Homeschooled from birth, Lucille’s GED success story should inspire and encourage other families, who want freedom in learning, flexibility to forge their own path, to choose their own study materials and give their children a customised education.
Eclectic home education all the way
Lucille was home educated using an informal, eclectic approach all the way through the primary years to high school. At this point, she herself chose not to change the way she was learning, by following more structured, formal courses to prepare for school exit exams like Cambridge or the National Senior Certificate in South Africa, where she lived at that time (2015).
Since she liked the mixture of curriculum products she was using for various subjects, she decided to continue with them and write the GED as her school exit exam. Lucille passed with the highest scores possible! She scored in the 99th percentile for 3 of the tests!
Percentile rank of 99 means that 99 percent of graduating high school seniors earned the same score or lower.
More than academics
However, Lucille didn’t only focus on academics. At age 13, she started an online business supplying Afrikaans language arts workbooks to homeschoolers as there we so few suitable options for them to choose.
At age 16, she started another business, coaching gymnastics classes for 4-8 year old homeschoolers. She is a qualified coach and judge.
She also continued her own training as a gymnast and qualified to represent her country for double-mini trampoline in an international competition in December 2015, while studying for the SAT, which she wrote the day before the competition!
The following year, at age 17, she was hired to coach gymnastics at the club where she trained. She also judged at various district and provincial gymnastics competitions.
Gap years – overseas work and travel
Since her plan was to work and travel abroad, she placed her profile on an au pair website. Within a short time, she accepted the offer of a Swiss family. For the required work visa, she needed a recognised high school diploma, which her GED® credential satisfied.
She lived in Switzerland in 2017, where she learned to speak French fluently at home and at French classes. During week-ends and when she had leave, she toured Paris, various Italian cities and many beautiful places of interest in Switzerland. During this time, she was accepted to study a degree at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. However, she decided rather to spend another year working in Europe, this time in Belgium.
University in New Zealand with a GED and SAT combination
She returned from Europe in March 2019 and moved to Auckland in September. In 2020 she was accepted to study at three New Zealand universities. She decided to pursue her Bachelor of Business (Marketing) degree at Massey University in Albany. In her first semester, she achieved straight A’s! She also has two part-time jobs coaching competitive women’s artistic gymnastics at a North Harbour Gymnastics Club and working in sales for Icebreaker – at a Kiwi, merino clothing outlet.
In her first year in 2020, Lucille was the top student in her class. She qualified for the Dean’s List and was awarded the CJM Prize for Marketing, Communication and Advertising. In May 2023, she graduated with an overall score of 85% across all three years of her degree, placing her in the top 5% of her graduating class and earning her the prestigious Massey Scholar award. In 2023 she worked as a digital marketer for one of New Zealand’s top marketing companies, before landing her dream job on the marketing team for Air New Zealand at the start of 2024.
(Last updated April 2024)
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