If your child is homeschooled, it is important to keep a transcript throughout his or her entire school years. The main reason why you should do this is to ensure the educational path is well documented and to ensure open mindedness. Creating a homeschool transcript will increase your college options, but it is vital to be extremely thorough in preparation.
STEP ONE
Ensure that all categories of subjects taken are included i.e. core subjects and the year they were taken. A final grade, on a scale of A, B, C, etc. should also be indicated. Suppose you have done adequate research about graduation requirements in your state for both credits earned and the courses, then the simplest way to show this by showing differences, is by following your state’s required core subject’s listing. For example, if a state requires students to have four credits in English, Mathematics and Science each (including other requirements), then each school year from senior, junior, sophomore, freshman should show at least two semesters, or equivalent one year of studying for each subject. You should indicate on the transcripts that you are meeting recommended state’s standard for graduation. Thus at this point, your choice for homeschool program should meet the academic requirement of your state, and then add relevant electives.
Another item that college admission boards love to see is the scores and dates of the ACT and SAT tests taken by a homeschooler. A high school student should take not less than one SAT and ACT test annually for the first three years of high school study. In the early fall of Junior year, or summer of that year, homeschoolers should be reviewing test taking techniques that will help with these exams. By then, the level of anxiety will be lower regarding an examination process, and they should be focused on the test taking strategies to improve the scores, since they have so little to do with science, mathematics or English. ACT and SAT prep classes should be taken at this stage to “crack the code” about these exams. Results are then sent to the parent, and they should be included in the transcript for easy review by the admissions department.
GPA is another aspect that should be considered when creating a homeschool transcript. Grade Point Average (GPA) which is just a composite figure showing the number of A’s, B’s, etc. followed by assigning a weight to a specific grade and finally average is calculated to reflect the student’s academic aptitude. Homeschoolers should show this average, even if the admission department may not put as much emphasis on this figure for them. There is a common assumption by colleges that all homeschoolers scores highly due to their parent’s love and not for the hard work for their academic success. Combined information about ACT/SAT scores and GPA, GPA portrays the student’s ability, and the SAT/ACT becomes the evidence.
STEP TWO.
Another challenge that homeschooling families may have to grapple with is how to put the documentation together. The biggest fear is usually that the college may think that your transcript is “unreal”, if it’s done incorrectly. After gathering all documents together, the next step will be how to do it. The first step when deciding the layout is to decide whether you will buy a form, and they are plenty on the market, or whether you will make your own. A bought form is no longer considered official for homeschool so save your money and spend it homeschooling and finally create your own transcript.
If you result to creating a homeschool transcript on your own, then the simplest way to do it is by either MS Word or Excel blank documents, and makes the form you want. In MS Word, create tables as the ones in Excel. However, in Excel you will have the advantage of using formulas to calculate GPA. Whichever you decide to use, start with four groups of rows and columns, with each showing the four years in high school. Using the state’s graduation requirements then input each required subject semester half credit in the rows. Ensure that you record all required subjects; if your state does not specify the year a student took the subject, or otherwise decide the particular year the subject was examined in a different grouping of rows and columns and label it “Extra Requirements”.
After lining out all the subjects required for graduation, create a summary box. In your box, show the cumulative credits earned and the GPA. If you are doing it in Excel, you can use formulas to calculate the totals, but you can still use several online GPA calculators to find out the GPA. Update this number, credits earn for each semester. This will ensure that your transcript is up to date for applying a state ID or getting driver’s student discounts.
STEP THREE
This final step involves the proof that supports the transcripts. Ultimately most colleges are accepting online applications; having a well-crafted portfolio, and one that shows a chronological progression is a huge plus in the application process. The bottom line is most colleges will want the transcript to show as much proof as possible and quick, for that matter.
In step one and two, you will notice that great homeschool transcript will consist of all courses taken, GPA, ACT/SAT scores and grades earned on a single page for easy readability. The most hard core proof that you can use to support your courses and grades is strong SAT/ACT scores. To be considered for admission at many colleges, these sores play a vital role for homeschool students. Do a constant review on the college that you are interested in order to ensure that his or her scores are at par with the accepted scores. More so, SAT/ACT prep classes can greatly assist in improving the scores. However, you may add a second page to show the sources you have used throughout the high school duration. This will act as more proof and attempt to answer the credibility of material you used. Lastly, have some sample work you did throughout the study.
