Abby ’26 – English Literature, Psychology: I never went to public school or private school or anything like that. I was homeschooled right from the beginning. My entire family was also homeschooled. We were involved in a lot of extracurriculars. I played soccer for a really long time. We went to co-ops and had classes there, which was really fun.
John ’25 – Environmental Science: I grew up in a large family. I grew up very rural, and I was homeschooled from a fairly young age almost all the way through. Pretty much all of my schooling was homeschooling. We did a very classical, pretty intensive version of homeschooling. A lot of book reading, a lot of, like, narrating what we had read and what we had learned.
Nathanael ’25 – Outdoor Recreation Studies: As a prior homeschooled student, I think Montreat is a good option because of the smaller class size and the intentionality that you find here. Just small, closely-knit, intentional communities, and that is something that as a student you find here.
Abby ’26: I love the fact that it’s so tight-knit. It’s such a close community and I’m already kind of used to that in a way. I’ve always been surrounded by people who really love and care about me, and so I see a lot of those similarities here as well.
John ’25: It’s very tight-knit but also very open at the same time to people and ideas and just discussion flows easily. It’s just a lot of like-minded people that I can hang out with and know and see on a day-to-day basis. It allows professors to, like, administer to my specific learning style.
Dr. Paul J. Maurer – President | Montreat College: I think Montreat College is clearly the best school in the state of North Carolina for homeschool families, and clearly one of the finest institutions in the entire country for homeschool students. We are an independent, Christ-centered liberal arts institution. We educate through intellectual inquiry, spiritual formation, and preparation for calling and career. And we are extraordinarily careful about who we hire here because we want to have integrity in delivering that mission.
Nathanael ’25: And as a parent, I think that you can trust your student will find that here, just because of the way Montreat is built. It’s built on community and it’s built on intentionality. And so everything that you found in homeschooling you would find here as well. The advising team and my counselors were very helpful with figuring out what credits will transfer where and how everything’s going to work. They were awesome with helping me figure out what’s going to transfer for gen eds, what’s going to transfer to my degree, and I felt really comfortable coming in because I knew exactly where I was at already. And then once I got here, my classes have been amazing. I’ve been able to get right on a path to my major because of my credits and because of the way Montreat helped me make those work.
Abby ’26: I think it’s a great opportunity to have just a really well-rounded education. You know, no one here is afraid to go deep into certain topics. You know, questions are always welcome, and, you know, it’s just a good opportunity to dive deeper into not just academics but also the questions of life and what it means to be human.
Dr. Paul J. Maurer: We’re serious about having homeschooled families at Montreat College. We care about homeschooled families. We have a guidance counselor for homeschooled families. We have a homeschool visit day. We have a homeschool scholarship just because your son or daughter was homeschooled, we offer them a $10,000 scholarship. We have a lot of homeschool students on our campus now. We want more.
Abby ’26: Montreat just, you know, everyone cares, everyone cares about me, you know, and I love everyone here too. So I think just the community and the fact that we all care about each other and want to see each other succeed is just, you know, it’s such a blessing.