepted to 2 private Catholic universities and offered their highest merit scholarships.  We're still waiting on the public school, the extreme reach school and 2 more private schools.  Also, since she'll be applying for the Honors Program in whichever school she chooses, we hope there will be even more scholarships attached.

My family keeps thanking me for all my leg-work, but I never could have achieved this without YOUR initial research!  Thank you for sharing your knowledge with folks and providing a service for those who are striving to meet all the needs of their children.  I don't think I would ever have considered private schools until I met you and heard how feasible it really is.

The only thing I would disagree with you on is the CLEP tests.  Most of the admissions officers I spoke with over the last year (too many...)  were not impressed with those as much as AP or IB tests.  Emily took them as an indicator of honors standing but she won't use those for credit.  I would urge teens to study for and pass AP instead.

Nevertheless, your information on college search, course descriptions, reading lists, homeschool profiles, testing, grading, extra-curriculars, and documentation really helped us so very much.  What also helped was simply your example.  You had high expectations of your sons, gave them the tools to meet those goals, then shared your experience with all of us.  This allowed me to see the possibilities and give my children the tools to reach their dreams as well.  Thanks for holding my hand through the first few years when I had anxiety over the thought of a FAFSA or application essay!   It's no longer a mystery, just a lot of hard work.

Keep it up!
Blessings,
Rebecca

"It has been such a pleasure to work with your team. We're only in the elementary stage of our homeschool journey, but Lee has inspired me to continue through the High School years. She has so many wonderful resources available so I'm trying to get a head start!"

Setting the Records Straight
5-Star Review by Susan Kilbrid

This book is a must-read for those of you who are thinking of homeschooling through high school. 

Lee Binz goes through the process of making a homeschool transcript step by step and makes what to some is an overwhelming job seem easy. The book is full of real-life examples of homeschool transcripts that her children and others used to get into the colleges of their choice. She breaks down the whole process of making a transcript into very easy steps.

One of the most important things I realized as I read this book is that I need to start working on my son’s high school transcript as soon as he starts high school and not wait until he is almost finished.

On a side note, I found Lee’s children’s transcripts a bit intimidating, not in the sense of actually writing one, but more of, “Oh my, is my son up to those standards?”  Luckily, she also presents examples of other homeschooler’s transcripts which made me not feel so inadequate!  Plus, it was actually good to see what other homeschoolers who made it into college did during high school to get into college. It’s definitely better to find these things out now, before my son is in high school, than to find out later when it would be harder to catch up.

I found Lee’s book very informative and highly recommend it.

I had to share the news about my daughter Abigail. This go-around (as opposed to the first two children), we listed her as private school student using our legal cover St Peter's Academy but when she made National Merit Semi-Finalist, the National Merit folks designated her as a homeschooler. I had to do all the paperwork (very stressful) and find someone (not related that had taught her) to write a letter of recommendation. The only outside classes she'd taken were online college courses, voice lessons and theater. Thankfully her theater instructor is reliable and was willing to write the letter. Today we got notification that Abigail is a Finalist. At her top choice school she'll get $9700 a year, out of state fees waived (worth about $15,000 a year), a laptop and money toward study abroad. At her second choice school (in-state), she'll receive tuition, room, board and a books stipend. We are so proud of her and once again just shows that homeschoolers can do anything. Parents with younger ones need to know it can be done!
~ Renee

 Hello, my name is Elizabeth Brook. I am a recent home-school Graduate. (Class of 2012) and because of a mom of a home-schooled friend, I found your article about sending your child to community college. I will start by saying I am not offended at all, I just wanted to tell you my story to add to your knowledge, so when you discuss this topic with others, you can have more information.

I am the youngest of 3 children, and we were all three stair-steps. My brother was 15, my sister 14, and I was 13. My mom felt like there was no really good curriculum out there to teach us a foreign language, so she sent my brother and sister to our local community college to take Spanish. My brother discovered languages were not his thing, but my sister got an A in the class. But we had discovered an amazing resource. My brother continued taking classes through high-school, which not only allowed him to graduate from high school early, but let him get his bachelor’s in computer science, when he was 19 because of the 90 some credits he had earned at Sinclair (Our community college).  My sister also continued taking classes as well and by the time she graduated high school, she had 50-some. Both of them went on to other schools.