Creating a homeschool transcript is not as difficult as it may sound.
Whether you are new to the homeschooling concept or have been homeschooling your children for quite some time, it is to your benefit to keep adequate records for their education. These records should be uniform for all your school age children and should accurately represent the subjects they have taken, grades received for each subject, attendance sheets and any other information you consider important to have on file for their home schooling experience. Keeping an accurate account of your homeschool students’ education, especially during their high school years, will facilitate the creation of their transcript when they are ready to graduate.
Most public or private school teachers keep logs and attendance sheets for their students. Logs are the equivalent of planning sheets which describe what your students are studying on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. How these logs are set up will vary depending on the teacher and school. In a homeschool setting, teachers are at liberty to set up their records in a manner that is most convenient to them with the understanding that they accurately reflect the studies of their students. These records will verify that home schooled students are receiving an adequate education. Therefore, they should be of a professional standard. Some information that should be recorded in a school log includes the subjects your students are studying, a synopsis of what they are learning in each subject either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, how many hours of school they had per day and any notes you may want to add as their teacher for personal future reference. In like manner, keeping an accurate school attendance sheet for each one of your students is a necessity. Home schooling offers much greater flexibility and variation in schedule and courses than public or private school systems. However, teachers and parents should agree to a specified number of hours of academic studies for their students on a daily and/or weekly basis and adhere to that schedule to ensure academic progress is being made. Just as logs help teachers keep track of the quality of education their students are acquiring, attendance sheets help keep track of the amount of time they are investing in their education. All this information will also be utilized during the high school years in creating a homeschool transcript.
Creating a homeschool portfolio for each one of your students is yet another asset in validating your homeschool education. These portfolios generally consist of a three or four ring binder that contains the following: quarterly or semester logs of the student’s schooling for the year to include workbooks completed, exam grades and final  grade for each course taken; attendance sheets for the year; course description pages and a compilation of the student’s best school work for the school year. Homeschooled high school students who are graduating should prepare a graduation portfolio containing samples of their finest work for all their high school years and documentation of all training they have received during that time period. This may include copies of essays and reports written, documentation of any special projects completed, training programs attended, internships, etc.  When applying for college you can present this portfolio in addition to your homeschool transcripts to the admissions officer as verification of your high school education.
A professional, well designed high school portfolio and homeschool transcript speaks for itself regarding your educational qualifications.
After your homeschooled students have successfully graduated from high school, their teacher should prepare a homeschool transcript for each to complete their high school records. Online homeschooling sites offer a variety of different formats you can utilize for this homeschool transcript, which greatly facilitates its completion. However, it is the diligent record keeping over the high school years that will make completion of this document quick and easy. The information you will need for your homeschool transcript includes name of homeschool, address, name of student, birth date, social security number and other personal data; names of each course taken by year, the final grade received (this can be recorded either in letter form or by percentage) and how many credits each course was given. All this information should be at your fingertips if you have kept accurate records during their high school years. Using The HomeScholar Total Transcript Solution will help you produce a winning homeschool transcript that will help your child’s college dreams come true!
Some details you should have already decided as part of your home school curriculum was the grade scale you were going to utilize when giving final grades to your students, the credit you were going to assign each course in accordance to the amount of hours the course entailed and how many credits comprised completion of high school studies. This information should be written at the bottom of your homeschool transcript as reference for college personnel perusing the document in consideration of your student entering their college. Accompanying a homeschool transcript should be a separate course descriptions document which will give a brief description of all the high school courses taken, what textbooks were used in the study of these courses, textbook publisher and year, etc. All this information gives a good indication of the type of high school education the student received overall. Most high school curricula require a completion of a certain number of courses in each subject in order to graduate, i.e., 4 years of Language Arts courses, 3 years of Mathematics, 2 or 3 years of Science and 2 or 3 years of Social Studies/History/Geography. In addition to these, students are required to select a certain number of electives to complete their education. These subjects can range from Music to Art, Culinary Arts, Industrial Arts, Drama, Computer Knowledge, Religious subjects, etc. These courses and resultant grades will also be included in your homeschool transcript.
