State University Monitors Homeschool Growth

The significant rise in the number of homeschool students in North Carolina has caught the attention of at least one major public university in the state.

The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recently reported that while homeschool students have comfortably outnumbered private school students in the state for two years, the university’s rates for homeschool applicants have not changed.

According to Barbara Polk, the deputy director for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, her team only receives around 100 applications each year from homeschool students. However, their acceptance rate of 41-47% is well above the school’s average acceptance rate of 29%.

“We use a holistic approach to admissions for all students, looking at a variety of factors – academic records, test scores, extracurricular activities, community involvement, essays, recommendations,” said Polk. “We do the exact same thing for students from homeschool settings.”

Jackie Kenny, a sophomore at the university, said she appreciates how homeschooling taught her how to learn outside the classroom.

“You have the time, space, and resources to go out and search and learn more for yourself, and you aren’t in a box,” Kenny said. “There’s so many different ways to learn and so many resources available. You don’t have to do it really old-school or old-fashioned and churn-out standardized workers.”

The University of North Carolina is one of three colleges in the country that lays claim to being the oldest public university in the United States. UNC is the only public institution in the nation that awarded degrees in the 18th century.