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Comment by caseysoftware | Hacker News Reader

> I know I couldn't educate my kids to university enrollment standard

Other than the elite schools, I suspect you overestimate the standards and requirements.*

If you have a successful white collar career, you are at least a mediocre writer. That may be enough to pass on to your kids and get them into many schools. If you acknowledge your gaps - sounds like you have - even better, now you can fill them with anything from online courses (anywhere from free to expensive), tutoring (expensive), local community college (depends), or even trading favors with other parents with opposite skills gaps (bartering ftw).

* I have a homeschooled kid looking at colleges now and the standards are lower than I expected. He passed the minimum requirements years ago.

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Exactly.

Often you don't have to educate kids if they don't see education as a chore.

Restricting things like television and access to video games can lead to boredom. Boredom is a gift that leads to socialization or exploration.

Many of these 'elite schools' are possible to transfer into, and a bigger predictor of success than prior learning is wanting to explore.

No boredom will make one able to write essays on War and Peace to university acceptance standards or memorize the order of English kings and their wars.

Not sure about now, but 20 years ago all it took to get into the in-state university system was SAT scores and a GED.

Transferring from there to other schools in the US was pretty straightforward and there weren't any application essays until grad school.

That's an interesting take, but it's not borne out from the people I've met. Often they do have gaps in knowledge, but reading and writing definitely aren't the problem. Most of the unschooled people I've met have had a broad knowledge base with gaps in specific areas (admittedly, most commonly math or science).

But they've all been able to learn when faced with a problem. Most learning up to high school is pretty decidedly useless. Most high school subjects, like math, are taught very inefficiently and a student can catch up.

Beyond that, community college transfers to prestigious universities are common. The most important piece is the ability to learn and understanding that not knowing specific subjects will be limiting in the long run.

I live in an English speaking country, having grown up a in ex-USSR. My writing is adequate for what I'm doing, but I wouldn't touch my kids essays with a 10 foot pole. I wouldn't want to revisit the Russian literature or history experiences either.

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