For me, I was not interested in Spanish, but I thought the American Sign Language program looked interesting for my foreign language. I started when I was 14, feel in love with the program, and American Sign Language interpreting is now my major. It is a 4 year program, but because I started early, I will be able to graduate sooner. Throughout high school, I also took a few classes not related to sign language, like English.

After telling you our success story, let me address a few of the issues that you brought up in your article.

R-Rated environment- I have never had a teacher do anything like what you described, so obviously it depends on the college. My classes have never had crude material in the text book or in the lesson plan. (The only exception being the class that I have to take learning sexual and profanity signs, but I know what I am getting myself into). Even when discussing Freud in psychology, none of the information was explicit in the least. The other students can be crude, of course. But I was never taught to expect non-Christians act like Christians, so really, I expected it. A few of the teachers swear occasionally, but it has never been overbearing.

I think you brought up a good point by saying that “Your children need to be sound in their faith.” And my siblings and I were. We had grown up in church, and our faith was our own. We had also attended Worldview Academy, an intensive week of lectures about our faith, witnessing, and how to defend your faith against those who would try and disprove it. So when in my English class, my professor asked anyone who believed that gay marriage was wrong to raise their hand, and I was the only one who did, I was okay with that. (Disclaimer: The teacher wasn't trying to ridicule anyone's faith; we were talking about a persuasive paper) My point is, I wasn’t afraid to take a stand because it was my faith, and I knew what I believed.

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you have a high quality college like Sinclair; you can get a great experience. I have never regretted going to Sinclair, if anything it has helped strengthen my faith. Also, I am getting a sense of the “Real world”, while still living in the safety of my own home where I can discuss any issues that come up with my parents. This is not intended to try and force anyone to go to a community college, this is just a different perspective. If you would like any more information about my family’s experience, I would be happy to tell you. Thank you for your time.

God Bless!
Elizabeth Brook in Ohio

• Facing the Community College Fad


• Our Community College Stories


• Stories about Facing The Community College Fad


• Community College Experience in Canada


• Successful Strategies for Community College


• Making the Most of Community College

Thank you for your resources. As I had explained back in September when I joined (The Gold Care Club) that we were heading to the states for 3 months to get our older daughter, Breanna, settled into college. We had a wonderful 2 months with her and with family before we took her for the spring semester at a Christian University in Missouri. Since we are missionaries with the Assemblies of God we get a 50% discount on tuition and it’s a good school where she will be able to study nursing.

I have so much to tell you. I feel like we are friends and you understand all this. The only thing I was disappointed about with her admissions process was that they didn’t offer her any scholarships. She had a 3.8 GPA and 2190 SAT scores. I guess they give away all the scholarships in the Fall. She has filled out the applications for next fall and hopefully will get some of those.

Even though, she didn’t start in the fall and receive any scholarships, the  gap semester she took gave her a chance for the Lord to confirm to her which direction the Lord was leading. Thank you for the resources and insight you gave me at that time when we were considering that option.  She stayed with us in Angola through the Summer months and into the Fall semester . It was such a God ordained decision as she received insight on her direction and studies. The Lord showed her that if she was going to go into medicine for missions work, she would be in school for the next 12 years and do nothing but eat, sleep and study. Bree loves life, is very sociable and loves to be active. She thrives on studying, but doesn’t want to only do that for 12 years. So she felt redirected to study Nursing and get her Nurse Practitioner license. We are so grateful and she has even stated how influential that gap semester was for her. I would encourage students who aren’t sure what they want to study to get some real life, hands on experiences and seek God to know when they start what direction they are going. Bree was at a missions hospital and traveled and experienced Angola on her own and what an impact it had on her. We are so grateful for God’s leading in her life and for the experiences she had that helped guide her calling and direction for her studies.

I have to tell you this one last thing that was so sweet my daughter posted on Facebook. “I'm surprised at how little writing I have to do in college... I had way more in high school. Obviously I had the best teacher ever! She prepared me better than any school could have. Love you mom! Sorry for all the grief I gave at the time!”

