About the Author: Denise Boiko

DENISE BOIKO and her husband, Ron, homeschooled both of their children from kindergarten through high school. With acceptances to multiple colleges, their daughter earned a B.S. and an M.S. in biology at Stanford University before going on to medical school, and their son chose the University of Southern California, earning a B.S. in engineering. Since then, Denise has successfully walked more than 200 homeschooled and traditionally schooled students through the college admissions process, with acceptances to universities such as MIT, Columbia, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Duke, and Rice. As a speaker at homeschool workshops, and in one-on-one sessions, Denise loves to partner with homeschooling parents and lend a hand as they construct customized curricula, create credible transcripts, and craft compelling counselor letters.

Homeschooled & Headed for College: Your Road Map for a Successful Journey was written to help other homeschoolers benefit from the many years of research and personal experience that facilitated the Boiko students’ admission into selective colleges.

With a degree in biology and a lifelong passion for writing, Denise has taught biology, composition, and literature since 2006 at a local homeschool academy and at other homeschool class sites. Since she seeks to make these subjects come alive, a classroom visitor might witness a mock-up of the Berlin Wall, an Ides of March party to conclude Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, or a lively model of the cell’s plasma membrane, composed entirely of teenagers.

In her pockets of spare time, Denise enjoys making friends with neighborhood cats (especially black ones), baking lemon bars and peanut butter-oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies for the holidays, watching old Monk crime drama episodes, creating colorful quilts, meeting former students for coffee, and reading dozens of books while running on the treadmill or climbing the never-ending stepmill.

Denise is available on a limited basis to speak at homeschool meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area. Please contact her for details.

LINKS TO ARTICLES BY DENISE

Here are a couple of articles authored by Denise on the topic of homeschooling:

Focus on the Family article on the importance of record keeping to help you stay organized, motivated, and moving forward. This article first appeared as “College Prep and Your Home-Schooler” in the August/September 2021 issue of Focus on the Family magazine.: “9 Ways Homeschool Record Keeping Improves College Prep”

“A Do-It-Yourself Literature Course” – Guest post on the Organized Homeschooler blog. Why not arrange your student’s Lit/Comp course exactly the way you’d like it? This article provides loads of tips on just how to do it. ““A Do-It-Yourself High School Literature/Composition Course”

PODCAST EPISODES

Check out these podcast episodes on which Denise was featured as a guest:

Here, Denise shares a few of her “Top Ten Tips for Homeschooling the College Bound Student:” Institute for Excellence in Writing: Homeschooled & Headed for College–A Conversation with Denise Boiko

On this podcast, Denise shares her experiences as a first-generation college student and offers advice to today’s first-gen students: Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Advice for First Generation College Students, Interview with Denise Boiko

MORE TIDBITS ABOUT DENISE

From Denise’s alma mater, Mount Saint Mary’s University:

This article looks back on Denise’s experiences as a first-generation college student and reflects on the journey to helping other students prepare and apply for college: Helping Homeschoolers Apply to College