 "Photo: Larissa Mueller")
Some people wonder if Mikaela Thomas is exceptionally intelligent, or if she's not very smart at all.
"When we were young, a lot of people thought our mother was trapping us in the houses and brainwashing us," Thomas said. "Adults would instantly start going into pop quizzes."
Others assume she comes from a family with radical ideology, or that she has no friends.
All the misconceptions stem from one fact - Thomas was home-schooled.
"I'm normal," said the radio-television-film junior.
Perceptions of home schooling began to change at some point, and people thought she was brilliant, Thomas said.
"The main misconception [then became] that you home school because you don't fit into school," Thomas said. "Which wasn't the case at all."
Margaret Halpin, an American studies junior, agrees that misconceptions about home schooling are common.
"A lot of people perceive home schooling as something that people with radical ideology use to shelter their kids," Halpin said. "That was absolutely not the case."
Thomas and Halpin were both part of the Austin Area Homeschoolers, an informal network of home-schoolers where Halpin said "everyone is welcome, and there is a neat mix of people."
Individualized learning
In spring 2003, approximately 2.2 percent of the entire student population in the United States was being home-schooled, according to a report from the Department of Education.
As a child, Thomas was home-schooled because her mother thought it was too early to put her children into a large school. "At some point, it was 'If you want to go to school, you can' - and we never wanted to," Thomas said.
As a home-schooled student, Thomas enjoyed the flexibility that came with learning. Early on, school was more like a field trip with visits to museums. As Thomas progressed in her studies, reading, writing and math assignments came from workbooks that could be adjusted if the material was too easy or too difficult. Vacations to destinations like Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia complemented conventional curriculum as well. Taking the TAAS test annually helped ensure that Thomas was on grade level.
"I became self-structured and made myself weekly plans - I had it all organized," Thomas said.
She contrasts this to her older sister, who was not as structured in learning style.
"Even within a household, the ways of teaching are different," she said.
When learning at home, Halpin was responsible for completing six subjects her mom decided upon each day.
"My favorite was something she called Silent Sustained Reading," Halpin said. "I wish they had a class in that at UT."
Thomas said she felt prepared for college because she had already experienced a self-driven learning style.
"In college, you get the freedom of choosing what you want and when your classes are, and I was already doing that," she said.
Applying to UT
Halpin decided to attend UT because she wanted to stay in Austin, where she grew up.
Enrolling in UT was easy, because she had a high GPA from taking dual enrollment classes at Austin Community College, she said. When she was 15, Halpin started taking French classes at ACC.
"It's free for dual enrollment classes, and the professors [at ACC] are absolutely fantastic," she said.
Dual enrollment classes allow any high school student who has reached sophomore status to enroll in a college level course for credit.
Halpin also audited classes at UT, and said with the earlier college experience, transitioning to UT from a home-schooled background was no problem.
"I never know how someone is going to take it," Thomas said of her home schooling experience. She recalls filling out a form in the admissions office once, and simply being asked to "check the home school box down there."
"It's gotten so normal that people are used to it," Thomas said.
Halpin said she wonders "what people do all day in a normal high school."
She has found herself on the same level as other students with curriculum. Professors are mostly interested in her home schooling experience, she said.
"The main problem [with being home-schooled] introduced for me is because my background is more open and flexible, I'm not desensitized to having to deal with bureaucratic aspects of a school like this," she said.
Large science classes for non-majors are not made to entice students to learn, but rather taught as a requirement, Halpin said.
"High school students think of teachers as the enemy, and they carry that over," Thomas said. "They were never forced upon me."
Thomas said she has learned from students that they are bored with the typical high school experience, and that is something she notices now during her classes as well.
"I'm looking down the sea of computers at people playing games on MySpace while the teacher is talking, and I can't fathom that. High school sets people up wrong," she said.
Home schooling community
Halpin and Thomas both said they each had friends that attended regular school, as well as neighbors and family friends.
Halpin said she had a group of home-schooled friends she was close to, largely members of the Austin Area Homeschoolers. The network has 1,200 subscribers on its e-mail list, and offers home-schooled students activities ranging from soccer clubs to science teams.
Some parents also form groups to teach certain subjects to their students, or even hire a teacher from the community to come in and teach occasional topics.
"The home-schooling community in Austin is extremely diverse," said Beth James, a parent and volunteer in Austin Area Homeschoolers.
She said she thinks the percentage of home-schooled students that attend college is the same as private and public school students.
"The biggest misconception is that home-schoolers must obtain a GED," James said. "In Texas, a home-school is considered a private school, and you graduate with a high school diploma. That, with SAT scores, determines whether or not you are accepted to a university."
Taking dual enrollment classes, like both Halpin and Thomas did, is a very popular option, James said.
States regulate home-schooled students differently, said Dean Jones, spokesperson for Austin Community College. In Texas, the administrator - which may be the parent in this case - has authority to issue a certificate of graduation. At that point, the student is admitted to ACC on the same level as any other student; so records are not kept on how many home-schoolers are taking classes, dual-enrollment or otherwise, at ACC, Jones said.
When applying to UT, home-schooled students do not fit into the top 10 percent rule that gives students ranking in the top tenth of their high school class automatic admission to Texas public universities.
"Nonetheless, like private school students whose schools do not rank, we estimate a class ranking based on the academic information in their files," Kedra Ishop, associate director of admissisons at UT, said in an e-mail. "Their transcripts and academic histories are evaluated individually for the purposes of assigning an estimated class rank. Beyond that step in the process, they are evaluated exactly the same as any other applicant."
Halpin's younger sister, Ali, 16, is currently taking dual enrollment classes at ACC. She wants to graduate next year, and ultimately attend UT like her older sister.
Ali is part of the Austin Area Homeschoolers as well, where she has made most of her home-schooled friends, she said. She said she is involved in several extracurricular activities, including playing soccer with the Austin Area Homeschoolers and a soccer club, participating in a KOOP radio show, taking pottery and piano classes, and of course, hanging out with friends.
"It's definitely getting a lot better now," Ali said of the misconceptions others have about home schooling. "In the past, it was that you didn't have any friends or were really awkward. There are some home-schoolers that are that way, but they generally live on a farm."
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