Becky Cooke: Hello! I am Becky Cooke, a High School Coordinator with Home School Legal Defense Association. Today, I have some suggestions for parents of college bound home-school teens.

College admission begins in high school with the student completing a College Prep Program focusing on core academic subjects rounded out with elective courses. In addition, consider having you teens take advance placement and/or community college courses. These will not only add weight to their transcripts but will provide objective evaluations for colleges of the work your teens can do.

College courses taken as Dual Enrollment in high school may provide the benefit of allowing home-schoolers to make a slow transition from home based education to the classroom. They may also garner college credit. In fact, some teens have received their Associates Degree along with their high school Diploma.

One caution is to keep track of the number of college credits your teen is accumulating, if he desires to enter college as a freshman and apply for a Freshman Scholarships. Both often have limits on the number of college credits accrued. However, if your teen is transferring to a four-year school then these numbers are not as critical.

Always check whether the Dual Enrollment courses and credits are acceptable for transfer to the college or university, in question. Records of high school course record is necessary for transcript preparation.

A parent generated transcript is accepted by the majority of colleges today. Since there is no standard transcript template used across the US, home-schoolers do not need to fear that their document will be rejected.

It's important to become familiar with college websites early in the high school years to know and prepare for the admission requirements. Many sites have special pages for homeschoolers as well as admission counselors familiar with the home-schoolers' credentials.

For example, some colleges require home-schoolers to take SAT subject test. These are best taken after completing a course in the subject. So having this information upfront is helpful to parents and teens. These scores are often used by colleges than for placement purposes.

The SAT, ACT scores will be important for both college admission and scholarship awards. So students should plan to take these tests more than once to increase their scores. It's wise to prep prior to taking these tests.

In addition to the academics, teaching life and study skills will give your teens tools to succeed in college. As one Homeschool ALUMNI soon discovered, success in college was due to 10% brains and 90% hard work. Home-schoolers are not only known for their academic premise but also for their diligent work ethic.

Because many home-schoolers have already blazed the trail, your teens can apply for college admissions with confidence.