From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
Minnesota adopted a law in 1987 that clearly established the legality of home education. In 1985-86, an estimated 654 Minnesota children were home-schooled. This year, that number is 18,000. Today, Minnesota has some of the stricter laws overseeing home schooling….
For many years, Northwestern College, a Christian liberal arts school in St. Paul, has actively recruited home-schoolers, who make up 10 percent of its student body. It was a unique strategy — until now.
“Until recently, a number of colleges and universities were very skeptical of home-schoolers; they just didn’t know how to approach or deal with them,” says Ken Faffler, Northwestern admissions director. “That was fine with me; we wanted all of them we could get,” Faffler says. “We could see, on average, they’re above average … on SAT and ACT exams. And they also seem to have a slightly higher level of maturity — all this worry about socialization is something we knew we didn’t have to consider.”
Now, Ivy League schools, businesses like Apple Computer, PBS and many others are reaching out to the home-schooler.