Homegrown scholars

Before arriving at the University, Steve Apple '08 had not gone to school for a single day in his entire life.

A friend took Apple to his second grade classroom as part of a show-and-tell demonstration. "He stood me up there and said, 'Hey, this is my friend Steve. He's homeschooled. Talk to them, Steve!'" Apple recalled in an interview.

More than a decade later, though his peers no longer look at him as an outsider, Apple is still part of a small minority of students whose educational background has involved home-based schooling.

While only eight students list "Home Educated" in the Princeton Facebook, an estimated one million to two million middle and high school students nationwide are currently educated at home.

Accreditation guidelines for homeschooling programs vary by state, and much of the responsibility for curriculum development is left up to the parents.

"It's such a huge time commitment, you really have to dedicate your life to it," said Apple, whose mother chose his textbooks and designed his course of study until he began taking classes at a community college at age 16.

This responsibility can cause the quality of homeschooling to vary widely from family to family. While Apple's home-schooled education was largely successful, other students do not always share such positive experiences.

"In some cases it could be really bad, if your kid is naturally just really, really shy ... or if the parent who is homeschooling isn't very intellectually oriented," he said.

The flexibility to explore

The reasons for homeschooling are as varied as the students themselves.

Apple said the motivation behind his homeschooling was partly religious. His parents — "devout evangelical Christians" — wanted their children to learn science "not from an evolutionary point of view."

The decision of Brian Brown '07's parents to home-school was also influenced by religious concerns. Brown said the home education curriculum designed by his parents exposed him to religious issues that "aren't even allowed to be taught in public schools."

Anna Megill '06, however, said her desire to be educated at home stemmed more from the efficiency of self-designed programs. "You waste a lot of time at school: you have recess, snack time," she said. "When I was little, we would always be done with school by lunch and we would have the rest of the day free."

The free time afforded by homeschooling gave all three students opportunities to focus on passions they said mainstream education would have made difficult.

Brown, whose curriculum lasted year-round, took week-long breaks to travel with his family to historical sites in Boston and Philadelphia. "We were able to do a lot more hands-on stuff," he said.

By age 13, he had written a 300-page novel in his free time.

Megill also said the flexibility of homeschooling made international travel more feasible.

While her traditionally-educated peers were limited by school calendars, Megill described traveling to Europe on a week's notice because the airfares were inexpensive and her father had some unused vacation time.

Four years ago, Megill also traveled to Istanbul. She recalled riding on a tour bus, absorbed in a textbook about the Byzantine Empire. "I remember reading, '...and then they broke through the walls of Constantinople,' " she said. A few minutes later, the tour guide pointed out the ruins of the same walls as they drove through the city.

"That's something I would not have been able to do in public school," she said.

Social life

Students said that while homeschooling provided these students with opportunities to expand their minds, it also forced them to find nontraditional social outlets.

"It wasn't that there was a lack of socialization but that there was socialization in a less defined circle," said Brown, who met friends through his participation in civil war reenactments.

Megill, a Pennsylvania resident, was the captain of her local high school's diving and volleyball teams, an activity made possible because Pennsylvania allows home-schooled students to participate on high school sports teams. "I didn't have a big homeschooling community," she said. "That certainly wasn't my main source of interaction."

Apple said though he met many friends through theater activities, homeschooling may not be successful for students who find it hard to create social connections.

"The stereotypes exist for a reason," he said. "There are plenty of home-school students who are really strange and not adjusted. There are lots of public students [like that] too."

Road to Princeton

The decision to attend Princeton was, for Megill, Apple and Brown, a family legacy. All three come from families in which both parents are alumni.

Though college admission is often a source of stress for home-schooled candidates who apply without transcripts, grade point averages and class rankings, Megill said she thought her background gave her an step up in the application process.

"College admissions officers are not as skeptical of it as they used to be," she said.

Kathleen Crown, Director of Studies for Mathey College, said in an email that she thought home-schooled students had an advantage coming to Princeton.

"In general, they seem self-directed, self-motivated, disciplined and less susceptible to peer pressure," she said. "They are not passive learners but good course citizens. It is natural for them to take responsibility for their part in getting a good education."

John Hodgson, Dean of Forbes College, said that Forbes students with home-schooled backgrounds have tended to be "very well-adjusted." He said, however, that these students' abilities may be more of a reflection of their personalities than educational histories.

"They have all brought something very interesting [to Forbes]. Is that because they're home-schooled? I don't know that I would say that," he said.

For Megill, Apple and Brown, all of whom were home-schooled their entire lives, the adjustment to Princeton was not as difficult as they thought it might be.

"I didn't have much trouble," Megill said. "I was homesick ... and the work was difficult, but ... that wasn't a major stress on me."

For Apple, the biggest adjustment to college life was learning to study surrounded by other students.

"I don't like having to deal with the stress of other people," Apple said. "Like when people [are] coming out of a test and they're like, 'oh, what'd you get?' I think learning is a very personal thing."

Lifelong influence

While their decisions to attend Princeton put an end to their homeschooling experiences, all three students said their unique educational programs continue to influence their lives.

Apple said his experiences with home education helped him to develop as an individual.

"I love theater and I think if I hadn't been able to do as much of it through my high school and teen years I wouldn't have the passion for it that I have today," he said. "I wouldn't have the work ethic that I have today ... I think homeschool really taught me how to motivate myself."

Megill, a senior in the history department, has elected to write her thesis on textbook selection, a topic that has fascinated her since her days choosing her own texts as a home-schooled student.

"It interested me, the inherent bias of the textbooks," Megill said. "You don't really think about who picked this [textbook], why did [teachers] pick this [textbook.] I think homeschooling gave me a little more perspective on that."

While homeschooling has presented some challenges along the way, these students have few regrets about their educations.

"I definitely wouldn't change it," Brown said. "I don't think I fully appreciated what a good education my parents were giving me at the time."