Home School and Non-Accredited High School Applicants

Home school applicants who did not complete a regionally accredited program, must apply to GHC under the non-accredited home school/high school policy of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and Georgia Highlands College institutional eligibility standards.

Steps to Enrollment:

  1. Complete online application and pay $30 non-refundable application processing fee.
  2. Must be age 15 or older by the first day of the semester applying for.
  3. Students who completed an unaccredited home school program are required to submit a comprehensive portfolio of work in order to document equivalent competence in each of the five academic areas (English, mathematics, natural (lab) science, social science and foreign language) at the college preparatory level. Evaluation of and assessment of completion for each course listed in the home school portfolio is based on the guidelines contained in the USG Required High School Curriculum (RHSC) document titled “Staying on Course“, which details the requirements for new freshman and transfer applicants with less than 30 transferable hours of coursework. The academic portfolio must document the students’ progression throughout the standard high school years (9th grade through 12th grade). The portfolio must include a detailed description of course work completed in each academic subject area as detailed below and CPC Evaluation form.
    • Within each subject area, the minimum documentation required for each individual course must include:
      1. the title of the course
      2. a comprehensive course description
      3. a course syllabus to include a detailed narrative of the primary academic content taught in the course, a list of written and/or laboratory assignments, the grading structure and assessment tools used
      4. the name of textbooks and/or software program used to teach the course
      5. the highest education degree level achieved by the primary teacher
      6. the final grade earned for each course. Additional supporting documentation may be required as necessary to prove academic rigor of an individual course.
    • ENGLISH: Four (4) units of English which have as their emphasis grammar and usage, literature (American, English, World), and advanced composition skills.
    • MATHEMATICS: Four (4) units of Mathematics, including Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry and a mathematics course completed at the level of Math 3 or higher
    • SCIENCE: Four (4) units of science, with at least one laboratory course from the life sciences and one laboratory course from the physical sciences. The RHSC science coursework must include at least one (1) unit of biology, one (1) unit of physical science or physics, and one (1) unit of chemistry, earth systems, environmental science, or an advanced placement science course. Students satisfying the 4th unit of science requirement with a computer science course may not use that same computer science course towards satisfying the foreign language/American Sign Language/Computer Science requirement.
    • SOCIAL SCIENCE: Three (3) units of social science, with at least one (1) course focusing on United States studies and one (1) course focusing on world studies.
    • FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Two (2) units in the same foreign language emphasizing speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Two (2) units of American Sign Language or two (2) units of Computer Science (with an emphasis on coding and programing) may be used to satisfy this requirement. Students satisfying this requirement through the computer science option may not use the same courses to satisfy the 4th science unit.
      • Each course should be representative of one Carnegie Unit (one academic year) of study.
        • Half Carnegie Units may not be combined with other half units completed in a different course, except for the third unit of social science (typically .5 American Government and .5 Economics) and for the fourth unit of natural science. Both foreign language units must be in the same language.
  4. If you are applying for in-state tuition, submit Verification of Lawful Presence.
  5. Submit Test Scores:
    SAT ACT Accuplacer
    collegeboard.org act.org testing@highlands.edu

    Evidence Based Reading & Writing of 480
    OR
    Math score of 440

    English score of 17
    OR
    Math score of 17

    Next-Gen Reading score of 237
    & WritePlacer score of 4
    OR
    Next-Gen Math (QAS) score of 258

    • The SAT, ACT, or Accuplacer test score requirement may be waived for admission based on credit level English (1101 or higher) and Math (1001 or higher) college transfer coursework.

Other Information

  • Certificate of immunization is not required for an admissions decision but must be received during a student’s first semester at GHC.