A question came up in one of my parenting Facebook groups online. This person wanted examples of young people who'd gone to Montessori school through middle or high school. She wanted to know how they did in college, without having experience with tests. That's where it started, but the conversation moved to the question of going to college without having high school grades.
(To be honest, I have never met a Montessori high school or middle school that doesn't do testing and grades. They might not be taken as seriously as in a traditional school, but they're there. In fact, most Montessori high schools I know of follow an International Baccaleaureate program, so the curriculum is not only recognized, but highly respected by colleges. As a Montessorian who very much aligns with the world of unschooling and self-directed education, this strikes me ridiculously limiting and unnecessary, but I suppose it seems pretty normal to most people.)
In any event, while I didn't go to a Montessori high school, (it wasn’t an option at the time), after my Montessori years I went to a school where there were no required classes, no (major) tests, and no grades. Many of our classes did, in fact, have tests and homework, but they weren’t backed up by any threat of low grades or the like. They were just for learning and feedback.
I had no trouble getting into college. Neither did my classmates, at least the ones who wanted to go, which was most of them.
So I feel confident in saying, you don’t need grades to go to college!
This has been obvious to me for decades, but it’s a shocking idea for most people. So I wanted to talk about it both from the perspective of somebody who went to college, having never gotten a grade in my life, and as somebody who worked in a college admissions.
Let me say that again. You do not need grades to get into to college.
What colleges are looking for in applicants is evidence that you are able to handle the level of work in college, and that you will be an interesting addition to the college community. At our school, students demonstrated this with a narrative transcript that explained the classes and other significant activities they’d done. For me, Model United Nations was a big part of my life. Bird watching trips were a big part of my life. Mock trial was a big part of my life. I spent a year overseas, so that was a big part of my life. All of those went onto the transcript, along with “United States History” and “High School English” and other more typical classes. There was one exactly one situation where I needed a transcript with grades, which was for a scholarship application. To deal with that, my advisor (who'd known me for many years) and I sat down, and we made them up. No one ever questioned the grades we chose.
In addition, every student produced a portfolio of their work. Mine included photographs with explanations, essays, at least one newspaper clipping, some artwork, some samples of school work, and the like. Back then, it was bound together as a spiralbound book. The process is probably much easier now, since you could create a webpage or multimedia presentation, and you could include videos and so on.
To apply to college, we put the transcript and portfolio together with all the usual college application stuff—recommendations, application essays, SAT scores, and so on, and we sent that off to colleges. In my case, three of the four colleges I applied to accepted me. The one that didn’t was an extremely, extremely competitive liberal arts college, so I don't know if I'd have gotten in regardless of where I went to school.
So applying to college without grades is absolutely doable, if you’re serious about going to college and about doing the preparation to be ready for it. Honestly, I think not having grades is an advantage, because colleges have to look at you as an individual. They can't lump you into the mass of transcripts and test scores. Applying to college this way requires a lot of intentional thought. You have to think about who you are and how you want to present yourself. “How do I show who I am?”
Having worked on the admission side, and read lots and lots and lots of college admissions applications, I can tell you that truly interesting applications are few and far between. So many people work for years to look perfect on paper: excellent grades, good SAT scores, impressive transcripts, a polished essay. When you read these applications, the people behind the applications feel totally flat. (In fact, sometimes when you interview these people, you realize they actually are “flat”. They’ve been so busy building their resumes for college that they haven’t had a chance to live, and that’s really sad.) These applications are completely forgettable, and whether or not those students get in will basically boil down to student numbers and how cranky the admissions committee is feeling on that particular day.
But then there is the occasional application that just sings. It may not be the most polished application or the most impressive resume, but there is an interesting person behind the application. Those applications get passed around the office. Admissions counselors photocopy the good parts and hang them up by their desks. I clearly remember exactly one college admissions essay from my time reading applications: a “proof” that there are no good Wendesdays.
Is that enough to guarantee admission? No. The admission numbers still have to work out, and you still have to demonstrate that you’ll be an asset to the school (able to do the work, not an arrogant jerk, etc). But your application with be discussed, and that means you’ll be considered on your own merits.
To be fair, my college admissions experience consists of one college—a competitive but not out outrageously competitive liberal arts college. Grades and test scores were looked at, but they acted as a kind of basic screening. Are there any warning signs? But if there were no grades, we just made those judgements based on the information we had. Of course, bigger schools will lean more heavily on test scores and grades because they have to. There's a big difference between having 3,000 applicions to read and having 30,000 applications to read. In our case, we actually did read every single application all the way through. I don’t know if that’s true at huge universities.
That said, I know of exactly one school (25 years ago), that just flat out said, “We won’t consider your application without grades.” Homeschooling, in various forms, has become much more common since then, and schools are more prepared to handle unusual applications. (I just checked, and the school in question now has a webpage for home-schooled applicants, which says nothing about grades.)
So, you do not need grades to get into college. If you’re considering an alternative to traditional high school and what’s holding you back is worry about getting into college, do it! That fear is overblown, and you can make college happen.
(For more, check out the resources on Blake Boles’ webpage for his book Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School? Scroll down to “Chapter 2” for college admissions information.)