What are "accredited" classes? (Coast Guard Academy)

[Gwen in VA]

My son's latest interest is the Coast Guard Academy. But according to its website,

Q: Are there any special requirements for home schooled students?

A: There are no special requirements for the home schooled, except that the curriculum used must have been accredited. Home schooled applicants compete equally with traditionally taught students. It is recommended that home schooled students take, as part of their curriculum, courses at a local community college. The teacher recommendations should be done by the college instructors when practical.

My ds is planning on doing most of his coursework at the local community college starting next fall, but at this point he has done classes at home or through a few select online providers. His program has been rigorous, and he will have taken two SAT2's by this June (the end of his sophomore year), but I don't think any of his classes have been taken through "accredited" institutions.

If he decides to apply to the CGA, would we be able to just go to a place like Keystone and get the courses approved so his schoolwork would be "accredited", or is applying to the CGA not an option because of all of the classes that he has done at home or through small online classes?

[Ellie]

My son's latest interest is the Coast Guard Academy. But according to its website,

Q: Are there any special requirements for home schooled students?

A: There are no special requirements for the home schooled, except that the curriculum used must have been accredited. Home schooled applicants compete equally with traditionally taught students. It is recommended that home schooled students take, as part of their curriculum, courses at a local community college. The teacher recommendations should be done by the college instructors when practical.

My ds is planning on doing most of his coursework at the local community college starting next fall, but at this point he has done classes at home or through a few select online providers. His program has been rigorous, and he will have taken two SAT2's by this June (the end of his sophomore year), but I don't think any of his classes have been taken through "accredited" institutions.

If he decides to apply to the CGA, would we be able to just go to a place like Keystone and get the courses approved so his schoolwork would be "accredited", or is applying to the CGA not an option because of all of the classes that he has done at home or through small online classes?
I don't know; I just wanted to say that those kinds of comments make me crazy; "curriculum" is never accredited; schools are.:glare:

Can you call and talk to an actual person to clarify? Seems to me that if most of your ds's courses are taken at the c.c., that would satisfy any requirements.

[Margaret in CO]

Well, I can only tell yowu what we did--went with NARS for that very reason. It was silly, really. NARS requires SO little in terms of credits and hours, but it kept CGA happy. I must say, her Blue and Gold officer from Navy was glad she had the piece of paper, too. Five years ago CGA said it had to be an accredited "program". Dd had 45 credits from 4 year colleges, 6 of them overseas, but they still wanted that dumb little piece of paper. And then we had to send in NONE of that, but redo the transcript entirely for NCAA! They won't accept NARS... You have my sympathy...

[Ellie]

Well, I can only tell yowu what we did--went with NARS for that very reason. It was silly, really. NARS requires SO little in terms of credits and hours, but it kept CGA happy. I must say, her Blue and Gold officer from Navy was glad she had the piece of paper, too. Five years ago CGA said it had to be an accredited "program". Dd had 45 credits from 4 year colleges, 6 of them overseas, but they still wanted that dumb little piece of paper. And then we had to send in NONE of that, but redo the transcript entirely for NCAA! They won't accept NARS... You have my sympathy...
I'd do NARS, too, in a heartbeat, if my dc needed to have transcripts/diplomas from accredited *schools.* It's just the "accredited curriculum" comment that's making me crazy, lol. And yes, accreditation isn't all it's cracked up to be. I don't understand why anyone requires that if there are ACT/SAT scores and/or college classes which indicate that the classes that were taken at home were good, KWIM?

[Margaret in CO]

I agree, but you can't argue with the military... ;-)

[Georgia in NC]

This question was serendipitous...I was just wondering the same thing, lol.

So can you wait until their senior year to do the whole NARS thing? It seems like a lot of money for all 4 years for what they provide. And Clonara would work too, right? Although it is even more expensive...

We already have to save every bit o' paper, etc. for whatever NCAA hoops we will need to jump through. :001_smile:


Georgia

[Margaret in CO]

We joined NARS in her junior year. We looked at Clonlara, but a hs guru warned me off of them, saying that they looked awfully alternative. Clonlara also requires a large number of community service hours--not sure you could pull them off in one year. Yeah, NARS is outrageously priced for what they offer. I think now they've learned, but when we used them, they did not know how to deal with a highly gifted child--they were more focused on kids that needed to count a lot of life skill type things to get high school credit. They constantly accused us of lying about work done--the silly thing is that we didn't even count a great deal of what she'd done! And their counting a credit as 80 hours is ridiculous. I have to be careful saying that--I've been told I'm elitist. But, the fact remains, the academies ARE for the elite and that's who applicants are competing against. Anyway, if some of my next round of children decide to go the academy app route, I'd still probably go with NARS--as the best of a not-very-good lot. And I know just how I would demand they fulfill their side of the contract. It was a learning process for us both--they'd never dealt with the military and just didn't understand the inflexible deadlines.