Boy, makes all those rough days worth it! Home Schooling isn’t for cowards with strong willed children!

I am busy packing as we leave in a week back to the field. The Chinese (curriculum we talked about) is for our younger daughter, Brooke, who feels God’s leading to missions in China. I have learned so much after seeing the demanding work load on Bree in college. I better understand what I need to do to prepare Brooke for college in 3 years. I will be in contact more once we are back in Angola and we are home-schooling again. I am so looking forward to tapping in to the great resources you have and make sure Brooke is well prepared.

Thank you for all you offer and do. I have decided to not re-enroll Brooke  into the homeschool umbrella any longer as I now feel confident that with your help and resources I can do it on my own and make her transcript for her, thanks to you. The fees for the gold club membership will only cost a little bit more than what I was paying for enrollment fees. The school was hard to reach and didn’t offer many resources. I feel so supported being able to ask you questions each week.

Blessings,
Donna in Angola

Christian Alert
By J. McGrath, posted November 16, 2012This review is from: Setting the Records Straight: How to Craft Homeschool Transcripts and Course Descriptions for College Admission and Scholarships (Paperback)

As a longstanding secular homeschooler, I like to know when I am buying something that has bible verses in it. That said, I appreciate the "can do" spirit, the obsessive detailing (so I don't have to be obsessive from the ground up) and practical advice. It's a tad bit aggravating that she uses her own very accomplished children as models--I would have appreciated some examples of medium-accomplished kids--but there is certainly enough information in the book to figure it out.

"There’s no better endorser than a satisfied customer. And I would say that my wife, Joyce, and I are very satisfied customers of Lee Binz and The HomeScholar. Like I’ve said a minute ago, we’ve graduated our twin boys from high school this year.

It was very exciting and we were greatly encouraged along the way by Lee. Not just with the transcript, grades, transcript, and everything that we talked about, but just encouragement to homeschool through high school. This is one of the greatest services that Lee provides – encouragement in one of the scariest part of homeschool.

I think that a lot of homeschool moms and homeschool dads will think that the early years are not so challenging. But when they get up in to the high school years and face chemistry, biology, calculus, or something like that and wonder how you are going to find your way through it all.

It will help you keep track of grades and Lee is so encouraging that she believes that homeschool parents really can homeschool through high school. I mentioned earlier that Kevin and Michael are going to enter the local community college. They were accepted with no problems; they got discounts from their car insurance which is a very practical benefit in having a good transcript.

Lee and her husband, Matt, they’ve been friends with us for some time now and we could not ask for better partners in this ministry." ~ Allen Kvalvik, First Class Homeschool Ministries

"Wow!  I can’t believe they are graduated!

We put our twins, Devin and Michael in the public school system from kindergarten thru 2nd grade and when they were not learning to read, I found myself spending a lot of time after school with them each day trying to help them.   They would get home from school around 3:30 in the afternoon and I would sit down with each one of them and get through their homework and work with them on their reading.  We got used to having dinner around 6:30 since I couldn’t really start working on it until about 5:30 after I got done studying with my twins.  (I also had a two year old running around interrupting us as well – so it took a little longer then it probably should have.)

We decided that since we were putting so much time into educating our children after they came home from school that we might as well take them out of the school and do it ourselves.  That way I could teach them at a time that was a little more convenient for our family.

Since I used to say that I would never be able to homeschool my children, the plan was to just get them “caught up” and put them back in school when they were “ready”.  Well the rest is history.  We never did put them back in traditional school and the two babies that followed after our twins have never stepped foot in a public school.  We have just found that we love having our family home with us and learning together.  We saw all the benefits of having our children at home with us, not to mention that the socialization at home was far superior to the “socialization” that happens in the public schooling environment.

