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By Patrick B. McGuigan and Stacy Martin | CapitolBeatOK
OKLAHOMA CITY — When students at the University of Oklahoma begin fall classes this year, the institution will continue to build on its reputation as the home of the highest number of National Merit Scholars at any publicly-funded American institution of Higher Education.
What is not as widely known is that among the 700 or so NMS students, a few dozen will be from home-schooled backgrounds. This fall, at least eight, and perhaps 10, of the entering NMS at OU will be home-schoolers.
Over recent years, a steady stream of entering National Merit Scholar freshmen at OU have come from home school preparations. For this coming year, the eight to 10 new students will be the highest number of National Merit students from home-schooled backgrounds in OU history.
OU officials say that for recent years the number of NMS entering freshmen with home school backgrounds are as follows:
2007-08, five entering freshmen
2008-09, three entering freshmen
2009-10, three entering freshmen
2010-11, five entering freshmen
2011-12, two entering freshmen
2012-13, eight entering freshmen (note: could be two more, for a total of 10)
Of course, National Merit Scholars comprise only a portion of the home-schooled students seeking college degrees at OU. All told, at least 155 undergraduate students now at OU come from home school backgrounds, university officials told CapitolBeatOK this week.
Matthew Hamilton, vice president for enrollment and student financial services and registrar, said in an interview, “What I can say with certainty is that these students are doing really well at the University of Oklahoma, and that the group is very diverse. Only four of the 155 students had less than a 2.0 GPA at OU. Of the 155, 22 had perfect 4.0 GPAs.”
