As other universities work to improve their admissions processes for home-schooled applicants, Penn State's system is already similar to that of traditional applicants, according to students.

At Penn State, the application and criteria is the same for both home-schooled and traditional applicants.

Although high school transcripts may be submitted differently, Admissions Counselor Shannon Ritter said.

Penn State receives applications from about 75 to 100 home-schooled students every year and most are admitted because they tend to be really strong students, she said.

Some Penn State students said they didn't feel they were at a disadvantage applying to the university as previously home-schooled students.

Tim Misiak (senior-computer science) said that he felt applying as a home-schooled student was easier to show he was self-motivated.

"The biggest difference was that instead of the school sending transcripts, I had to get the accreditation agency to print out transcripts," Misiak said.

Although Penn State's application process has been relatively friendly toward home-schooled students, universities across the nation have been less accommodating.

In the past, the University of California system has made admission particularly difficult for home-schooled students. In an effort to ease students concerns, it has recently joined the group of colleges taking action to make the process more receptive, according to the Associated Press.

"I think most colleges know and have embraced the home-schooled application process," Joyce Smith, chief executive officer for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said.

The U.S. Department of Education reports that there are 1.1 million home-schooled students nationally who face greater challenges when applying to public universities, according to the Associated Press.

Home-schooled students may feel private schools are the best match for them, Smith said.

If they don't have interactions in large classrooms on a daily basis in high school, large public schools may intimidate them, Smith added.

According to homeschoolfriendlycolleges.com, Penn State University is not listed as one of the top 21 most accommodating Pennsylvania colleges for home-schooled students.

Grove City College, which the site did list, received about 180 home-school applications out of about 1,900 total freshmen applications sent in for the fall 2007 semester.

Of those 180 students, 108 were accepted, said Christy Trinch, visit-coordinator at Grove City College.

Although Drexel University, which was also noted on the list, received only seven completed freshmen applications from home-schooled students for the fall 2006 school year, six of those students were admitted to the unviersity, said Catherine Campbell-Perna, associated director of undergraduate admissions.