Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute reports that homeschool students surpassed the national average on the SAT college-entrance exam given in 2014.
The SAT 2014 test scores of college-bound homeschool students were higher than the national average of all college-bound seniors that same year. Some 13,549 homeschool seniors had the following mean scores: 567 in critical reading, 521 in mathematics, and 535 in writing (College Board, 2014a). The mean SAT scores for all college-bound seniors in 2014 were 497 in critical reading, 513 in mathematics, and 487 in writing (College Board, 2014b). The homeschool students’ SAT scores were 0.61 standard deviation higher in reading, 0.26 standard deviation higher in mathematics, and 0.42 standard deviation higher in writing than those of all college-bound seniors taking the SAT, and these are notably large differences.
There were some demographic differences between homeschool students and all students taken together. First, the family incomes of the homeschool students were similar to those of all students. Regarding ethnicity, for example, 72 percent of the homeschool students were White, 5 percent were Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander, and 4 percent were Black or African American, while of all college-bound seniors, the corresponding percentages were 49, 12, and 13. The average highest level of parental education was notably higher for the homeschool students than for all students.
The College Board, led by Common Core architect David Coleman, has updated the SAT to align it to the Common Core. ACT still has not made this move (yet). ACT recently released a report that stated Common Core does not reflect college readiness in some aspects. So this may slow ACT aligning their college entrance test to Common Core. ACT does have a 3-8 grade test called Aspire that is used as the Common Core assessment in some states. There is also a new college entrance exam being beta tested among homeschoolers as an alternative.