Most college applicants count on a combination of their high school grade point average, class-ranking and college entrance exam scores to get into the undergraduate program of their choice.
That's not the case, however, for the growing number of students spending their high school years being home-schooled - a situation that typically doesn't lend itself to calculating class rank or an independent GPA.
Despite lacking those benchmarks for their college applications, home-schoolers across the country generally need not worry that home-schooling itself will blemish their chances of getting into college.
Indeed, applications from home-schoolers - which often include a portfolio of academic work, travel journals, book reports and college-entrance exam scores - are usually at least on par with applications from traditional students, several college admissions officers say.
``To stereotype the group (home-schooled college applicants) as being high achievers is a pretty accurate description,'' said Susan Christian, director of admissions for Rider University in Lawrence.
``Of the group I've seen over the years, I can't recall too many that weren't exceptional,'' Christian said.
Admissions officers and those who follow home-schooling say the number of home-schooled college applicants has been increasing across the country in the past three to five years.
But clear statistics are hard to come by, experts say, and regulations over home-schooling vary from state to state.
For example, New Jersey and most other states don't require home-schoolers to take the standardized tests at the primary- and secondary-school levels that traditional students must complete, said Laura Derrick, president of the National Home Education Network.
But some states, including New York and Pennsylvania, do subject home-schoolers to standardized testing that also applies to other students, she said.
Rider and many other four-year colleges - including Princeton, Rutgers, and The College of New Jersey - don't keep track of how many of their students were home-schooled.
The reason, according to their admissions officials, is that the number of applications received each year from home-schoolers remains small - just one or two at Rider and maybe 10 to 15 at TCNJ, for example.
``We review the applications of home-schooled applicants in the same manner we do all other applications - one by one, individual by individual, case by case,'' Princeton University Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Fred Hargadon wrote in an e-mail.
``In some cases, we actually receive grades and recommendations from their tutors and/or long-distance teachers, and in other cases only from the parents,'' Hargadon wrote.
``Since we don't see a significant number of such applicants in a year, it's impossible to generalize,'' he wrote.
But applications from home-schoolers in the past three years likely included higher college-entrance exam scores than applications from public school students, according to a study reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education in October.
``They tend to be stronger candidates. You kind of welcome their applications,'' Christian said.
Statistics from The College Board, which sponsors the SAT college entrance exams, seem to support Christian's assessment.
The College Board reported that the average home-schooler's verbal and math SAT scores were 62 points and nine points higher, respectively, than the national average in 2001.
It reported that the number of high school graduates who took the SATs and said they were home-schooled in 2001 was 6,170 - almost double the 3,116 home-schooled high school graduates who took the SAT in 1999.
As home-schoolers gain wider acceptance, home-schooling families are becoming more comfortable with continuing to teach their children at home into their high school years, says Sean Calloway, director of college placement at Pace University's Center for Urban Education.
Between 1997 and 1999, Calloway was on a committee of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors charged with examining admissions and counseling issues as they related to charter schools and home-schoolers.
``Traditionally, home-schooling numbers shrank at the high school level because many parents had concerns about college entry,'' Calloway said.
But ``colleges have become a lot more favorable to these applicants (and) financial aid has, in many cases, become more available'' for home-schoolers, he said.
Another trend among college-bound home-schoolers in recent years has been that more and more have enrolled in classes at community or junior colleges during what would have been their high-school years, Derrick said.
That trend has caught the attention of Lisa Angeloni, TCNJ's dean of admissions.
``The home-schooled students' applications have been very well put together and thought out,'' said Angeloni. ``It's usually a very complete portfolio of work they've accomplished. Many took community college courses.''
``We are seeing increased applications from home-schoolers,'' whom Angeloni described as ``very strong candidates.''
``Five years ago, we were seeing (applications from) maybe two or three home-schooled students,'' she said. ``This year we probably saw 10 to 15.''