As we schooled through the years, I always wondered if I was doing enough.  I was bothered by the fact that we weren’t memorizing all the facts that I had to memorize in public school as a kid and constantly wondered if we were doing the right curriculum.  I worried that we didn’t have a biology lab where we could do the official experiments that all kids should have access to.  I worried about our children having a “well-rounded education” that so many education experts talk about.  But learned that no one is really “well rounded”.  Everyone is gifted by God and given certain “bents” that are God given.  Why focus so much on being well-rounded when the God of the Universe has a specific (or a few specific) things for you to accomplish.  He doesn’t expect you to be great at everything!  All of my children’s’ specific “bents” were towards music.  They all loved playing music and since my husband and I love music too, it was perfect for our family.   Don’t get me wrong.  We didn’t completely “blow off” all the other stuff and just do music all day long, but it was a good leverage to use to get them to do their reading, writing and arithmetic before we brought out the guitars and drums.

Like I said above,  I was always worried that we weren’t doing enough for our boys, but I guess we did okay, because one of our boys qualified for our local Running Start program and will be getting his AA degree earlier than usual and my other twin was just accepted into a college where he will be getting his degree in fitness.  So far the one that is in the Running Start program has a 3.4 GPA and would like to get a degree in Business so he can own his own business someday.   Both boys love the Lord and are frustrated with the college environment but we are talking a lot about it and I am glad they have such a strong foundation from their homeschooling days that will hopefully help them navigate those challenges that they will and are coming across in the secular college environment.

We just had a wonderful graduation with our boys.  We didn’t have any other kids in their class (from the homeschool co-op we are involved in)  that were graduating so we had a ceremony just for them at our church.   Our church let us use their facility and it was beautiful!  We had about 100 of our friends and family join us in our celebration.  We were able to share a great video of their growing up years and present our boys with their diplomas and words of encouragement.  They each had some words of encouragement for us and it was very heart warming.

Someone asked me if I had to do it all over again, would I do anything differently and I think that I would probably have looked for more ways to get college scholarships for my boys so they could attend a private Christian college, but I am proud of the way they are handling themselves so far.  We have a good relationship with them and it makes for good/honest conversations.

We prayed all the way through their homeschooling years for them daily.  I believe that is why we don’t have many regrets on what we did.  I believe that God guided us in curriculum choices and what to really spend our time and money on for them.  God was very clear with us on what we should focus on and I am very thankful for His leading in our homeschooling.

We also joined a homeschool cooperative that made a huge difference in our continuing this journey.  Whenever we were frustrated and ready to quit, the community of other homeschoolers were there to help us and support us.  I think that was a pretty important thing for us.  There are so many resources and support networks out there now.  You don’t have to do this alone.

Obviously, we are not a perfect family and we have had our challenges and warts, but I am truly amazed at how well homeschooling works.  It’s not nearly as scary as I thought it would be!"  ~ Joyce

I have looked over the Total Transcript Solutions and it’s something that I’m going to recommend to all of the parents that I worked with in Artios Academies and continue to note in on Heart of the Matter.  The research you’ve compiled lines up with how I feel about homeschooling through high school. That is, I want my child to be represented in the best way possible but I don’t want to fit in a mold and I want to continue to homeschool the way that we’ve been homeschooling.

What I liked most in the Total Transcript Solution was the e-book, the Easy Truth About Homeschool Transcripts. I had to do a lot of this research on my own before I knew you had already done it.  This was a great compilation; the summary and how to will encourage people to continue on homeschooling.

I love all of it!  I love the bonuses but what I really love is the fact that I can pick up the phone and call you. The first month when I get my feet wet, I could say “Hey, I’ve run into this” or “I wish I could have done this, especially with my first child.” Everything I collected for him, I put in a box but it wasn’t in a file; it wasn’t compiled in any way until the second half of his junior year and then I started trying to put it together.

It ended up all good and he ended up in the college of his choice with great scholarships. But I wish I could have picked up the phone and said “Hey, Lee. I’ve got this box in front of me and it’s got all this stuff. I’ve read your book but I’m lost as to exactly where to start or how to present him in the best light.” That personal one-on-one attention is key to continue to homeschool successfully and to end strong.

~Lori Lane, Heart of the Matter Online

Hi Lee,
Now that we are nearing the end of the year I wanted to update you on Sara's plans for next year.